Transcriber's note
All apparent printer's errors have been retained.
In this version the superscript is indicated by ^.
THE GALAXY.
A MAGAZINE OF ENTERTAINING READING.
VOL. XXIII.
JANUARY, 1877, TO JUNE, 1877.
NEW YORK: Sheldon & Company,
1877.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
SHELDON & COMPANY,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
Typography of CHURCHWELL & TEALL. Electrotyped by SMITH & MCDOUGAL.
INDEX TO VOLUME XXIII.
PAGE.
Administration of Abraham Lincoln _Gideon Welles_ 5, 149
Almanacs, Some Old _Charles Wyllys Elliott_ 24
Alnaschar. 1876 _Bret Harte_ 217
Alfred de Musset _Henry James, Jr._ 790
Applied Science _Charles Barnard_ 79, 160
Art's Limitations _Margaret J. Preston_ 159
Assja _Ivan Tourguéneff_ 368
Aut Diabolus aut Nihil 218
Ballad of Constance _William Winter_ 109
Balzac, Letters of _Henry James, Jr._ 183
Battalion, The _J. W. De Forest_ 817
Beer _S. G. Young_ 62
Beethoven, To _Sidney Lanier_ 394
Cigarettes 471
Cleopatra's Soliloquy _Mary Bayard Clarke_ 506
Climbing Rose, The 596
Cossacks, An Evening Party with the _David Ker_ 406
Dead Star, The _John James Piatt_ 660
Dead Vashti, A _Louise Stockton_ 428
Defeated _Mary L. Ritter_ 354
Dramatic Canons, The _Frederick Whittaker_ 396, 508
DRIFT-WOOD _Philip Quilibet_ 125, 265,
411, 553,
695, 842
The Twelve-Month Sermon; Ribbons and Coronets at Market Rates; The
Spinning of Literature; Growth of American Taste for Art; The Wills
of the Triumvirate; The Duel and the Newspapers; The Industry of
Interviewers; Talk about Novels; Primogeniture and Public Bequests;
The Times and the Customs; Victor Hugo; Evolutionary Hints for
Novelists; The Travellers; Swindlers and Dupes; Pegasus in Harness.
Eastern Question, The _A. H. Guernsey_ 359
English Peerage, The _E. C. Grenville Murray_ 293
English Traits _Richard Grant White_ 520
English Women _Richard Grant White_ 675
Executive Patronage and Civil
Service Reform _J. L. M. Curry_ 826
Fascinations of Angling, The _George Dawson_ 818
Fallen Among Thieves 809
Great Seal of the United States _John D. Champlin, Jr._ 691
Hard Times _Charles Wyllys Elliott_ 474
Head of Hercules, The _James M. Floyd_ 52
Heartbreak Cameo _Lizzie W. Champney_ 111
Home of My Heart _F. W. Bourdillon_ 543
Influences _Charles Carroll_ 124
Juliet on the Balcony _Howard Glyndon_ 42
Lassie's Complaint, The _James Kennedy_ 367
Libraries, Public in the United
States _John A. Church_ 639
Life Insurance 686, 803
LITERATURE, CURRENT 137, 279,
425, 567,
708, 855
Love's Messengers _Mary Ainge De Vere_ 51
Love's Requiem _William Winter_ 182
Lucille's Letter 23
Madcap Violet. Chapters XLIV. to
End _William Black_ 30
Margary, The Murder of _Walter A. Burlingame_ 175
Miss Misanthrope. Chapters I. to
XX. _Justin McCarthy_ 244, 302,
450, 597,
746
Miss Tinsel _Henry Sedley_ 337
Mohegan-Hudson _James Manning Winchell_ 637
Monsieur Delille _T. S. Fay_ 119
National Bank Notes, How Redeemed _Frank W. Lautz_ 647
NEBULÆ _By The Editor_ 144, 288,
431, 576,
720, 864
Normandy and Pyrenees _Henry James, Jr._ 95
On Being Born Away from Home _Titus Munson Coan_ 533
Our Rural Divinity _John Burroughs_ 43
Philter, The _Mary B. Dodge_ 242
Portrait D'une Jeune Femme
Inconnue _M. E. W. S._ 336
Progressive Baby, A _S. F. Hopkins_ 81, 727
Punished, The _Ella Wheeler_ 789
Pythia, The Modern _S. B. Luce_ 209
Renunciation _Kate Hillard_ 358
Reflected Light _Mary Ainge De Vere_ 802
Romance _J. W. De Forest_ 61
Roman Picture, A _Mary Lowe Dickinson_ 674
Saint Lambert's Coal _Margaret J. Preston_ 519
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY _Prof. John A.
