126.

"Thank God for War" (1862)

BY WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

Garrison was one of the first abolitionists, and the leader of the cause in New England. His views were extreme and impracticable; but, though he refused to be governed himself by the political situation of the emancipation question, he did not fail to understand that point of view, as is seen in his address delivered at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, from which this extract is taken. For Garrison, see F. J. Garrison and W. P. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison; Contemporaries, III, No. 174.— Bibliography as in No. 124 above.

WHA

HAT have we to rejoice over? Why, I say, the war! "What! this fratricidal war? What! this civil war? What! this treasonable dismemberment of the Union?" Yes, thank God for it all!— for it indicates the waning power of slavery, and the irresistible growth of freedom, and that the day of Northern submission is past. It is better that we should be so virtuous that the vicious cannot live with us, than to be so vile that they can endure and relish our company. No matter what may be said of the Government - how it timidly holds back - how it lacks courage, energy and faith-how it refuses to strike the blow which alone will settle the rebellion. No matter what may be said of President Lincoln or Gen. McClellan, by way of criticism -- and a great deal can be justly said to their condemnation - one cheering fact overrides all these considerations, making them as dust in the balance, and that is, that our free North is utterly unendurable to the slaveholding South; that we have at last so far advanced in our love of liberty and sympathy for the oppressed, as a people, that it is not possible any longer for the "traffickers in slaves and souls of men" to walk in union with us. I call that a very cheering fact. Yes, the Union is divided; but better division, than that we should be under the lash of Southern overseers! Better civil war, if it must come, than for us to crouch in the dust, and allow ourselves to be driven to the wall by a miserable and merciless slave oligarchy! This war has come because of the increasing love of liberty here at the North; and although, as a people, we do not yet come up to the high standard of duty in striking directly at the slave system for its extirpation as the root and source of all our woe nevertheless, the sentiment of the North is deepening daily in the right direction. I hold that it is not wise for us to be too microscopic in endeavoring to find disagreeable and annoying things, still less to assume that everything is waxing worse and worse, and that there is little or no hope. No; broaden your views; take a more philosophical

grasp of the great question; and see that, criticise and condemn as you may and should, in certain directions, the fountains of the great deep are broken up see that this is fundamentally a struggle between all the elements of freedom on the one hand, and all the elements of despotism on the other, with whatever of alloy in the mixture.

I repeat, the war furnishes ground for high encouragement. "Why," some may exclaim, "we thought you were a peace man!" Yes, verily, I am, and none the less so because of these declarations. Would the cause of peace be the gainer by the substitution of the power of the rebel traitors over the nation for the supremacy of the democratic idea? Would the cause of peace be promoted by the North basely yielding up all her rights, and allowing her free institutions to be overthrown? Certainly not. Then, as a peace man, I rejoice that the issue is at last made up, and that the struggle is going on, because I see in it the sign of ultimate redemption. Besides, whether we would have it so or not, it comes inevitably, because of our great national transgression, which is slavery..

...

I do not know that some margin of allowance may not be made even for the Administration. I would rather be over magnanimous than wanting in justice. Supposing Mr. Lincoln could answer to-night, and we should say to him-"Sir, with the power in your hands, slavery being the cause of the rebellion beyond all controversy, why don't you put the trump of jubilee to your lips, and proclaim universal freedom?” possibly he might answer-"Gentlemen, I understand this matter quite as well as you do. I do not know that I differ in opinion from you; but will you insure me the support of a united North if I do as you bid me? Are all parties and all sects at the North so convinced and so united on this point, that they will stand by the Government? If so, give me the evidence of it, and I will strike the blow. But, gentlemen, looking over the entire North, and seeing in all your towns and cities papers representing a considerable, if not a formidable portion of the people, menacing and bullying the Government in case it dare to liberate the slaves, even as a matter of self-preservation, I do not feel that the hour has yet come that will render it safe for the Government to take that step." I am willing to believe that something of this feeling weighs in the mind of the President and the Cabinet, and that there is some ground for hesitancy, as a mere matter of political expediency. My reply, however, to the President would be-"Sir, the power is in your hands as President of the United States, and Commander-in-chief of the army and

navy. Do your duty; give to the slaves their liberty by proclamation, as far as that can give it; and if the North shall betray you, and prefer the success of the rebellion to the preservation of the Union, let the dread responsibility be hers, but stand with God and Freedom on your side, come what may !" But men high in office are not apt to be led by such lofty moral considerations; and, therefore, we should not judge the present incumbents too harshly. Doubtless, they want to be assured of the Northern heart, feeling, coöperation, approval. Can these be safely relied upon when the decisive blow shall be struck? That is the question; and it is a very serious question. . . .

... Nevertheless, I think the Administration is unnecessarily timid, and not undeserving of rebuke. I think that this bellowing, bullying, treasonable party at the North has, after all, but very little left, either in point of numbers or power: the fangs of the viper are drawn, though the venomous feeling remains. Still, it has its effect, and produces a damaging, if not paralyzing impression at Washington. .

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I have great faith in the future. We shall not go back to "the beggarly elements" of old. The "covenant with death" is annulled; the agreement with hell" no longer stands. Under the new order of things, new relations exist, and the Government is invested with extraordinary powers. . . .

Liberator (Boston), February 7, 1862.

127. Slavery and the Union (1862)

BY HORACE GREELEY AND PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN Greeley was liable to an excess of fervor that made his views impracticable. During the Civil War he often lost patience with the administration and berated it through the editorial columns of the New York Tribune, as shown in the first of these extracts. The importance of the letter is that it was an attempt to force Lincoln's hand in the issuance of a proclamation of emancipation. - For Greeley, see No. 28 above. For Lincoln, see No. 44 above.- Bibliography as in No. 124 above.

A. GREELEY TO LINCOLN

[NEW YORK, August 19, 1862.]

I

DO not intrude to tell you-for you must know alreadythat a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now

...

desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of Rebels. . . . VIII. On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile- that the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor-that Army officers who remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half-way loyal to the Unionand that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union. I appeal to the testimony of your Embassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not at mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slaveholding, slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair, of statesmen of all parties, and be admonished by the general answer!

IX. I close as I began with the statement that what an immense majority of the Loyal Millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act. That Act gives freedom to the slaves of Rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time inclose we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize and obey it. The Rebels are everywhere using the late anti-negro riots in the North, as they have long used your officers' treatment of negroes in the South, to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success - that we mean in that case to sell them into a bitterer bondage to defray the cost of the war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondmen, and the Union will never be restored- never. We cannot conquer Ten Millions of People united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers and choppers from the Blacks of the South, whether we allow them to fight for us or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that of Principle and Honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of our country but to the wellbeing of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.

I

B. LINCOLN TO GREELEY

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 22, 1862.

HAVE just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York "Tribune." If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. 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 in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

New York Daily Tribune, August 20, 1862.

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works (edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, New York, 1894), II, 227–228.