Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 36.djvu/345

Rh By this in portions of the country called rebellious, slaves were made free, unless by the 1st of January, 1863, said communities ceased to rebel. Slave ownership was to be the reward of loyalty; slave abolition the penalty of rebellion. This might be translated; "negroes shall continue to be slaves to their masters if only their masters will be slaves to us. Let us have in peace the jobs which are in sight and your slaves may reap in peace your harvests, taxed only by our tariffs. We will let you have your slaves if you will let us have your freedom." After this offer had been made and rejected, who had a right to say that the South was fighting for slavery, or Lincoln for freedom? As in the South construed, the motive was not to free the slave but to enslave the free. The proclamation of September 22, 1862, states: "The executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons or any of them in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." In October, 1863, Lord Brougham (an abolitionist ab initio) referring to this proclamation, said: "Hollow we may well call it, for those who proclaimed emancipation confess that it was a measure of hostility to the whites and designed to produce slave insurrection from which the much enduring nature of the unhappy negro saved the country. My esteemed friend, the prelate, who exalts by his virtues the name of Wilberforce which he inherits, declared that the authors of the proclamation cared as little for the blacks' freedom as the whites'; and now they call for the extermination of one race to liberate the other." The late Henry Ward Beecher, descanting on the advantages of education, once drew an illustration from the war between North and South. "Southern leaders," he remarked, "are accustomed to say, 'The North wore us out.'" He then added: "It is this lasting power which education gives." When on one side the last man so easily could be, in point of fact, was drawn and each gap in the ranks, as it was made, be filled only by closing up more closely; while the other, from the start, so easily was able to lose two and more for one; with a whole world in the rear from which to recruit each gap, the consequence derived partakes of the non sequitor. When Xerxes wore out by