Martyria Part 1

Martyria.

by Augustus C. Hamlin.

NOTE.

The author presents for review neither style nor language: he offers simply the story of the wrong and the heroism, the cause and effect, as it rises in his mind.

Neither does he, at this late date, seek to rekindle the smouldering embers of hate and conflict, nor, Antony-like, attack persons under the recital of the wrongs. Vengeance does not belong to the human race. There are times in the history of men when human invectives are without force.

"There are deeds of which men are no judges, and which mount, without appeal, direct to the tribunal of G.o.d."

AUGUSTUS CHOATE HAMLIN.

BANGOR, September, 1866.

MARTYRIA.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"They never fail who die In a great cause. * * * *

They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others, and conduct The world at last to freedom."

_Byron._

I.

History weighs the social inst.i.tutions of men in the scale of Humanity.

Time, slowly but surely, acc.u.mulates the evidence which relates to their materials. It calmly but firmly unveils the statues which men erect as their principles, and with "that retributive justice which G.o.d has implanted in our very acts, as a conscience more sacred than the fatalism of the ancients," lays bare the secret springs of action which have prompted the deeds of heroism or baseness, of virtue or crime.

Nations are political inst.i.tutions, and like the system of nature, which is governed by positive and fixed laws, so they likewise are swayed and directed by mysterious forces, and influenced and moulded into form by those external circ.u.mstances which are greatly within the control of man.

Their rise and decadence is in direct ratio to the nature and integrity of their customs, the structure of their social fabrics, the vigor of the spirit of independence which animates their thoughts, or the strength of the despotism which consumes their vitals. "Liberty brings benedictions in spite of nature, and in defiance of the same nature tyranny brings maledictions. Slavery has always produced only villany, vice, and misery."

Men cannot perpetuate a creed or a system that is not founded on the eternal principles of justice and virtue, no more than they can control the elements--no more than they can remove or obliterate those geographical boundaries, beyond which the human races cannot pa.s.s in pursuit of the forms of wealth or the dreams of ambition.

The Belgian, who has studied so long and so faithfully the laws of metaphysics, exclaims, "All those things which appear to be left to the free will, the pa.s.sions, or the degree of intelligence of men, are regulated by laws as fixed, immutable, and eternal as those which govern the phenomena of the natural world!"

II.

Along the southern tier of the great States which form the American Republic, whose gigantic structure and almost supernatural vigor already overshadow and animate the older civilizations of the world, we observe vast extents of level and alluvial lands and deltas, or "rather a series of littoral bands of remarkable disposition," which the ocean left when receding from the mountain sh.o.r.es of the interior to its present limits, or which slowly and gradually emerged from their watery bed in the upheavals during the long intervals of the earth's ages.

This immense territory, stretching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and hardly broken throughout this long distance by undulations of the soil, embraces more than six hundred thousand square miles--an extent greater than that of France and the States of the Germanic Confederation combined.

Eight millions of human souls inhabit the one, whilst one hundred millions people the other. Ignorance and brutality darken the one, intelligence and humanity illuminate the other.

III.

The proximity of the sea, the configuration of the soil, the presence or absence of mountains, affect the growth and character of nations, and leave their impress upon their inst.i.tutions. Climate and purity of blood complete the determination in the problem of life, the progress and degree of development. Upon these external causes also depend, in a great measure, the vigor of the imagination, the sentiment of the grand and the beautiful, the vivacity and purity of the soul.

The cold breezes of the temperate zones conduce men to wisdom, reason, and philosophy. The enervating atmospheres of hot climes incline the mind and body to repose, and often pervert the notions of natural justice. In the one, the mind is ever delighted and refreshed by the varying scenes of nature; in the other, the forms of the mournful and the terrible alone excite the imagination.

IV.

We have seen these lands occupied for more than two centuries by the emigrants from European countries; we have seen the reckless adventurer, the n.o.ble exile, the fugitive from justice, the outcast of society, blended together here in the experiment of colonization.