Church_ 129, 269,
415, 558,
699, 846
Complications of the Channel Tunnel; A Town of Dwarfs; Whooping
Cough; British Association Notes; An English Crop; Influence of
White Colors; An Involved Accident; An Old Aqueduct System;
Galvanism Cannot Restore Exhausted Vitality; Curious Optical
Experiments; Ice Machines; American Antiquities; Protection from
Lightning; Steam Machinery and Privateering; Man and Animals; The
Limbs of Whales; Our Educational Standing; Surface Markings; The
Oldest Stone Tools; Origin of the Spanish People; The English
Meteorite; The Boomerang; A Western Lava Field; The Principle of
Cephalization; Curiosities of the Herring Fishery; Natural Gas in
Furnaces; South Carolina Phosphates; Rare Metals from Old Coins; A
French Mountain Weather Station; Migration of the Lemming; New
Discovery of Neolithic Remains; October Weather; French National
Antiquities; The Force of Crystallization; Frozen Nitro-Glycerine;
English Great Guns; Ear Trumpets for Pilots; Hot Water in Dressing
Ores; Ocean Echoes; The Delicacy of Chemists' Balances; Government
Control of the Dead; Microscopic Life; The Sources of Potable Water;
Theory of the Radiometer; Tempered Glass in The Household; The New
York Aquarium; The Cruelty of Hunting; The Gorilla in Confinement;
Instruction Shops In Boston; Moon Madness; The Argument against
Vaccination; The Telephone; Damages by an Insect; The Summer
Scientific Schools; An Intelligent Quarantine; The "Grasshopper
Commission"; Surveying Plans for the Season; The Causes of Violent
Death; A New Induction Coil; French Property Owners; Trigonometrical
Survey of New York; The Use of Air in Ore Dressing; Polar
Colonization; The Survey in California; A German Savant among the
Sioux; Ballooning for Air Currents; The Greatest of Rifles; Vienna
Bread; Modern Loss in Warfare; A New Treasury Rule; A Hygienic
School; Microscopic Comparison of Blood Corpuscles; The Summer
Scientific Schools; The Wages Value of Steam Power; The Negro's
Color; Scientific Items.
Shakespeare, On Reading _Richard Grant White_ 70, 233
Shall Punishment Punish? _Chauncey Hickox_ 355
Sister St. Luke _Constance Fenimore
Woolson_ 489
Sounding Brass _Lizzie W. Champney_ 671
South, The, Her Condition and Needs _Hon. J. L. M. Curry_ 544
Story of a Lion _Albert Rhodes_ 196
Spring _H. R. H._ 841
Spring Longing _Emma Lazarus_ 725
Theatres of London _Henry James, Jr._ 661
Three Periods of Modern Music _Richard Grant White_ 832
Théâtre Français, The _Henry James, Jr._ 437
Tried and True _Sylvester Baxter_ 470
Two Worlds, The _Ellice Hopkins_ 488
Unknown Persons _Mary Murdoch Mason_ 657
"Uniformed Militia" Service, The _C. H. M._ 776
Walt Whitman, To _Joaquin Miller_ 29
Woman's Gifts, A _Mary Ainge De Vere_ 208
Wordsworth's Corrections _Titus Munson Coan_ 322
Yosemite Hermit, The _Clara G. Dolliver_ 782
THE GALAXY.
VOL. XXIII.--JANUARY, 1877.--No. 1.
ADMINISTRATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The political differences which have generated parties in this country
date back to an early period. They existed under the old confederation,
were perceptible in the formation of the Constitution and establishment
of "a more perfect union." Differences on fundamental principles of
government led to the organization of parties which, under various
names, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, divided the
people and influenced and often controlled national and State elections.
Neither of the parties, however, has always strictly adhered or been
true to its professed principles. Each has, under the pressure of
circumstances and to secure temporary ascendancy in the Federal or State
governments, departed from the landmarks and traditions which gave it
its distinctive character. The _Centralists_, a name which more
significantly than any other expresses the character, principles, and
tendency of those who favor centralization of power in a supreme head
that shall exercise paternal control over States and people, have under
various names constituted one party. On the other hand, the _Statists_,
under different names, have from the first been jealous of central
supremacy. They believe in local self-government, support the States in
all their reserved and ungranted rights, insist on a strict construction
of the Constitution and the limitation of Federal authority to the
powers specifically delegated in that instrument.
The broad and deep line of demarcation between these parties has not
always been acknowledged. Innovation and change have sometimes modified
and disturbed this line; but after a period the distinctive boundary has
reappeared and antagonized the people. During the administration of Mr.
Monroe, known as the "era of good feeling," national party lines were
almost totally obliterated, and local and personal controversies took
their place. National questions were revived, however, and contested
with extreme violence during several succeeding administrations. Thirty
years later, when the issues of bank, tariff, internal improvements, and
an independent treasury were disposed of, there was as complete a break
up of parties as in the days of Monroe. It was not, however, in an "era
of good feeling" that this later dislocation of parties took place; but
an attempt was made in 1850 by leading politicians belonging to
different organizations to unite the people by a compromise or an
arrangement as unnatural as it was insincere--party lines if not
obliterated were, as the authors intended, in a measure broken down.
