The Freedmen’s Monument to Abraham Lincoln: An Address Delivered in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1876
THE FREEDMEN’S MONUMENT TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, DC,
ON 14 APRIL 1876
Washington National Republican, 15 April 1876. Other texts in New York Times, 22 April
1876; Philadelphia Christian Recorder, 15 June 1876; Inaugural Ceremonies of the Freed-
men's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln; Washington City, April 14 , 1876
(St. Louis, 1876), 16-26; Oration by Frederick Douglass Delivered on the Occasion of the
Unveiling of the Freedmen's Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, in Lincoln Park,
Washington, D. C., April 14th, 1876; with an Appendix (Washington, D. C., 1876), 1-15,
reprint ed. (New York, 1940), 7-26; Speech File, reel 12, frames 88-105, reel 15, frames
24-36, FD Papers, DLC; Woodson, Negro Orators, 516-27; Foner, Life and Writings, 4:
309-19.
The unveiling of the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln in
Washington’s Lincoln Park took place on 14 April 1876, the eleventh anniver-
sary of Lincoln’s assassination. A panoply of federal and civic dignitaries,
including President Ulysses S. Grant, the cabinet, justices of the Supreme
Court, congressmen, clergymen, and diplomats, joined Douglass, James E.
Yeatman, and John Mercer Langston for the ceremonies. Bishop John M.
Brown of the A. M. E. Church offered the opening prayer, and J. Henri Burch
of Louisiana read the Emancipation Proclamation to an enthusiastic audience.
Following the playing of “La Marseillaise” by the U.S. Marine Band, Yeat-
man related the history of the statue, which Langston formally accepted from
him “in behalf of our entire nation, in behalf especially of the donors of the
fund with whose investment you . . . have been charged.” For the actual
unveiling of the monument Langston deferred to President Grant, who, after a
moment of silence, pulled the cord that released the flags covering it. “Noisy
manifestations of admiration,” cannon fire, and “Hail to the Chief” then
sounded. William E. Matthews read an original poem by Cordelia Ray, a
black woman of New York City, after which Douglass delivered his oration,
called by Senator George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts “the best contribution
made to the department of literature in which it takes place, since the time of
Mr. Webster.” Although Douglass later wrote that he was greatly honored to
have been chosen orator of the day, observers heard him remark at the cere-
mony that the statue “showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly
attitude would have been indicative of freedom.” Inaugural Ceremonies, 3-
16, 27-28; Oration by Frederick Douglass, 17-21; George S. Boutwell to
Douglass, 15 April 1876, General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 822-
23, FD Papers, DLC; Douglass, Life and Times, 461; Quarles, FD, 276-78;
Holland, Frederick Douglass, 340-41.
FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS: I warmly congratulate you upon the
highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such num-
bers and spirit as you have to-day. This occasion is in some respects
remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us,
and study the lessons of our history in the United States, who shall survey
the long and dreary space over which we have traveled, who shall count the
links in the great chain of events by which we have reached our present
position, will make a note of this occasion—they will think of it, and with a
sense of manly pride and complacency. I congratulate you also upon the
very favorable circumstances in which we meet to-day. They are high,
inspiring and uncommon. They lend grace, glory and significance to the
object for which we have met. Nowhere else in this great country, with its
uncounted towns and cities, uncounted wealth, and immeasurable territory
extending from sea to sea, could conditions be found more favorable to the
success of this occasion than here. We stand to-day at the national centre to
perform something like a national act, an act which is to go into history, and
we are here where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt
and reciprocated.
A THOUSAND WIRES,
fed with thought and winged with lightning, put us in instantaneous com-
munication with the loyal and true men all over this country. Few facts
could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place
in our condition as a people, than the fact of our assembling here for the
purpose we have to-day. Harmless, beautiful, proper and praiseworthy as
this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would
have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barba-
rism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts
of our country, would have made our assembling here to-day the signal and
excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That
we are here in peace to-day is a compliment and credit to American civi-
lization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and pro-
gress in the future. I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for
malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and
glorious change which has come both to our white fellow-citizens and
ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then,
the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races,
and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both
races—white and black. In view then, of the past, the present and the
future, with
THE LONG AND DARK HISTORY
of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress and enlightenment
before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.
