The Underground Railroad Part 144

On the Union's b.l.o.o.d.y altar, Was your hapless victim laid; Mercy, truth and justice shuddered, But your hands would give no aid.

And ye sent her back to torture, Robbed of freedom and of right.

Thrust the wretched, captive stranger.

Back to slavery's gloomy night.

Back where brutal men may trample, On her honor and her fame; And unto her lips so dusky, Press the cup of woe and shame.

There is blood upon your city, Dark and dismal is the stain; And your hands would fail to cleanse it, Though Lake Erie ye should drain.

There's a curse upon your Union, Fearful sounds are in the air; As if thunderbolts were framing, Answers to the bondsman's prayer.

Ye may offer human victims, Like the heathen priests of old; And may barter manly honor For the Union and for gold.

But ye can not stay the whirlwind, When the storm begins to break; And our G.o.d doth rise in judgment, For the poor and needy's sake.

And, your sin-cursed, guilty Union, Shall be shaken to its base, Till ye learn that simple justice, Is the right of every race.

Mrs. Harper took the deepest interest in the war, and looked with extreme anxiety for the results; and she never lost an opportunity to write, speak, or serve the cause in any way that she thought would best promote the freedom of the slave. On the proclamation of General Fremont, the pa.s.sages from her pen are worthy to be long remembered:

"Well, what think you of the war? To me one of the most interesting features is Fremont's Proclamation freeing the slaves of the rebels. Is there no ray of hope in that? I should not wonder if Edward M. Davis breathed that into his ear. His proclamation looks like real earnestness; no mincing the matter with the rebels. Death to the traitors and confiscation of their slaves is no child's play. I hope that the boldness of his stand will inspire others to look the real cause of the war in the face and inspire the government with uncompromising earnestness to remove the festering curse. And yet I am not uneasy about the result of this war. We may look upon it as G.o.d's controversy with the nation; His arising to plead by fire and blood the cause of His poor and needy people. Some time since Breckinridge, in writing to Sumner, asks, if I rightly remember, What is the fate of a few negroes to me or mine? Bound up in one great bundle of humanity our fates seem linked together, our destiny entwined with theirs, and our rights are interwoven together."

Finally when the long-looked-for Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation came, although Mrs. Harper was not at that time very well, she accepted an invitation to address a public meeting in Columbus, Ohio, an allusion to which we find in a letter dated at Grove City, O., which we copy with the feeling that many who may read this volume will sympathize with every word uttered relative to the Proclamation:

"I spoke in Columbus on the President's Proclamation.... But was not such an event worthy the awakening of every power--the congratulation of every faculty? What hath G.o.d wrought! We may well exclaim how event after event has paved the way for freedom. In the crucible of disaster and defeat G.o.d has stirred the nation, and permitted no permanent victory to crown her banners while she kept her hand upon the trembling slave and held him back from freedom. And even now the scale may still seem to oscillate between the contending parties, and some may say, Why does not G.o.d give us full and quick victory? My friend, do not despair if even deeper shadows gather around the fate of the nation, that truth will not ultimately triumph, and the right be established and vindicated; but the deadly gangrene has taken such deep and almost fatal hold upon the nation that the very centres of its life seem to be involved in its eradication.

Just look, after all the trials deep and fiery through which the nation has waded, how mournfully suggestive was the response the proclamation received from the democratic triumphs which followed so close upon its footsteps. Well, thank G.o.d that the President did not fail us, that the fierce rumbling of democratic thunder did not shake from his hand the bolt he leveled against slavery. Oh, it would have been so sad if, after all the desolation and carnage that have dyed our plains with blood and crimsoned our borders with warfare, the pale young corpses trodden down by the hoofs of war, the dim eyes that have looked their last upon the loved and lost, had the arm of Executive power failed us in the nation's fearful crisis! For how mournful it is when the unrighted wrongs and fearful agonies of ages reach their culminating point, and events solemn, terrible and sublime marshal themselves in dread array to mould the destiny of nations, the hands appointed to hold the helm of affairs, instead of grasping the mighty occasions and stamping them with the great seals of duty and right, permit them to float along the current of circ.u.mstances without comprehending the hour of visitation or the momentous day of opportunity. Yes, we may thank G.o.d that in the hour when the nation's life was convulsed, and fearful gloom had shed its shadows over the land, the President reached out his hand through the darkness to break the chains on which the rust of centuries had gathered. Well, did you ever expect to see this day? I know that all is not accomplished; but we may rejoice in what has been already wrought,--the wondrous change in so short a time. Just a little while since the American flag to the flying bondman was an ensign of bondage; now it has become a symbol of protection and freedom. Once the slave was a despised and trampled on pariah; now he has become a useful ally to the American government. From the crimson sods of war springs the white flower of freedom, and songs of deliverance mingle with the crash and roar of war. The shadow of the American army becomes a covert for the slave, and beneath the American Eagle he grasps the key of knowledge and is lifted to a higher destiny."

