Egyptian & American Slavery-A Comparison of Moses & Lincoln, A Parallel Drawn Between Israel's Leader & America's President (1897)

8/3/2019 Egyptian & American Slavery-A Comparison of Moses & Lincoln, A Parallel Drawn Between Israel's Leader & Americ

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Egvjptiar\ ar\cly\rT\ericarv Slav^ervj,

A COMPARISON,

JV105E5 /\ND LINGOLJM.

A parallel drawn between Israel's Leaderand America's President.

Judge J^cDovigars EloquerAt Jribute toLirvcolrv's J^emor^j.

REPRINT FROM WESTERN VETERAN.


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A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN'S MEMORY,

UDGE H. C. DcDouGAL delivered anaddress of exceptional interest atthe celebration of the eighty-eighth

anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln,held in Strope's Hall, corner of Ninth andWyandotte streets, Kansas City, Mo., Fri-day night, February 12, 1897. J'^^g^ Mc-Dougal treated Lincoln from a new stand-point in many ways. He compared Egyptianand American slavery, and was particularlyinteresting as considering Moses the proto-type of the great emancipator. The addressis given in full below:

"Mr. Chairman, Comrades and Friends:I am glad to see present to-night, honoringthe day we celebrate, so many ladies. Everysoldier recalls the fact that the love ofmother, sister, wife or sweetheart was thehighest incentive to duty to country and flag,in field and on the mc rch, and that theirmemory was such an inspiration as causedthe weary, flagging step to quicken and thepulse to beat faster, and so it seems goodto have them with us again to-night.

"I am glad, too, to see so many represen-tative colored men here, for if there be oneday in the year when the colored people ofAmerica should cease from their labor anddevote the entire day to actual thanksgiving


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[4.]and actual prayer, that day is the birthdayof Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.)

'*It is pleasant also to see among theaudience a goodly number ot old Con-federate soldiers. This is an object lessonin patriotism. It shows to the world whatsoldiers have known for a generation, name-ly, that with soldiers the war closed at Ap-pomatox and that since that day there hasbeen peace between the b^ue and gray.Politicians alone have kept up sectionalstrife. Soldiers of both armies have echoedand re echoed the immortal sentiment, 'Letus have peace.' I want to say to you ex-Confederates that if the king of terrors andhis hosts should take form and shape so thatsoldiers might meet him in open field andstrive for the mastery, then that the oldUnion soldiers of Missouri would join theold Confederates, touch elbows and keepstep with them and march down south ofthis city and do battle with the hosts ofdeath, rescue from the valley of the shadowof death, where he is now making his lastfight, and restore to family, friends andcountry that gallant, chivalric, courageousand courteous gentleman and soldier of theold schoolglorious old Jo Shelby. Ourprayers go up with yours and we earnestlyhope, as you do, that your old commandermay yet be rescued from the jaws of death. *

"I am not here, however, to discuss either*The gallant Shelby dierl at i:'2i) a. m. the following morniBg.


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[5]of these three interesting subjects, but todirect your thought to a comparison betweenEgypt and American Slavery and point outthe parallel in the lives of Moses andLincoln. The scene which relates to Egyp-tian slavery opens nearly two-thousand yearsbefore Christ."

PHARAOH had made Joseph rulerover all the land of Egypt; they hadthere passed through their seven

years of plenty and were in their seven yearsof famine "and the famine was all over theface of the earth"; Jacob's other sons hadbeen down into Egypt and bought corn ofJosephwhen at the invitation of Pharaoh,conveyed through Joseph, Jacob and hisfamily went down to the land of Goshen inEgypt, "and all the souls of the house ofJaicob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten."

All went well until after the death ofJacob and of Joseph; "the children of Israelwere fruitful and increased abundantly andmultiplied and waxed exceeding mighty;and the land was filled with them. Nowthere arose up a new king over Egypt, whichknew not Joseph." This "new king" atonce commenced and vigorously prosecutedsystematic efforts to oppress and decreasethe numbers and powers of the Israelitesand their condition soon became nothine


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[6,]short ot adject slavery. "And they madetheir lives bitter with hard bondage, in mor-tar and in brick, and in all manner of servicein the field; all their service, wherein theywere made to serve, was with rigor." Thisoppression continued up to the time of Moses."Now the sojourning of the children of

Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hun-dred and thirty years." The exact date ottheir exodus is uncertain, but it is probablethat it began about fifteen hundred years be-fore Christ. Notwithstanding Egyptian op-pression, the Israelites became "as the starsof heaven for multitude" for the seventywho originally went there had mcreased to"about six hundred thousand on foot thatwere men, besides children" at the timeMoses led them over into the wilderness. Thefirst census taken in the wilderness shows that"from twenty years old and upwards, all thatwere able to go forth to war in Israel * *were six hundred thousand and three thou-sand and five hundred and fifty." This didnot include the Levites, who had charge ofthe tabernacle, and whose numbers aggre-gated over twenty-two thousand males aboveone year old, nor did it include the women.With all included there must have been overtwo millions of the children of Israel thatfollowed their great leader out of Egypt andinto the wilderness. There "they did eatmanna forty yesrs * * * until they cameto the borders of the land of Canaan." YetMoses says to them: "Thy raiment waxed


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[7-1not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swellthese forty years.

But after centuries of slavery, and aftertheir long sojourn of forty years in the wil-derness, the children of Israel finally dweltin safety in the promised landthe landflowing with milk and honey. Not so withtheir great leader : meek, humble, "slow ofspeech and of a slow tongue" he was, yet tome, "take him for all in all," Moses standsout as the most richly endowed intellectualgiant in all history, sacred and profane, Thecharacters of Julius Caesar and of Na-polean Bonaparte and of Ulysses S. Grantchallenge ones highest admiration; my ownadmiration, veneration and love for thecharacters of Washington and Lincoln areboundless, yet to me it seems that there hasnot been so many-sided a man as Moses:A law giver, a poet, a physician, a magician,a statesman; a man of rare wisdom, sublimeimagination, vast learning, splendid courageand sagacity; a leader of men, who knewhow to control and play upon the hearts ofhis people and who was marvelously suecessful in his management of his two mil-lion of unruly, ignorant, vicious and super-stitious ex-slavesthe world has neverseen his like. Faithful in all things, thecrowning glory of success was his. Yet hewas not permitted to enter into the promisedland, nor see nor feel nor taste the sweetfruit of his magnificent leadership of morethan forty years. In the hour of his triumph,


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[8.]he went up into the "mountain of Nebo, tothe top of Pisgah;" there the Lord shewedhim all the land of Canaanvalley and plain,mountain and palm tree, even unto the ut-most seaand there, alone with God andthe mountain, and pointing out all thepromised land, the Lord whom he had al-ways obeyed, thus said unto Moses: "Ihave caused thee to see it with thine eyes,but thou shalt not go over thither. SoMoses, the servant of the Lord, died therein the land of Moab,according to the wordot the Lord. And he buried him in a valleyin the land of Moab, over against BethpeOr,but no man knoweth of his sepulchre untothis day."

"And had he not high houor ?The hillside for his pall,To lie in state while angels wait,With stars for tapers tall;And the dark rock pines, like tossing

plumes,Over his bier to wave;And God's own hand, in that lonely land,To lay him in the grave,"

"And Moses was a hundred and twentyyears old when he died; his eye was not dim,nor his natural force abated. * * * Andthere arose not a prophet since in Israellike unto Moses, whom the Lord knew faceto face."

I know not in all history a death andburial so pathetic as this, and to me therehas been the death of but one great and


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[9-Jheroic leader that equals in pathos the deathof Moses.EGYPTIAN AND AMERICAN SLAVr-RY COMPARED.In 1619 a Dutch ship landed at Jamestown,in Virginia, twenty negro slaves. This wasthe beginning of Negro slavery on Americansoil. Other importations followed and theslave trade soon become more profitablethan any other. This trade was prohibitedby law as early as 1808 and in 1820 congressenacted a law declaring it piracy, but .^oenormous were the profits that the importa-tion of negro slaves did not cease until theoutbreak of our civil war, and under thisact of congress there was never but a singleconviction and executionthat of Gordon inNovember, 1861.The American slaveowner did not demand

that his slaves make "bricks without straw;"nor yet that among them the man-child bekilled at his birth, as did his predecessor,the Egyptian taskmaster; but on the con-trary, self interest, if not sentiment, led inthe main, to the fair and humane treatmentof American slaves, so that their conditionwas infinitely above and far better, and theirtasks and burdens less galling than those ofthe slaves of Egypt. Still, America held herbondmen as had Egypt, and her slaveslonged for freedom as did the Israelites ofold.

