NOVEMBER 7, 1864:
President Jefferson Davis addresses the
Confederate Congress. In his speech, reproduced in part below, Davis does ask
for slaves to be placed into the Confederate Army --- but he pulls his punch,
asking for only 40,000 to be purchased by the Confederacy as service staff such
as cooks, teamsters, quartermasters, and the like. This is a far cry from the
plan he discussed with General Lee, to arm and emancipate 300,000 black men.
Still, Davis’ speech is revolutionary if for nothing more than his assertion of
the slave’s relationship as a person
to the Confederate nation. And there is
more:
Viewed merely as
property, and therefore as the subject of impressment, the service or labor of
the slave has been frequently claimed for short periods in the construction of
defensive works. The slave, however, bears another relation to the state --- that
of a person . . .
. . . [F]or the purposes . . . of camping, marching, and packing trains . . .
length of service adds greatly to the
value of the negro's labor. Hazard is also encountered in all . . . the duties required of them [and these] demand
loyalty and zeal.
. . . Whenever the
entire property in the service of a slave is . . . acquired by the Government, the question is
presented by what tenure he should be held. Should he be retained in servitude,
or should his emancipation be held out to him as a reward for faithful service,
or should it be granted at once on the promise of such service; and if
emancipated what action should be taken to secure for the freed man the
permission of the State from which he was drawn to reside within its limits
after the close of his public service? The permission would doubtless be more
readily accorded as a reward for past faithful service, and a double motive for
zealous discharge of duty would thus be offered to those employed by the
Government . . . If this policy should
commend itself to the judgment of Congress, it is suggested that, in addition
to the duties heretofore performed by the slave, he might be advantageously
employed as a pioneer and engineer laborer, and, in that event, that the number
should be augmented to forty thousand.
[T]he use of slaves as
soldiers . . . is justifiable, if
necessary . . . The subject is to be viewed by us, therefore, solely in the
light of policy and our social economy. When so regarded, I must dissent from
those who advise a general levy and arming of the slaves for the duty of
soldiers [u]ntil our white population shall prove insufficient for the armies
we require and can afford to keep in the field . . . But should the alternative
ever be presented of subjugation, or of the employment of the slave as a
soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should then be our decision . . . If the subject involved no other consideration
than the mere right of property, the sacrifices heretofore made by our people
have been such as to permit no doubt of their readiness to surrender every
possession in order to secure independence . . . [Part of this is t]he
fulfillment of the task which has been so happily begun --- that of
Christianizing and improving the condition of the Africans who have by the will
of Providence been placed in our charge . . . [T]he people of the several
States of the Confederacy have abundant reason to be satisfied . . . These considerations, however, are
rather applicable to the improbable contingency of our need of resorting to
this element of assistance . . .
It
is so much doubletalk, and the Confederate Congress hears it as such. Despite
Davis’ assertion that he “must dissent” from conscripting slaves, the entire
speech addresses nothing much but the very issue expressed in one tortured sentence:
“[T]he use of slaves as soldiers . . . is justifiable, if . . . our white population shall prove
insufficient for the armies we require.”
Everyone
knows this is the present reality, not simply an if. The result is explosive.
The Confederate Congress immediately adjourns into closed-door sessions to
acrimoniously debate the issue.
Judah
P. Benjamin, Davis’ Secretary of War, asserts, “We want means!” but a
Mississippi Congressman retorts, “Victory
itself will be robbed of its glory if shared with slaves.”
The fire-eating Georgia Congressman,
Robert Toombs agrees with his Mississippi colleague that “The worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our
independence by the valor of our slaves.”
General
Howell Cobb adds, “If the negro would
make a good soldier then our whole theory of slavery is wrong. It is the
beginning of the end of the revolution.” Several members of Congress call
for the end of the war and reunification with the United States in lieu of
slave emancipation.
The
debate soon reaches beyond the closed doors of Congress. The Richmond Post-Dispatch goes so far as to
question General Lee’s nationalism, calling him “a Unionist . . . a hereditary Federalist . . . and an emancipationist”
but then ends its diatribe lamely, “There is no doubt that the country will give
General Lee what he asks --- whatever he
asks.”
The Charleston
Mercury, the most fire-eating of all Confederate newspapers, thunders: “We want no Confederate government without
our institutions --- and we will have
none!”
R.M.T
Hunter, the President pro tempore of
the Confederate Senate asks rhetorically, “If
not for our property rights . . . then what are we fighting for?”
By
asking the question, Hunter has come, unconsciously, to the crux of the matter.
Is the Confederacy fighting for the perpetuation of slavery or for its
independence? Tellingly, the Confederate
Congress reaches no decisions at this critical juncture. It just continues to
debate.
And
perhaps most ironically of all, the United States House of Representatives will
be engaged in its own vociferous debate this session, regarding the passage of
the Thirteenth Amendment and the end of slavery.
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