Mr. Livermore remarks: "Although slavery existed throughout the country, it is a significant fact that the principal opposition to negro soldiers came from the States where there was the least hearty and efficient support of the principles of Republican Government, and the least ability or disposition to furnish an equal or fair quota of white soldiers." South Carolina, in 1775, authorized the | which created great consternation. But he enrolment of slaves as "pioneers and labor- was a narrow-minded and selfish man; he ers," but the selfish slaveholders afterwards offered freedom only to such as came to his revoked this permission, though the best pa- banners-the able-bodied men, that is—and triots in the State urged that negroes should gave himself no concern about the women be employed not only as pioneers but as sol- and children. The negroes quickly saw that diers. he cared nothing for them, but only for his own ends; and his selfishness found its reward in the loss of their confidence; so that, though the slaveholders were alarmed, the proclamation had little other effect. Yet all through the Revolution the threat of freeing the slaves was a terror to the Southern people. The Virginia planters took care to point out to their slaves that Dunmore promised freedom only to the able-bodied. Mr. Livermore quotes a paper printed in Wil"South Carolina and Georgia contained liamsburg, Virginia, in which this point is so many Tories, at one time, that it was sup- made. On the other hand this hope is held posed the British officers, who elsewhere out to the slaves as the reward for faithfulwould, by proclamation, free all negroes join-ness:— ing the royal army, might hesitate to meddle with them in these colonies, lest the "Can it, then, be supposed that the neking's friends' should suffer thereby." groes will be better used by the English, who have always encouraged and upheld this slavCongress, at the motion of Southern mem-ery, than by their present masters, who pity bers, determined, in 1775, that negroes be rejected from the army; but they were there already, and, as would seem, in considerable numbers. General Washington wrote, remonstrating, in December, 1775; and Mr. Sparks says: It would seem that in this respect at least South Carolina has not changed. 6 "The resolve was not adhered to. Many black soldiers were in the service during all stages of the war." their condition; who wish, in general, to make it as easy and comfortable as possible; and who would, were it in their power, or were they permitted, not only prevent any restore it to such as have already unhappily more negroes from losing their freedom, but lost it!" In 1776 General Greene reports to Washington that "eight hundred negroes were then collected on Staten Island to be formed General Thomas wrote of negroes in the into a regiment. On the 23d October, 1777, army in 1775 -: "We have some negroes, but I look upon them in general equally serviceable with other men for fatigue; and in action many of them have proved themselves brave." As to another class in the army he has not so good a report : a Hessian officer, who was with Burgoyne at the time of his surrender, wrote in his journal, of our army :— "The negro can take the field, instead of his master; and therefore no regiment is to be seen in which there are not negroes in abundance; among them there are ablebodied, strong, and brave fellows." with joy through the country, was performed by Colonel Barton; a negro named Prince, who was part of his force, butting in with his head the door of the general's chamber. "I would avoid all reflection, or anything that may tend to give umbrage; but there The capture of the British General Presis in this army from the southward a num-cott, near Newport in 1777, which was hailed ber called riflemen, who are as indifferent men as I ever served with. These privates are mutinous, and often deserting to the enemy; unwilling for duty of any kind; exceedingly vicious; and, I think, the army here would be as well without as with Negroes were enlisted as "substitutes " them." in the army in Connecticut, to the number THE BRITISHI GOVERNOR'S PROCLAMATION. of some hundreds. The Rhode Island AsGovernor Dunmore issued a proclamation sembly, in 1778, authorized the enlistment of emancipation in Virginia, early in the war, of slaves, who were to be freed on enlisting, and receive the same pay, etc., as white soldiers. The masters were paid for the slaves. And here is a sample of these Rhode Island freedmen's quality : "When Colonel Greene was surprised and murdered, near Points Bridge, New York, on the 14th of May, 1781, his colored soldiers heroically defended him till they were cut to peices, and the enemy reached him over the dead bodies of his faithful negroes." and to prevent the desertion of them to the enemy." Will not the President's Proclamation once more subject South Carolina to this disability? And if so, is it not an excellent and most advisable war measure? As for the conduct of slaveholders, where they lost their slaves by the act of war, let "the example and the words of Jefferson be their model. He wrote of a visit of Lord Cornwallis