Like their predecessors of that far away pe-riod, American slaves, by importation and bynatural increase, "multiplied and waxed very


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[10.]mighty" in numbers; for in the two hundredand thirty-six years which intervened be-tween 1619 and 1865, their numbers had in-creased from the twenty landed at James-town to more than four millions.

But at last, in the fullness of time andProvidence of God, the hour was at handwhen the bondmen in that rich land wateredby the Nile should be free, as afterwards itcame when the bondmen in that richer landwatered by the Mississippi should be free.For the deliverance of the one, the LordGodthe beginning and the end of humanjusticeraised up Moses. For the deliver-ance of the other, the same God, three thous-and years later, raised up Abraham Lincoln.

It is true that in liberating America'sbondmen, our southland was sorely scourged.Huiidreds of thousands of her bravest andbest sons gave up their lives for a causewhich from infancy they had been taught tobelieve, and did believe, was right. Thous-ands of her homes went to ashes in the redfires of war; yet the scourges of the southwere as nothing in comparison with those ofold Egypt. For there, before Pharaoh wouldconsent that the bond should go free, theLord turned into blood all the waters ofESypt; was compelled to, and did send theplagues of frogs, of lice, of flies and ofmurrian of beasts, and ot boils and blains,of hail, locusts, and darkness; and finallycaused to be slain, throughout all the land,the first born of both man and beast, so that


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[M.l"there was a ^reat cry in Egypt, for therewas not a house where there was not a dead."More than this, when the bondmen of Egyptwere on their way to the promised land, theywere pursued by Pharaoh and his hosts;Moses parted the waters, he and his follow-ers passed over dry shod; but when thethe Egyptians got well into the sea, "thewaters returned, and covered their chariotsand their horsemen and all the host ofPharaoh that came into the sea after them;and there remained not so much as one ofthem * * * and Israel saw the Egyptiansdead upon the sea-shore."Our southland, thank heaven, neither sawnor telt any of these scourges, nor was theremnant of that gallant band of Americansoldiers that forever grounded arms andfurled flag at Appomattox, swallowed upand lost in a waste of waters. Nor wereAmerican slaves, alter theirliberation, forcedto wander in a wilderness for forty long,dreary years; nor had they cause to murmurand weep and say, as did the bondmen ofEgypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat? Weremember the fish, which we did eat inEgypt freely: the cucumbers, and the mel-ons, and the leeks, and the onions 'and thegarlic; but now our soul is dried awav."On the contrary, the southland soldiei re-

turned in peace to his home, takmg hishorses"they will need them for the springplowing," said uur great-hearted Grant.The American slave, too, remained in the


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[12.] .rich Egypt in which he was bornthe soft,sensuous, flower-laden, melon producing landof Dixiewhere, at first^in'^the service of hisold master, and later for himself, he con-tinued to hoe the cotton, the corn and thecane, until raised to the full dignity ofAmerican citizenship in the land of his birth.There most of them remain out,even unto thisday. Loyal to old master and old missusin the chams of slavery and in freedom, inwar and in peace,for be it remembered totheir everlasting honor, that no negro slaveof America ever betrayed the trust or offeredpersonal violence to master or mistresstome, born and reared among them as I was,they will ever be remembered as the kind-est and the most faithful of the creatures ofGod. In peace and harmony they dwell to-day among those who but a third of a cen-tury ago owned their bodiesheld them asmere chattels.

LINCOLN THE LIBERATOR.To whom are the American slaves of a

generation ago indebted for their freedom?First, to that tenderest, ablest and best ofAmerican statesman,Abraham Lincoln;next, to the great commanders: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Logan and Blairand a host ot other officers; but most of allto the boys who wore the Bluewho wentdown into their land of Egypt to save theUnion; who for four long years, throughsummer's heat and winter's snow, over


