Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX.

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Shortly after our arrival in New Orleans, the Sisters in charge of the
Orphan Asylum of St. Elizabeth called upon the General and represented
that institution as in a state of literal destitution from lack of
provisions and the money with which to procure them. This unfortunate
condition of suffering was one of the legitimate consequences of active
Secession, and no one could be held responsible for it but the leaders of
the Rebellion. But the General did not stop to discuss the question of
responsibility; he knew that here were several hundred children who were
crying for bread, and with characteristic promptitude gave them an order
on the Chief Commissary for a very large amount of stores,--to be charged
to his personal account,--adding a sum of five hundred dollars in money
from his pocket.

The Convent of the Sacred Heart, near New Orleans, owed its continued
existence almost entirely to his individual charities; and the same may be
said of all the benevolent institutions in and about the city.

I have rarely seen him more angry than when he discovered that a committee
of the City Council, who held, as trustees, the Touro Fund, left by its
generous donor for the support of orphans, had outraged their trust by
applying a large amount of the legacy to the purchase of munitions of war
for the Rebellion. He had them brought under guard to the office, and,
unable to restrain his contempt for the dishonor of the act, expressed his
opinion in terms that must have scathed them fearfully, unless their
sensibilities were utterly callous. He then sent them to Fort Pickens,
there to remain until every cent of the money they had so wantonly
diverted from its legitimate purpose should be repaid.

* * * * *

One of the most striking of the General's traits is the quick
comprehension which enables him to meet almost any question with a ready
and commonly a witty reply.

During the earlier period of our occupation of New Orleans, persons were
constantly applying to him to give them an order to search within our
lines for runaway negroes; and it is a good illustration of the assurance
of our enemies, that in a majority of cases the persons so applying were
avowed traitors. The following is a fair sample of the conversation that
would follow such an application.

"General, I wish you would give me an order to search for my negro," the
visitor would commence.

"Have you lost your horse?" the General would ask, in reply.

"No, Sir."

"Have you lost your mule?" the General would add.

"No, Sir," the applicant for the order would answer, looking exceedingly
puzzled at such unusual questions.

"Well, Sir, if you had lost your horse or your mule, would you come and
ask me to neglect my duty to the Government for the purpose of assisting
you to catch them?"

"Of course not," the visitor would reply, with increasing astonishment.

"Then why should you expect me to employ myself in hunting after any other
article of your property?"

And with this comforting and practical application of the Dred-Scott
decision, the ex-owner of the fugitive slave would take his departure, a
wiser, and, I doubt not, a sadder man.

During an interview between the General and the Reverend Doctor Leacock,
(Rector of Grace Church in New Orleans, and one of the three Episcopal
clergymen who refused to read the prayer for the President, and were
therefore sent North as prisoners, under my charge,) in which the General
urged upon the Doctor his views on the injurious influence of disloyalty
in the pulpit, sustaining his argument by prolific quotations from
Scripture, recited with an accuracy and appositeness that few theologians
could exceed, the Doctor replied,--

"But, General, your insisting upon the taking of the oath of allegiance is
causing half of my church-members to perjure themselves."

"If that is the case, I am glad I have not had the spiritual charge of
your church for the last nine years," (just the term of Dr. Leacock's
pastorate,) the General answered, promptly.

After a lengthy conversation, the Doctor finally asked,--

"Well, General, are you going to shut up the churches?"

"No, Sir, I am more likely to shut up the ministers," he replied.

To the casual observer this would appear but a brilliant repartee, while,
in fact, it was significant as indicative of a sagacious policy. Closing
the churches would have given warrant to the charge of interference with
the observances of religion. So careful was the General to avoid anything
of this nature, that, in every instance where a clergyman was removed from
his church, the very next Sunday found his pulpit occupied by a loyal
minister.

As a great many excellent Churchmen have misunderstood the cause of the
arrest of clergymen in New Orleans, I think I must add a word of
explanation. The ministers so arrested were of the Episcopal denomination,
in which the rector is required to read a liturgy prescribed by the
General Convention. In this liturgy occurs "a prayer for the President of
the United States," and its omission in their reading of the service was
clearly an overt act of disloyalty, in that it was by unmistakable
implication a declaration that they did not recognize the authority of the
President of the United States; and it is a fact not generally known, that
this omission in the service was supplied by the minister's regularly
announcing, "A few moments will now be spent in silent prayer." Who can
doubt the character and burden of this voiceless petition, when it is
understood that it was the successor to an audible appeal--which General
Butler suppressed--to Heaven for Jefferson Davis and the success of his
cause?

* * * * *

Another of the General's strongest characteristics is his firm faith, his
ardent hopefulness. Never have I known him despondent as to the final
result of this war. He believes it to be a struggle for principle and
right, and therefore his confidence in the ultimate success of our arms
never falters. Frequently disheartened myself at our apparent ill-fortune,
I have listened to his cheerful predictions and expressions of unflagging
trust, and have come away strengthened and confident.