to his plantation : In 1778 the General Court of Massachusetts sanctioned the enrolment of negroes, but not in a special corps. In Maryland, John Cadwallader wrote from Annapolis, in 1781: "We have resolved to raise immediately seven hundred and fifty negroes, to be incorporated with the other troops; and a bill is now almost completed." In New York, in the same year, the Legislature offered a piece of land to the master for every slave he placed in the army, and freed the slave, if he served faithfully. In South Carolina Henry Laurens and his son Colonel John Laurens strongly urged the enlistment of blacks. Henry wrote in 1779 to Washington : "Had we arms for three thousand such black men as I could select in Carolina, I should have no doubt of success in driving the British out of Georgia and subduing East Florida, before the end of July." John Laurens received from Congress a commission as lieutenant-colonel, on the day when a report was made to raise negro troops in South Carolina. He wished to command a negro corps. Sir Henry Clinton was already using negroes as soldiers, and it is instructive to read in the report to Congress the representations of the South Carolina authorities, that they were "Unable to make any effectual efforts with militia, by reason of the great proportion of citizens necessary to remain at home to prevent insurrections among the negroes, "He carried off also about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them freedom, he would have done right; but it was to consign them to inevitable death from the small-pox and putrid fever, then raging in his camp. This I knew afterwards to be the fate of twenty-seven of them." General Lincoln repeatedly and earnestly implored that the army in the South might be strengthened by enlisting negroes. Mr. Madison thought it advisable to enlist blacks. Colonel Laurens made continual efforts in this direction, and General Washington wrote these severe words to Laurens, when the lat ter announced the opposition which had been made in South Carolina and Georgia to the enlistment of blacks. Mr. Livermore says truly that Washington seldom wrote anything so severe : "I must confess that I am not at all astonished at the failure of your plan. That spirit of freedom, which, at the commencement of this contest, would have gladly sacobject, has long since subsided, and every rificed everything to the attainment of its selfish passion has taken its place. It is not the public but private interest which influences the generality of mankind; nor can the Americans any longer boast an exception. Under these circumstances, it would rather have been surprising if you had succeeded, nor will you, I fear, have better success in Georgia." Let us ponder these lessons from our own history. From The N. Y. Evening Post. Diary from March, 1857, to December, 1862, By Adam Gurowski. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1862. THIS work is a crabbed specimen of authorship. It says many things that could only have been learned by a betrayal of confidence, and many things founded upon the idlest rumor. It prejudges both men and things. The humor of it is sometimes that of Thersites, when his thorny tongue lashed the heroes of the camp, and sometimes that of Caliban when he cursed the arts of his superiors. No one, we think, can much admire its manner, very few will accept its matter-and yet it is a book to be carefully read. Under the rough and prickly burr there is a nutritive nut. It contains truths which the American people, and above all the leaders of the American people, ought to ponder. Count Gurowski, the author, is a Polish exile, who had taken part in the wars of his native country for human freedom, and who sought refuge in this land of freedom from the storms of adverse fortune. He is a scholar of some pretensions, a keen observer, a trained thinker, and a writer of considerable force. His works on the Russian Empire and on America are the products of a reflective and philosophic mind. He has studied society thoroughly, and politics with no little discernment and insight. A Radical by conviction and sympathy, he has learned to distrust and despise the acknowledged and revered authorities of the world. His habitual tone has become that of the grumbler and cynic and this tone has been deepened and soured by personal disappointments. A fugitive from the abuses and miseries of the old world, he has not always found the consolation and solace which his imagination led him to expect in the new. Thus, without youth or hope, his illusions and ideals dissolved, and his future cheerless, he has none of the elevation, the confidence, and the kindliness which belong to youth and hope. His judgments are acrid: his outlooks gloomy; and he tries our young and inexperienced men by standards created as much by an overweening self-estimate, as by the sense of truth and justice. We have said, however, that in spite of this superficial repulsiveness, there is truth under the skin, and we will state what we take it to be. Count Gurowski discerns, in the first place, the lamentable mistakes of the actual Administration. He sees that a gigantic and infamous war against the noblest principles of human government and the most benignant institutions-a war begun by slavery, upheld by slavery, and which has no meaning or end except slavery-has not been managed with any adequate perception of its nature or malignity. Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward not only long failed to see the inherent and inseparable connection of slavery with the war, but they quailed before its power, debilitated as it has been even in the Border States. They approached it always shiveringly, and hit it, when they did hit it, like schoolboys striking a vicious ox, with side blows from which they immediately ran away. On this point Mr. Seward's diplomatic correspondence is good testi mony. Again in the military management of our affairs the author before us sees an incapacity that no sensible man now denies. The Administration kept at the head of its principal armies a captain of engineers who had had no experience to recommend him, who was an utter novice in war, who was singularly unenterprising and slow, and whose delays and failures became so monstrous in their effects that the whole civil community cried out against him; and yet, in spite of disastrous delays, immense battles lost, calamitous retreats-(puerile and bombastic despatches, notorious injustice to worthy subordinate generals, an utter want of sympathy in the objects of the war, we will not speak of)-persistent disobedience of orders, and the remonstrances of nearly every sincere friend of the Administration, he was sedulously retained in the place he was so incompetent to fill. And when at last he was removed, the grand opportunity for ending the campaign of Maryland and perhaps of the war, was frustrated and lost by his determined do-nothingism. Under such circumstances, it is not strange that an earnest, impulsive observer, whose soul was absorbed in the success of the war, should break out into maledictions of the authors of the result. But while it was only natural that he should thus have revolted at the too patent signs of a want of discernment, decision, and firmness in the Administration, it was at the and devotion of the American people, and it is the fact that a people so confiding, disinterested, and good should be in any way betrayed or unworthily guided, which adds poignancy to his sorrow and bitterness to his criticisms. THE DARK SIDE: THE BRIGHT SIDE: THE PRACTICABLE SIDE. To the Editors of the Boston Daily Advertiser : same time unjust not to allow for the pecu-es. He is moved to perpetual exclamations liar circumstances in the political opinion of of delight by the sublime enthusiasm, energy, the country which may have produced its hesitation. It was more particularly unjust not to acknowledge that at length the Administration discovered its mistake and reformed its policy. By the proclamation of September 22, the President has shown that he now comprehends the full measure of his duties, and Mr. Seward, in his later correspondence with Messrs. Adams, Dayton, and Perry, has given a full and able approval of its principles. In witness of the same change, by the removal of McClellan, their military errors are in a fair way of being WE are discovering at last that the South corrected, and the prosecution of the war are a dangerous people. Warlike, audacious, rendered more vigorous than it ever yet needy, unscrupulous, individually disinclined has been. That extraordinary mistakes may and disqualified for industrial pursuits, but have been made, we are, then, ready to ad- both inclined and qualified for war, rapine, mit; but we regard it as only ill-natured and and conquest, their separate existence is insplenetic to dwell upon those mistakes after compatible with the peace of the world. every effort has been essayed to return to Such men in former times inaugurated the the right path. Our Administration is, for dark ages, and now control the miserable the time being, our government, and when destinies of Spanish America. There is no that government is assailed by traitors, how-safety for civilization, liberty,or human progever much we may deplore its errors, we ress, but in their absolute suppression. are yet bound to rally to its support. In spite of his bitter objurgations against our leading statesmen and military men, against Lincoln, Seward, Halleck, McClellan, Fremont and innumerable others-for the unhappy writer is by no means limited or partial in the range of his indignation-he sees that there are, nevertheless, some men of civic virtue among our statesmen, and some generals of comprehension and skill among our military chieftains. He finds in Stanton, Wade, Welles, Chandler, and many others, an honest devotion to great civic and national ends; and in Banks, Sigel, Grant, McDowell, and our entire naval service, the most noble and gallant examples of patriotic efficiency. But the feature of the work which redeems its defects in other respects, and even commends it to admiration, is the stern, unmoved, enthusiastic confidence with which the writer relies upon the energies and purity of the American people. In spite of constitutional cynicism, in spite of his