Feb. 18, 1865. |
March 4. |
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[529]
on that occasion was calculated to prevent the feeling of confidence which Davis and his friends tried to inspire.
It produced indignation and alarm, and the press did not report it literally as it was spoken.
Lie declared that the white fighting men of the Confederacy were exhausted, and that black men must recruit the Army.
He told the slaveholders, that they must either fight themselves, or let their slaves fight; and that Lee had told him that “negroes would answer,” and that he must abandon Richmond if not soon re-enforced.
“let the negroes volunteer and be emancipated,” said Benjamin, “it is the only way to save the slave-women and children.”
1 these words, from a member of the “cabinet,” produced great commotion.
There was a General aversion to putting the slaves into the Army, and it was not done.
A bill was introduced in the Confederate Congress, authorizing the enlistment of two hundred thousand slaves, with the consent of their owners.
It passed the lower House, but was lost in the Senate, notwithstanding General Lee wrote
a public letter, advocating the measure, in which he admitted that the white people could not well meet the demands of the Army for more men. It was afterward passed.
the Peace conference in Hampton Roads did not affect the armies in the field.
The National forces were quite sufficient for all practical purposes,2 and Mr. Lincoln entered
upon the second term of his Presidency of the Republic with the most abundant hopes of a speedy return of Peace.
His address on the occasion of his second inauguration, commanded the most profound attention among thinking men, loyal and disloyal, throughout the entire Union.
It was marked by the greatest.
Solemnity and tenderness, and was imbued with the deepest religious spirit.
Its chief burden was the emancipation of the slaves, and the triumph of Justice and mercy;3 and it closed with the following remarkable sentence: “with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to ”
1 see a Rebel War Clerk's Diary, II., 415. speaking of Benjamin, the Diarist says:--“no doubt he is for a desperate stroke for independence, being out of the pale of mercy; but his moral integrity is impugned by the representatives from Louisiana, who believe he has taken bribes for passports, &c., to the injury of the cause.”
2 in July, as we have observed, the President called for 500,000 men. This produced a goodly number of recruits, and none of the armies suffered for lack of re-enforcements, yet the requisition was largely filled by credits given for men already in the Army or navy. In view of this, and with a determination to crush the rebellion in the spring campaign, if possible, the President issued another call, on the 19th of December, for 200,000 more.
3 after speaking of slavery as the cause of the War, Mr. Lincoln remarked: “to strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by War; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the War the magnitude nor the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered; that of neither has.been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. ‘woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ if we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible War as the woe due to them by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a loving God always ascribe to him? fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of War may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘ the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ ”
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.