Friends and fellow-citizens: The story of our presence here is soon and
easily told. We are here in the District of Columbia; here in the city of
Washington, the most luminous point of American territory—a city re-
cently transformed and made beautiful in its body and in its spirit;1Under the direction of Alexander Robey (“Boss”) Shepherd the District of Columbia’s Board of Public Works, an appointed body of the territorial government established in 1871, initiated a “comprehensive plan of improvements" to relieve the city of its rural vestiges. Highly criticized and the subject of two congressional investigations for its extravagance, short-sightedness, and corruption, the program nevertheless generated improvements in sewage, roadway, sidewalk, and building construction. The resultant threat of financial bankruptcy, however, undermined Congress's faith in territorial governance for the capital and on 20 June 1874 it was replaced by a presidentially appointed temporary commission, harbinger of the permanent Board of Commissioners created by Congress in 1878. This new arrangement stripped the District of self-government and denied black men the franchise they had exercised since 1867. Constance McLaughlin Green, Washington: Village and Capital, 1800-1878, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1962), 1: 313-82; Wythe, Uncivil War, 114-78, 203-61; Tindall, History of the City of Washington, 247-76; Bryan, History of the National Capital, 2: 586-90. we are
here, in the place where the ablest and best men of the country are sent to
devise the policy, enact the laws and shape the destiny of the Republic; we
are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome of the Capitol of the
nation looking down upon us; we are here, with the broad earth freshly
adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring for our church, and all races,
colors and conditions of men for our congregation; in a word, we are here to
express, as best we may, by appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful
sense of the vast, high and pre-eminent services rendered to ourselves, to
our race, to our country and to the whole world
BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can
stir and thrill the human heart. It has crowned and made glorious the high
places of all civilized nations, with the grandest and most enduring works
of art, designed to illustrate characters and perpetuate the memories of
great public men. It is the sentiment which from year to year adorns with
fragrant and beautiful flowers the graves of our loyal, brave, and patriotic
soldiers who fell in defense of the Union and liberty. It is the sentiment of
gratitude and appreciation, which often, in the presence of many who hear
me, has filled yonder heights of Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy
and the sublime enthusiasm of poetry and song; a sentiment which can
never die while the Republic lives. For the first time in the history of our
people, and in the history of the whole American people, we join in this
high worship and march conspicuously in the line of this time-honored
custom. First things are always interesting, and this is one of our first
things. It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to
do honor to any American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I
commend the fact to notice. Let it be told in every part of the Republic; let
men of all parties and opinions hear it; let those who despise us, not less
than those who respect us, know that now and here, in the spirit of
LIBERTY, LOYALTY, AND GRATITUDE,
let it be known everywhere and by everybody who takes an interest in
human progress and in the amelioration of the condition of mankind, that in
the presence and with the approval of the members of the American House
of Representatives, reflecting the general sentiment of the country; that in
the presence of that august body, the American Senate, representing the
highest intelligence and the calmest judgment of the country; in presence of
the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of the United States, to whose deci-
sions we all patriotically bow; in the presence and under the steady eye of
the honored and trusted President of the United States, we, the colored
people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom,
near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and
here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and
bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which the men of this genera-
tion may read—and those of after-coming generations may read—some-
thing of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first
martyr President of the United States.2The idea for a memorial to Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the people he liberated began with Charlotte Scott, a freed Virginia slave, who shortly after the president’s assassination gave her former mistress five dollars toward the “erecting of a monument" to the memory of her race's “best friend on earth." The money was sent to General T. C. H. Smith, who received the contribution, forwarded it on 26 April 1865 to James E. Yeatman of the Western Sanitary Commission, urging the latter to circulate the idea among others. After Yeatman published Smith‘s letter, the Commission received $16,242 “contributed solely by emancipated citizens of the United States." The Commission eventually chose Thomas Ball, an American living in Florence, Italy, to execute a monument based on a design he had already sculpted in marble. The finished bronze statue, placed on a ten-foot granite pedestal, showed Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation in his right hand while stretching his left hand over the head of a kneeling slave. Ball replaced the "ideal" and "perfectly passive" slave of the original with the image of Archer Alexander, the last Missouri slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Law, and represented him “as exerting his own strength with strained muscles in breaking the chain which had bound him.” Inaugural Ceremonies, 6-11, 27-28; Oration by Frederick Douglass, 17-20; Freeman Henry Morris Murray, Emancipation and The Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation (1916; Freeport, N.Y., 1972), 199.
Fellow citizens: In what we have said and done to-day, and in what we
may say and do hereafter, we disclaim everything like
ARROGANCE AND ASSUMPTION.