The form is still the same, for form is always more persistent than material in organic life, but the sterling and generous qualities of the primitive stock have greatly changed.

We have seen in these lands Slavery--that relic of barbarism, that leprosy, the foulest that ever preyed upon the vitals of any state--transplanted by that accursed Dutch ship, under the guise of Humanity, flourish, increase, and a.s.sume, during this brief period, the proportions of a despotism so powerful, so tenacious, as to defy and resist, almost successfully, the entire strength and resources of the Republic, enriching the slave faction with enormous wealth, but debasing and deteriorating the morals, the blood of the poor and non-slaveholding whites.

This increase of three millions of black men were held in bondage as human cattle by a few thousand white men. To these unfortunate creatures society extended no generosity, no consideration, but what reduced them still lower in the scale of organized beings, and chained them more closely in the sordid and selfish interests of their remorseless masters. To teach the black man to read, even the light of the divine Gospel, was a matter of fine, and imprisonment, and sometimes death.

V.

Seeking to perpetuate this atrocious system, this right of brute force over the helpless black, and establish a despotism with Slavery as its basis, the arrogant faction boldly took up arms against the Republic.

"When Fortune," says the Latin historian, "is determined upon the ruin of a people, she can so blind them as to render them insensible to danger, even of the greatest magnitude."

Their appeals to arms were in the name of justice and glory, but they were without the echo of liberty and humanity. They summoned the ma.s.ses of poor whites, whom they had degraded below the level of the slave, to rise and fight for their liberties, which were as empty as the winds of the desert.

There were no liberties, no privileges for the poor whites, but to curse poverty and question G.o.d's providence.

The individual desires of the few had usurped and swallowed up the rights of society. There was no society but the relation between the black man and his master. The law, order, and force were all within the control of the rich slaveholder.

The ma.s.ses were either their tools, or too abject to be considered as dangerous; too ignorant to be feared as seditious, too poor to be regarded as anything more than trash, below the level and the value of the negro.

This condition of the poor whites was the result of physical, political, and moral causes, long and silently at work.

VI.

The pretence for strife was resistance to oppression, and the extension and perfection of liberty to the ma.s.ses; yet they impelled the people to pa.s.sion, without mingling a single truth with the illusions with which they decorated their standards. Whilst they talked of the independent spirit of the new government, and the glory of resisting the oppressive policy of the invaders, every act and edict gathered closer and stronger the bonds which degraded and burdened the poor white.

The owner of seven slaves was exempt from the hazard of battle, but poverty and starvation of family were no causes of exemption for the non-slaveholder.

The real design, concealed by the strife, was the foundation of an empire of gigantic and seductive form, radiant and glittering with the splendid architecture of aristocratic sovereignty, but without reason or conscience.

The resolve was to control the production of the princ.i.p.al staples of industry and trade, and subject the commercial world to their caprices.

Thus they preferred the intoxications of conquest, the gratifications of l.u.s.t, to the triumphs of true civilization, to the congratulations of a redeemed race. They cared not for reputation among the nations of the earth, nor immortality, nor renown; and they neglected or despised those happy stars which, now and then, conduct men and races to glory. "Glory belongs to the G.o.d in heaven; upon the earth it is the lot of virtue, and not of genius--of that virtue which is useful, grand, beneficent, brilliant, heroic."

VII.

Revolutions almost always spring from the n.o.ble and generous enthusiasm of youth; but seditions arise from the vulgar and ign.o.ble crowd, or from the outcast few, who would, for wealth, sacrifice all that honor and nature hold dear; or for the meaner gratifications of self-aggrandizement, would crumble into dust, and scatter to the winds of the earth, the n.o.blest inst.i.tutions and laws of mankind. Who will say that this resort to arms was an insurrection of justice in favor of the weak, or that it was a revolt of nature against tyranny?

The agitations of revolutions stir up the innermost natures of men, and from the revelations out of the depths appear the extreme qualities of the soul, elevated or debased, according to the inspirations from Heaven or the influence of a vile cause.