Frederick Douglass on Slavery and the Civil War by Frederick Douglass

Author:Frederick Douglass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2014-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

II. THE CIVIL WAR

How to End the War

TO OUR mind, there is but one easy, short and effectual way to suppress and put down the desolating war which the slaveholders and their rebel minions are now waging against the American Government and its loyal citizens. Fire must be met with water, darkness with light, and war for the destruction of liberty must be met with war for the destruction of slavery. The simple way, then, to put an end to the savage and desolating war now waged by the slaveholders, is to strike down slavery itself, the primal cause of that war.

Freedom to the slave should now be proclaimed from the Capitol, and should be above the smoke and fire of every battle field, waving from every battle field, waving from every flag. . . . LET THE SLAVES AND FREE COLORED PEOPLE BE CALLED INTO SERVICE, AND FORMED INTO A LIBERATING ARMY, to march into the South and raise the banner of Emancipation among the slaves. . . . We have no hesitation in saying that ten thousand black soldiers might be raised in the next ten days to march upon the South. One black regiment alone would be, in such a war, the full equal of two white ones. The very fact of color in this case would be more terrible than powder and balls. The slave would learn more as to the nature of the conflict from the presence of one such regiment, than from a thousand preachers. Every consideration of justice, humanity and sound policy confirms the wisdom of calling upon black men just now to take up arms in behalf of their country.1

From the first, I, for one, saw in this war the end of slavery; and truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the North was largely due to this belief. True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.

When Secretary Seward instructed our ministers to say to the governments to which they were accredited that, “terminate however it might, the status of no class of the people of the United States would be changed by the rebellion—that the slaves would be slaves still, and that the masters would be masters still"—when General McClellan and General Butler warned the slaves in advance that “if any attempt was made by them to gain their freedom it would be suppressed with an iron hand"—when the government persistently refused to employ Negro troops—when the Emancipation Proclamation of General John C. Fremont, in Missouri, was withdrawn—when slaves were being returned from our lines to their masters—when Union soldiers were stationed about the farm-houses of Virginia to guard and protect the master in holding his slaves—when Union soldiers made themselves more active in kicking Negro men out of their camps than in shooting rebels—when even Mr. Lincoln could tell the poor Negro that “he was the cause of the war,” I still believed, and spoke as I

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