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A. LincolnLetter from Henry C. Wright |
From The Liberator, published on January 2, 1863Cooperstown, N.Y. - Dec. 4, 1862 Dear Garrison -- I send you an excerpt from a letter, just received yesterday from a nephew, in the army, who is Assistant Quartermaster of a division, and has daily and hourly opportunities to know and relieve the wants of the self-emancipated slaves who find protection within our lines in the slave States. He is a noble young man of 23, and enlisted to fight for liberty against slavery. A brother of his was shot, and his body lies in the slavery-cursed soil of Tennessee. As soon as his brother fell, this one took his place. If this one falls, another brother stands ready to take his place. The noble mother and father said: -- "Some homes and hearts must be made desolate. They may as well be ours as others." God bless them for their self-abnegation! Some hearts must bleed, some homes must be made desolate, or slavery will rule the nation and continent. But hear the testimony of my brave and noble nephew, touching the Proclamation, and it's results:-- "I rejoice, with you, in the Proclamation of our Executive. That proclamation is destined to render Abraham Lincoln's memory of long duration. His name, together with the great philanthropist of Russia, will be immortal. But of one thing I am fearful! Indeed, I see it already--i.e. the people of the North are not preparing for the Proclamation. They are not making a commensurate effort to prepare for the freed slaves. Let me tell you, unless some preparation is made ere the first of January for the emancipated slaves, we shall see a reign of starvation worse than Ireland ever saw. I forsee that event thus: -- In this city, the colored people who escape from slavery to our lines are dying of starvation. Scores of contraband daily arrive. They flock within our lines. We protect them; we render their freedom secure; but, alas! Freedom cannot supply them food. So, in many instances, they die. We have a Contraband Depot here, consisting of one house -- quite a large one. The house is filled to overflowing, and the street for rods is literally filled with them. I have seen 500 men, women and children at that Depot. Frequently they come into our lines in gangs of over one hundred: -- when a large number congregate, they are sent away -- where, I know not. In other places, the freed slaves are starving to death. To sleep together in streets, by hundreds, as they do, would surely kill white people. Now, the North must awake to the great trust of supplying the wants of the poor, despised, long-suffering slaves, or scenes of terrible suffering must ensue. I could tell you many instances that have come under my own observation that have touched me deeply, and would rejoice your heart: -- one will suffice. As I was riding by the Contraband Depot, not long since, I overtook an old slave and his wife, just as they arrived at the house from their bondage to a traitor. A girl of 15 came out of the door, and met them, and instantly recognized in the man and woman her parents. They had been parted five years. You can conceive of the meeting -- I cannot describe it." What, indeed, can the North do to meet the events of the coming year? Millions of chattels will, I trust, be raised to men and women, millions of slaves into free men and women; -- and certain it is that no effort will be spared by the kidnappers and traitors, and their Democratic allies in the North, to make the condition of these emancipated slaves as wretched as possible; -- and they, the English allies of slavery and treason, will urge that starvation and suffering as an argument against the policy of emancipation. They will do all they can to hedge up these free men to earn their food and raiment, and then urge the starvation and nakedness that are produced by their own satanic hatred, as a reason against the Administration that freed them. What can the friends of freedom, of Christ, of God and humanity, in this and other lands, do to aid those long-suffering victims of American Democracy and American Religion to earn a comfortable living till the hot wrath of their kidnappers, North and South, shall have had time to exhaust itself? By the way, the Democrats, since the official report of the election in this State, are glad to keep dark -- those of them whose sense of shame and decency is not quite dead. It turns out that Horatio Seymour, as the Governor Elect of the Empire State, is simply and solely the representative elect of the 2743 groggeries, the 279 brothels, 170 places of resort for thieves, burglars and ruffians, and 105 gambling halls located in and around the Five Points in New Yity [sic]. Seymour's majority in the whole State -- including New York City -- is 10,489. His majority in the twelve wards, embracing the Five Points and its precincts and dependencies is 10,983! Wadsworth having only 1681 in all these wards, and Seymour 12,264 -- being a majority over Wadsworth of 10,983 -- some 500 more than in all the State, these wards included. Never -- in the history of popular elections -- in this or any country -- can there be found a fact so significant of the character of a political party and its candidate as this! It is simply a fact, attested by the official returns of the election, and by the police records of the above named wards and districts in New York, that the Democratic party comes to power in the Empire State, the ally of kidnappers and rebels -- simply and solely as the representative of the above enumerated groggeries, brothels, gambling halls, &c, in the Five Points of New York City and its dependencies. These brothels, groggeries, hells, and resorts of thieves and burglars were wheeled into the ranks of the Democratic allies of kidnappers and rebels by Isaiah Rynders and Fernando and Ben Wood, who took up their abode in the Five Points, with a view to this end! Why should not the party which, for fifty years, has represented slavery in the nation, now be representative of the groggeries, brothels and gambling hells [sic] of New York City? It has been nothing else for fifty years but the representative of a huge nation of brothels, in which are confined, without marriage, and in conubinage and prostitution, four millions of men and women. It has been the mere representative of that "sum of all villany" and pollution, American slavery. It is fitting that the same Democratic party should now come into power in New York State as the representative of the Five Points in New York. Many voted for that party and the "sum of all villany" which it represents, as did the Baptist deacon, to whom I alluded in my last -- to put down Abolitionism. Many voted for it simply because they were so besotted with their partyism that they were willing to sacrifice their souls, their liberty, their manhood, their God on the altar of their party. SLAVERY, THE CAUSE -- ABOLITION, THE CURE -- of rebellion and civil war, and all the evils that come from them to this and to other lands. This is my one theme in all my lectures -- the PROCLAMATION, its bearing on the SLAVES, the ENSLAVERS, the Republic, the Continent, the World. I have done and am doing what I can to prepare all with whom I come in contact to aid the Administration to give vitality to that Proclamation. Twenty-seven days more must elapse before the set time arrives, but the real day of its power is come -- and it came when the slaves learned of its existence. I am engaged to lecture once a day, and sometimes twice and thrice a day, between this and Christmas. Then I shall wend my way to Boston, to reach there, if I can, Wednesday, Dec. 31st. Many have gnashed their teeth, and made all sorts of threats because I have held up the Empire State as an Abolition Society; and because I have proved to them, to their own satisfaction, that, by virtue of their citizenship of this State, they are members of a radical, rabid, practical Abolition Society! Yours, HENRY C. WRIGHT. |
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