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"TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE"
ADDRESS OF
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
FOUNDERS' DAY, JANUARY 16, 1913
"'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE"
In the single hour self-allotted for my part in this occasion there is
much ground to cover,--the time is short, and I have far to go. Did I
now, therefore, submit all I had proposed to say when I accepted your
invitation, there would remain no space for preliminaries. Yet something
of that character is in place. I will try to make it brief.[1]
As the legend or text of what I have in mind to submit, I have given the
words "'Tis Sixty Years Since." As some here doubtless recall, this is
the second or subordinate title of Walter Scott's first novel,
"Waverley," which brought him fame. Given to the world in 1814,--hard on
a century ago,--"Waverley" told of the last Stuart effort to recover the
crown of Great Britain,--that of "The '45." It so chances that Scott's
period of retrospect is also just now most appropriate in my case,
inasmuch as I entered Harvard as a student in the year 1853--"sixty
years since!" It may fairly be asserted that school life ends, and what
may in contradistinction thereto be termed thinking and acting life
begins, the day the young man passes the threshold of the institution of
more advanced education. For him, life's responsibilities then begin.
Prior to that confused, thenceforth things with him become
consecutive,--a sequence. Insensibly he puts away childish things.
[1] Owing to its length, this "Address" was compressed in delivery,
occupying one hour only. It is here printed in the form in which it was
prepared,--the parts omitted in delivery being included.
In those days, as I presume now, the college youth harkened to inspired
voices. Sir Walter Scott belonged to a previous generation. Having held
the close attention of a delighted world as the most successful
story-teller of his own or any preceding period, he had passed off the
stage; but only a short twenty years before. Other voices no less
inspired had followed; and, living, spoke to us. Perhaps my scheme
to-day is best expressed by one of these.
When just beginning to attract the attention of the English-speaking
world, Alfred Tennyson gave forth his poem of "Locksley Hall,"--very
familiar to those of my younger days. Written years before, at the time
of publication he was thirty-three. In 1886, a man of seventy-five, he
composed a sequel to his earlier effort,--the utterance entitled
"Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." He then, you will remember, reviewed
his young man's dreams,--dreams of the period when he
" ... dip't into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be,"
--threescore years later contrasting in sombre verse an old man's stern
realities with the bright anticipations of youth. Such is my purpose
to-day. "Wandering back to living boyhood," to the time when I first
simultaneously passed the Harvard threshold and the threshold of
responsible life, I propose to compare the ideals and actualities of the
present with the ideals, anticipations and dreams of a past now
somewhat remote.
To say that in life and in the order of life's events it is the
unexpected which is apt to occur, is a commonplace. That it has been so
in my own case, I shall presently show. Meanwhile, not least among the
unexpected things is my presence here to-day. If, when I entered Harvard
in 1853, it had been suggested that in 1913, I,--born of the New England
Sanhedrim, a Brahmin Yankee by blood, tradition and environment--had it
been suggested that I, being such, would sixty years later stand by
invitation here in Columbia before the faculty and students of the
University of South Carolina, I should under circumstances then existing
have pronounced the suggestion as beyond reasonable credence. Here,
however, I am; and here, from this as my rostrum, I propose to-day to
deliver a message,--such as it is.
And yet, though such a future outcome, if then foretold, would have
seemed scarcely possible of occurrence, there, after all, were certain
conditions which would have rendered the contingency even at that time
not only possible, but in accordance with the everlasting fitness of
things. For, curiously enough, personal relations of a certain character
held with this institution would have given me, even in 1853, a sense of
acquaintance with it such as individually I had with no other
institution of similar character throughout the entire land. It in this
wise came about. At that period, preceding as it did the deluge about to
ensue, it was the hereditary custom of certain families more especially
of South Carolina and of Louisiana,--but of South Carolina in
particular--to send their youth to Harvard, there to receive a college
education. It thus chanced that among my associates at Harvard were not
a few who bore names long familiarly and honorably known to Carolinian
records,--Barnwell and Preston, Rhett and Alston, Parkman and Eliot; and
among these were some I knew well, and even intimately. Gone now with
the generation and even the civilization to which they belonged, I doubt
if any of them survive. Indeed only recently I chanced on a grimly
suggestive mention of one who had left on me the memory of a character
and personality singularly pure, high-toned and manly,--permeated with a
sense of moral and personal obligation. I have always understood he died
five years later at Sharpsburg, as you call it, or Antietam, as it was
named by us, in face-to-face conflict with a Massachusetts regiment
largely officered by Harvard men of his time and even class,--his own
familiar friends. This is the record, the reference being to a marriage
service held at St. Paul's church in Richmond, in the late autumn of
1862: "An indefinable feeling of gloom was thrown over a most auspicious
event when the bride's youngest sister glided through a side door just
before the processional. Tottering to a chancel pew, she threw herself
upon the cushions, her slight frame racked with sobs. Scarcely a year
before, the wedding march had been played for her, and a joyous throng
saw her wedded to gallant Breck Parkman. Before another twelvemonth
rolled around the groom was killed at the front."[2] Samuel Breck
Parkman was in the Harvard class following that to which I belonged.
