Things to be Remembered: Washington's Birthday, 1862

Source: The Polynesian: Honolulu. Saturday, February 22, 1862

-That to-day is Washington's birthday, Feb. 22, -a star in the calendar of every country where manhood, patriotism and moderation are appreciated; a star in the imperishable zenith of God's own elect. On his grave let North and South sit down together and renew the pledges which they gave yore. Let that day be a day of truce, and that truce lengthen into peace. Let not that day be sullied by drawn swords or angry words. Let mutual sacrifices bind up the garland on his tomb; and let the world see that his noble spirit, the "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," has not entirely fled from the land that calls him its own!

Poem: The Unseen Battle-Field: 1862

The Unseen Battle-Field
Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: December 4, 1862.

There is an unseen battle-field
In every human breast,
Where two opposing forces meet,
But where they seldom rest.

The field is failed from mortal sight;
'Tis only seen by One,
Who knows alone where victory lies,
When each day's fight is done.

One army clusters strong and fierce,
Their chief of demon-form;
Hs brow is like the thunder cloud,
His voice a bursting storm.

His captains, Pride, and Lust, and Hate,
Whose troops watch night and day,
Swift to detect the weakest point,
And thrusting for the fray.

Contending with this mighty force,
Is but a little band;
Yet these, with an unyielding front,
Those warriors firmly stand.

Their leader is a God-like form,
Of countenance serene;
And glowing on his naked breast,
A simple Cross is seen.

His captains, Faith, and Hope, and Love,
Point to the wondrous sign,
And gazing at it, all receive,
Strength from a source divine.

They feel it speaks a glorious truth,
A truth as great as sure,
That to the victors they must learn
To love, confide, endure.

That faith sublime, in wildest strike,
Imparts a holy calm;
In every deadly blow a shield,
For every wound a balm.

And when they win that battle-field,
Past toil is quite forgot;
The plain where carnage once had reigned,
Becomes a hallowed spot.

A spot where flowers of joy and peace
Spring from the fertile sod,
And breathes the perfume of their praise
On every breeze-to God.

The Perils of Emancipation: 1863

The Perils of Emancipation
Source: The Polynesian, Honolulu. February 7, 1863

"My dear Abbe," sad Mirabeau to the Abbe Sieyes, "you have unchained the bull; do you expect he is not to gore with his horns?" This spirit interrogatory may with still greater force be addressed to President Lincoln after the ominous first of January, if he should succeed in making good the proclamation he proposes then to issue. What was there in the aspect of the French populace on the day of the meeting of the States-General from which even the acutest mind could have inferred the thick-coming excesses and atrocities which converted Paris into a grand carnival of devils? Those terrible orgies were the intoxication produced by a sudden change in the condition and hopes of the lower orders, of whom the Abbe Sieyes said: "They would be free, and they know not how to be just." Do the southern negroes occupy a higher rank in the scale of intelligence and virtue than did the free laborers, mechanics and shop-keepers of the French capital? Is the change proposed for them less great and sudden? Are the hopes it is calculated to inspire less wild and chimerical? Are the enthusiasts, under whose tutelage the negroes are likely to fall, less absurdly fanatical and ferocious? Let the reply be found in the respect they pay to the memory of St. John Brown. Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson is a mild and amiable type of this class of enthusiasts, and he blasphemously compared the execution of John Brown on the gallows to the crucifixion of Christ on the cross. If they did these things on the green tree what shall they not do do in the dry? If a mild and amiable litterateur, before the civil war had stirred up its fierce and envenomed passions, could thus sanctify and hallow the attempt of a courageous felon to incite the negroes to cut the throats of their masters, what moderation is to be expected from coarse abolition leaders, when backed by the government in an attempt to exterminate slavery at all hazards?

It is idle to say, as Gen. Wadsworth said in his electioneering letter, that the negroes are a mild and harmless race, who will never resort to violence. The horrors of San Domingo furnish one of a hundred answers to this piece of silly optimism. t is as certain as that there is a sun in the heavens, that the emancipation policy will not succeed at all, or else that its success will be accompanied by wide-spread, servile insurrections, and followed, at a longer or shorter interval, by a war of extermination between the back and white races. Jefferson, himself the sworn foe of slavery, wrote to John Holmes in 1820: "I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property (for so it is misnamed) is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if in that way a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither safely hold him nor let him go. Justice is in one scale and self-preservation in the other." If negroes could not be emancipated, even by the South itself, and remain in the country, without dangers from which this bold apostle of liberty shrank back in horror, it bis likely that emancipation can be effected by armed force, against the armed opposition of the masters, without raising and letting loose the fiercest passions of the subject race?

