George Moses Horton – Fourteen Lines

O Captain! My Captain

“If I am killed I can die but once, but to live in constant dread is to die over and over again.”

President Abraham Lincoln

O Captain! My Captain

by Walt Whitman

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

O captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Of the countless tributes written to President Lincoln following his death, one of the most moving is Walt Whitman’s poem O Captain, My Captain. Whitman had been devastated by the war, right from its very beginning. Whitman’s poetry at its best, arose from his keen observation and appreciation of his fellow citizens and human beings, and he found the savagery of the war among countrymen unimaginable.

We have enshrined Lincoln as a perfect leader, so great was his contribution and his sacrifice, but we should remember that he himself understood that he was an imperfect man. It is possible that it is only through his understanding of imperfection that he found the grace to proceed both in leading the Union through but also in elevating the moral compass of our nation to end slavery. It is now up to all of us, the beneficiaries of that sacrifice and gift to determine a path forward to end racism.

I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me…

Abraham Lincoln, 1862.

Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, just 6 weeks prior to his assassination on April 15. Here is his speech in its entirety, as there is no better way to summarize the history of the Civil War and to encompass the generosity of this man. I believe this speech did as much to create the opportunity for a lasting peace as all the Union’s victories, as once Lincoln was dead, his words stood for his expectations of the path forward for both sides; to find a way forward in forgiveness and freedom. At a time when we are becoming more and more divided, who will become the peacemakers of our generation? Is it our responsibility as individuals more so than the government? As divides and wars, even culture wars, are not created by politicians, they arise by men and women letting go of the ties that bind us all as citizens of the United States.

President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissole the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said f[our] three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether”

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Lincoln Is Dead

By George Moses Horton

He is gone, the strong base of the nation,

The dove to his covet has fled;

Ye heroes lament his privation,

For Lincoln is dead.

He is gone down, the sun of the Union,

Like Phoebus, that sets in the west;

The planet of peace and communion,

Forever has gone to his rest.

He is gone down from a world of commotion,

No equal succeeds in his stead;

His wonders extend with the ocean,

Whose waves murmur, Lincoln is dead.

He is gone and can ne’er be forgotten,

Whose great deeds eternal shall bloom;

When gold, pearls and diamonds are rotten,

His deeds will break forth from the tomb.

He is gone out of glory to glory,

A smile with the tear may be shed,

O, then let us tell the sweet story,

Triumphantly, Lincoln is dead.

I Never, Never Shall Forget

Weep

By George Moses Horton

Weep for the country in its present state,

And of the gloom which still the future waits;

The proud confederate eagle heard the sound,

And with her flight fell prostrate to the ground!

Weep for the loss the country has sustained,

By which her now dependent is in jail;

The grief of him who now the war survived,

The conscript husbands and the weeping wives!

Weep for the seas of blood the battle cost,

And souls that ever hope forever lost!

The ravage of the field with no recruit,

Trees by the vengeance blasted to the root!

Weep for the downfall o’er your heads and chief,

Who sunk without a medium of relief;

Who fell beneath the hatchet of their pride,

Then like the serpent bit themselves and died!

Weep for the downfall of your president,

Who far too late his folly must repent;

Who like the dragon did all heaven assail,

And dragged his friends to limbo with his tail!

Weep o’er peculiar swelling coffers void,

Our treasures left, and all their banks destroyed;

Their foundless notes replete with shame to all,

Expecting every day their final fall,

In quest of profit never to be won,

Then sadly fallen and forever down!

Horton’s poetry is remarkable. I am particularly struck by these two poems, which share in formal verse the complexity of sadness, loss and utter madness that was the Civil War and yet also fondly remembers and honors the land of where he grew up. These poems are a testament that despite living under the cruelty of slavery and war, there was still life and those that are resilient find a way to take something good from even the worst of situations. Hidden in The Southern Refugee, is also the stark and brutal reality that the end of the war did not bring resolution or restitution for freed slaves, instead it ushered in an even more incipient form of racism, the era of Jim Crow laws that was as common in the northern states who fought to end slavery as it was embedded in southern culture.

How far have we come as a nation in creating a society that affords equity and opportunity for all? We’ve come a ways, but I don’t think we have truly reconciled our vicious past. It is a question each of us is left to ponder on our own. And if we are fortunate, we can ponder those questions in our garden or the gardens of our minds. What is planted in your garden?

The Southern Refugee

By George Moses Horton

What sudden ill the world await,

From my dear residence I roam;

I must deplore the bitter fate,

To straggle from my native home.

The verdant willow droops her head,

And seems to bid a fare thee well;

The flowers with tears their fragrance shed,

Alas! their parting tale to tell.

’Tis like the loss of Paradise,

Or Eden’s garden left in gloom,

Where grief affords us no device;

Such is thy lot, my native home.

I never, never shall forget

My sad departure far away,

Until the sun of life is set,

And leaves behind no beam of day.

How can I from my seat remove

And leave my ever devoted home,

And the dear garden which I love,

The beauty of my native home?

Alas! sequestered, set aside,

It is a mournful tale to tell;

’Tis like a lone deserted bride

That bade her bridegroom fare thee well.

I trust I soon shall dry the tear

And leave forever hence to roam,

Far from a residence so dear,

The place of beauty—my native home.

Courage Then, Northern Hearts

The slave will be free. Democracy in America will yet be a glorious reality; and when the top-stone of that temple of freedom which our fathers left unfinished shall be brought forth with shoutings and cries of grace unto it, when our now drooping Liberty lifts up her head and prospers, happy will he be who can say, with John Milton, “Among those who have something more than wished her welfare, I, too, have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

New Hampshire

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

God bless New Hampshire! for her granite peaks
Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks.
The long-bound vassal of the exulting South
For very shame her self-forged chain has broken;
Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth
And in the clear tones of her old time spoken!
Oh, all undreamed of, all unhoped for changes!
The tyrant’s ally proves his sternest foe;
To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges,
New Hampshire thunders an indignant No!
Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart,
Look upward to those Northern mountains cold,
Flouted by freedom’s victor-flag unrolled,
And gather strength to bear a manlier part!
All is not lost. The angel of God’s blessing
Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight;
Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing
Unlooked for allies, striking for the right!
Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true;
What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do?

The 1860 U. S. Census reported there were 31,183,582 people in the United States, of which 3,950,528 were slaves. The total number of slave owners prior to the start of the Civil War was 393,975, a little over 14% of the free population at the time. Is there any meaning hiding in those statistics? If there is one, it might be that we should not be cautious as a society today for our past shows a violent revolution can be started by a relatively small minority of individuals in our democracy who defy the rule of law, deny their fellow citizens humanity and ignore commonly shared norms of morality under a banner of racist white supremacy.

Whittier wrote and published extensively on anti-slavery themes going back to the early 1840’s. Rhode Island claims to be the first state to ban slavery, but the states law makers certainly took their time in making the concept a reality. In 1784 Rhode Island declared that children born to slaves after March 1, 1784 were “free,” but would first have to serve their mother’s master until they reached majority age. An amendment to the law in 1785 declared that majority age to be 21 years of service for both male and female children. However, it wasn’t until 58 years later in 1842 that Rhode Island abolished slavery entirely. Whittier commemorated the event with the poem above.

In 1860 there were 36 states. The census that year listed 15 of those states as having slaves; Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Slaves represented more than 40% of the total population in six of those states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, and in two of those states slaves represented more than 50% of the population, Mississippi at 55% and South Carolina at 57%. Given those numbers, its not surprising the Confederacy was initially formed by the only seven states that still permitted slave ownership by 1861; South Carolina, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida. Four other states would soon join the Confederacy: Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Over the next month I am not going to share poetry written by Confederate soldiers or poets who were Confederate sympathizers. I will share some poetry written by slaves living in Confederate states during this period. George Moses Horton was born into slavery on a North Carolina tobacco plantation in 1798. He spent his childhood as a slave on a farm in Chatham County, where he taught himself to read and began composing poetry.

In 1815 Horton was transferred to a new master, who sent him on frequent trips to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There, Horton met students from the University of North Carolina; who encouraged his poetry. He began composing poems in his head and reciting them aloud on these visits. His performances at the weekly Chapel Hill farmers market began attracting crowds of interested students, who rewarded him with small tips for his love poems. Horton’s performances gained the attention and support of a novelist and professor’s wife, Caroline Hentz. With her assistance, Horton published his first collection of poetry, The Hope of Liberty (1829), becoming the first African American man to publish a book in the South.

Horton did not learn to write until 1832. By this time he was selling his poetry regularly and had established a weekly income of three dollars. Using these funds, Horton purchased his time from his slave master. Despite wide spread public support for his freedom, including from the Governor, Horton was forced to continue to purchase his time from his master for the next 30 years. Horton’s poem below was published in 1865, towards the end of the Civil War when Horton was finally a free man.

George Moses Horton, Myself

by George Moses Horton (1798–1883)

I feel myself in need
Of the inspiring strains of ancient lore,
My heart to lift, my empty mind to feed,
And all the world explore.

I know that I am old
And never can recover what is past,
But for the future may some light unfold
And soar from ages blast.

I feel resolved to try,
My wish to prove, my calling to pursue,
Or mount up from the earth into the sky,
To show what Heaven can do.

My genius from a boy,
Has fluttered like a bird within my heart;
But could not thus confined her powers employ,
Impatient to depart.

She like a restless bird,
Would spread her wings, her power to be unfurl’d,
And let her songs be loudly heard,
And dart from world to world.