This compromise, as it was called, was a sacrifice of honest principles,
and instead of allaying disputes, was followed by a terrific storm of
contention and violence transcending thing the country had ever
experienced, and ended in a civil war.
The time has not yet arrived for a calm and dispassionate review of the
acts and actors of that period and the events of the immediately
succeeding years; but the incidents that took place and the experience
so dearly purchased should not be perverted, misunderstood, or wholly
forgotten.
The compromises of 1850, instead of adjusting differences and making the
people of one mind on political questions, actually caused in their
practical results the alienation of life-long party friends, led to new
associations among old opponents, and created organizations that partook
more of a sectional character than of honest constitutional differences
on fundamental questions relative to the powers and authority of the
Government, such as had previously divided the people. The facility with
which old political opponents came together in the compromise measures
of 1850, and abandoned principles and doctrines for which they had
battled through their whole lives, begot popular distrust. Confidence in
the sincerity of the men who so readily made sacrifices of principles
was forfeited or greatly impaired. The Whig party dwindled under it, and
as an organization shortly went out of existence. A large portion of its
members, disgusted with what they considered the insincerity if not
faithlessness of their leaders, yet unwilling to attach themselves to
the Democratic party, which had coalesced in the movement, gathered
together in a secret organization, styling themselves "Know Nothings."
Democrats in some quarters, scarcely less dissatisfied with the
compromises, joined the Know Nothing order, and in one or two annual
elections this strange combination, without avowed principles or
purpose, save that of the defeat and overthrow of politicians, who were
once their trusted favorites, was successful. In this demoralized
condition of affairs, the Democrats by the accession of Whigs in the
Southern States obtained possession of the Government and maintained
their ascendancy through the Pierce administration; and, in a contest
quite as much sectional as political, elected Buchanan in 1856.
But these were the expiring days of the old Democratic organization,
which, under the amalgamating process of the compromise measures, became
shattered and mixed, especially in the Southern States, with former
Whigs, and was to a great extent thereafter sectionalized. The different
opposing political elements united against it and organized and
established the Republican party, which triumphed in the election of
Lincoln in 1860. The administration which followed and was inaugurated
in 1861 differed in essential particulars from either of the preceding
political organizations. Men of opposing principles--Centralists, who
like Hamilton and patriots of that class were for a strong imperial
national government, with supervising and controlling authority over the
States, on one hand, and Statists on the other, who, like Jefferson,
adhered to State individuality and favored a league or federation of
States, a national republic of limited and clearly defined powers, with
a strict observance of all the reserved right of the local
commonwealths--were brought together in the elections of 1860. It has
been represented and recorded as grave history that the Republican party
was an abolition party. Such was not the fact, although the small and
utterly powerless faction which, under the lead of William Lloyd
Garrison and others, had for years made aggressive war on slavery, was
one of the elements which united with Whigs and Democrats in the
election of Mr. Lincoln. Nor was that result a Whig triumph, though a
large portion of the Whigs in the free States, after the compromises of
1850, from natural antagonism to the Democrats, entered into the
Republican organization. While it is true that a large majority of the
Whigs of the North relinquished their old organization and became
Republicans, it is no less true that throughout the slave States, and
in many of the free States, the members of the Whig party to a
considerable extent supported Bell or Breckenridge. But Democrats
dissatisfied with the measures of the Pierce and Buchanan
administrations, in much larger numbers than is generally conceded, took
early and efficient part in the Republican organizations--some on
account of the repeal of the Missouri compromise, but a much larger
number in consequence of the efforts of the central Government at
Washington, by what was considered by them an abuse of civil trust, and
by military interference, to overpower the settlers in Kansas, denying
them the right of self-government, and an attempt arbitrarily and
surreptitiously to impose upon the inhabitants against their will a
fraudulent Constitution. It was this large contribution of free-thinking
and independent Democrats, who had the courage to throw off party
allegiance and discipline in behalf of the principles of free government
on which our republican system is founded, the right of the people to
self-government, and, consequently, the right to form and establish
their own constitution without dictation or interference from the
central government so long as they violated no provision of the organic
law, that gave tone, form, and ascendancy to the Republican party in
every free State.
Persistent efforts have been made to establish as historical truths the
representations that the civil war had its origin in a scheme or purpose
to abolish slavery in the States where it existed, and that the election
of Abraham Lincoln was an abolition triumph--a premeditated, aggressive,
sectional war upon the South; whereas the reverse is the fact--the
Republican party in its inception was a strictly constitutional party,
that defended the rights of the people, the rights of the States, and
the rights of the Federal Government, which were assailed by a sectional
combination that was not satisfied with the Constitution as it was, but
proposed to exact new guarantees from the nation for the protection of
what they called "Southern rights"--rights unknown to the Constitution.