This letter we had intended should complete the sketch of Mrs. Harper's Anti-Slavery labors; but in turning to another epistle dated Boston, April 19th, on the a.s.sa.s.sination of the President, we feel that a part of it is too interesting to omit:

"Sorrow treads on the footsteps of the nation's joy. A few days since the telegraph thrilled and throbbed with a nation's joy.

To-day a nation sits down beneath the shadow of its mournful grief. Oh, what a terrible lesson does this event read to us! A few years since slavery tortured, burned, hung and outraged us, and the nation pa.s.sed by and said, they had nothing to do with slavery where it was, slavery would have something to do with them where they were. Oh, how fearfully the judgments of Ichabod have pressed upon the nation's life! Well, it may be in the providence of G.o.d this blow was needed to intensify the nation's hatred of slavery, to show the utter fallacy of basing national reconstruction upon the votes of returned rebels, and rejecting loyal black men; making (after all the blood poured out like water, and wealth scattered like chaff) a return to the old idea that a white rebel is better or of more account in the body politic than a loyal black man.... Moses, the meekest man on earth, led the children of Israel over the Red Sea, but was not permitted to see them settled in Canaan. Mr. Lincoln has led up through another Red Sea to the table land of triumphant victory, and G.o.d has seen fit to summon for the new era another man. It is ours then to bow to the Chastener and let our honored and loved chieftain go. Surely the everlasting arms that have hushed him so strangely to sleep are able to guide the nation through its untrod future; but in vain should be this fearful baptism of blood if from the dark bosom of slavery springs such terrible crimes. Let the whole nation resolve that the whole virus shall be eliminated from its body; that in the future slavery shall only be remembered as a thing of the past that shall never have the faintest hope of a resurrection."

Up to this point, we have spoken of Mrs. Harper as a laborer, battling for freedom under slavery and the war. She is equally earnest in laboring for Equality before the law--education, and a higher manhood, especially in the South, among the Freedmen.

For the best part of several years, since the war, she has traveled very extensively through the Southern States, going on the plantations and amongst the lowly, as well as to the cities and towns, addressing schools, Churches, meetings in Court Houses, Legislative Halls, &c., and, sometimes, under the most trying and hazardous circ.u.mstances; influenced in her labor of love, wholly by the n.o.ble impulses of her own heart, working her way along unsustained by any Society. In this mission, she has come in contact with all cla.s.ses--the original slaveholders and the Freedmen, before and since the Fifteenth Amendment bill was enacted. Excepting two of the Southern States (Texas and Arkansas), she has traveled largely over all the others, and in no instance has she permitted herself, through fear, to disappoint an audience, when engagements had been made for her to speak, although frequently admonished that it would be dangerous to venture in so doing.

We first quote from a letter dated Darlington, S.C., May 13, 1867:

"You will see by this that I am in the sunny South.... I here read and see human nature under new lights and phases. I meet with a people eager to hear, ready to listen, as if they felt that the slumber of the ages had been broken, and that they were to sleep no more.... I am glad that the colored man gets his freedom and suffrage together; that he is not forced to go through the same condition of things here, that has inclined him so much to apathy, isolation, and indifference, in the North.

You, perhaps, wonder why I have been so slow in writing to you, but if you knew how busy I am, just working up to or past the limit of my strength. Traveling, conversing, addressing day and Sunday-schools (picking up sc.r.a.ps of information, takes up a large portion of my time), besides what I give to reading. For my audiences I have both white and colored. On the cars, some find out that I am a lecturer, and then, again, I am drawn into conversation. 'What are you lecturing about?' the question comes up, and if I say, among other topics politics, then I may look for an onset. There is a sensitiveness on this subject, a dread, it may be, that some one will 'put the devil in the n.i.g.g.e.r's head,' or exert some influence inimical to them; still, I get along somewhat pleasantly. Last week I had a small congregation of listeners in the cars, where I sat. I got in conversation with a former slave dealer, and we had rather an exciting time.

