Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/197

Rh Who could do this? Some thought it done by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th amendment and Garrison with naive faith in bare law abruptly stopped the issue of the Liberator when the slave was declared “free.” The Negro was not freed by edict or sentiment but by the Abolitionists backed by the persistent action of the slave himself as fugitive, soldier and voter.

Slavery was the cause of the war. There might have been other questions large enough and important enough to have led to a disruption of the Union but none have successfully done so except slavery. But the North fought for union and not against slavery and for a long time it refused to recognize that the Civil War was essentially a war against Negro slavery. Abraham Lincoln said to Horace Greeley as late as August, 1862, “If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to save or destroy slavery.”

Despite this attitude it was evident very soon that the Nation was fighting against the symptom of disease and not against the cause. If we look at the action of the North taken by itself, we find these singular contradictions: They fought for the Union; they suddenly emancipated the slave; they