Graduating in 1857, fifty-five years later I next saw his name in the
connection just given. It recorded an incident of not infrequent
occurrence in those dark and cruel days.
It was, however, in Breck Parkman and his like that I first became
conscious of certain phases of the South Carolina character which
subsequently I learned to bear in high respect.
So far as this University of South Carolina was concerned, it also so
chanced that, by the merest accident, I, a very young man, was thrown
into close personal relations with one of the most eminent of your
professors,--Francis Lieber. Few here, I suppose, now personally
remember Francis Lieber. To most it gives indeed a certain sense of
remoteness to meet one who, as in my case, once held close and even
intimate relations with a German emigrant, distinguished as a publicist,
who as a youth had lain, wounded and helpless, a Prussian recruit, on
the field above Namur. Occurring in June, 1815, two days after Waterloo,
the affair at Namur will soon be a century gone. Of those engaged in
it, the last obeyed the fell sergeant's summons a half score years ago.
It seems remote; but at the time of which I speak Waterloo was
appreciably nearer those in active life than are Shiloh and Gettysburg
now. The Waterloo campaign was then but thirty-eight years removed,
whereas those last are fifty now; and, while Lieber was at Waterloo, I
was myself at Gettysburg.
[2] DeLeon, "Belles, Beaux and Brains of the Sixties," p. 158.
Subsequently, later in life, it was again my privilege to hold close
relations with another Columbian,--an alumnus of this University as it
then was--in whom I had opportunity to study some of the strongest and
most respect-commanding traits of the Southern character. I refer to one
here freshly remembered,--Alexander Cheves Haskell,--soldier, jurist,
banker and scholar, one of a septet of brothers sent into the field by a
South Carolina mother calm and tender of heart, but in silent suffering
unsurpassed by any recorded in the annals whether of Judea or of Rome.
It was the fourth of the seven Haskells I knew, one typical throughout,
in my belief, of what was best in your Carolinian development. With him,
as I have said, I was closely and even intimately associated through
years, and in him I had occasion to note that almost austere type
represented in its highest development in the person and attributes of
Calhoun. Of strongly marked descent, Haskell was, as I have always
supposed, of a family and race in which could be observed those virile
Scotch-Irish and Presbyterian qualities which found their
representative types in the two Jacksons,--Andrew, and him known in
history as "Stonewall." To Alec Haskell I shall in this discourse again
have occasion to refer.
Thus, though in 1853, and for long years subsequent thereto, it would
not have entered my mind as among the probabilities that I should ever
stand here, reviewing the past after the manner of Tennyson in his
"Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," yet if there was any place in the
South, or, I may say, in the entire country, where, as a matter of
association, I might naturally have looked so to stand, it would have
been where now I find myself.
But I must hasten on; for, as I have said, if I am to accomplish even a
part of my purpose, I have no time wherein to linger.
Not long ago I chanced, in a country ramble, to be conversing with an
eminent foreigner, known, and favorably known, to all Americans. In the
course of leisurely exchange of ideas between us, he suddenly asked if I
could suggest any explanation of the fact that not only were the
publicists who had the greatest vogue in our college days now to a large
extent discredited, but that almost every view and theory advanced by
them, and which we had accepted as fixed and settled, was, where not
actually challenged, silently ignored. Nor did the assertion admit of
denial; for, looking back through the vista of threescore years, of the
principles of what may be called "public polity" then advanced as
indisputable, few to-day meet with general acceptance. To review the
record from this point of view is curious.
When in 1853 I entered Harvard, so far as this country and its polity
were concerned certain things were matters of contention, while others
were accepted as axiomatic,--the basic truths of our system. Among the
former--the subjects of active contention--were the question of Slavery,
then grimly assuming shape, and that of Nationality intertwined
therewith. Subordinate to this was the issue of Free Trade and
Protection, with the school of so-called American political economy
arrayed against that of Adam Smith. Beyond these as political ideals
were the tenets and theories of Jeffersonian Democracy. That the world
had heretofore been governed too much was loudly acclaimed, and the
largest possible individualism was preached, not only as a privilege but
as a right. The area of government action was to be confined within the
narrowest practical limits, and ample scope was to be allowed to each to
develop in the way most natural to himself, provided only he did not
infringe upon the rights of others. Materially, we were then reaching
out to subdue a continent,--a doctrine of Manifest Destiny was in vogue.