After our return to the North, an ex-mayor of Chicago was introduced to
the General at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. It was just at a time
when our cause looked very gloomy. The Mayor was evidently much depressed
by the indications of national misfortune, and in a tone of great
despondency asked the General,--

"Do you believe we shall ever get through this war successfully?"

"Yes, Sir," the General answered, very decidedly.

"Well, but how?" asked the Mayor.

"God knows, I don't; but I know He does, so I am satisfied," the General
replied.

And in this reply was contained an admirable expression of that earnest
faith in the inevitable triumph of good over evil which forms so prominent
a part of his nature.

* * * * *

In this short sketch I have either entirely avoided or merely hinted at
the traits which have given General Butler a world-wide distinction. His
wonderful energy, his sagacity, his courage, his great executive and
administrative ability, and, more than all, the marvellous comprehension,
which, at the firing of the first gun at Fort Sumter, enabled him to grasp
the subject of this Rebellion in all its magnitude and bearings, and in
the means and measures for its suppression, are attributes made familiar
to the world as "household words" by his unprecedented administration in
New Orleans.

The story of the years of experience crowded into those eight short months
of our sojourn in that city is worthy the pen of our country's ablest
historian, and would fill volumes.

To relate all the instances of General Butler's kindness and generosity,
his forbearance and magnanimity, while in New Orleans, would require more
than all the space between the covers of the "Atlantic."

I have undertaken the grateful task of recording some of the more
prominent scenes, where he displayed the kindly, genial traits so utterly
inconsistent with the indiscriminate charges of cruelty, injustice, and
wrong, preferred by his enemies,--traits that have inexpressibly endeared
their possessor to every officer and soldier in his late army. Said an
officer, but just returned from New Orleans, to me a few days since,--"I
have heard of the infatuation of the Army of the Potomac to its earlier
leader, but I do not believe their devotion is near so deep and earnest as
that of the faithful men who followed General Butler from New England and
the Northwest, through the campaign of New Orleans."

Not one of us who have been closely associated with him but watches with
intense interest for the opportunity to arrive when he shall prove himself
to be (as every one of us believes him to be) among the foremost of those
predestined to lead our country through its baptism of blood and fire to a
higher and grander destiny and glory than the most ardent dared even to
hope for before the war.

Happy then shall I be, if in these few pages I have conveyed to the
indulgent readers of this article some idea of the inner life and
character of OUR GENERAL.

* * * * *

THE CLAIMS TO SERVICE OR LABOR.

Some persons look upon the veneration with which the people of these
United States regard the Constitution as savoring of superstition. It is
at least a wholesome superstition, which cannot be disturbed without risk.

When a man, in calm moments of deliberate reflection, has settled and
adopted the principles of ethics and morality which ought to govern his
life, and when, under the pressure of urgent exigency, or in moments of
eager excitement, his view of their truth or value undergoes a sudden
change, it is not safe to give way to such influence. He would evince
wisdom in calling to mind, that, in hours of tranquil judgment, with no
passion to blind and no impulse of the moment to urge beyond reason, he
_had_ adopted certain principles of action, for guidance and safety.

Doubtless age may correct, and ought to correct, the errors of youth. But
when we change a life-rule, it should be from a matured conviction, that,
on general principles, the correction is just and proper; not because it
would afford relief or satisfaction for the time being, or prove
convenient for some special purpose.

So of the Constitution of the United States. Of fallible because human
origin, it is imperfect. A rule of political action in a progressive
world, it was by its founders properly made subject to amendment. At the
first session of the first Congress ten amendments were adopted; two have
been added since; and experience has approved this action.

That other amendments may hereafter be necessary and proper it would be
presumptuous to deny. But we ought to touch the ark of our political
testimony with careful and reverent hand.

All legislative bodies are liable to sudden and wayward impulses. To these
the Congress of our young country is more exposed than the Parliaments or
Chambers of older nations. It would have been very unsafe to trust a
Congressional majority with the power of amending the Constitution.

Difficulties and delays were properly put in the way of exercising such a
prerogative. To two-thirds of both houses, or to a convention called by
the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, was granted the
power of proposing amendments; while the power to ratify these was not
confided to less than to the legislatures, or to the conventions, of
three-fourths of the States composing the Union.

To alter the Constitution in any other way--as by the consent of a
majority only of the several States--would be a revolutionary act.
Doubtless revolutionary acts become a justifiable remedy on rare and great
occasions, as in 1776; but they are usually replete with danger. They are
never more dangerous than when employed by one section of a confederacy
against another, weaker section of the same. To the stability of
government, it is necessary that the rights of minorities should be
strictly respected. The end does not necessarily justify the means. "No
example," says an eminent and philosophical writer, "is more dangerous
than that of violence employed for a good purpose by well-meaning men."[6]

[Footnote 6: "Il n'y a pas de plus dangereux exemple que celui de
la violence exercee pour le bien et par les gens de
bien."--"_L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution_," par Alexis de
Tocqueville, Paris, 1856, p. 310.]