It may be said that Jefferson was a Southerner and a slaveholder, and therefore no impartial judge of the perils of emancipation. But that fact that he had spent his life in the South, and had reflected earnestly on this question from his youth, is at least favorable to his knowledge, if not to his impartiality; an impeachment of which would come with peculiarly bad grace from the abolitionists. There is no honored name among our patriot ancestors which is so often in their mouths; there is nothing which they are so fond of questing as political apothegms drawn form his writings. But as his testimony may, nevertheless be excepted to on the ground that being a slaveholder, he seas an interested party, we will produce that of a more recent, and even more philosophical judge of the inevitable results of emancipation. It is no less a name than that of De Tocqueville, the calmest, ablest, and most far-seeing critic our institutions ever had, and, by universal consent, the first political philosopher of this century. De Tocqueville says: "The danger of a conflict between the white and black inhabitants of the Southern States of the Union-a danger which, however remote it may be, is inevitable-perpetually haunts the imagination of the Americans. * * * I confess I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle between the two races in the United States. The negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites they will speedily declare themselves as enemies. * * * When I contemplate the condition of the South I can only discern two alternatives which may be adopted by the white inhabitants of those States, viz., either to emancipate the negroes and to intermingle with them; or, remaining isolated from them, to keep them in a state of slavery as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to be likely to terminate and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars, and perhaps in the extirpation of one or the other of the two races."

The mad fanatics who domineer over the minds of the President and lead him captive at their will, of course scout all such gloomy predictions.; but we submit to candid men the question whether these passionate fools are more likely to be good judges than men like Jefferson and De Tocqueville.

Gen Rousseau: Opinion on Fate of Slavery if War Continues: 1862

Gen. Rousseau, of Kentucky Gives His Opinion of the Fate of Slavery if the War Continues
Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: September 18, 1862. 

A monster banquet was given in louisville on the 17th, to Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau, of the Louisville Legion, who displayed great gallantry at Shiloh. Hon. James Guthrie presided. Gen. Rousseau, in response to a toast, used the following language, which, coming from one of the strongest conservatives in the army, in entitled to great consideration:

"Gen. Halleck's army in its intercourse with the secessionists, has pleaded and is still pleading for peace under the old Government, offering to our Southern brethren all they ever had, and claiming nothing except in common with them. They want to take nothing from any one, but desire that their Southern brethren shall enjoy all their rights unimpaired. But the negro is in the way, inspire of all that can be done or said. Standing before the eyes of the secessionists, the negro hides all the blessings of our Government, throwing a black shadow on the sun itself. If it had been any other species of property that stood in the way, the army, provoked as it has been, would, willingly have seen its quick destruction.  But the negro they did not wish to interfere with in any way. Yet, with all its conservatism and patriotism, the army has grown weary of this insane cry of "abolitionism" as a cause for breaking up the Government. I have warned our Southern friends of the danger of continuing it much longer; and I tell you to-night that, if this war continues a year from this day, there will not be a slave on this continent. The great revolution will take care of itself-the dead will bury its dead-and those who are causing all the bloodshed and desolation around us under the false pretense that we desire to free their negroes, will, if they persist, one day will find slavery snuffed out as you snuff out a candle. Slavery is not worth our Government. It is not worth our liberty. It is not worth all the precious blood now being poured out for freedom. It is not worth the free navigation of the Mississippi River. No; we must still have our Government-if not as it now is, with slavery in it, still we must have our Government. We cannot be slaves to Jeff. Davis & Co. We must and will be free. We must have the free navigation of the Mississippi River; and if slavery gets in the way of any of these rights, why slavery must get out of the way. That would be the last resort, and I should be sorry to have recourse to it; but I am for the Government of our fathers against all things and everybody. Whilst the liberties of the people are secure under it, as they ever have been, I would allow nothing but death to prevent my upholding it. And, loth as you may be to decide, you will soon, as I believe, be called upon to do so. In spite of your entreaties, the issue will be cruelly thrust upon you, and you will be forced to decide between slavery and your wives and children. As for me, I am ready for the responsibility. A Southern man as I am, born and brought up in the South, I could not hesitate one moment when the issue is presented between the nigger and the Government of our fathers. I am for the Government of the United States against all its enemies. I hope and pray that our Northern friends will not force us to extremes on this sensitive point. We deprecate such a result, for we want our rights under the Constitution, and we are ready to fight for theirs under the good old Government. I would to-day most willingly gird on my sword and fight for any right belonging to them, slavery included; but they must not put slavery between me and the Government and laws of the United States. I will not consent to become a slave that the negro may be kept a slave. I will not sacrifice the happiness of my wife, children, and friends, the welfare of my beloved State, and the glory of my country on an altar dedicated to the 'Ebony Idol.'" 

The Contrabands: 1863

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: July 23, 1863. 

The telegram tells that in addition to the colored troops already organized on the banks of the Mississippi, there are 20,000 in camp awaiting organization! Upon this subject W.S. Post, Chaplain of the Eighty-first Illinois, writes from Memphis April 28th, to the Missouri Democrat, saying:

"I am just up from Gen. Grant's army, near Vicksburg. Our loyal men may want to know from me, as well as from other soldiers, how the men in the army are pleased with the new policy of the Administration on the vexed 'contraband' question. I can only say the policy as announced by Maj. Gen. Thomas at lake providence and elsewhere among the troops, meets with a hearty response from our noble soldiers. Entire unanimity of the sentiment and harmony of feeling seem to prevail. I have never known the army in such excellent condition, physically and morally, as at the present time. I have been appointed agent in the sanitary business for the Third Division-Maj. Gen. John A. Logan's- and have thus occasion to travel much among our soldiers. From extensive observation as well as inquiry among them, I am fully satisfied that disaffection and discord are banished from their ranks, and that lofty patriotism and sublime endurance characterize our men. Unlimited confidence is expressed in our leaders, Gens. Grant, McPherson, Logan and others, and unbounded respect cherished for them.