Beyond this, however, and most important now to be borne in mind,
compared with the present the control of man over natural agencies and
latent forces was scarcely begun. Not yet had the railroad crossed the
Missouri; electricity, just bridled, was still unharnessed.
I have now passed in rapid review what may perhaps without exaggeration
be referred to as an array of conditions and theories, ideals and
policies. It remains to refer to the actual results which have come
about during these sixty years as respects them, or because of them;
and, finally, to reach if possible conclusions as to the causes which
have affected what may not inaptly be termed a process of general
evolution. Having thus, so to speak, diagnosed the situation, the
changes the situation exacts are to be measured, and a forecast
ventured. An ambitious programme, I am well enough aware that the not
very considerable reputation I have established for myself hardly
warrants me in attempting it. This, I premise.
Let us, in the first place, recur in somewhat greater detail to the
various policies and ideals I have referred to as in vogue in the
year 1853.
First and foremost, overshadowing all else, was the political issue
raised by African slavery, then ominously assuming shape. The clouds
foreboding the coming tempest were gathering thick and heavy; and,
moreover, they were even then illumined by electric flashes, accompanied
by a mutter of distant thunder. Though we of the North certainly did not
appreciate its gravity, the situation was portentous in the extreme.
Involved in this problem of African slavery was the incidental issue of
Free Trade and Protection,--apparently only economical and industrial in
character, but in reality fundamentally crucial. And behind this lay
the constitutional question, involving as it did not only the
conflicting theories of a strict or liberal construction of the
fundamental law, but nationality also,--the right of a Sovereign State
to withdraw from the Union created in 1787, and developed through two
generations.
These may be termed concrete political issues, as opposed to basic
truths generally accepted and theories individually entertained. The
theories were constitutional, social, economical. Constitutionally, they
turned upon the obligations of citizenship. There was no such thing then
as a citizen of the United States of and by itself. The citizen of the
United States was such simply because of his citizenship of a Sovereign
State,--whether Massachusetts or Virginia or South Carolina; and, of
course, an instrument based upon a divided sovereignty admitted of
almost infinitely diverse interpretation. It is a scriptural aphorism
that no man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and
love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
And in the fulness of time it literally with us so came about. The
accepted economical theories of the period were to a large extent
corollaries of the fundamental proposition, and differing material and
social conditions. Beyond all this, and coming still under the head of
individual theories, was the doctrine enunciated by Thomas Jefferson in
the Declaration of Independence,--the doctrine that all men were created
equal,--meaning, of course, equal before the law. But the theorist and
humanitarian of the North, accepting the fundamental principle laid down
in the Declaration, gave to it a far wider application than had been
intended by its authors,--a breadth of application it would not bear.
Such science as he had being of scriptural origin, he interpreted the
word "equal" as signifying equal in the possibilities of their
attributes,--physical, moral, intellectual; and in so doing, he of
course ignored the first principles of ethnology. It was, I now realize,
a somewhat wild-eyed school of philosophy, that of which I myself was a
youthful disciple.
But, on the other hand, beside these, between 1850 and 1860 a class of
trained and more cautious thinkers, observers, scientists and
theologians was coming to the front. Their investigations, though we did
not then foresee it, were a generation later destined gently to subvert
the accepted fundamentals of religious and economical thought, literary
performance, and material existence. The work they had in hand to do was
for the next fifteen years to be subordinate, so far as this country was
concerned, to the solution of the terrible political problems which were
first insistent on settlement; yet, as is now apparent, an initial
movement was on foot which foreboded a revolution world-wide in its
nature, and one in comparison with which the issues of slavery and
American constitutionality became practically insignificant,--in a word,
local and passing incidents.
Finally, it remains to consider specifically the political theories
then in vogue in their relation to the individual. In this country, it
was the period of the equality of man and individuality in the
development of the type. It was generally believed that the world had
hitherto been governed too much,--that the day of caste, and even class,
was over and gone; and finally, that America was a species of vast
modern melting-pot of humanity, in which, within a comparatively short
period of time, the characteristics of all branches of Indo-Aryan origin
would resolve themselves. A new type would emerge,--the American. These
theories were also in their consequences far-reaching. Practically, 1853
antedates all our present industrial organizations so loudly in
evidence,--the multifarious trades-unions which now divide the
population of the United States into what are known as the "masses" and
the "classes." As recently as a century ago, it used to be said of the
French army under the Empire, that every soldier carried the baton of
the Field-Marshal in his knapsack. And this ideal of equality and
individuality was fixed in the American mind.