The misrepresentations that the Republicans were aggressive and aimed to
change the organic law have not been without their influence,
temporarily at least, in prejudicing and warping the public mind. It is
true that the slavery question was most injudiciously and unwisely
brought into the party controversies of the country; but it was done by
the slaveholders or their political representatives in Congress after
the failure of the nullifiers to obtain ascendancy in the Government on
the subject of free trade and resistance to the revenue laws.
John C. Calhoun, a man of undoubted talents, but of unappeasable
ambition, had at an early period of his life, while Secretary of War,
and still a young man, aspired to the office of President. By his
ability and patriotic course during the war of 1812, and subsequently by
a brilliant career as a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, he had acquired
fame and a certain degree of popularity which favored his pretensions,
particularly with young men and army officers. Schemes and projects of
national aggrandizement by internal improvements, protection to home
industries, large military expenditures, and measures of a centralizing
tendency which were popular in that era of no parties, gave him _éclat_
as Secretary of War. Flattered by his attentions and by his shining
qualities, military men became his enthusiastic supporters, and received
encouragement from him in return. It was the first attempt to elect so
young a man to be Chief Magistrate, and was more personal than political
in its character. In the memorable contest for the successorship to
President Monroe, Mr. Calhoun at one time seemed to be a formidable
candidate; but his popularity being personal was evanescent, and failed
to enlist the considerate and reflecting. Even his military hopes were
soon eclipsed by General Jackson, whose bold achievements and successes
in the Indian and British wars captivated the popular mind. Jackson had
also, as a representative and Senator in Congress, Judge of the Supreme
Court of Tennessee, and Governor of Florida, great civil experience. Mr.
Calhoun was, however, in the political struggle that took place in 1824,
elected to the second office of the republic, while in the strife,
confusion, and break up of parties no one of the competing candidates
for President received a majority of the electoral votes. He and his
supporters submitted to, it may be said acquiesced in, the result then
and also in 1828, when General Jackson was elected President and Mr.
Calhoun was reëlected to the office of Vice-President. This
acquiescence, however, was reluctant; but with an expectation that he
would in 1833, at the close of General Jackson's term, be the successor
of the distinguished military chieftain.
But the arrangements of calculating politicians often end in
disappointments. Such was the misfortune of Mr. Calhoun. His ambitious
and apparently well contrived plans had most of them an abortive and
hapless termination. Observation and experience convinced him, after
leaving Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, that the educated and reflective Statists
or State rights men of the country, and especially of the South, would
never sanction or be reconciled to the exercise of power by the Federal
Government to protect the manufacturing interests of New England, or to
construct roads and canals in the West, at the expense of the National
Treasury. These were, however, favorite measures of a class of
politicians of the period who had special interests to subserve, and who
carried with them the consolidationists, or advocates of a strong and
magnificent central government. The tariff, internal improvements, and
kindred subjects became classified and known in the party politics of
that day as the "American system"--a system of high taxes and large
expenditures by the Federal Government--without specific constitutional
authority for either. Parties were arrayed on opposite sides of this
system, which, besides the political principles involved, soon partook
of a sectional character. High and oppressive duties on importations, it
was claimed, were imposed to foster certain industries in the North to
the injury of the South.
Henry Clay, a politician and statesman of wonderful magnetic power, was
the eloquent champion of the "American system," and enlisted in his
favor the large manufacturing interest in the North and the friends of
internal improvement in the West. These measures were made national
issues, and Mr. Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
appropriated them to his personal advancement, and was their recognized
leading advocate. Mr. Calhoun could not be second to his Western rival,
but abandoned the policy of protection, internal improvements, and great
national undertakings, and allied himself to the commercial and
plantation interests, which opposed the system, expecting to identify
himself with and to receive the support of the Statists. But the strict
constructionists of Virginia, Georgia, and other States of the old
Jefferson school distrusted him and withheld their confidence and
support.
South Carolina, erratic, brilliant, and impulsive, had never fully
harmonized with the politicians of Virginia in their political
doctrines, but had been inclined to ridicule the rigid and
non-progressive principles of her statesmen, who, always cautious, were
now slow to receive into fellowship and to commit themselves to the new
convert who sought their support. They slighted him, and rejected his
nullification remedies. Instead of following the Palmetto State in her
fanatical party schemes on the alleged issue of free trade, and
supporting her "favorite son" in his theories, they sustained General
Jackson, whose Union sentiments they approved, and who, to the disgust
of Calhoun, became a candidate for reëlection in 1832 and received the
votes of almost the whole South.
