Foreign Miscellany: "Candid Review of the Effect of the President's Proclamation" (1863)

Foreign Miscellany: "Candid Review of the Effect of the President's Proclamation" (1863) 

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: March 21, 1863

Lieut. Col. Billings, who went out as Chaplain of the 3d New Hampshire regiment, but subsequently received a commission as Lieutenant Colonel, write a New Hampshire paper, under date of Camp saxon, Beaufort, S.C., Dec. 29 as follows:

"I was authorized to order the evacuation of St. Simon's Island, georgia, and took off ex-slaves, horses, cattle, rice, corn, etc., leaving nothing of value. The splendid mansion once occupied by that ex-United States Senator and arch-rebel T. Butler King, is on this island, and we stripped it of every thing. I write this letter on the writing-desk, which, with his piano, were presented to me on my return."

We copy the following candid review of the effect of the President's Proclamation, from the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald, a republican paper which advocated Mr. Lincoln's election and supports his Administration:

The effect of the Proclamation of Emancipation must have been very small on the slaves. They were well aware tat it was to be issued, and form the state of its promise to its appearance they had ample time to prepare for insurrection, if so they had been inclined and opportunity had presented. It came out during the holidays, when they had the greatest liberty; when they would most assemble, and more than at any other period of the year talk to each other. But the holidays came and went, and no sign of insurrection appeared in the whole South; and we put it down as certain, if not then, that never will the negroes rise against their masters at our call. A few contrabands in Norfolk, Beaufort and New Orleans, were jubilant overt their newly received freedom. They were negroes influenced by the whites around them; and if Jeff Davis had held the same place and given them a holiday, there would have been as much rejoicing. 

We were told by those demanding the proclamation that no sooner would it be issued than the slaves would respond to it from all quarters, and in the most distant States; that the troops from the far South would be obliged to leave Virginia and Tennessee to protect their homes-the lives of their wives and children; that the whole Confederacy would be thrown into confusion, and a single regiment of Federal soldiers might march from Washington to Richmond. Can anybody see to-day where the rebels have been weakened by it? Can anybody tell how the Federal army has been strengthened by it? On the contrary, are not the rebels more determined and stronger than before? and are not the loyalists more divided and weaker? Is not this the main cause of the struggling of our army-that men are opposed to the policy, and care not to fight on the question of emancipation? If it be not so, we are mistaken. The larger part of the army would confine the war strictly to a defense of the Union and the Constitution; and when they struggle now, the nine hundred thousand who were to rally at the call of Horace Greeley do not appear; nor are the roads thronged in New England by fresh volunteers, as Governor Andrews predicted. To make the best of it, the proclamation falls a dead letter.

In regard to emancipation, we mistook on two points. First, we mistook-that is everybody who believed so-in thinking that the slaves sympathized with us, and looked to us for help. The contrary is true universally, and their education for generations has made it so. They hate us; distrust us; have no hope in us; while they cling confidently to their masters, work for them patiently, and will die bravely for them, if their masters are present where their eye can direct and voices command. We may may make ten thousand arguments to the contrary, but here is the plain and stubborn fact, substantiated by every day's experience. Thousands of slaves might come within our lines to-day and be free, who refuse to do so, quietly working on their owner's plantations. There are probably not more fugitives this year than common, where they do not come in an immediate contact with Northern white men.

Then we are mistaken again in deeming this a favorable time for insurrection. We said, when the men have gone to war the slaves will rise; but be it noticed that slaves seldom rise in time of war, for then the country is armed. Every man and every woman in the South can at once lay their hands on rifles and revolvers; and then, too, they are more closely guarded. If there was an insurrection in peaceful times the slaves could flee, many escaping, and of those taken few would be killed. Now let there be an insurrection and the massacre will commence, and the blacks will be indiscriminately butchered in the whole region of the country alarmed. There has never been a day since the Dutchmen landed the first cargo of slaves, when an insurrection would be so promptly;y and so thoroughly subdued as now. The negroes know better about this than their white friends at the North, and they will keep still; and if there is no insurrection, the proclamation of emancipation will have no more effect to shorten the war, than did Mr. Lincoln's first proclamation ordering the rebels to disperse in thirty days. 

[From a private letter dated New Orleans, Jan. 29, 1863]

The Tiltons were immensely wealthy; had built the most splendid house in New Orleans, furnished it entirely from Paris in corresponding style. Just before the war they shut up this house and went to Europe for Mr. Tilton's health. When Butler came to New orleans he immediately too possession of this grand house, confiscated all the property it contained, stripped it of its valuables and sold all, even Mrs. Tilton's dresses and other clothes, which she had left at home. Her sister, still in New Orleans, not dreaming that such property would be taken, asked to have her sister's wearing apparel and was refused. Butler sold them all!