Not that I for a moment mean to imply that in my belief the middle of
the last century, or the twenty years anterior to the Civil War, was a
species of golden age in our American annals. On the contrary, it was,
as I remember it, a phase of development very open to criticism; and
that in many respects. It was crude, self-conscious and self-assertive;
provincial and formative, rather than formed. Socially and materially
we were, compared with the present era of motors and parlor-cars, in the
"one-hoss shay" and stove-heated railroad-coach stage. Nevertheless,
what is now referred to as "predatory wealth" had not yet begun to
accumulate in few hands; much greater equality of condition prevailed;
nor was the "wage-earner" referred to as constituting a class distinct
from the holders of property. Thus the individual was then
encouraged,--whether in literature, in commerce, or in politics. In
other words, there being a free field, one man was held to be in all
respects the equal of the rest. Especially was what I have said true of
the Northern, or so-called Free States, as contrasted with the States of
the South, where the presence of African slavery distinctly affected
individual theories, no matter where or to what extent entertained.
Such, briefly and comprehensively stated, having been the situation in
1853, it remains to consider the practical outcome thereof during the
sixty years it has been my fortune to take part, either as an actor or
as an observer, in the great process of evolution. It is curious to note
the extent to which the unexpected has come about. In the first place,
consider the all-absorbing mid-century political issue, that involving
the race question, to which I first referred,--the issue which divided
the South from the North, and which, eight years only after I had
entered college, carried me from the walks of civil life into the
calling of arms.
And here I enter on a field of discussion both difficult and dangerous;
and, for reasons too obvious to require statement, what I am about to
say will be listened to with no inconsiderable apprehension as to what
next may be forthcoming. Nevertheless, this is a necessary part of my
theme; and I propose to say what I have in mind to say, setting forth
with all possible frankness the more mature conclusions reached with the
passage of years. Let it be received in the spirit in which it
is offered.
So far, then, as the institution of slavery is concerned, in its
relations to ownership and property in those of the human species,--I
have seen no reason whatever to revise or in any way to alter the
theories and principles I entertained in 1853, and in the maintenance of
which I subsequently bore arms between 1861 and 1865. Economically,
socially, and from the point of view of abstract political justice, I
hold that the institution of slavery, as it existed in this country
prior to the year 1865, was in no respect either desirable or
justifiable. That it had its good and even its elevating side, so far at
least as the African is concerned, I am not here to deny. On the
contrary, I see and recognize those features of the institution far more
clearly now than I should have said would have been possible in 1853.
That the institution in itself, under conditions then existing, tended
to the elevation of the less advanced race, I frankly admit I did not
then think. On the other hand, that it exercised a most pernicious
influence upon those of the more advanced race, and especially upon
that large majority of the more advanced race who were not themselves
owners of slaves,--of that I have become with time ever more and more
satisfied. The noticeable feature, however, so far as I individually am
concerned, has been the entire change of view as respects certain of the
fundamental propositions at the base of our whole American political and
social edifice brought about by a more careful and intelligent
ethnological study. I refer to the political equality of man, and to
that race absorption to which I have alluded,--that belief that any
foreign element introduced into the American social system and body
politic would speedily be absorbed therein, and in a brief space
thoroughly assimilated. In this all-important respect I do not hesitate
to say we theorists and abstractionists of the North, throughout that
long anti-slavery discussion which ended with the 1861 clash of arms,
were thoroughly wrong. In utter disregard of fundamental, scientific
facts, we theoretically believed that all men--no matter what might be
the color of their skin, or the texture of their hair--were, if placed
under exactly similar conditions, in essentials the same. In other
words, we indulged in the curious and, as is now admitted, utterly
erroneous theory that the African was, so to speak, an Anglo-Saxon, or,
if you will, a Yankee "who had never had a chance,"--a fellow-man who
was guilty, as we chose to express it, of a skin not colored like our
own. In other words, though carved in ebony, he also was in the image
of God.
Following out this theory, under the lead of men to whom scientific
analysis and observation were anathema if opposed to accepted cardinal
political theories as enunciated in the Declaration as read by them, the
African was not only emancipated, but so far as the letter of the law,
as expressed in an amended Constitution, would establish the fact, the
quondam slave was in all respects placed on an equality, political,
legal and moral, with those of the more advanced race.
I do not hesitate here,--as one who largely entertained the theoretical
views I have expressed,--I do not hesitate here to say, as the result of
sixty years of more careful study and scientific observation, the
theories then entertained by us were not only fundamentally wrong, but
they further involved a problem in the presence of which I confess
to-day I stand appalled.
