A/N: CONTENT WARNING: 19th century-typical language surrounding race and slavery in the United States (in the first newspaper excerpt). Please note that the excerpts from the 'The British Colonist' as well as the 'Weekly British Colonist' are NOT fiction. They are 100% real excerpts from real newspapers published in British Columbia on the indicated dates. "[...]" indicates portions that I omitted for brevity's sake. All paragraph breaks to the first excerpt have been added by me. I accessed these newspapers and others online on The Internet Archive. These specific collections were digitized by the University of Victoria Libraries. Way to go, UVicL! You never thought your hard work would end up in fanfiction, now did ya?
Additionally, I just want to take a moment to warn you that I'll be skimming over a great deal of interesting Civil War history from here on, most likely to the end. As I've said before, I'm trying to keep this fic focused on the international aspects of the Civil War without dwelling overmuch on the nitty gritty details of the Civil War as it is usually discussed in the U.S. We'll talk about Alfred and his experiences, of course, but all in a much more condensed context without minute detail regarding many battles, except for a few here and there.
January 1, 1863
Victoria, Colony of British Columbia
THE BRITISH COLONIST
Wednesday Morning, Oct. 8, 1862
"States News. […]
If Federal generals have not been doing much since the battle of Antietam, the Federal Cabinet has not been unoccupied. Following the retreat of Lee and Jackson, President Lincoln has issued a proclamation emancipating the slaves throughout the entire rebel States on the first of January next. A measure will also be submitted to Congress when it meets to emancipate slaves in the border States that remain loyal. During the present year Congress has consecrated to liberty every foot of land in the territories. Such an act of itself was enough to surround the name of Lincoln with a halo of never-dying glory. It was promised the nation by the party who elected him, and that promise has been fulfilled.
But the emancipation act is the offspring of necessity. It is scarcely a human work. It is the command of God. […]
The war has come down to a war of Sections. It has become a great conflict, that is either to end in two nations or the subjection of the slave holders. The North knows it; yet it shrinks not from the conflict. if successful, posterity will never give such men as Lincoln or Seward credit for that enlightened philanthropy that inspired the British emancipationists to emancipate the slaves in the British West Indies. History will write them down as having no sympathy with the down-trodden African. It will credit them with having emancipated 4,000,000 slaves in a moment of desperation, not from a love of human liberty in the abstract, but from a hatred of the slaveholders—not as slave-holders, but as rebels fighting against the Constitution and laws. To preserve the nation from being shattered into fragments is their sole object. If they succeed they will be honored; if they fail, the emancipation scheme will be unsuccessful.
Every lover of genuine liberty must hope that slavery may cease, and his wishes will consequently go with the North henceforth.[…]
In the meantime Europe—England, France, Germany—will stand appealed. No cotton, no work—no cotton, millions of operatives unemployed. Europe will groan in misery. The curse of slavery will make itself felt throughout the civilized world. Nothing can prevent it. Intervention could not, if it were near; but we believe it to be distant—and if not impossible it is improbable. There is nothing but exhaustion that can restore peace. May it come soon.
WEEKLY BRITISH COLONIST
Tuesday, October 14, 1862
NEWS IN DETAIL.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22.—A proclamation has been issued by the President, the substance of which is as follows:
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the army and navy, hereby proclaim and declare […]
On the 1st of January, 1863, all persons held as slaves within the State or part of State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then and ever after free.
Matthew had held onto the newspapers for months, knowing it would be ages before he received more news from Washington. Telegrams and letters did not reach this far west without great labor. In Quebec, the onslaught of news from New York had been mind-boggling, some days, but way out here in Victoria, the entire world felt a million miles away.
Matthew understood why Arthur had asked him to take himself so far west, and truthfully, he was grateful for the opportunity to see these new coastal cities grow. Still, in the limbo-like shoulders of the day, before breakfast and after supper, when he had nothing to do but read the newspaper and think, he could not help but remember his clandestine travels to Washington, and what he'd witnessed there.
He hadn't had any letters from Alfred since the visit. Then again, he hadn't attempted to write Alfred since then, either. He found himself too shaken by his brother's condition to attempt it. Thinking of Alfred, cooped up underground with naught but a candle, a bed, a few books and a chamber pot struck him with such sadness he couldn't think of what on earth to say to his twin. Furthermore, what if it was Andrew who read it? It did not bear consideration.
Even so, he kept every scrap of every piece of news on his brother that he could find. October's revelations on Lincoln's plans for Emancipation had been welcome and long-awaited, and all throughout British North America, it had bolstered support for the Union.
Matthew poured two glasses of whisky and set them out on the table before him and moved the candle nearer to the window, its dancing flame reflected in the glass. The world outside had been dark for hours, but Matthew was still in his day dress. He plucked his pocketwatch out of his waistcoat and checked the time, watching as the second hand ticked steadily towards the dial's apex. Click click click click, it hummed, not knowing the august nature of the hour, click click click click, and suddenly, midnight. Matthew snapped the watch shut, picked up one of the glasses of whisky, and clinked his glass against the other.