In this crisis, when the heated partisans of South Carolina in their
zeal for free trade and State rights had made a step in advance of the
more staid and reflecting Statists, and undertook to abrogate and
nullify the laws of the Federal Government legally enacted, they found
themselves unsupported and in difficulty, and naturally turned to their
acknowledged leader for guidance. To contest the Federal Government, and
pioneer the way for his associates to resist and overthrow the
Administration, Mr. Calhoun resigned the office of Vice-President and
accepted that of Senator, where his active mind, fertile in resources,
could, and as he and they believed would extricate them. There was,
however, at the head of the Government in that day a stern, patriotic,
and uncompromising Chief Magistrate, who would listen to no mere
temporizing expedients when the stability of the Union was involved, and
who, while recognizing and maintaining the rights of the States, never
forgot the rights that belonged to the Federal Government. In his
extremity, when confronting this inflexible President, Mr. Calhoun
hastened to make friends with his old opponents, Clay, Webster, and the
protectionists, the advocates of the "American system," the authors and
champions of the very policy which had been made the pretext or
justification for nullification and resistance to Federal law and the
Federal authority. This coalition of hostile factions combined in a
scheme, or compromise, where each sacrificed principles to oppose the
administration of Jackson. It was an insincere and unrighteous coalition
which soon fell asunder.
In the mean time, while nullification was hopelessly prostrate, and
before the coalition was complete, the prolific mind of the aspiring
Carolinian devised a new plan and a new system of tactics which it was
expected would sectionalize and unite the South. This new device was a
defence of slavery--a subject in which the entire South was
interested--against the impudent demands of the abolitionists. Not until
the nullifiers were defeated, and had failed to draw the South into
their nullification plan, was slavery agitation introduced into Congress
and made a sectional party question with aggressive demands for national
protection. The abolitionists were few in numbers, and of little account
in American politics. Some benevolent Quakers and uneasy fanatics, who
neither comprehended the structure of our Federal system nor cared for
the Constitution, had annually for forty years petitioned Congress to
give freedom to the slaves. But the statesmen of neither party listened
to these unconstitutional appeals until the defeated nullifiers
professed great apprehension in regard to them, and introduced the
subject as a disturbance, and made it a sensational sectional issue in
Congress and the elections.
From the first agitation of the subject as a party question, slavery in
all its phases was made sectional and aggressive by the South. Beginning
with a denial of the right to petition for the abolition of slavery, and
with demands for new and more exacting national laws for the arrest and
rendition of fugitives, the new sectional party test was followed by
other measures; such as the unconditional admission of Texas, the
extension of slavery into all the free territory acquired from Mexico,
the repeal of the Missouri compromise, a denial to the people of Kansas
of the right to frame their own constitution, and other incidental and
irritating questions that were not legitimately within the scope of
Federal authority. Fierce contentions prevailed for years, sometimes
more violent than at others.
In 1850 a budget of compromises, which has already been alluded to,
involving a surrender of principles and an enactment of laws that were
unwarranted by the Constitution, and offensive in other respects, had
been patched up by old Congressional party leaders, ostensibly to
reconcile conflicting views and interests, but which were superficial
remedies for a cancerous disease, and intended more to glorify the
authors than to promote the country's welfare. Both of the great parties
were committed by the managers to these compromises, but the effect upon
each was different. The Whigs, tired of constant defeat, hoped for a
change by the compromises that would give them recognition and power;
but instead of these they found themselves dwarfed and weakened, while
the Democrats, who yielded sound principles to conciliate their Southern
allies, were for a time numerically strengthened in that section by
accessions from the Whigs. Old party lines became broken, and in the
Presidential contest of 1852 the Democratic candidate, General Pierce, a
young and showy, but not profound man, was elected by an overwhelming
majority over the veteran General Scott, who was the candidate of the
Whigs. From this date the Whig organization dwindled and had but a
fragmentary existence. Thenceforward, until the overthrow of the
Democratic party, the Government at Washington tended to centralization.
Fidelity to party, and adherence to organization with little regard for
principle, were its political tests in the free States. Sectional
sentiments to sustain Southern aggressions, under the name of "Southern
rights," were inculcated, violent language, and acts that were scarcely
less so, prevailed through the South and found apologists and defenders
at the North. Presidents Pierce and Buchanan, literally "northern men
with southern principles," were submissive to these sectional
aggressions, acquiesced in the repeal of the Missouri compromise, the
extension and nationalizing of slavery, hitherto a State institution,
and also to the schemes to prevent the establishment of a free
constitution by the people of Kansas. The mass of voters opposed to the
policy of these administrations, and who constituted the Republican
party, were not entirely in accord on fundamental principles and views
of government, but had been brought into united action from the course
of events which followed the Mexican war, the acquisition of territory,
and the unfortunate compromises of 1850. The sectional strife, for the
alleged reason of Lincoln's election and Republican success, which
eventuated in hostilities in 1861, and the tremendous conflict that
succeeded and shook the foundation of the Government during the ensuing
four years, threatening the national existence, absorbed all minor
questions of a purely political party character, and made the Cabinet of
Mr. Lincoln, though its members entertained organic differences, a unit.
There were occasions when the antecedent opinions and convictions of the
members elicited discussion in regard to the powers, limitations, and
attributes of government; but in the midst of war disagreeing political
opinions as well as the laws themselves were silenced. Each and all felt
the necessity of harmonious and efficient action to preserve the Union.