Since our great and wondrous revival under the preaching of such true and high toned men as Adjutant Gen. Thomas, Gen. McPherson and Gen. Logan, a great and astonishing change has come over the spirit of our dreams. The army is a unit in favor of the policy of  our Administration-ready to die for the grand and glorious cause in which we are engaged. The second running of the blockade at Vicksburg, and the activity and energy now displayed in Gen. Grant's department are cheering and hopeful signs on the final success of our arms." 

The Hilton Head, South Carolina, correspondent of the New York Times, says:

"Drafting all the able bodied negroes into the army is being prosecuted vigorously. On Friday last a meeting was held at Hilton Head, to which the blacks were invited. A crowd came and listened to the addresses from several gentlemen explanatory of the object of the Government in ordering a drait. The enthusiasm of the negroes was excited, upon a call for volunteers every able-bodied man in the audience stepped forward and asked to have his named enrolled. By this means one hundred recruits for Col. Bennett's Third Regiment of South Carolina volunteers were obtained. On Hilton Head Island there are 600 blacks capable of bearing arms, and they are at once to be organized into companies-passing half their time in drilling, and half at work in the Quartermaster's Department. The First black regiment (Col. Higginson's) is doing good service on outpost duty at Port Ferry. The men are in plain sight of the rebels, who express great disgust at having to contend against their late servants. The Second regiment (Col. Montgomery's) is encamped near Beaufort. It numbers 600 men, who evince aptness in acquiring military knowledge." 

Arming the Blacks: 1862

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser: September 18, 1862, 4th page.

The policy of declaring general emancipation of the slaves of rebels and of employing them in the Union armies to aid in crushing the rebellion, is fast gaining friends in Congress and the country. Its adoption has long been looked upon as only a question of time, should the war last; and it would perhaps have been decided upon before this except for the radical fanatics who ceaselessly vituperate everybody who did not believe the time had come when it was wise or necessary to employ that element of power. There are a few thoughtful men who have ever taken ground against employing the negroes except upon argument of temporary expediency. When the time for using the blacks shall have forced itself upon the country, few loyal men will be found to oppose it; and that time seems to be rapidly approaching if the rebellion shall long continue to maintain its formidable proportions. An interesting debate on this subject occurred in the Senate on Wednesday last. Senators Grimes of Iowa, Sherman of Ohio, Fessenden of Maine, Rice of Minn., and Wilson of Mass., spoke strongly in favor of arming the slaves; Senators Saulsbury of Delaware and Carlisle of Va., opposed it; Senator Collamer argued that the laws confined the militia to white men; Senator Davis of Ky., opposed employing negroes as soldiers, but would use them as laborers; and Senator King of New York proposed to receive into the service persons of African descent, "for the purpose of constructing intrenchments or other camp service or labor for which they are fitted." The question was treated entirely in its practical bearings, and with a view to legislation for filling up the new requisition of troops called for by the President. The speakers were very serious, and their views were evidently greatly affected by the recent rebel doings on the Peninsula. There was strong opposition to what was called the "white-kid-gloved," "rosewater" mode of conducting the war; and Mr. Sherman argued that we "could not fight against savages unless we become part savage ourselves," and that "rather than that the Union should be destroyed, he would organize a great army of black men and desolate every Southern State." Other speakers were not behind this in strength of expression or in determination to adopt any and every means to put down the rebellion.

President Buchanan on Secession: 1861

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: Thursday, February 7, 1861.

I should feel myself recreant to my duty, were I to fail to express an opinion on the important subject. The question, fairly stated, is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to force a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has already withdrawn from the confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power as been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the instrument that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not necessary and proper for carrying into execution any one of those powers. So far from especially refused by the Convention which formed the Constitution. It appears from the proceedings of that body, on the 31st of May, 1787, that the clause authorizing an execution of the force of the whole Government against a delinquent State came up for consideration. Mr. Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed: "The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." Upon this motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented.

Soon after, on the 8th of June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to this subject, he said, any government for the United States, founded on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress; evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old Confederation.

Without descending to particularize, it may be safely asserted, that the power to make war against a State, is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. Suppose such a war should result in the conquest of a State; how are we to govern it afterwards? Shall we hold it as a province, and govern it by a despotic power? In the nature of things, we could not be by physical force control the will of the people, and compel them to elect Senators and Representatives to Congress, and to perform all the other duties of a free State, as a constitutional member of the Confederacy. But if we are possessed of the power, would it be wise to exercise it, under the existing circumstances? The object would be, doubtless, to preserve the Union, yet it would not only present the most effectual means of destroying it, but would banish all hopes for its peaceful reconstruction; besides, in the fraternal conflict, a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future reconciliation between trhe States impossible.