I was traveling alone, but it is not worth while to show any signs of fear. * * *Last Sat.u.r.day I spoke in Sumter; a number of white persons were present, and I had been invited to speak there by the Mayor and editor of the paper. There had been some violence in the district, and some of my friends did not wish me to go, but I had promised, and, of course, I went. * * * *

I am in Darlington, and spoke yesterday, but my congregation was so large, that I stood near the door of the church, so that I might be heard both inside and out, for a large portion, perhaps nearly half my congregation were on the outside; and this, in Darlington, where, about two years ago, a girl was hung for making a childish and indiscreet speech. Victory was perched on our banners. Our army had been through, and this poor, ill-fated girl, almost a child in years, about seventeen years of age, rejoiced over the event, and said that she was going to marry a Yankee and set up housekeeping. She was reported as having made an incendiary speech and arrested, cruelly scourged, and then brutally hung. Poor child! she had been a faithful servant--her master tried to save her, but the tide of fury swept away his efforts. * * * Oh, friend, perhaps, sometimes your heart would ache, if you were only here and heard of the wrongs and abuses to which these people have been subjected. * * *

Things, I believe, are a little more hopeful; at least, I believe, some of the colored people are getting better contracts, and, I understand, that there's less murdering. While I am writing, a colored man stands here, with a tale of wrong--he has worked a whole year, year before last, and now he has been put off with fifteen bushels of corn and his food; yesterday he went to see about getting his money, and the person to whom he went, threatened to kick him off, and accused him of stealing. I don't know how the colored man will vote, but perhaps many of them will be intimidated at the polls."

From a letter dated Cheraw, June 17th, 1867, the following remarks are taken:

"Well, Carolina is an interesting place. There is not a state in the Union I prefer to Carolina. Kinder, more hospitable, warmer-hearted people perhaps you will not find anywhere. I have been to Georgia; but Carolina is my preference. * * The South is to be a great theatre for the colored man's development and progress. There is brain-power here. If any doubt it, let him come into our schools, or even converse with some of our Freedmen either in their homes or by the way-side."

A few days later she gave an account of a visit she had just made in Florence, where our poor soldiers had been prisoners; saw some of the huts where they were exposed to rain and heat and cold with only the temporary shelter they made for themselves, which was a sad sight. Then she visited the grave-yards of some thousands of Union soldiers. Here in "eastern South Carolina" she was in "one of the worst parts of the State" in the days of Slavery; but under the new order of things, instead of the lash, she saw school books, and over the ruins of slavery, education and free speech springing up, at which she was moved to exclaim, "Thank G.o.d for the wonderful change! I have lectured several nights this week, and the weather is quite warm; but I do like South Carolina. No state in the Union as far as colored people are concerned, do I like better--the land of warm welcomes and friendly hearts. G.o.d bless her and give her great peace!"

At a later period she visited Charleston and Columbia, and was well received in both places. She spoke a number of times in the different Freedmen schools and the colored churches in Charleston, once in the Legislative Hall, and also in one of the colored churches in Columbia.

She received special encouragement and kindness from Hon. H. Cadoza, Secretary of State, and his family, and regarded him as a wise and upright leader of his race in that state.

The following are some stirring lines which she wrote upon the Fifteenth Amendment:

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.

Beneath the burden of our joy Tremble, O wires, from East to West!

Fashion with words your tongues of fire, To tell the nation's high behest.

Outstrip the winds, and leave behind The murmur of the restless waves; Nor tarry with your glorious news, Amid the ocean's coral caves.

Ring out! ring out! your sweetest chimes, Ye bells, that call to praise; Let every heart with gladness thrill, And songs of joyful triumph raise.

Shake off the dust, O rising race!

Crowned as a brother and a man; Justice to-day a.s.serts her claim, And from thy brow fades out the ban.

With freedom's chrism upon thy head, Her precious ensign in thy hand, Go place thy once despised name Amid the n.o.blest of the land.

O ransomed race! give G.o.d the praise, Who led thee through a crimson sea, And 'mid the storm of fire and blood, Turned out the war-cloud's light to thee.

Mrs. Harper, in writing from Kingstree, S.C., July 11th, 1867, in midsummer (laboring almost without any pecuniary reward), gave an account of a fearful catastrophe which had just occurred there in the burning of the jail with a number of colored prisoners in it. "It was a very sad affair. There was only one white prisoner and he got out. I believe there was some effort made to release some of the prisoners; but the smoke was such that the effort proved ineffectual. Well, for the credit of our common human nature we may hope that it was so. * * *