This was especially the case during the first two years of the war of
secession. Not only the President's constitutional advisers, but the
Republican members of Congress, embracing many captious, factious, and
theoretical controversialists, acted in harmony and concert. Murmurs
were heard among its friends, and dissatisfaction felt that the
Administration was not sufficiently energetic or arbitrary, and because
it did not immediately suppress the rebellion. A long period of peace
which the country had enjoyed rendered the malcontents incapable of
judging of the necessities of preparation for war. "On to Richmond"
became the cry of the impatient and restless before the armies mustered
into service were organized. The violent and impassioned appeals of
excited and mischievous speakers and writers created discontent and
clamor that could not always be appeased or successfully resisted. Not
content with honest if not always intelligent criticism of the
Government, some editors, papers, writers, and speakers, at an early
period and indeed throughout the war, condemned the policy pursued,
assumed to direct the management of affairs, and advanced crude and
absurd notions of the manner in which the Government should be
administered and military operations conducted. For a period after the
rout at Bull Run, which seemed a rebuke to these inconsiderate
partisans, there was a temporary lull of complaints and apparent
acquiescence by Republicans in the measures of administration.
Military differences and army jealousies existed from the beginning,
which were aggravated and stimulated by partisan friends and opponents
of the rival officers, and by dissent from the policy pursued in the
conduct of military affairs to which many took exception.
General Scott was the military oracle of the Administration in the first
days of the war. His ability and great experience entitled him to regard
and deference on all questions relating to military operations. No one
appreciated his qualities more than the President, unless it was General
Scott himself, who with great self-esteem was nevertheless not
unconscious that his age and infirmities had impaired his physical
energies, and in some respects unfitted him to be the active military
commander. It was his misfortune that he prided himself more if possible
on his civil and political knowledge and his administrative ability than
on his military skill and capacity. As a politician his opinions were
often chimerical, unstable, and of little moment; but his military
knowledge and experience were valuable. With headquarters at Washington,
and for thirty years consulted and trusted by successive administrations
of different parties in important emergencies, internal and external,
and at one time the selected candidate of one of the great political
parties for President, he had reason to feel that he was an important
personage in the republic; also that he was competent, and that it was a
duty for him to participate in political matters, and to advise in civil
affairs when there were threatened dangers. But while he was sagacious
to detect the premonitory symptoms of disturbance, and always ready to
obey and execute military orders, he was in political and civil matters
often weak, irresolute, and infirm of purpose. He had in the autumn of
1860 warned President Buchanan of danger to be apprehended from the
secession movement, and wisely suggested measures to preserve peace; but
he soon distrusted and abandoned his own suggestions. Without much
knowledge of Mr. Lincoln, and believing erroneously, as did many others,
that Mr. Seward was to be the controlling mind in the new
administration, he early put himself in communication with that
gentleman. The two agreed upon the policy of surrendering or yielding to
the States in secession the fortresses within their respective limits.
It has been said, and circumstances indicate that there was also an
understanding by Mr. Seward with certain secession leaders, that the
forts, particularly Sumter, if not attacked, should not be reinforced.
Of the plans of Mr. Seward and General Scott, and the understanding
which either of them had with the secessionists, President Lincoln was
not informed; but, while he had a sense of duty and a policy of his own,
he attentively and quietly listened to each and to all others entitled
to give their opinions.
The reports of Major Anderson and the defence of Sumter being military
operations, the President, pursuant to Mr. Seward's advice, referred to
General Scott, and it was supposed by those gentlemen that the President
acquiesced in their conclusions. Nor were they alone in that
supposition, for the President, while cautiously feeling his way,
sounding the minds of others, and gathering information from every
quarter, wisely kept his own counsel and delayed announcing his
determination until the last moment. He was accused of being culpably
slow, when he was wisely deliberate.
When his decision to reinforce Sumter was finally made known, the
Secretary of State and the General-in-Chief were surprised, embarrassed,
and greatly disappointed; for it was an utter negation and defeat of the
policy which they had prescribed. The General, like a good soldier,
quietly and submissively acquiesced; but Mr. Seward, a man of expedients
and some conceit, was unwilling and unprepared to surrender the first
place in the Administration, and virtually publish the fact by an
Executive mandate which upset his promised and preferred arrangements.
It was then that he became aware of two things: first, that neither
himself nor General Scott, nor both combined, were infallible with the
Administration; and second, that the President, with all his suavity and
genial nature, had a mind of his own, and the resolution and
self-reliance to form, and the firmness and independence to execute a
purpose. They had each overestimated the influence of the other with the
President, and underestimated his capacity, will, and self-reliance.