To such considerations has it been, in a measure, due that the people of
the United States, with as much unanimity as usually characterizes any
national decision, have held back, until now, from following the example
of the civilized nations of Europe in emancipating their slaves. Until the
Secessionists levied war against the Union, not the Democratic party
alone, but the mass of the Republican party also, assented to the
declaration in Abraham Lincoln's Inaugural, that they had "no purpose to
interfere, directly or indirectly, with the institution of Slavery in the
States where it exists." It had never been possible to obtain the votes of
three-fourths of the States in favor of emancipation; and a large majority
of those who held human servitude to be a moral wrong had looked upon its
toleration among our neighbors of the South as an evil of less magnitude
than the violation of the Constitution.

Though the wisdom of the ablest statesmen of the Revolution, without
distinction of sections, recognized negro slavery as an iniquity and as a
political element fraught with inevitable danger in the future, yet the
evils and the dangers which are inseparably connected with that element
have never been so clearly seen, have never made themselves so terribly
apparent, as in the course of this war.

The conviction that Slavery is a standing menace to the integrity of the
Union and the one great obstacle to peace gathers strength so rapidly from
day to day, that many men are adopting the opinion, that it must needs be
extirpated, if even at the cost of a revolutionary act.

It would be a misfortune, if this were the alternative. It is easy to pass
the limit of regulated authority, but impossible to estimate the dangers
we may encounter when that guardian limit is once transgressed. We may
resolve that we will go thus far and no farther. So thought the honest and
earnest Girondists of revolutionary France; but the current to which they
had first opened a passage swept them away. Though the experiment succeed
at last, a long Reign of Terror may overwhelm us ere success is reached.

And thus it is a matter of surpassing interest to determine whether the
present stupendous insurrectionary convulsion has brought about a state of
things under which, in strict accordance with the Constitution as it is,
we may emancipate all negroes throughout the Union who are now held in
involuntary servitude. This question I propose to discuss.

* * * * *

Every one is familiar with the words in which the Constitution, while not
naming Slavery, recognizes, under a certain phase, its existence, and aids
it, under certain circumstances, to maintain the rights to involuntary
labor which, under State laws, it claims; thus:--

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due."

The claims to service or labor here referred to may be for years or for
life: both are included in the above provision. In point of fact, there
were existing, at the time that provision was adopted, (as there still
exist,) both classes: the first class, for a term of years, then
consisting, in part, of claims against foreign adults who had bound
themselves to service for a limited time to repay the expenses of their
emigration,--but chiefly, as now, of claims to the service or labor of
what were called apprentices, usually white minors; the second, for life,
were claims to the service or labor of men, women, and children of all
ages, exclusively of African descent, who were called slaves.

The first class of claims were found chiefly in Northern States; the
second chiefly in Southern. There was a great disparity between the
numbers of the two classes. While the claims to service or labor for years
numbered but a few thousands, there were then held to service or labor for
life upwards of six hundred thousand persons: and the number has since
increased to about four millions.

The constitutional provision is, that persons from whom under State laws
service or labor is due shall not be exonerated from the performance of
the same by escaping to another State. The apprentice, or the slave,
shall, in that case, on demand of the proper claimant, be delivered up.

Such a provision clearly involves the recognition of certain rights of
property; but of what kind?

Is the ownership of one human being by another here involved? Is the
apprentice, or the slave, recognized in this clause as an article of
merchandise?

State laws regulating apprenticeship and slavery may give to the master of
the apprentice, or of the slave, the custody of the person and the right
of corporal punishment, in order the better to insure the performance of
the labor due. These laws may declare that an apprentice, or a slave, who
strikes his master, shall suffer death. They may provide that the
testimony of an apprentice, or of a slave, shall not be received in any
court of justice as evidence against his master. They may make the claims
to service or labor, whether for years or for life, transferable by
ordinary sale. They may declare such claims to be, under certain
circumstances, of the nature of real estate. They may enact that these
claims shall be hereditary, both as regards the claimant and the person
held to service, so that heirs shall inherit them,--and also so that the
children of apprentices, or of slaves, shall, in virtue of their birth, be
apprentices or slaves. But State laws or State constitutions, whatever
their provisions, cannot modify the Constitution of the United States. The
Supreme Court has decided that "the Government of the Union, though
limited in its power, is supreme within its sphere of action"; and again,
that "the laws of the United States, when made in pursuance of the
Constitution, form the supreme law of the land, anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."[7]

[Footnote 7: "_McCulloch against the State of Maryland._" 4
Wheaton, _Rep._, p. 316.]