We claim for ourselves no superior devotion to the character, history and
memory of the illustrious name whose monument we have here dedicated
to-day. We fully comprehend the relation of Abraham Lincoln, both to
ourselves and the white people of the United States. Truth is proper and
beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is never more proper and
beautiful in any case than when speaking of a great public man whose
example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his
departure to the solemn shades, the silent continents of eternity. It must be
admitted, truth compels me to admit even here in the presence of the
monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in
the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests,
in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a
white man. He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely de-
voted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time
during the last years of his administration to deny, postpone and sacrifice
the rights of humanity in the colored people, to promote the welfare of the
white people of his country. In all his education and feelings he was an
AMERICAN OF THE AMERICANS.
He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely,
opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this
policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the
interest of his own race. To protect, defend and perpetuate slavery in the
States where it existed, Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other
President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the
supposed constitutional guarantees of the Constitution in favor of the slave
system anywhere inside the Slave States. He was willing to pursue, recap-
ture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave
rising for liberty, though his guilty masters were already in arms against the
Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of
his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-cit-
izens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst
and last you and yours were the object of his deepest affection and his most
earnest solicitude.
YOU ARE THE CHILDREN
of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children, children by
adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity. To you it
especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his
memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures on your walls, and
commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and
benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at this altar we would exhort you to
build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the
most costly workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful and
perfect; let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean against
the unchanging blue overhanging sky, and let them endure forever! But
while in the abundance of your wealth and in the fullness of your just and
patriotic devotion you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble
offering we this day unveil to view: for while Abraham Lincoln saved for
you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one
hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in
rebellion to oppose.3Douglass alludes to a letter of 26 June 1786 from Thomas Jefferson to Jean Nicholas Demeunier. Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 10: 63.
Fellow-citizens: Ours is a new-born zeal and devotion, a thing of the
hour. The name of Abraham Lincoln was
NEAR AND DEAR TO OUR HEARTS
in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more
ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt and defeat
than when crowned with victory, honor and glory. Our faith in him was
often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. When he
tarried long in the mountain;4Douglass conflates words and themes from the books of Genesis and Exodus, providing a parallel to the pro-Emancipation situation in the trying of Jehovah's people through the seeming failures, desertion, and inscrutability of their leaders. Jacob, for example, could restore his brother Laban's trust only by withdrawing with him to offer proofs, on which occasion they “tarried all night in the mount." During the forty days and nights that Moses spent on Mount Sinai, receiving the laws of God, the people of Israel chided and murmured against Moses and reverted to distrust. Gen. 31: 54; Exod. 19-20, 32. when he strangely told us that we were the
cause of the war;5In his “Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes" on 14 August 1862, Lincoln stated: “But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence." Basler, Collected Works of Lincoln, 5: 372. when he still more strangely told us to leave the land in
which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the
Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers, he refused to
retaliate when we were murdered as colored prisoners; when he told us he
would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the
proclamation of emancipation of General Frémont;6John Charles Frémont. when he refused to
remove the commander of the Army of the Potomac,7General George B. McClellan. who was more
zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than suppress rebellion; when we
saw this, and more, we were at times stunned, grieved and greatly be-
wildered; but our hearts believed while
THEY ACHED AND BLED.
Nor was this, even at that time, a blind and unreasoning superstition.
Despite the mist and haze that surrounded him; despite the tumult, the
hurry and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive
view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the
circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated
him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who
often tried his patience; not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not
by any partial and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but
by a broad survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events—and in
view of that divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will, we
came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had met
in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he
might employ upon special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully
knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough
for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was
in living and earnest sympathy with that movement; which, in the nature of
things, must go on
TILL SLAVERY SHOULD BE UTTERLY
and forever abolished in the United States. When, therefore, it shall be
asked what we have to do with the memory of Abraham Lincoln, or what
Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the answer is ready, full and complete.