When the Secretary became convinced that he could not alter the
President's determination, he conformed to circumstances, immediately
changed his tactics, and after notifying the authorities at Charleston
that the garrison in Sumter was to be supplied, he took prompt but
secret measures to defeat the expedition by detaching the flagship, and
sending her, with the supplies and reinforcements that had been prepared
and intended for Sumter, to Fort Pickens. In doing this he consulted
neither the War nor Navy Departments, to which the service belonged; but
discarding both, and also the General-in-Chief, his preceding special
confidant, and with whom he had until then acted in concert, he took to
his counsel younger military officers, secretly advised with them and
withdrew them from their legitimate and assigned duties. The discourtesy
and the irregularity of the proceeding, when it became known, shocked
General Scott. His pride was touched. He felt the slight, but he was too
good an officer, too subordinate, and too well disciplined, to complain.
The secret military expedition undertaken by the Secretary of State
without the knowledge of the proper departments and of himself, was so
irregular, such evidence of improper administration, that he became
alarmed. He felt keenly the course of Mr. Seward in not consulting him,
and in substituting one of his staff as military adviser for the
Secretary of State; but he was more concerned for the Government and
country.
A native of Virginia, and imbued with the political doctrines there
prevalent, but unflinching in patriotism and devotion to the Union and
the flag, General Scott hesitated how to act--objected to the hostile
invasion of any State by the national troops, but advised that the
rebellious section should be blockaded by sea and land. He thought that
surrounded by the army and navy the insurgents would be cut off from the
outer world, and when exhausted from non-intercourse and the entire
prostration of trade and commerce they would return to duty; the
"anaconda principle" of exhausting them he believed would be effectual
without invading the territory of States. When the mayor of Baltimore
and a committee of secessionists waited upon the President on the 20th
of April to protest against the passage of troops through that city to
the national capital, he, in deference to the local government, advised
the President to yield to the metropolitan demand, and himself drew up
an Executive order to that effect. The seizure of Harper's Ferry and
Norfolk and the threatened attack upon Washington greatly disturbed him,
but not so much as the wild cry of the ardent and impulsive which soon
followed of "on to Richmond" with an undisciplined army.
Sensible of his inability to take the field, he acquiesced in the
selection if he did not propose after the disaster at Bull Run, that
General McClellan should be called to Washington to organize the broken
and demoralized Army of the Potomac. A thorough reorganization was
promptly and effectually accomplished by that officer. In a few days
order, precision, and discipline prevailed--the troops were massed and a
large army was encamped in and about the national capital. But it was
soon evident to the members of the Administration that there was not
perfect accord between the two Generals. The cause and extent of
disagreement were not immediately understood.
At a Cabinet meeting which took place in September at the headquarters
of the General-in-Chief by reason of his physical infirmities, a brief
discussion occurred which developed coolness if not dissatisfaction. An
inquiry was made by the President as to the exact number of troops then
in and about Washington. General McClellan did not immediately
respond--said he had brought no reports or papers with him. General
Scott said he had not himself recently received any reports. Secretary
Seward took from his pocket some memoranda, stating the number that had
been mustered in a few days previous, and then went on to mention
additional regiments which had arrived several successive days since,
making an aggregate, I think, of about ninety-three thousand men. The
General immediately became grave.
When the subject matter for which the Cabinet and war officers had been
convened was disposed of, some of the gentlemen left, and General
McClellan was about retiring, when General Scott requested him to
remain, and he also desired the President and the rest of us to listen
to some inquiries and remarks which he wished to make. He was very
deliberate, but evidently very much aggrieved. Addressing General
McClellan, he said:
"You are perhaps aware, General McClellan, that you were brought to
these headquarters by my advice and by my orders after consulting with
the President. I know you to be intelligent and to be possessed of some
excellent military qualities; and after our late disaster it appeared to
me that you were a proper person to organize and take active command of
this army. I brought you here for that purpose. Many things have been,
as I expected they would be, well done; but in some respects I have been
disappointed. You do not seem to be aware of your true position; and it
was for this reason I desired that the President and these gentlemen
should hear what I have to say. You are here upon my staff to obey my
orders, and should daily report to me. This you have failed to do, and
you appear to labor under the mistake of supposing that you and not I
are General-in-Chief and in command of the armies. I more than you am
responsible for military operations; but since you came here I have been
in no condition to give directions or to advise the President because my
chief of staff has neglected to make reports to me. I cannot answer
simple inquiries which the President or any member of the Cabinet makes
as to the number of troops here; they must go to the State department
and not come to military headquarters for that information."
Mr. Seward here interposed to say that the statement he had made was
from facts which he had himself collected from day to day as the troops
arrived. "Do I understand," asked General Scott, "that the regiments
report as they come here to the Honorable Secretary of State?"
"No, no," said Mr. Cameron, who wished to arrest or soften a painful
interview. "General McClellan is not to blame; it is Seward's work. He
is constantly meddling with what is none of his business, and (alluding
to the Pickens expedition) makes mischief in the war and navy
departments by his interference."