It is said,--whether truthfully or not,--that when some years ago John
Morley, the English writer and thinker, was in this country, on
returning to England he remarked that the African race question, as now
existing in the United States, presented a problem as nearly, to his
mind, insoluble as any human problem well could be. I do not care
whether Lord Morley made this statement or did not make it. I am
prepared, however, to say that, individually, so far as my present
judgment goes, it is a correct presentation. To us in the North, the
African is a comparatively negligible factor. So far as Massachusetts,
for instance, or the city of Boston more especially, are concerned, as
a problem it is solving itself. Proportionately, the African infusion is
becoming less--never large, it is incomparably less now than it was in
the days of my own youth. Thus manifestly a negligible factor, it is
also one tending to extinction. Indeed, it would be fairly open to
question whether a single Afro-American of unmixed Ethiopian descent
could now be found in Boston. That the problem presents itself with a
wholly different aspect here in Carolina is manifest. The difference too
is radical; it goes to the heart of the mystery.
As I have already said, the universal "melting-pot" theory in vogue in
my youth was that but seven, or at the most fourteen, years were
required to convert the alien immigrant--no matter from what region or
of what descent--into an American citizen. The educational influences
and social environment were assumed to be not only subtle, but
all-pervasive and powerful. That this theory was to a large and even
dangerous extent erroneous the observation of the last fifty years has
proved, and our Massachusetts experience is sadly demonstrating to-day.
It was Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, years ago, when asked by an anxious
mother at what age the education of a child ought to begin, remarked in
reply that it should begin about one hundred and fifty years before the
child is born. It has so proved with us; and the fact is to-day in
evidence that this statement of Dr. Holmes should be accepted as an
undeniable political aphorism. So far from seven or fourteen years
making an American citizen, fully and thoroughly impregnated with
American ideals to the exclusion of all others, our experience is that
it requires at least three generations to eliminate what may be termed
the "hyphen" in citizenship. Not in the first, nor in the second, and
hardly in the third, generation, does the immigrant cease to be an
Irish-American, or a French-American, or a German-American, or a
Slavonic-American, or yet a Dago. Nevertheless, in process of tune,
those of the Caucasian race do and will become Americans. Ultimately
their descendants will be free from the traditions and ideals, so to
speak, ground in through centuries passed under other conditions. Not so
the Ethiopian. In his case, we find ourselves confronted with a
situation never contemplated in that era of political dreams and
scriptural science in which our institutions received shape. Stated
tersely and in plain language, so far as the African is concerned--the
cause and, so to speak, the motive of the great struggle of 1861 to
1865--we recognize the presence in the body politic of a vast alien mass
which does not assimilate and which cannot be absorbed. In other words,
the melting-pot theory came in sharp contact with an ethnological fact,
and the unexpected occurred. The problem of African servitude was solved
after a fashion; but in place of it a race issue of most uncompromising
character evolved itself.
A survivor of the generation which read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as it week
by week appeared,--fresh to-day from Massachusetts with its Lawrence
race issues of a different character, I feel a sense of satisfaction in
discussing here in South Carolina this question and issue in a spirit
the reverse of dogmatic, a spirit purely scientific, observant and
sympathetic. And in this connection let me say I well remember
repeatedly discussing it with your fellow-citizen and my friend, Colonel
Alexander Haskell, to whom I have already made reference. Rarely have I
been more impressed by a conclusion reached and fixed in the mind of one
who to the study of a problem had obviously given much and kindly
thought. As those who knew him do not need to be told, Alexander Cheves
Haskell was a man of character, pure and just and thoughtful. He felt
towards the African as only a Southerner who had himself never been the
owner of slaves can feel. He regarded him as of a less advanced race
than his own, but one who was entitled not only to just and kindly
treatment but to sympathetic consideration. When, however, the question
of the future of the Afro-American was raised, as matter for abstract
discussion, it was suggestive as well as curious to observe the fixed,
hard expression which immediately came over Haskell's face, as with
stern lips, from which all suggestion of a smile had faded away, he
pronounced the words:--"Sir, it is a dying race!" To express the thought
more fully, Colonel Haskell maintained, as I doubt not many who now
listen to me will maintain, that the nominal Afro-American increase, as
shown in the figures of the national census, is deceptive,--that in
point of fact, the Ethiop in America is incurring the doom which has
ever befallen those of an inferior and less advanced race when brought
in direct and immediate contact, necessarily and inevitably competitive,
with the more advanced, the more masterful, and intellectually the more
gifted. In other words, those of the less advanced race have a fatal
aptitude for contracting the vices, both moral and physical, of the
superior race, in the end leading to destruction; while the capacity for
assimilating the elevating qualities and attributes which constitute a
saving grace is denied them. Elimination, therefore, became in Haskell's
belief a question of time only,--the law of the survival of the fittest
would assert itself. The time required may be long,--numbered by
centuries; but, however remotely, it nevertheless would come. God's mill
grinds slowly, but it grinds uncommon small; and, I will add, its
grinding is apt to be merciless.