disappointments, in spite of his disgust at the politicians, and his contempt for leaders, he retains his convictions of the essential superiority of the principles of self-government, and his ardent reliance on the popular mass This suppression can be effected by a united North, and a war of moderate continuance, such as those to which other nations have been accustomed to submit. History tells of wars of ten years' and of thirty years' duration, but our war has not yet lasted two years. The tremendous struggle of England against France, beginning in 1793, and lasting (with the brief exception of the peace of Amiens) till the battle of Waterloo in 1815, occupied more than twenty-one years. And this was a war of fluctuating fortunes, of fruitless and ruinous expenditures, of disheartening failures and defeats,-nevertheless manfully carried on under different and adverse administrations, with the unwelcome accompaniments of the press-gang and the tax-gatherer, of grinding imposts and unfathomable debt, until England came out of it at last, perhaps the most wealthy and powerful nation of the globe. We have yet to learn, what every nation in Europe has had to learn, that war, if not the normal state of mankind, is nevertheless an endurable state. It can be indefinitely borne by a nation conscious of its own power, the justice of its cause, and the slow but sure decline of its adversary. The South began this contest with abundance of food and clothing, with ships and trade, with shall have once more overtaken the demand, flourishing commercial cities and a great cotton will become a drug; and if it shall staple which was indispensable to the civi- ever happen that the pacified South shall be lized world. How many of these things, able to return to the cultivation of cotton, have they left to enjoy or to use at the pres- it will only be to render it still more a drug, ent time? Certainly, if the progressive im- exceeding in that character all other kinds poverishment of the next year shall bear its of property except negro property, which due proportion to that of the last,-if there will then not pay for keeping. is anything reliable in the bodings of their own newspapers,-if the supporting of an immense army is ruinous to a cramped and exhausted country,-if drawn battles, or even victories, shall leave them worse off than before, then the end of their career must be only a question of time. Meanwhile the North is relatively rich, progressive, and prosperous. The cities are busy, the crops abundant, the markets prompt and remunerative, the wages of labor high, the inducements for immigration great, manufactures, commerce, and agriculture all actively and profitably pursued, the taxation by no means excessive when compared with that of other nations, and the national debt, if it becomes large enough to reach posterity, sure to constitute a firm, cementing bond of the Union. The importance of the South has been overrated. If the Southern States were swallowed up by an earthquake, the world would be again supplied with cotton in two years. Cotton is an annual plant requiring for its production only seed, soil, and necessity. The seed is always to be had,-the soil constitutes a zone round the earth of some seventy degrees,-the necessity is furnished by starving Europe, and by the high price of cotton, which now makes it by far the most profitable crop that can be anywhere raised. It now seems probable that the future acts in the drama of this war will be better adapted to our own character and power, as well as to those of the enemy, than they have hitherto been. We shall make it a question of relative endurance, rather than of enormous invasion and illimitable bloodshed. There is no doubt that a Napoleon or a Pelissier might take Richmond by the sacrifice of a hundred thousand men; but the prize would not be worth a hundreth part of the cost. On the other hand, how long can the devastated fields and exhausted granaries of Virginia hold out in supporting the army of locusts which now, in the character of defenders, infests and devours them? Yet such an army must be kept up in every Southern State to protect its vulnerable points from the inroads which are made at comparatively little expense, on every coast and river. The Fabian policy, which under Washington carried us through the Revolution, will again carry us through this war. The hot blood of the South may at times prove more than a match for us in the onset of the battle-field, but it poorly bears the weary and consuming influence of passive warfare,-of labor wasted on trenches instead of crops,— of starving families deserted by drafted men, and left to the doubtful fidelity of slaves,of idle and marauding soldiers driven by Two years more of vigorous war and hunger to plunder friends and foes,-of facblockade will cause the world to supply tious and desperate parties, and the deferred itself with cotton, without an earthquake. hope of a military empire founded on the The hundred new places which are now wretchedness of the many for the benefit of struggling to raise cotton, will be five hun- the few. dred next year. And when the production B. |