Though he loved Caesar less than Rome,8Douglass paraphrases Julius Caesar, act 3, sc. 2, lines 21-22. though the Union was more to
him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we
saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of
liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures
approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of
ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away
from the face of our whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as
soon after all as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we saw our
brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and being clothed
all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the United States; under his
rule we saw two hundred thousand of our dark and dusky people respond-
ing to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and, with muskets on their shoulders
and eagles on their buttons, timing their high footsteps to liberty and union
under the national flag; under his rule we saw the independence of the black
Republic of Hayti, the special object of slaveholding aversion and horror
fully recognized, and her minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here
in the city of Washington; under his rule we saw
THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE
which so long disgraced the nation abolished, and slavery abolished in the
District of Columbia;9Lincoln signed the bill abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia on 16 April 1862. under his rule we saw for the first time the law
enforced against the foreign slave trade and the first slave-trader hanged,
like any other pirate or murderer;10The son of a respected seagoing family from Maine, Captain Nathaniel P. Gordon (d. 1862) was the first and only person to be executed under U.S. law for participation in the slave trade. In 1848 he commanded the , a ship suspected of carrying slaves, but inspectors could not find sufficient evidence for conviction. Little more is known of Gordon until 1860, when he and two mates, William Warren and David Hall, were brought to trial in New York on 18 June after the capture of his ship, the Erie, on a slave run. Gordon was prosecuted under the act of 10 May 1800, which imposed imprisonment and a fine on persons transporting slaves from one foreign country to another, and the act of 15 May 1820, which declared the slave trade to be piracy and decreed death to anyone working or traveling on a U.S. ship engaged in the transportation or trade of prospective slaves. Although Gordon maintained that he had sold the to Spaniards in the Congo River and had been on board merely as a passenger, the testimony of four crewmen against him enabled the prosecution to dispose of this and other alibis, and on 30 November 1861 he was sentenced to death by hanging. Gordon appealed to Lincoln, with much public support, for commutation of the sentence to life in prison. Lincoln, however, granted only a stay of execution of two weeks so that Gordon could prepare himself for death. Gordon was hanged at the Tombs, a New York City prison, on 21 February 1862. The mates were convicted only of misdemeanors, with jail sentences of eight to ten months and fines under five hundred dollars. On 20 May, three months after the execution, the Lincoln administration and the British government negotiated a treaty for the suppression of the slave trade. Warren S. Howard, American Slavers and the Federal law, 1837-1862 (Berkeley, 1963), 25, 88-90, 199-202; Carl Sifakis, ed., Encyclopedia of American Crime (New York, 1982), 289; Basler, Collected Works of Lincoln, 5: 128-29. under his rule and his inspiration we
saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be
slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four
winds; under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lin-
coln, after giving the slaveholders three months of grace in which to save
their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper which, though
special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making
slavery forever impossible in the United States.11The Emancipation Proclamation. Though we waited long,
we saw all this and more.
Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all
men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January, 1863?
When the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good
as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant
city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others
not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have
heard read to-day.12Douglass attended and spoke at meetings celebrating the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation that were held on 1-2 January 1863 in Boston’s Tremont Temple and Twelfth Baptist Church. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanks-
giving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation.
In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that
the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to
withhold the bolt which would smite the slave system with destruction; and
we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of
time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might
require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and
progress.
Fellow-citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak at
length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in
the world. That ground has been fully occupied and completely covered
both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact and fancy has been
gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham
Lincoln, but no man can say anything new of Abraham Lincoln. His
personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people
than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who
saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could
approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was
transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced
in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him,
and patient under reproaches.
Even those who only knew him through his public utterances obtained
a tolerably clear idea of his character and his personality. The image of the
man went out with his words, and those who read him knew him. I have
said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices
common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his
times and to the condition of the country, this unfriendly feeling on his part
may safely be set down as one element of his wonderful success in organiz-
ing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and
bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accom-
plish two things; first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin,
and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or
the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful co-
operation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essen-
tial condition to success, his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruit-
less. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union,
he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American
people, and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the
genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indif-
ferent: but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he
was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and
determined. Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen
against the negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart
of hearts
HE LOATHED AND HATED SLAVERY.
He was willing while the South was loyal that it should have its pound of
flesh,13An allusion to Merchant of Venice, act 4, sc. 1, line 307. because he thought it was so nominated in the bond, but further
than this no earthly power could make him go.
Fellow-citizens, whatever else in this world may be partial, unjust and
uncertain, time! time! is impartial, just and certain in its actions. In the
realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is a great worker, and
often works wonders. The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly
discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his
whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely
leave his course to the silent judgment of time. Few great public men have
ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was
during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his
friends.14Zech. 13: 6. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from
without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by abolitionists; he
was assailed by slaveholders; he was assailed by men who were for peace at
any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecu-
tion of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war;
and he was most bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war.