Therefore State laws or constitutions can neither determine the
interpretation of the Federal Constitution nor explain its intent. It is
to be interpreted by the words, fairly and candidly construed, of its
framers.

In the provision under consideration the phraseology is remarkable. The
word _slave_, though then in common use, to designate a negro held to
service or labor for life, is not employed. It is impossible to believe
that this peculiarity was accidental, or to overlook the inevitable
inference from it. This provision does not recognize slavery except as it
recognizes apprenticeship. African slavery, according to the expressly
selected words, and therefore according to the manifest intent, of the
framers of the Constitution, is here recognized as a claim to the service
or labor of a negro: nothing more, nothing else.

It avails nothing to allege, even if it were true, that in 1787, when
these words were written, a negro was commonly considered property.
Chief-Justice Taney, delivering the decision of the Supreme Court in the
Dred Scott case, asserts that in the thirteen colonies which formed the
Constitution "a negro of the African race was regarded as an article of
property." This may or it may not have been true of a majority in those
days. True or not, it refers only to the opinions of individual colonists;
and these cannot be received as a basis of construction for the words, nor
can they rebut the plain intent, of a constitutional provision. It is not
what individual colonists believed, but what the framers of the
Constitution incorporated in that instrument, that we have to deal with.

They avoided the use of the word slave. They incorporated the words
"person held to service or labor." They admitted the claim to service or
labor: none other: a claim (regarded in its constitutional aspect) in the
nature of what the law calls a _chose in action_,--or, in other words, a
thing to which, though it cannot be strictly said to be in actual
possession, one has a right.

In common parlance we employ words, in connection with Slavery, which
imply much more than such a claim. We say slave-holder and slave-owner; we
speak of the institution of Slavery: but we do not say apprentice-holder
or apprentice-owner; nor do we speak of the institution of Apprenticeship.
The reason, whether valid or invalid, for such variance of phraseology in
speaking of the two classes of claims, is not to be found in any
admission, express or implied, in the provision of the Constitution now
under consideration. In it the framers of that instrument employed one and
the same phrase to designate the master of the apprentice and the master
of the slave. Both are termed "the party to whom service or labor may be
due."

Is there any other clause in the Constitution in which a distinction is
made between the apprentice and the slave? There is one, and only one. In
determining the number of inhabitants in each State as a basis of
representation and taxation, it is provided that the whole number of
apprentices shall be included, while three-fifths only of the slaves are
to be taken into account. But the wording of this clause is especially
noteworthy. It reads thus:--

"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the
several States which may be included within this Union according
to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding
to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to
service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed,
three-fifths of all other persons."

To avoid mistakes, it was deemed necessary to include apprentices by
express specification. Why this? Every one would have felt it to be
absurd, if the words had been, "the whole number of free persons,
including farm-laborers." But why absurd? Because persons engaged in free
labor are, beyond question, free persons. Not so those "bound to service."
While so bound, apprentices may be considered not free; when the "term of
years," and with it the bondage to service, expires, they become free, or,
as the common phrase is, "their own masters." It was necessary and proper,
therefore, to specify whether, in the enumeration of inhabitants, they
were to be estimated as free persons or as persons not free.

But would there be any fairness in construing this clause into an
admission, by inference or otherwise, that an apprentice, while "bound to
service," is a slave? Clearly not. He is a person not free for the time,
because another has a legal claim to his service or labor. The
Constitution admits this: nothing more.

And so of slaves. "Other persons" they are called, in contradistinction to
"free persons"; therefore persons not free: and properly so called, seeing
that, like the apprentice before his term expires, they are "bound to
service," and that, unlike him, they remain thus bound for life.

But unless we admit that the apprentice, bound to service for a season, is
a slave during that season, we cannot justly allege, that, by this
provision of the Constitution, the negro, held to service or labor for
life, is recognized as a slave.

A mere technical view of a great political question is usually a
contracted one, of little practical value, and unbecoming a statesman.
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Yet we must not mistake
for technicality a careful interpretation, distinctly warranted by the
terms employed, of a public instrument. Every public instrument, by which
the governed delegate powers to those who govern, should be strictly
construed.

I am not arguing, that the men who framed the Constitution did not regard
negroes held to service or labor as slaves. I am not arguing that
temporary claims, to the number (let us suppose) of forty or fifty
thousand, may, for a moment, compare in importance with life-long claims,
to the number of four millions; or that it is safe or proper to legislate
in regard to the latter, involving as they do vast industrial interests,
with as light consideration as might suffice in enacting regulations for
the former. I am not arguing that a political element, which has gradually
assumed proportions so gigantic as has American Slavery, can, with any
safety or propriety, be dealt with, except after the gravest deliberation
and the most sedulous examination, in advance, of every step we propose to
take. I allege nothing of all this.

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