A member of the Burgundy, possessing an unusual library of Americana,
which he is at the greatest pains and expense continually augmenting,
thus evincing a singular interest in his country, but who, singularly
enough, never votes, leaving that function to men wiser than himself (so
he puts it), and who for this and the like eccentricities is familiarly
known at the Burgundy as the philosopher; to this gentleman I submitted
in manuscript my sketch of the Dean. He did not disapprove of the
sketch, but pointed out one little oversight, as he civilly called it.
‘In your mention of the ribbon of the Society of the Cincinnati, or
rather in Colonel Josiah Bunkum’s mention of it, you in your cursory way
too severely tax the information of the general reader should you have
any. Walk Broadway from Times Square to the Battery, and could you
interrogate every man you should meet, with--“Excuse me, but pray, sir,
would you be kind enough to tell me the reason why the blue ribbon of
the Cincinnati is bordered with white?” I warrant you not ten of those
tens of thousands would be able to answer you. You might as well
interrogate them as to the exact form of the insignia of the old Spanish
Order of the Knights of the Holy Ghost.’
‘I see your drift,’ said I, amused at his closing allusion; ‘some sort
of note to the passage is needed. And who better qualified to supply it
than yourself, my dear sir, with your fine library of Americana?’
He replied that he would be happy so to do, and the following somewhat
simplified dissertation is the result, which is given, as I rather
rashly engaged, without alteration or curtailment, and is very
characteristic of the Burgundy’s eccentric philosopher.
In the ribbon of the Cincinnati, the white bounding the blue
commemorates the French alliance during the War of Independence. At the
founding of the Society, France was a monarchy, and its natural colour
was that of the Bourbons--white. Eligible to the order were all
commissioned officers of the Continental army and navy. Eligible to be
life-members were also the admirals and captains of the French fleet,
co-operating with the colonists in the war, as well as the generals and
colonels of the allied French army, and to these in especial compliment
was sent the medal of the Society. As to the Continental officers,
membership was declared thereby.
Forthwith upon its establishment the Society encountered much adverse
criticism, and from some noted public characters, who being civilians
were ineligible to membership. Ere long the violent democratic crusade
beginning in France, sympathy intensified this criticism into popular
hostility. Some members of the order resigned; and even the staid mind
of Washington, the General-President of the Society, was swayed on
grounds of prudence to question the expediency of maintaining it. But,
taking in sail, as it were, the Society rode out the tempest; and now
for years has been the least demonstrative of bodies.
As at the outset, it intermeddled not with political parties, and
refrained, among other things, from agitating for augmenting pensions,
its members long content with the poor pittance the new government with
difficulty at last provided; so throughout it has never deviated from
its one main principle, the priestly one of keeping alive the sacred
fire of patriotism.
If the Society of the Cincinnati, a heritage from the Fathers, be really
worthy of a respect bordering upon reverence, it is of the sort that the
Catholics pay to the bones of the saints; for, indeed, this venerable
institution survives but as a relic.
It seems amid the bustle of another age like the Greek monolith, the
Fire Column so called, in Constantinople, which unconsumed by the
repeated conflagrations of that capital, and rising from among all sorts
of lesser erections, attests a temper and an era that shall never be
restored. It is a remarkable monument of the times when the British
colonist in the spirit of John Hampden resisting the imposition of the
tea-tax, and indirectly the Crown, developed in the process of time into
a generation less impatient of imposts; pushing no quarrel, indeed,
against fiscal arbitrariness, or any sort of power so it be but plural
and domestic, wears a hat like the rest of us, and is careful to put on
that same humble deference toward the People, which all kings and
emperors scrupulously profess for Him Whom--with exemplary meekness
ignoring themselves--they officially denominate the Supreme Arbiter of
Events. In short, the Society is archaic, originating at a period before
we became, to all practical purposes, a distinct People; a race which,
though having various superficial traits in common with the English
inheriting the same blood with ourselves, is nevertheless, at bottom,
unlike; as is frequently observable in uterine brothers who, while in
physical aspect a stranger can hardly tell them apart, yet brought to
the test of essential character, may be even more than dissimilar.
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