BUT NOW BEHOLD THE CHANGE;
the judgment of the present hour is, that taking him for all in all, measuring
the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the neces-
sary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite
wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission
than was Abraham Lincoln. His birth, his training, and his natural endow-
ments, both mental and physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and
reared among the lowly, a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to
grapple single-handed with the flintiest hardships from tender youth to
sturdy manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities de-
manded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his
countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would have de-
pressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor and
buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He was ready for any
kind and any quality of work. What other young men dreaded in the shape
of toil, he took hold of with the utmost cheerfulness.
A spade, a rake, a hoe,
A pick-axe or a bill;
A hook to reap, a scythe to mow,
A flail, or what you will.15Douglass adapts the opening and refrain from Thomas Hood's “The Lay of the Laborer." Thomas Hood, The Poetical Works (Boston, 1857), 132-35.
ALL DAY LONG HE COULD SPLIT HEAVY RAILS
in the woods, and half the night long he could study his English grammar
by the uncertain flare and glare of the light made by a pine knot. He was at
home on the land with his axe, with his maul, with gluts and his wedges;
and he was equally at home on water, with his oars, with his poles, with his
planks and with his boathooks. And whether in his flatboat on the Mis-
sissippi river, or at the fireside of his frontier cabin, he was a man of work.
A son of toil himself he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of
toil in every loyal part of the Republic. This very fact gave him tremendous
power with the American people, and materially contributed not only to
selecting him to the Presidency, but in sustaining his administration of the
Government.
Upon his inauguration as President of the United States, an office even
where assumed under the most favorable conditions, it is fitted to tax and
strain the largest abilities, Abraham Lincoln was met by a tremendous
pressure.16Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on 4 March 1861; the first military confrontation of the Civil War occurred at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on 12 April 1861. He was called upon not merely to administer the Government,
but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic. A
formidable rebellion rose in his path before him; the Union was already
practically dissolved.17Within a few weeks of Abraham Lincoln’s electoral victory in 1860, South Carolina seceded, its legislature having passed the ordinance of secession on 20 December 1860 by a vote of 169 to 0. In the remaining months before Lincoln’s inauguration on 4 March 1861, six other states left the Union: Mississippi (9 January 1861), Alabama (9 January), Florida (10 January), Georgia (19 January), Louisiana (26 January), and Texas (1 February). His country was torn and rent asunder at the centre.
Hostile enemies were already organized against the Republic, armed with
the munitions of war which the Republic had provided for its own defense.
for him to decide was whether his country should survive the crisis and
flourish or be dismembered and perish. His predecessor in office18James Buchanan. had
already decided the question in favor of national dismemberment, by deny-
ing it the right of self-defense and self-preservation.
Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of
James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln,
the plebeian. He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school
of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate, he did not
doubt, he did not falter, but at once resolved at whatever peril, at whatever
cost, the union of the States should be preserved. A patriot himself, his
faith was firm and unwavering in the patriotism of his countrymen. Timid
men said before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration that we had seen the last
President of the United States. A voice in influential quarters said let the
Union slide. Some said that a Union maintained by the sword was worth-
less.19On 9 November 1860, an editorial in the New York Tribune stated, “We never hope to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to another by bayonets." Harper, Lincoln and the Press, 101. Others said a rebellion of 8,000,000 cannot be suppressed. But in
the midst of all this tumult and timidity, and against all this Abraham
Lincoln was clear in his duty, and had an oath in heaven. He calmly and
bravely heard the voice of doubt and fear all around him, but he had an oath
in heaven, and there was not power enough on the earth to make this honest
boatman, backwoodsman and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or vio-
late that sacred oath. He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery; his
plain life favored his love of truth. He had not been taught that treason and
perjury were the proofs of honor and honesty. His moral training was
against his saying one thing when he meant another. The trust which
Abraham Lincoln had of himself and in the people was surprising and
grand, but it was also enlightened and well founded. He knew the Ameri-
can people better than they knew themselves, and his truth was based upon
his knowledge.
Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which
flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous
constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted
to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down
but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief and
treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of
violence; killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of
personal hate, for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him, but
because of his fidelity to Union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and will
be precious forever.
Fellow-citizens, I end as I began, with congratulations. We have done a
good work for our race to-day. In doing honor to the memory of our friend
and liberator we have been doing highest honor to ourselves and those who
come after us. We have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame
imperishable and immortal. We have also been defending ourselves from a
blighting slander. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soul-
less; that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul
reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us
beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the
monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.