The solution thus most pronouncedly laid down by Colonel Haskell may or
may not prove in this case correct and final. It certainly is not for
me, coming from the North, to undertake dogmatically to pass upon it. I
recur to it here as a plausible suggestion only, in connection with my
theme. As such, it unquestionably merits consideration. I am by no means
prepared to go the length of an English authority in recently saying
that "emancipation on two continents sacrificed the real welfare of the
slave and his intrinsic worth as a person, to the impatient vanity of
an immediate and theatrical triumph."[3] This length I say, I cannot go;
but so far as the present occasion is concerned, with such means of
observation as are within my reach, I find the conclusion difficult to
resist that the success of the abolitionists in effecting the
emancipation of the Afro-American, as unexpected and sweeping as it was
sudden, has led to phases of the race problem quite unanticipated at
least. For instance, as respects segregation. Instead of assimilating,
with a tendency to ultimate absorption, the movement in the opposite
direction since 1865 is pronounced. It has, moreover, received the final
stamp of scientific approval. This implies much; for in the old days of
the "peculiar institution" there is no question the relations between
the two races were far more intimate, kindly, and even absorptive than
they now are.
That African slavery, as it existed in the United States anterior to the
year 1862, presented a mild form of servitude, as servitude then existed
and immemorially had almost everywhere existed, was, moreover,
incontrovertibly proven in the course of the Civil War. Before 1862, it
was confidently believed that any severe social agitation within, or
disturbance from without, would inevitably lead to a Southern servile
insurrection. In Europe this result was assumed as of course; and,
immediately after it was issued, the Emancipation Proclamation of President
[3] Bussell's (Dr. F.W.) "Christian Theology and Social Progress."
Bampton Lectures, 1905. Lincoln was denounced in unmeasured terms by
the entire London press. Not a voice was raised in its defence. It was
regarded as a measure unwarranted in civilized warfare, and a sure and
intentional incitement to the horrors which had attended the servile
insurrections of Haiti and San Domingo; and, more recently, the
unspeakable Sepoy incidents of the Indian mutiny. What actually occurred
is now historic. The confident anticipations of our English brethren
were, not for the first time, negatived; nor is there any page in our
American record more creditable to those concerned than the attitude
held by the African during the fierce internecine struggle which
prevailed between April, 1861, and April, 1865. In it there is scarcely
a trace, if indeed there is any trace at all, of such a condition of
affairs as had developed in the Antilles and in Hindustan. The attitude
of the African towards his Confederate owner was submissive and kindly.
Although the armed and masterful domestic protector was at the front and
engaged in deadly, all-absorbing conflict, yet the women and children of
the Southern plantation slept with unbarred doors,--free from
apprehension, much more from molestation.
Moreover, as you here well know, during the old days of slavery there
was hardly a child born, of either sex, who grew up in a Southern
household of substantial wealth without holding immediate and most
affectionate relations with those of the other race. Every typical
Southern man had what he called his "daddy" and his "mammy," his
"uncle" and his "aunty," by him familiarly addressed as such, and who
were to him even closer than are blood relations to most. They had cared
for him in his cradle; he followed them to their graves. Is it needful
for me to ask to what extent such relations still exist? Of those born
thirty years after emancipation, and therefore belonging distinctly to a
later generation, how many thus have their kindly, if humble, kin of the
African blood? I fancy I would be safe in saying not one in twenty.
Here, then, as the outcome of the first great issue I have suggested as
occupying the thought and exciting the passions of that earlier period,
is a problem wholly unanticipated,--a problem which, merely stating,
I dismiss.
Passing rapidly on, I come to the next political issue which presented
itself in my youth,--the constitutional issue,--that of State
Sovereignty, as opposed to the ideal, Nationality. And, whether for
better or worse, this issue, I very confidently submit, has been
settled. We now, also, looking at it in more observant mood, in a spirit
at once philosophical and historical, see that it involved a process of
natural evolution which, under the conditions prevailing, could hardly
result in any other settlement than that which came about. We now have
come to a recognition of the fact that Anglo-Saxon nationality on this
continent was a problem of crystallization, the working out of which
occupied a little over two centuries. It was in New England the process
first set in, when, in 1643, the scattered English-speaking settlements
under the hegemony of the colony of Massachusetts Bay united in a
confederation. It was the initial step. I have no time in which to
enumerate successive steps, each representing a stage in advance of what
went before. The War of Independence,--mistakenly denominated the
Revolutionary War, but a struggle distinctly conservative in character,
and in no way revolutionary,--the War of Independence gave great impetus
to the process, resulting in what was known as Federation. Then came the
Constitution of 1787 and the formation of the, so called, United States
as a distinct nationality. The United States next passed through two
definite processes of further crystallization,--one in 1812-1814, when
the second war with Great Britain, and more especially our naval
victories, kindled, especially in the North, the fire of patriotism and
the conception of nationality; the other, half a century later,
presented the stern issue in a concrete form, and at last the complete
unification of a community--whether for better or for worse is no
matter--was hammered by iron and cemented in blood. It is there now; an
established fact. Secession is a lost cause; and, whether for good or
for ill, the United States exists, and will continue to exist, a unified
World Power. Sovereignty now rests at Washington, and neither in
Columbia for South Carolina nor in Boston for Massachusetts. The State
exists only as an integral portion of the United States. That issue has
been fought out. The result stands beyond controversy; brought about by
a generation now passed on, but to which I belonged.