"Congratulations, Al," he said, very quietly, raising his drink in a toast. "About time you started living up to that Declaration of yours." He drank his whiskey, tucked the newspapers away into the folders where he'd been keeping them, and went to bed, leaving his brothers' glass untouched.
January 1, 1863
Washington, D.C.
Alfred breathed in, feeling the buoyancy of his lungs in minute, exquisite detail. He knew that he was underground still, suffocated by the stench of his own sweat and filth and whatever molds were growing down here, but if he closed his eyes he could see the stars and feel the pine-winter breeze whip at his cheeks.
He'd been delirious with fever for over a month. The last days he remembered clearly were the early days of November, and even those memories were coated in a patina of anxiety that had plagued him in growing waves for nearly three years, now. The Other had taken him more and more often, coming in and out like a pox he couldn't shake, commandeering his mind to the beat of battles won and lost. He'd lost the entirety of Christmas to Andrew, and it hurt him more than he thought it would.
But now, it was a new year. 1863. He had no watch, but he knew it was true, because he could breathe, just as Lincoln had promised. He could breathe freely if for just this one day, because out there, so many of his people were breathing free for the first time in their lives.
"Daniel," he croaked, leaned up against the edge of the cell door where light crept in from the outside. The guards weren't supposed to talk to him, he knew that. After Andrew had convinced one of them to bring him maps and charts, they were supposed to ignore everything he said, but it didn't stop him. "Daniel," he repeated, "they're really free, aren't they?" When Daniel did not respond, Alfred leaned his head back and let the feelings wash over him. "Shenandoah. Alexandria. Mississippi Valley. It's happening right now, isn't it?"
There were sounds of shifting clothes outside as Daniel turned to look down through the crack in the door at the dirty edge of Alfred's hair, the only part of the man he could see.
"Yes, Alfred," he said. Calling the nation by his name was the guards' litmus test to see which nation was present; Andrew usually recoiled at the name. Upon hearing his name, Alfred smiled.
"They promised me this nearly a century ago," Alfred told him. Eyes still closed, tears were running down his face and into his smile, pure bliss and jubilation. "I can hear them singing," he said, overcome with emotion. A thousand faces from a hundred years flashed before his memory, promises he'd made as a child not knowing his leaders would never fulfill them. "They're singing. Have you ever heard anything so lovely?"
The cell at the bottom of the Capitol was utterly silent, save for the whipping flames of torches and shuffling of soldiers' boots. However, in the privacy of Alfred's mind, where Nation and People existed as one in an incomprehensible bond, the world was a choir of heaven, beautiful voices in dozens of languages raised in joy. Daniel could not hear it, but he could hear the tone in Alfred's voice, one he'd not heard the nation use since before the war: he sounded happy.
"No, sir," he told Alfred quietly. "Nothing so lovely in my life."
Historical Notes:
1. It should be noted that the first newspaper excerpt is pretty accurate about Lincoln's reasons for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Namely: Lincoln issued the Proclamation more out of political practicality than out of any idealism against slavery. It is an absolute fact that a ton of Union sympathizers and soldiers would have been abolitionists and would have been looking forward to emancipation for a long time, however, a great deal of the Union was still what we would classify today as white supremacists. They might've believed in the need to emancipate slaves and would have objected to the idea of slavery in the abstract, but in practice they would never believe in the equality of all races. It can be difficult to differentiate Lincoln's personal views on slavery from his public and political statements on slavery (come on, guys, we all know politicians lie about their personal beliefs to get elected and placate the lowest common denominator of their electorate,) and certainly a lot of things Lincoln said and did were incredibly racist. However, even in this practical and non-idealistic framework, he did issue this Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and it was enacted on January 1, 1863.
2. The Proclamation went into immediate effect in all areas in Union control, which includes the regions Alfred mentions here. Contemporaneous accounts (Including one by Booker T. Washington) tell of freed captives singing and celebrating leading up to and on January 1st, when they were delivered news of their new legal status. However, freedom would not extend to all CSA states until the Union arrived and took control. This is most notably the case in Texas, the most remote of the CSA states, where news of the Emancipation Proclamation did not reach enslaved people there until June 19. Today, June 19 is celebrated as Juneteenth in commemoration of this day.
3. Regarding Alfred's claim that they promised him emancipation almost a century ago: in 1787, while drafting the constitution, a great argument broke out as to whether enslaved people should count towards a state's population in order to determine the number of Representatives that state has in the House. Many states at this point had outlawed slavery, and several others were vehemently against the trade, but the southern states still relied on slavery. When it was suggested that the U.S. government could outlaw the slave trade, the southern states threateed to leave the Union. A compromise was reached: the federal government could choose to outlaw slavery, but only after 1800. This date was later extended to 1808. After that, the states adopted the balance of "free states" vs "slave states", which of course led to the civil war. Basically, old entitled white guys spent almost 100 years passing the moral ticking time bomb of their country's social fabric from one generation to the next, until it all came to a boiling point. Lincoln, not out of moral superiority, but out of sheer exhaustion, was the one who finally said "enough".