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[13]mountain and plain, through cotton held andcane brake, followed the flag and fought forthe right. The bones ol a majority of theseboys of a third of a century ago, are nowmouldering back to dust again in the landthey saved"theirs the cross, ours thecrown." Remember that under Lincolnthese boys had their "wilderness;" that whenthey returned to "God's country" they notonly brought back America's Ark of theCovenant, the constitution, with every lineand word inits old place and in full force andeffect; from that "abomination of desola-tion," the chaos of secession, rescued andbrought back with them every one of theeleven stars that had fallen from the field ofblue in their country's flag and restored eachstar to its old place, where, firm as a fixedstar in heaven, each again glittered to thename of a redeemed and restored state inthe American Union; but brought back withthem and proudly threw upon the altar oftheir beloved country the shackels of fourmillions of human beings.When that grand old army that had savedthe Union and liberated America's bond-

men, "like a grand, majestic sea," swept upfrom the southland and through the nation'scapital on that memorable review of May,i86^, beneath each blouse of blue beat aheart filled with conflicting emotions of joyand sorrow: Joy because the Union wassaved, the flow of American blood hadceased, the slaves were free and "home.


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[M.]sweet home" was near at hand. Sorrow be-cause of comrades who slept the sleep thatknows no waking in that soft clime beneathsouthern skies, and sorrow that the hour ofparting with companions m arms had come.Within every heart, too, was a feeling ofprofound respect for the courage and valorof those who had fought so long and so wellfor 'The Lost Cause." On an hundred bat-tle fields the Boys in Gray had demonstratedthe highest qualities of American soldiers,to meet and defeat whom had been bothhonorable and glorious. Four years before,to the sound of bugle, fife and drum, in uni-forms bright, with plumes and banners fly-ing and hearts beating with hope and cour-age high, the Boys in Gray had pruudlymarched away from homes, filled with musicand song and perfume of flowers; now in theunutterable sadness, sorrow and humiliationof defeat, they were tramping their wearyway back to those homes in the land of pineand palm tree, cotton and cane, where theplantation song of the darky and the tum-ming of the old banjo now were hushed andthe mournful note of the whip-poor-will andthe sad, sweet tones of the mocking birdmade the only music, and even this to themsounded like the dead march in Saul. Whatnow to them were the voices of singing menand of singing women and of singing birds,for the ringing voices of Jeb Stuart, AlbertSidney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson werehushed in death; nevermore would they hear


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[I5-]the grave, dignified command of their greatchieftain, Robert E. Lee; the cause forwhich they had endured so much was lost.For them the days went by "like a shadowo'er the heart" and what lay before themunder the new order of things no man daredto guess. The boys who in that grand reviewstill kept step to the majestic music of theUnion.thoughtof all thisthe generous Blueforgave the errors of, and felt pity for thevanquished Grayhe was a foe no longer,but an American citizen and iithe land ofhis fathers.

But above all, in that grand review everyeye was filled with unshed tears, everyheart bowed down, because of the untimelydeath of him to whose call they had re-sponded: "We're coming Father Abraham'three hundred thousand more." Lincolnwas not there to receive and welcome andreview the conquering heroes whose everymovement by day and by night, with afather's loving tenderness, he had so anxious-ly watched, for four long years.As the bondmen of Egypt after their lib-

eration often needed the wise head and gen-erous heart of Moses, so the bondmen ofAmerica sorely needed the wise head andgreat heart of their emancipator; the Boysin Blue and the Boys in Gray, for their pro-tection against the wiles of scheming politi-cians north and south, also needed Lincoln;yet this boon was denied them; for the oneman who could and, no doubt would have


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[i6.]proven a blessing and a benediction to Bond-men, Blue and Gray alike, had been calledto his reward. And as in the olden time"the children of Israel wept for Moses inthe land of Moab," so the newly made treed-men, as well as the soldiers of both armies,mourned and wept for Lincoln.

MOSES AND LINCOLNTHE PARALLEL.Some of those who should have been most

loyal, earnest and zealous in their supportof Moses, often murmured, complained andeven revolted agamst the great lawgiver.So with Lincoln. "In that fierce light whichbeats upon a throne," the central figure ofthe warthe strongest and the noblest manwhose shadow the sweet sunshine of heavenever cast upon Mother Earthstood amid ashower of envious shafts, heard the cruelcriticism and the curses of enemies northand south, at home and abroad, yet throughit all remained he, like a god of old, calm,unrrioved and immovable.

"I saw a pine in Italy 'That cast its shadow athwart a cataract.The pine stood firm,The cataract shook the shadow."