Meanwhile, the ancient adage, the rose is not without its thorn,
receives new illustration; for even this great result has not been
wrought without giving rise to considerations suggestive of thought.
Speaking tersely and concentrating what is in my mind into the fewest
possible words, I may say that in our national growth up to the year
1830 the play of the centrifugal forces predominated,--that is, the
necessity for greater cohesion made itself continually felt. A period of
quiescence then followed, lasting until, we will say, 1865. Since 1865,
it is not unsafe to say, the centripetal, or gravitating, force has
predominated to an extent ever more suggestive of increasing political
uneasiness. It is now, as is notorious, more in evidence than ever
before. The tendency to concentrate at Washington, the demand that the
central government, assuming one function after another, shall become
imperial, the cry for the national enactment of laws, whether relating
to marital divorce or to industrial combinations,--all impinge on the
fundamental principle of local self-government, which assumed its
highest and most pronounced form in the claim of State Sovereignty. I am
now merely stating problems. I am not discussing the political ills or
social benefits which possibly may result from action. Nevertheless,
all, I think, must admit that the tendency to gravitation and
attraction is to-day as pronounced and as dangerous, especially in the
industrial communities of the North, as was the tendency to separation
and segregation pronounced and dangerous seventy years ago in the South.
To this I shall later return. I now merely point out what I apprehend to
be a tendency to extremes--an excess in the swinging of our
political pendulum.
We next come to that industrial factor which I have referred to as the
issue between the Free Trade of Adam Smith and Protection, as inculcated
by the so-called American school of political economists. The phases
which this issue has assumed are, I submit, well calculated to excite
the attention of the observant and thoughtful. I merely allude to them
now; but, in so far as it is in my power to make it so, my allusion will
be specific. I frankly acknowledge myself a Free-Trader. A Free-Trader
in theory, were it in my power I would be a Free-Trader in national
practice. There has been, so far as I know, but one example of absolute
free trade on the largest scale in world history. That one example,
moreover, has been a success as unqualified as undeniable. I refer to
this American Union of ours. We have here a country consisting of fifty
local communities, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from
tropical Porto Rico to glacial Alaska, representing every conceivable
phase of soil, climate and material conditions, with diverse industrial
systems. With a Union established on the principle of absolutely
unrestricted commercial intercourse, you here in South Carolina, and
more especially in Columbia, are to-day making it, so to speak,
uncomfortable for the cotton manufacturer in New England; and I am glad
of it! A sharp competition is a healthy incentive to effort and
ingenuity, and the brutal injunction, "Root hog or die!" is one from
which I in no way ask to have New England exempt. When Massachusetts is
no longer able to hold its own industrially in a free field, the time
will, in my judgment, have come for Massachusetts to go down. With
communities as with children, paternalism reads arrested development.
One of the great products of Massachusetts has been what is generically
known as "footwear." Yet I am told that under the operation of absolute
Free Trade, St. Louis possesses the largest boot and shoe factory in its
output in the entire world. That is, the law of industrial development,
as natural conditions warrant and demand, has worked out its results;
and those results are satisfactory. I am aware that the farmer of
Massachusetts has become practically extinct; he cannot face the
competition of the great West: but the Massachusetts consumer is greatly
advantaged thereby. So far as agricultural products are concerned,
Massachusetts is to-day reduced to what is known as dairy products and
garden truck; and it is well! Summer vegetables manufactured under glass
in winter prove profitable. So, turning his industrial efforts to that
which he can do best, even the Massachusetts agriculturalist has
prospered. On the other hand, wherever in this country protection has
been most completely applied, I insist that if its results are analyzed
in an unprejudiced spirit, it will be pronounced to have worked
unmitigated evil,--an unhealthy, because artificially stimulated and too
rapid, growth. Let Lawrence, in Massachusetts, serve as an example. Look
at the industrial system there introduced in the name of Protection
against the Pauper Labor of Europe! No growth is so dangerous as a too
rapid growth; and I confidently submit that politically, socially,
economically and industrially, America to-day, on the issues agitating
us, presents an almost appalling example of the results of hot-house
stimulation.
