Ashfield, October 2, 1865.
My Dear Meta, —
. . . After a long silence occasioned by the war I have lately had one or two
notes from Ruskin, — the last came in the same mail with your letter, and was
in very striking contrast to it. He writes very sadly, and his letters bring
sadness to me especially as indications of his failure to understand and
sympathize with the ideal side of America. “The war,” he says, “has put a gulph
between all Americans and me so that I do not care to hear what they think or
tell them what I think on any matter.” It is in vain to try to bring him to
comprehend that in spite of all that is wrong and base in our present
conditions, in spite of all the evil passions which war has worked, in spite of
all the selfishness and conceited over-confidence generated by our marvellous
material prosperity, — there is in our national life a counterbalance of
devotion to principle, of readiness to sacrifice whatever is required for the
maintenance of liberty and human rights, and a real advance toward the
fulfilment of the best hopes of man for men. He fancies that our happiness is a
delusion, our efforts vanity, and our confidence folly. I believe that we have
really made an advance in civilization, that the principles on which our
political and social order rest are in harmony with the moral laws of the
universe, that we have set up an ideal which may never be perfectly attained,
but which is of such a nature that the mere effort to attain it makes progress
in virtue and in genuine happiness certain. The character and principles of Mr.
Lincoln were essentially typical of the character and principles of the people.
The proposition that all men are created equal, — equal that is in
certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, the pursuit of
happiness, — equal as moral and responsible beings, — has sunk deep into the
very hearts of this people, and is moulding them in accordance with the
conclusions that proceed from it. It is the inspiration and the explanation of
our progress and our content. To embody it continually more and more completely
in our institutions of government and of society is the conscious or
unconscious desire and effort of all good men among us. It is as Mr. Lincoln
admirably said, — “A standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar
to all and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly laboured for, and
even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby
constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness
and value of life to all people of all colours everywhere.” The war has given
us a right, such as we had not before, to trust in the fidelity of the people
to the principles of justice, liberty and fair play. And it is because of this
just confidence that one need not be disheartened when, as now, there are signs
of moral slackness and decline. After the exertions and excitements of the last
four years one need not be surprised at a reaction of feeling; and if the high
standard of effort is somewhat lowered. The millennium will not come in our
time; and peace will not bring rest to those who fight for “the cause” and not
for victory.
It seems probable from Mr. Johnson's course that we shall
lose some of the best results which might have sprung from the war. Under his
scheme of reorganization of the Union it now looks as if the Southern States
would come back into the Union with no provision for the securing of any political
rights or privileges to the Negro, and no provision for his good-treatment by
the former slave-holding and slave-despising class. I fear lest the very
freedom which the freedmen have gained, be so limited by state laws and local
enactments, that they may be kept in a condition very little superior to
slavery. It would take too long to explain and set forth all the grounds for
this fear. But on the other hand I have hope that the great social and moral
changes that have taken place in the Southern States, the establishment of free
speech and a free press in them, the extraordinary demand for labour, the
education which the blacks have received in the army and in schools, and above
all the future action of political parties in the Northern States, — may all
tend gradually but irresistibly to gain for the Negro the full rights of
independent and equal citizenship. The discussions and the actions of the few
next years on this subject will be of the highest interest and importance.
For the past three or four months the point which has been
most discussed in connection with “reconstruction” is that of suffrage for the
Negro. The reasons for giving the right of suffrage to the freedmen are as
strong as they are numerous, are reasons based upon policy as well as upon
principle. I think Negro suffrage could have been easily secured at the end of
the war by wise and foreseeing statesmanship. I think it would have been
secured had Mr. Lincoln lived; and that it would have been found the most
powerful instrument for elevating and educating the blacks, for making them
helpful and advancing citizens of the republic, and for introducing a better
civilization, and a truer social order than has hitherto existed at the South.
But the hour favourable for this has passed, and Negro sufrage will have to be
won by a long and hard struggle.
President Johnson has been a slave-holder; he is a
theoretical democrat so far as white men are concerned, but his democracy does
not extend to the black. He hates, or perhaps I should say hated, slavery
because it developed an aristocratic class, not because it was intrinsically
wrong. I doubt if he has any strong moral aversion to it, — but he has an
immoral distrust of (I will not call it aversion to) the Negro. He holds that
he is inferior to the white man, that the white man is to govern, the black to
be governed. His influence, is at present, practically thrown against Negro
suffrage. . . . I must bring my
political letter to a close before the subject is half exhausted. I will send
you the “Nation,” a weekly paper in the establishment of which I have been
greatly interested and which will keep you informed of our affairs. You may, I
think, rely on the fairness of its statements and the soundness of its
opinions. . . .
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 284-8
