Chapter Fourteen
Came January 1, 1863
The tall man’s footsteps made no sound upon the thick rug. Muffled and hushed, his weary pacing left no mark upon the warp and woof underneath his feet. No sign at all of all the hours he had been walking back and forth, no sound.
To save the Union—this was the aim and purpose of everything he did. He had offered concession after concession—he had sent men out to die to hold the Union together and he had seen the horror of their dying. And yet no end in sight. Could it be that God had turned his face away? Was He revolted by the stench of slavery? Was this the measure He required?
The President had sought to reason with them. In his last annual message to Congress he had proposed a constitutional amendment by which any state abolishing slavery by or before the year 1900 should be entitled to full compensation from the Federal government. So far he had postponed the day when a slave owner must take a loss. Nothing had come of the proposal—nothing.
To save the Union! Would emancipation drive the border states into revolt? Would it let loose a terror in the night that would destroy and rape and pillage all the land? He had been amply warned. Or were the Abolitionists right? George Thompson, the Englishman, had been very convincing; the President had talked with William Lloyd Garrison, who all these years had never wavered from his stand; and in this very room he had received the Negro, Frederick Douglass.
Douglass had stated his case so well, so completely, so wrapped in logic that the President had found himself defending his position to the ex-slave. He had sat quietly, listened patiently, and then spoken.
“It is the only way, Mr. Lincoln, the only way to save the Union,” Douglass said.
Outside, the day was dark and lowering. The sun hid behind banks of muddy clouds; dirty snow lay heaped against the Capitol. The tall man dropped to his knees and buried his haggard face in his hands. “Thy will be done, oh God, Thy will!” He, Abraham Lincoln, fourteenth president of the United States, would stake his honor, his good name, all that he had to give, to preserve the Union. And down through the ages men would judge him by one day’s deed. He rose from his knees, turned and pulled the cord that summoned his secretary.
In Boston they were waiting. This was the day when the government was to set its face against slavery. Though the conditions on which the President had promised to withhold the proclamation had not been complied with, there was room for doubt and fear. Mr. Lincoln was a man of tender heart and boundless patience; no man could tell to what lengths he might go for peace and reconciliation. An emancipation proclamation would end all compromises with slavery, change the entire conduct of the war, give it a new aim.
They held watch-meetings in all the colored churches on New Year’s Eve and went on to a great mass meeting in Tremont Temple, which extended through the day and evening. A grand jubilee concert in Music Hall was scheduled for the afternoon. They expected the President’s proclamation to reach the city by noon. But the day wore on, and fears arose that it might not, after all, be forthcoming.
The orchestra played Beethoven’sFifth Symphony, the chorus sang Handel’sHallelujah Chorus, Ralph Waldo Emerson read his “Boston Hymn,” written for the occasion—but still no word. A line of messengers was set up between the telegraph office and the platform of Tremont Temple. William Wells Brown, the Reverend Mr. Grimes, Miss Anna Dickinson, Frederick Douglass—all had said their lines. But speaking or listening to speeches was not the thing for which people had come together today. They were waiting.
Eight, nine, ten o’clock came and went, and still no word. Frederick Douglass walked to the edge of the platform. He stood there without saying a word, and before the awful stillness of his helplessness the stirrings of the crowd quieted. His voice was hoarse.
“Ladies and gentlemen—I know the time for argument has passed. Our ears are not attuned to logic or the sound of many words. It is the trumpet of jubilee which we await.”
“Amen, God of our fathers, hear!” The fervent prayer had come from a black man who had dropped to his knees on the platform behind Douglass. There was a responding murmur from the crowd. Douglass stood a moment with his head bowed. Then he continued:
“We are watching for the dawn of a new day. We are waiting for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries. We—” His eyes were caught by a movement in the crowd packed around the doors. He held his breath. A man ran down the aisle.
“It’s coming—It’s coming over the wires! Now!” he shouted.
The shout that went up from the crowd carried the glad tidings to the streets. Men and women screamed—they tossed their hats into the air—strangers embraced one another, weeping. Garrison, standing in the gallery, was cheered madly; Harriet Beecher Stowe, her bonnet awry, tears streaming down her cheeks, was lifted to a bench. After a while they quieted down to hear the reading of the text ... “are, and henceforward shall be, free.” Then the Reverend Charles Rue, the black man behind Douglass, lifted his magnificent voice and led them as they sang,
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea,Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free.”
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea,Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free.”
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea,Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free.”
“Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea,
Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free.”
Cables carried the news across the Atlantic. Crowds thronged the streets of London and Liverpool. Three thousand workmen of Manchester, many of them present sufferers from the cotton famine, adopted by acclamation an address to President Lincoln congratulating him on the Proclamation. George Thompson led a similar meeting in Lancashire, and in Exeter Hall a great demonstration meeting was addressed by John Stuart Mill.
But it was from the deep, deep South that the sweetest music came. It was an old song—old as the first man, lifting himself from the mire and slime of some dark river bed and feeling the warm sun upon his face, old as the song they sang crossing the Red Sea, old as the throbbing of drums deep in the jungles, old as the song of all men everywhere who would be free. It was a new song, the loveliest thing born this side of the seas, fresh and verdant and young, full as the promise of this new America—the Delta’s rich, black earth; the tall, thick trees upon a thousand hills; the fairy, jeweled beauty of the bayous; the rolling plains of the Mississippi. Black folks made a song that day.
They crouched in their cabins, hushed and still. Old men and women who had prayed so long—broken, close to the end, theywaited for this glorious thing. Young men and women, leashed in their strength, twisted in bondage—they waited. Mothers grasped their babies in their arms—waiting.
Some of them listened for a clap of thunder that would rend the world apart. Some strained their eyes toward the sky, waiting for God upon a cloud to bring them freedom. Anything was possible, they whispered, waiting.
They recognized His shining angels when they came: a tired and dirty soldier, in a torn and tattered uniform; a grizzled old man hobbling out from town; a breathless woman, finding her way through the swamp to tell them; a gaunt, white “cracker” risking his life to let them know; a fleet-footed black boy, running, running down the road. These were the messengers who brought them word.
And the song of joy went up. Free! Free! Free! Black men and women lifted their quivering hands and shouted across the fields. The rocks and trees, the rivers and the mountains echoed their voices—the universe was glad the morning freedom’s song rang in the South.