Nor is this all, nor the worst. There is another article, and far more
damaging, in the indictment. Through Protection, and because of it,
Paternalism has crept in; and, like a huge cancerous growth, is eating
steadily into the vitals of the political system. Instead of supporting
a government economically administered by money contributed by the
People, a majority of the People to-day are looking to the government
for support, either directly through pension payments or indirectly
through some form of industrial paternalism. Incidentally, a profuse
public expenditure is condoned where not actually encouraged.
Jeffersonian simplicity is preached; extravagance is practised. As the
New York showman long since shrewdly observed: "The American people
love to be fooled!"
But I must pass on; I still have far to go. As respects legislation, I
have said that sixty years ago, when my memories begin, the American
ideal was the individual, and individuality. This, implied adherence to
the Jeffersonian theory that heretofore the world had been governed too
much. The great secret of true national prosperity, happiness and
success was, we were taught, to allow to each individual the fullest
possible play, provided only he did not infringe on the rights of
others. How is it to-day? America is the most governed and legislated
country in the world! With one national law-making machine perpetually
at work grinding out edicts, we have some fifty provincial mills engaged
in the same interesting and, to my mind, pernicious work. No one who has
given the slightest consideration to the subject will dispute the
proposition that, taking America as a whole, we now have twenty acts of
legislation annually promulgated, and with which we are at our peril
supposed to be familiar, where one would more than suffice. Then we
wonder that respect for the law shows a sensible decrease! The better
occasion for wonder is that it survives at all. We are both legislated
and litigated out of all reason.
Passing to the other proposition of individuality, there has been, as
all men know and no one will dispute, a most perceptible tendency of
late years towards what is known as the array of one portion of the
community--the preponderating, voting portion--against another--the more
ostentatious property-holding portion. It is the natural result, I may
say the necessary as well as logical outcome, of a period of too rapid
growth,--production apportioned by no rule or system other or higher
than greed and individual aptitude for acquisition. I will put the
resulting case in the most brutal, and consequently the clearest, shape
of which I am capable. Working on the combined theories of individualism
controlled and regulated by competition, it has been one grand game of
grab,--a process in which the whole tendency of our legislation,
national or state, has during the last twenty years been, first, to
create monopolies of capital and, later, to bring into existence a
counter, but no less privileged, class, known as the "wage-earner."
Of the first class it is needless to speak, for, as a class, it is
sufficiently pilloried by the press and from the hustings. Much in
evidence, those prominent in it are known as the possessors of
"predatory wealth"; "unjailed malefactors," they are subjects of
continuous "grilling" in the congressional and legislative committee
rooms. The effort to make them "disgorge" is as continual as it is
noisy, and, as a rule, futile. It constitutes a curious and in some
respects instructive exhibition of misdirected popular feeling and
legislative incompetence. None the less, the existence of a monopolist
class calls for no proof at the bar of public opinion. Not so the other
and even more privileged class,--the so-called "wage-earner"; for,
disguise it as the trades-unionist will, angrily deny it as he does, the
fact remains that to-day under the operation of our jury system and of
our laws, the Wage-earner and the member of the Trades-Union has become,
as respects the rest of the community, himself a monopolist and,
moreover, privileged as such. Practically, crimes urged and even
perpetrated in behalf of so-called "labor" receive at the hands of
juries, and also not infrequently of courts, an altogether excessive
degree of merciful consideration. At the same time, both here and in
Europe Organized Labor is instant in its demand that immunity, denied
to ordinary citizens, and those whom it terms "the classes," shall by
special exemption be conferred upon the Labor Union and upon the
Wage-earner. The tendency on both sides and at each extreme to
inequality in the legislature and before the law is thus manifest.
Viewing conditions face to face and as they now are, no thoughtful
observer can, in my judgment, avoid the conviction that, whether for
good or ill, for better or for worse, this country as a community has,
within the last thirty years--that is, we will say, since our centennial
year, 1876--cast loose from its original moorings. It has drifted, and
is drifting, into unknown seas. Nor is this true of English-speaking
America alone. I have already quoted Lord Morley in another connection.
Lord Morley, however, only the other day delivered, as Chancellor of
Manchester University, a most interesting and highly suggestive
address, in which, referring to conservative Great Britain, he thus
pictured a phase of current belief: "Political power is described as
lying in the hands of a vast and mobile electorate, with scanty regard
for tradition or history. Democracy, they say, is going to write its own
programme. The structure of executive organs and machinery is undergoing
half-hidden, but serious alterations. Men discover a change of attitude
towards law as law; a decline in reverence for institutions as
institutions."