CHAPTER XII.
FETTERED HANDS UPLIFTED.
The great law of our time, that of the unity of all existence, asserteditself with peculiar and perpetual force in the busy home atMattenheim. A man of mature years had deliberately concentrated histhoughts upon the movement in the New World; and the destiny of a youthwas bound up in the same.
Papers and despatches from America came thicker and faster.
They lived a twofold life, immersed in pressing and manifold businesshere, but intent, meanwhile, upon the sharp crisis so rapidlyapproaching in a remote quarter of the world.
Roland devoured the letters and journals in which the so-calledslavery-question was discussed. Doctor Fritz wrote doubtfully ofLincoln. The man's nature was so simple, and his faith in men'sgoodness so thorough, that he feared he would not be decided enoughwith the chivalry of the South.
For the first time, Roland heard the slaveholders called _chivalry_;and Weidmann declared that it was no mere form of speech, but aperfectly explicit term. The slave-owners wanted to live merely for thenobler passions, as they were called: other men must toil for theirsubsistence, and even for their luxuries. This is the true feudalspirit, which looks upon labor as something humiliating anddisgraceful, whereas, in reality, man's only true nobleness consists inlabor.
Two books exercised a powerful influence upon Roland's mind. He read"Uncle Tom's Cabin" for the first time, and wept over it, but presentlyroused himself, and asked,--
"How is this? Shall we point the scourged and oppressed to a reward inthe next world, where the master will be punished and the slaveelevated? But who can compensate him for the torment he has enduredhere? Is it not as it was with Claus? Who could indemnify him for thecaptivity he had to undergo before he was pronounced innocent?"
Very different was the effect produced upon the young man's mind by abook of Friedrich Kapp's, entitled "Slavery in America," which hadgrown up out of a dense mass of previously accumulated material, and,by a remarkable coincidence, appeared at precisely this time.
At first, Roland could not comprehend how it was possible for a man togive so clear and lifelike a picture of facts so revolting. When hecame to the ensuing passage, he wept aloud.
"The owners of the slave-ships are almost alwaysforeigners,--Spaniards, Portuguese, and, alas!" here followed a dashthat was like a dagger to the reader,--"alas! even Germans."
Everywhere, by day and by night, Roland talked of what was agitatinghis soul; and, for the first time, he felt something like distrust ofBenjamin Franklin. He learned, indeed, that Franklin was president ofthe Abolition Society in Philadelphia, but, also, that he, like theother great heroes of the American War for Independence, in his earnestdesire for unanimity at the time the Union was founded, had trusted tothe expectation that slavery would be extinguished within a lifetime bythe mere increase of free labor.
This hope had proved deceptive, and Roland recalled with anguish thatremark of Theodore Parker's,--
"All the great charters of humanity have been written in blood."
Often did Roland stand thoughtfully before a picture of Ary Scheffer's,which hung in the large sitting-room. It represented the adoration ofJesus; and there was a negro in it, stretching out his fettered armstoward the redeeming and consoling Saviour, with a most affectingexpression. For two thousand years, this race had been extending itsfettered hands toward the redemptive thought of mankind. Why had thislasted so long?
To Weidmann, Roland confessed what was weighing on his heart; andWeidmann succeeded in changing his sorrow into joy, that the time hadnow come in which these things would have an end. He was peculiarlysevere upon those, who, like sentimental criminals, represent, sin andcrime as _evil_, and yet say, "There is no help for it. So it has been,and so it must be."
Goethe's verses now occurred to Roland, and he repeated them toWeidmann, who said,--
"It is the free man's inherited privilege to see absolute perfection inno man. Like Goethe, the Americans boast in having no mediaevalconditions to overcome; but they have inherited slavery, which manyeven declare to be the natural condition of the laboring classes."
Weidmann gave Roland, Abraham Lincoln's speech at the Cooper Institutein New York.
Roland was requested to read it aloud; but his voice choked, and hisutterance was painfully agitated, when he came to the words,--
"Were we even to withhold our votes, Republicans, you may be sure theDemocrats would not be satisfied. We could not stop there. We mustleave off calling slavery a wrong, and justify it loudly andunconditionally; we must pull down our Free State Constitutions; thewhole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition toslavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troublesproceed from us.
"And since the Southerners pretend that slavery is a righteousinstitution, honorable to mankind, the logical inference is, that itought universally to be recognized as a moral good and a socialblessing, and everywhere introduced.
"Our sense of duty forbids such a thought. And, if so, then let usstand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted bynone of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are soindustriously plied and belabored,--contrivances such as seeking forsome middle ground between the right and wrong, vain as the search fora man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man,--such as apolicy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men docare,--such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield toDisunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling not sinners butthe righteous to repentance.
"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations againstus; nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government,nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might,and, in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as weunderstand it."
Tears rose to Roland's eyes. He glanced up at the picture where theslave was stretching out his fettered hands; and within him rose thewords, "Thou art free."
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