History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 Volume II Part 28

PART 7.

_THE NEGRO IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION._

CHAPTER XIV.

DEFINITION OF THE WAR ISSUE.

INCREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION IN SLAVE-HOLDING STATES FROM 1850-1860.--PRODUCTS OF SLAVE LABOR.--BASIS OF SOUTHERN REPRESENTATION.--SIX SECEDING STATES ORGANIZE A NEW GOVERNMENT.--CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.--SPEECH BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.--MR. LINCOLN IN FAVOR OF GRADUAL EMANc.i.p.aTION.--HE IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--THE ISSUE OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.

In 1860 there were, in the fifteen slave-holding States, 12,240,000 souls, of whom 8,039,000 were whites, 251,000 free persons of color, and 3,950,000 were slaves. The gain of the entire population of the slave-holding States, from 1850-1860, was 2,627,000, equal to 27.33 per cent. The slave population had increased 749,931, or 23.44 per cent., not including the slaves in the District of Columbia, where they had lost 502 slaves during the decade. The nineteen non-slave-holding States and the seven territories, including the District of Columbia, contained 19,203,008 souls, of whom 18,920,771 were whites, 237,283 free persons of color, and 41,725 civilized Indians. The actual increase of this population was 5,624,101, or 41.24 per cent. During the same period--1850-1860--the total population of free persons of color in the United States increased from 434,449 to 487,970, or at the rate of 12.33 per cent., annual increase of above 1 per cent. In 1850 the Mulattoes were 11.15 per cent., regarding the United States as one aggregate, and in 1860 were 13.25 per cent., of the entire Colored population.

TOTAL COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES.

--------------+-----------------------+--------------- | Numbers. | Proportions.

+-----------+-----------+-------+------- Colored. | 1850. | 1860. | 1850. | 1860.

--------------+-----------+-----------+-------+------- Blacks | 3,233,057 | 3,853,478 | 88.85 | 86.75 Mulattoes | 405,751 | 588,352 | 11.15 | 13.25 --------------+-----------+-----------+-------+------- Total Colored | 3,638,808 | 4,441,830 |100.00 |100.00 --------------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------

So, in ten years, from 1850-1860, the increase of blacks above the current deaths was 620,421, or more than one half of a million, while the corresponding increase of Mulattoes was 182,601. Estimating the deaths to have been 22.4 per cent. during the same period, or one in 40 annually, the total births of Blacks in ten years was about 1,345,000, and the total births of Mulattoes about 273,000. Thus it appears, in the prevailing order, that of every 100 births of Colored, about 17 were Mulattoes, and 83 Blacks, indicating a ratio of nearly 1 to 5.

There were:

Deaf and dumb slaves 531 Blind 1,387 Insane 327 Idiotic 1,182 ----- Total 3,427

There were 400,000 slaves in the towns and cities of the South, and 2,804,313 in the country. The products of slave labor in 1850 were as follows:

SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS IN 1850.

Cotton $98,603,720 Tobacco 13,982,686 Cane sugar 12,378,850 Hemp 5,000,000 Rice 4,000,000 Mola.s.ses 2,540,179 ------------ $136,505,435

There were 347,525 slave-holders against 5,873,893 non-slave-holders in the slave States. The representation in Congress was as follows:

Northern representatives based on white population 142 Northern representatives based on Colored population 2 Southern representatives based on white population 68 Southern representatives based on free Colored population 2 Southern representatives based on slave population 20 Ratio of representation for 1853 93,420

The South owned 16,652 churches, valued at $22,142,085; the North owned 21,357 churches, valued at $65,167,586. The South printed annually 92,165,919 copies of papers and periodicals; the North printed annually 334,146,081 copies of papers and periodicals. The South owned, other than private, 722 libraries, containing 742,794 volumes; the North owned, other than private, 14,902 libraries, containing 3,882,217 volumes.

In sentiment, motive, and civilization the two "Sections" were as far apart as the poles. New England, Puritan, Roundhead civilization could not fellows.h.i.+p the Cavaliers of the South. There were not only two sections and two political parties in the United States;--there were two antagonistic governmental ideas. John C. Calhoun and Alexander H.

Stephens, of the South, represented the idea of the separate and individual sovereignty of each of the States; while William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln, of the North, represented the idea of the centralization of governmental authority, so far as it was necessary to secure uniformity of the laws, and the supremacy of the Federal Const.i.tution. On the 25th of October, 1858, in a speech delivered in Rochester, N. Y., William H. Seward said:

"Our country is a theatre which exhibits, in full operation, two radically different political systems: the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor; the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen.

"The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. They never have permanently existed together in one country, and they never can.

... "These antagonistic systems are continually coming in closer contact, and collision ensues.

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later, become entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by free-labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Ma.s.sachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to the slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men."

Upon the eve of the great Rebellion, Mr. Seward said in the United States Senate:

"A free Republican government like this, notwithstanding all its const.i.tutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the progress of society.

"Free labor has at last apprehended its rights and its destiny, and is organizing itself to a.s.sume the government of the Republic. It will henceforth meet you boldly and resolutely here (Was.h.i.+ngton); it will meet you everywhere, in the territories and out of them, where-ever you may go to extend slavery. It has driven you back in California and in Kansas; it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba.

"You may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics, and seem safe for a time, but it will be only a short time. Even there you will found States only for free labor, or to maintain and occupy.

The interest of the whole race demands the ultimate emanc.i.p.ation of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect, with needful and wise precautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains for you to decide. The white man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities are fixed.

"It is for yourselves, and not for us, to decide how long and through what further mortifications and disasters the contest shall be protracted before Freedom shall enjoy her already a.s.sured triumph.

"You may refuse to yield it now, and for a short period, but your refusal will only animate the friends of freedom with the courage and the resolution, and produce the union among them, which alone is necessary on their part to attain the position itself, simultaneously with the impending overthrow of the existing Federal Administration and the const.i.tution of a new and more independent Congress."

Mr. Lincoln said during a discussion of the impending crisis:

"I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.

"I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have always been an old-line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should."

Notwithstanding the confident tone of Mr. Lincoln's statement that he did "not expect the house to fall," it _did_ fall, and great was the fall thereof!

On Sat.u.r.day, 9th of February, 1861, six seceding States met at Montgomery, Alabama, and organized an independent government. The ordinances of secession were pa.s.sed by the States as follows:

STATE. DATE. YEAS. NAYS.

South Carolina Dec. 20, 1860 169 ---- Mississippi Jan. 9, 1861 84 15 Alabama Jan. 11, 1861 61 39 Florida Jan. 11, 1861 62 7 Georgia Jan. 19, 1861 228 89 Louisiana Jan. 25, 1861 113 17

The following delegates presented their credentials and were admitted and represented their respective States:

ALABAMA.--R. W. Walker, R. H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W. P.

Chilton, S. F. Hale Colon, J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P.

Lewis, Thomas Fearn.

FLORIDA.--James B. Owens, J. Patten Anderson, Jackson Morton (not present).

GEORGIA.--Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. Bartow, M. J.

Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan, A. H. Stephens.

LOUISIANA.--John Perkins, Jr., A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D.

F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.

MISSISSIPPI.--W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. Wilson, A. M.

Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison.