Abolition

by Tim Black

  He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true

  He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through

  They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew

  But his soul goes marching on

  Glory, Glory, Hallelujah

  Glory, Glory, Hallelujah

  Glory, Glory, Hallelujah

  His soul goes marching on

  When the singer finished to loud applause from his audience, young Tesla commented, “He reminds me of the first time I heard Paul Robeson sing on Broadway.”

  “Who is Paul Robeson? Heather asked.

  Mr. Greene answered. “A great singer from the 1930s and 1940s on Broadway and in the movies,” said the teacher.

  “He was in Showboat,” Bette Kromer said. “He was later labeled a Communist during the McCarthy era.”

  “Mr. Greene,” Victor said. “Our host Mr. Stearns…wasn’t he one of the Secret Six that financed John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry?”

  “Yes, so was Julia Ward Howe’s husband. Over there,” he pointed to a man who was standing beside a red-headed middle-aged woman who Victor realized was the composer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Julia Ward Howe seemed rather lively and animated. She was also the next person to perform for the crowd. She climbed onto the stage and cleared her voice as the audience grew silent again.

  Victor recalled that Mrs. Howe had been inspired to write her famous song after meeting Abraham Lincoln at the White House in November 1861. She borrowed the melody and the Hallelujah chorus from John Brown’s Body as a tribute to the abolitionist. It was a favorite marching song for Union troops. Mrs. Howe, did not, however, attempt to sing her creation, but rather recited the lyrics as if a poem.

  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

  He is trampling out the vintage where grapes of wrath are stored;

  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,

  His truth is marching on.

  I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps;

  They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

  I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,

  His day is marching on.

  He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

  He is sifting out the hearts of men before His Judgement Seat.

  Oh! Be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet!

  Our God is marching on.

  In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

  With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;

  As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

  While God is marching on.

  Victor was surprised that Mrs. Howe skipped the famous chorus of the tune as that was the part most people knew by heart. It was the first time in quite a while that he concentrated on the lyrics beyond the first verse, which was the only stanza, aside from the chorus, that most people could sing from memory.

  “You know,” Mr. Greene said. “As I said before, The Battle Hymn melody was stolen from John Brown’s Body which itself was a rip-off of a Methodist hymn Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us? Copyright laws were rather lax back then.”

  After Mrs. Howe left the stage their host for the evening, George L. Stearns, appeared on stage. Two of the waiters carried a small end table onto the platform as a third carried something that was covered by a cloth. The third waiter placed the covered object on the table and Stearns addressed the group.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Stearns said. “I give you John Brown who Mr. Emerson once wrote ‘made the gallows as holy as the cross.’ And with a theatrical flourish. Stearns lifted the cloth from the table to expose a marble sculpture of the head of John Brown.

  “Looks more like Moses than Mr. Brown.,” Heather mumbled. But her comment was left unheard as thunderous applause rang out throughout the building.

  Samuel saw grown men weeping. These Transcendentalists had made John Brown famous, he realized. They had done as much as anyone to make John Brown a mythical figure. Samuel respected John Brown. He admired him. But John Brown also led a slaughter of proslavery settlers in Pottawatomie, Kansas. Samuel realized that it was useless to bring up those facts with this crowd. They considered John Brown a martyr, a 19th century Christ. Samuel and the other students knew better. John Brown was a complex man, a Godly man, but he was also a killer.

  Mr. Greene gestured to his students that it was time to leave and the students and young Nikola Tesla followed the teacher out the door accompanied by Professor Bridenbaugh who followed behind in a float.

  “That was a who’s who of American literature,” Bette Kromer commented. “Quite an assembly of writers.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Greene agreed. “Of course, by 1863 Thoreau was dead, but that was a pretty eclectic group of people. Mostly Transcendentalists. As you can see, they were the ones who helped elevate John Brown to saintly status. He was neither saint nor demon, as the Southerners thought of him. He was a complicated man, but bottom line, he was a Calvinist who believed God put him on earth to end slavery. And in a way, John Brown only began to live after he was dead. I know that sounds strange, but without the writings and the worship of the people at this party, John Brown would have been long forgotten.”

  They walked quickly in the cold back to the classroom, Nikola Tesla breaking free from Heather’s hand and dashing ahead of the group. He was up the ramp, through the door and sitting at the computer when the rest of the time travelers arrived.

  Mr. Greene was about to replace the little boy at the helm of the ship but hesitated when Tiny Tesla looked up at him with beseeching eyes, his face pleading to be allowed to drive the portable. Mr. Greene smiled, and did what Victor Bridges knew the old marshmallow would do, he caved.

  “Alright, Nikola. You can drive. What the heck, it is your invention anyway. To January 31, 1865, Washington, D.C. Just before dawn. I want us to be able to get good seats in the gallery at the United States House of Representatives. They are voting on the 13th Amendment.”

  “To abolish slavery?” Heather asked.

  “No, to allow women the right to vote,” Bette said sarcastically. “What did you score on the A.P. exam, Heather?”

  “A five,” she replied. “It is abolition isn’t it, Mr. Greene?”

  “Of course, it is, Heather,” Minerva said. “Bette was just being a pain in the posterior.”

  Bette Kromer chuckled.

  “Buckle up!” Tiny Tesla said in a high-pitched squeaky voice.

  Before landing on what is now known as the National Mall, Tesla applied the cloaking device, not wishing anyone in Washington to see something akin to a flying saucer come down on the lawn. After landing, Victor peered out a window and spotted the Capitol Building, but it was missing its top. The Capitol Dome, begun in 1855, was not yet completed. He remembered seeing photographs of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural in March 1865 where the President was addressing the assembled multitude from the steps of the unfinished Capitol Building. Still, it seemed odd to see it without its iconic cover.

  As they walked out into the chill of air of Washington City, as the nation’s capital was then called, Mr. Greene stopped and pointed to the Capitol Building. “As you can see, the dome isn’t completed but the Statue of Freedom is sticking out by itself. They need to fill in the rest of the dome. They will finish up in 1866. Let’s go. We are here early; we should be able to get some decent seats in the gallery that overlooks the floor of the House of Representatives. They walked up the steps to the United States Capitol and into the House of Representatives. No security, Victor noticed. No Capitol Police either. Then he spotted two armed Union soldiers and he was reminded that the Civil War was still in progress.

  They were the first visitors into the gallery and filled a first row. Mr. Greene said, “Normally Samuel, you sitting among white folks might cause a fuss, but today is d
ifferent. Today for the first time a group of African Americans is going to be seated in the gallery. And, on several occasions, Mrs. Lincoln has sat in the gallery with her black servant sitting beside her. But to be on the safe side, you sit next to me, alright?” Mr. Greene took the aisle seat, with Samuel next to him, and on the other side of Samuel sat Heather who managed to sneak her left hand onto Samuel’s right.

  “After what I have seen on this trip, I am not about to upset the apple cart, Mr. Greene,” Samuel said. But inside he was fuming. He would have never made it in 19th century America he realized.

  Over the next hour a smattering of people took seats in the gallery. Below, Samuel looked at the wooden desks with their inkwells. Young men were moving from desk to desk passing out copies of something.

  “What are the boys passing out, Mr. Greene?”

  “It is a printing of the 13th Amendment. Every representative can read the final wording of the Amendment before he casts his vote. It simply states: ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.’”

  “Weren’t the Democrats opposed to the Amendment?” Heather asked. “I hear people today talking about how the Democrats were opposed to ending slavery.”

  “Back then it was the Democrats who were the conservatives and the Republicans who were the liberals. The parties have flipped since then. Today the Democrats are the liberals and the Republicans are the conservatives. Most people don’t realize that. The change started with Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal in the 1930s.”

  “Look,” Bette said. “Isn’t that Mary Lincoln?”

  A rather rotund older woman took a seat in the front row of the gallery. Surprisingly, from her purse she extracted a piece of paper and a pencil. She hadn’t aged well from the young woman they had met in Springfield, Illinois, Minerva thought. Poor woman.

  “Why is Mrs. Lincoln doing that?” Heather asked.

  “Looks like she is going to keep score. It takes two thirds of the votes cast to pass the Amendment. Not a simple majority for a Constitutional Amendment, and the House failed to get the two-thirds last year, although it passed the Senate. In 1864 the Republican platform called for the abolition of slavery. Lincoln ran on that issue for reelection. He was concerned that his Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in states in rebellion but not the border states, would be judged as a war enactment that once the war was ended, the slaves would be returned to slavery. That was something he could not tolerate. So, after he was reelected, Lincoln urged his party to bring up the Amendment again, to make sure that a Supreme Court could not undo his Emancipation Proclamation. Since a new Congress would convene in March and the Republicans would have a two-thirds majority then, Lincoln might have waited but he wanted it to have bipartisan support, so he pressed the lame-duck congress, which you will recall is the term for members who were not reelected but are still in power for a few months. The movie Lincoln with Daniel Day Lewis playing Lincoln did a good job of showing the behind-the-scenes deals that Lincoln brokered to get Democratic votes on the bill. He promised the defeated congressmen jobs and so forth. Everything just short of bribes. What people don’t like to contemplate about Abraham Lincoln is that he was a consummate politician. They always like to think of him as ‘Honest Abe,’ but he was a shrewd politician. He knew how far he could bend a law without breaking it. He did some illegal things during his time in office, but they were excused because he was fighting a war. It is a good thing he won. And it is a good thing that he was a great manipulator as well as a great emancipator.”

  “Gee, Mr. Greene,” Heather said, “I thought Lincoln was your favorite President.”

  “He was Heather. Being a great politician made him a great President. He understood human nature.”

  As members began taking their seats in the House of Representatives, Samuel watched a bearded, relatively young-looking man, take his place at the Speaker of the House’s desk, which was raised above the floor of the House. “Who is he, Mr. Greene?”

  “Schuyler Colfax,” Mr. Greene whispered. “He is a Republican from Indiana and will be elected Vice President in 1868 and serve with Ulysses S. Grant. Back then a Speaker of the House did not usually vote on a bill, but Colfax will break with tradition and vote yes,” he added in a muffled voice.

