The Proclamation of Emancipation on January 1st, 1863, was, by
President Lincoln, frankly admitted to have been a war necessity. No
abstract principle of justice or of morals was of primary
consideration in the matter. The saving of the Union at any cost,--
that is, the stern political emergency forced forth the document
which was to be the social salvation of every descendant of Ham in
the United States of America. Close upon the heels of their
emancipation, the enfranchisement of the Negroes was pushed forward
by the thorough-going American statesmen. They had no sentimentality
to defer to. The logic of events--the fact not only of the coloured
race being freedmen, but also of their having been effective [122]
comrades on the fields of battle, where the blood of eager thousands
of them had flowed on the Union side, pointed out too plainly that
men with such claims should also be partners in the resulting
triumph.
Mr. Froude, being so deferential to skin prejudice, will doubtless
find it strange that such a measure as the Civil Rights Bill should
have passed a Congress of Americans. Assuredly with the feeling
against the coloured race which custom and law had engrafted into the
very nature of the vast majority, this was a tremendous call to make
on the national susceptibilities.
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