Our war was a mighty cataract poured outof heaven in answer to the human cry forjustice and freedom, its waters crimsonedwith a nation's blood of atonement; thecolossal shadow of Lincoln was cast athwartits every part; in public opinion he some-times seemed to waver, yet now we know


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[7]that however vacillating others, through allits four years of appalling seethe and roarand crash, Lincoln himself swerved neitherto the right nor the left, but like the poet'spine, always stood firm. He knew what hewas doing and why. His enemies did notknow, could not understand. The onlyAmerican who, upon the instant, compre-hended every proposition relating to warand freedom, he was long reviled for his si-lence and inaction; yet when at the rightmoment, through his immortal emancipa-tion proclamation, he did speak, the worldheard; and no words spoken in all historyhave proven so potential for good, or haveso calmed the waters of discontent, sinceupon the troubled sea of Galilee the Masterstood forth and said: "Peace, be still."Peace, the redeemed and restored Union andthe freedom of American^' bondmen werefrom that moment assured. Then, and nottill then, did the world fully realize that atthe helm of our ship of state, rocked andtossed as it was upon the crimson sea ofcivil war, there stood an earnest, sad-facedman, in leadership the peer ot Moses and ingoodness and mercy and justice almost theequal of Jesus of Nazareth.Like Moses, Lincoln was permitted to

view the promised land. Lee had surrender-ed, the war was nearing its close; with hisprophetic eye he saw in the near future theold flag floating free from sea to sea; sawthe Union saved and restored; saw the


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[IS.]shackles of every American slave lying brok-en at his feet; but the splendid army ofJohnston and the army ot the southwest werestill in the field; "the bonny blue flag" wasstill borne aloft, and still in defiance, kissedsoft, balmy breezes under southern skies.Hence, like Moses, Lincoln was not per-mitted to set foot in that land of perfectfreedom for which his sad ?oul yearned. Foreach it was only a little way offjust acrossthe riverthe Jordan for Moses and thePotomac for Lincolnyet the hand of Godtouched the one, the hand of a madman theother, and the two great emancipators stoodface to face in the presence of the God ofAbraham, Isaac and Jacobthe same Godthat looked down with pity upon bondmenof the Nile and Mississippi and said: "Theyshall be free."As under that high resolve, with Moses

for leader and the "pillar of cloud by dayand the pillar of fire by night" for guide, thebondmen of Egypt at last emerged fromtheir darkness into the light of freedom; sowith Lincoln for leader and the starry ban-ner of the Union for guide, the long night ofslavery at last gave way to freedom's light,and, bewildered with joyous wonder, thebondmen of America, in the land where theyhad been but things, stood upon their feetas men.Moses was born of obscure parentage and

in poverty; so was Lincoln. Yet in his owncountry and among his own people, each at-


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[19-]tained the highest station, stood alone uponthe very dome of dread Fame's temple, amost unselfish, unconscious and unambitiousgiant, without a rival and without a peer.When Moses died, **his eye was not dim,nor his natural force abated," and the samewas true of Lincoln. From the standpointof the humari, each seems to have beencalled when most neededv>hen on the verythreshold of new, useful and even moree^lorious careers. Yet who knows?Another strikingly suggestive parallel,

true alike in the land of Canaan and inAmerica, in Holy writ finds expression inthese words: "And there arose not aprophet since in Israel, like unto Moses."The death of Moses was pathetic; that of

Lincoln tragic; and yet there was anindescribable pathos in the death of Lincolnthat is closely associated with that of thedeath of his great prototype: In sight ofthe promised land, yet not permitted toenter.How different their burials! With his

own hands and all alone, God himself buriedMoses "in a valley in the land Moab, overagainst Bethpeor; but no man knoweth ofhis sepulchre unto tnis day." Not so withLincoln: A grateful nation of freemen, allin tears, tenderly bore his body from theCapital to his old home on the broad prairiesof Illinois and with loving hands there laidaway the tall form of that plain, sad, unas-suming patriot, who in saving the Union


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[23]brought freedom to America's bondmen,There he rests in the majesty of eternal re-pose. His works and his example live. Andwhile time lasts, lovers of liberty and free-dom and justice from every land and clime,aye, even nations and peoples yet unborn,will make pilgrimages to that tomb andstanding there with uncovered heads, withthoughts too deep for either words or tears,will silently and reverently return thanks tothe God of bond and free for His gift ofAbraham Lincoln.


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Egyptian & American Slavery-A Comparison of Moses & Lincoln, A Parallel Drawn Between Israel's Leader & America's President (1897)