  There was a bit of murmuring coming from the House floor as Speaker Colfax took his wooden gavel and called the House of Representatives to order. “The chair recognizes Congressman Ashley.”

  A curly haired, clean-shaven Congressman James Ashley from Ohio stood up and declared, “I move that we now vote on the 13th Amendment.”

  As soon as Ashley said that a Democratic congressman stood up and objected. “Point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have news that there is a Confederate peace delegation in the city.”

  A hush ran through the House of Representatives followed almost instantly by commotion. Shouts of “liar” and “Delay the vote,” mingled with each other causing a cacophony on the floor of House of Representatives. Congressman Ashley quickly wrote a note and gave it to an aide and sent him dashing out of the house. Seeing this, Speaker Colfax called for order. “We will seek a clarification from the President,” he added.

  “What is going on?” Samuel whispered to Mr. Greene.

  “Ashley just wrote a note to President Lincoln asking if that was true and sent an aide running to the White House.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Technically no,” the teacher replied with a whisper.

  “Technically?” Samuel whispered.

  “Yes. There is a peace delegation entering Hampton Roads, Virginia, but they are not in Washington City. I told you Lincoln was good. Knowledge of a peace conference might have derailed the vote and scuttled the 13th Amendment.”

  “So now what?”

  “We wait for the President’s response.”

  It seemed to Samuel that history had hit the pause button. Everyone in the building was waiting for a response from the President.

  Ten minutes later the messenger entered the hall and handed Ashley a note, which he dutifully unfolded and shouted, “Mr. Speaker. I have the President’s response. As far as I know there is no peace delegation in the city.”

  One of the Democrats objected. “What does that mean ‘as far as I know’? Is this just a lawyer’s trick?”

  “Order!” Speaker Colfax shouted hammering his gavel to the desk. “The voting on the 13th Amendment will proceed. The clerk shall call the roll.”

  Victor watched the anxious faces in the gallery and the hopeful expressions of the African- Americans, some of whom were praying. For Victor, the voting was anticlimatic. He knew what would happen. It was history. For the first time in decades the United States added an Amendment to its Constitution. Still, one could cut the tension in the House of Representatives with a knife. It was going to be close. Eight representatives abstained, which might not have meant much but if they had voted “NO” it would have taken two votes to contradict the one “NO” vote. The 8 abstentions saved the Amendment because they didn’t have to get sixteen votes, which would have been required if they cast 8 NO votes.. The final tally was 119 to 56, which was more than two-thirds in favor. But if the 8 abstentions had been added to 56 that would have made 64 and 128 votes would have been needed for passage. As it was, when they hit 112, they were home free.

  When the vote tally was announced, and the Speaker declared victory for the Amendment the House of Representatives fell into pandemonium. House members tossed their hats into the air, others wept as the losing side sat disgruntled. People in the gallery were cheering. Tiny Tesla was jumping up and down and shouting. Outside cannons were going off in celebration, church bells were ringing.

  “It is the day of Jubilee!” one of the African Americans in the gallery proclaimed as the shouting and hugging went on and on among the gallery members. Mrs.
Lincoln’s servant was crying tears of joy, and even the First Lady wiped her face with a handkerchief. It was some day, Victor thought, a day that he wished all Americans could see. How lucky he was to have been there.

  Mr. Greene stood up and said, “Let’s go; we need to go back to the classroom. Minerva, grab Nikola’s hand.”

  As Minerva grabbed little Tesla’s hand, the Serbian scientist looked up and rolled his eyes at her like someone doing a Groucho Marx imitation. His efforts were lost on Minerva as she didn’t know who Groucho was. Bette Kroger, the classic movie junkie, on the other hand, laughed heartily at Tiny Tesla’s impression.

  *

  Back at the portable Mr. Greene explained that they needed to jump ahead to the evening as there would be a torchlight celebration at the White House. After a short hop the classroom set down in darkness. A crescent moon awaited them as they exited the portable. Tiny Tesla walked between Minerva and Victor holding a hand of each but preventing them from holding each other’s.

  “I like him so much better as a ghost, Minerva,” Victor said.

  “I know what you mean,” Minerva replied.

  Tiny Tesla laughed. “This is our last stop. You two will soon be canoodling again. And I will be back in spirit form. It has been fun being a boy again though,” he added. “Childhood is such a blessing.”

  Hundreds of people had gathered on the White House lawn awaiting a few words from President Abraham Lincoln.

  Before they joined the crowd, Mr. Greene spoke to his students. “Lincoln has signed the 13th Amendment, although that wasn’t necessary, and has sent it on to states to ratify, which they will by December. But he will never live to see the final ratification. We all know what happened to him the night he went to the theater,” the teacher said. “But tonight, is his night and he is in a happy mood, not his normal melancholy self.”

  Two large lanterns were lit on the second-floor balcony and the President’s tall, lanky appearance elicited shouts and applause as he came out to speak to the people below. He raised his hand for quiet and the crowd silenced out of respect for “Father Abraham.”