There was in the manner more than in the words a playful sarcasm which
Seward felt and the President evidently enjoyed. General McClellan stood
by the open door with one hand raised and holding it, a good deal
embarrassed. He said he had intended no discourtesy to General Scott,
but he had been so incessantly occupied in organizing and placing the
army, receiving and mustering in the recruits as they arrived, and
attending to what was absolutely indispensable, that it might seem he
omitted some matters of duty, but he should extremely regret if it was
supposed he had been guilty of any disrespect.
"You are too intelligent and too good a disciplinarian not to know your
duties and the proprieties of military intercourse," said General Scott;
"but seem to have misapprehended your right position. I, you must
understand, am General-in-Chief. You are my chief of staff. When I
brought you here you had my confidence and friendship. I do not say that
you have yet entirely lost my confidence. Good day, General McClellan."
A few weeks later General Scott was on his own application placed upon
the retired list, and General McClellan became his successor.
Disaffection on the part of any of the officers, if any existed, did not
immediately show itself; the army and people witnessed with pride the
prompt and wonderful reorganization that had taken place, and for a time
exulted in the promised efficiency and capabilities of the "young
Napoleon." But the autumn passed away in grand reviews and showy
parades, where the young General appeared with a numerous staff composed
of wealthy young gentlemen, inexperienced, untrained, and unacquainted
with military duty, who as well as foreign princes had volunteered their
services. Parades and reviews were not useless, and the committal of
wealthy and influential citizens who were placed upon his staff had its
advantages; but as time wore on and no blow was struck or any decisive
movement attempted, complaints became numerous and envy and jealousy
found opportunity to be heard.
The expectation that the rebellion would be suppressed in ninety days,
and that an undisciplined force of seventy-five thousand men or even
five times that number would march to Richmond, clear the banks of the
Mississippi, capture New Orleans, and overwhelm the whole South, had
given way to more reasonable and rational views before Congress convened
at the regular session in December. Still the slow progress that was
made by the Union armies, and the immense war expenditures, to which our
country was then unaccustomed, caused uneasiness with the people, and
furnished food and excitement for the factions in Congress.
The anti-slavery feeling was increasing, but efforts to effect
emancipation were not controlling sentiments of the Administration or of
a majority of Congress at the commencement or during the first year of
Mr. Lincoln's term, although such are the representations of party
writers, and to some extent of the historians of the period. Nor did the
Administration, as is often asserted and by many believed, commence
hostilities and make aggressive war on the slave States or their
institutions; but when war began and a national garrison in a national
fortress was attacked, it did not fail to put forth its power and
energies to suppress the rebellion and maintain the integrity of the
Union. Military delays and tardy movements were nevertheless charged to
the imbecility of the Government. It is not to be denied that a portion
of the most active supporters of the President in and out of Congress
and in the armies had in view ulterior purposes than that of suppressing
the insurrection. Some were determined to avail themselves of the
opportunity to abolish slavery, others to extinguish the claim of
reserved sovereignty to the States, and a portion were favorable to
both of these extremes and to the consolidation of power in the central
Government; but a larger number than either and perhaps more than all
combined were for maintaining the Constitution and Union unimpaired.
The President, while opposed to all innovating schemes, had the happy
faculty of so far harmonizing and reconciling his differing friends as
to keep them united in resisting the secession movement.
Abraham Lincoln was in many respects a remarkable man, never while
living fully understood or appreciated. An uncultured child of the
frontiers, with no educational advantages, isolated in youth in his
wilderness home, with few associates and without family traditions, he
knew not his own lineage and connections. Nor was this singular in the
then condition of unsettled frontier life. His grandfather, with Daniel
Boone, left the settled part of Virginia, crossed the Alleghany
mountains, penetrated the "dark and bloody ground," and took up his
residence in the wilds of Kentucky near the close of the Revolutionary
war. There was little intercourse with each other in the new and
scattered settlements destitute of roads and with no mail facilities for
communication with relatives, friends, and the civilized world east of
the mountains. Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the President, was a
nephew of Daniel Boone, and partook of the spirit of his brave and
subsequently famous relative. But his residence in his secluded home was
brief. He was killed by the Indians when his son Thomas, the father of
President Lincoln, was only six years old. Four years later the
fatherless boy lost his mother. Left an orphan, this neglected child,
without kith or kindred for whom he cared or who cared for him, led a
careless, thriftless life, became a wandering pioneer, emigrated from
Kentucky when the President was but seven years old, took up his
residence for several years in the remote solitudes of Indiana, and
drifted at a later day to Illinois. This vagrant life, by a shiftless
father, and without a mother or female relative to keep alive and
impress upon him the pedigree and traditions of his family, left the
President without definite knowledge of his origin and that of his
fathers. The deprivation he keenly felt. I heard him say on more than
one occasion that when he laid down his official life he would endeavor
to trace out his genealogy and family history. He had a vague impression
that his family had emigrated from England to Pennsylvania and thence to
Virginia; but, as he remarked in my presence to Mr. Ashmun of
Massachusetts, and afterward to Governor Andrew, there was not, he
thought, any immediate connection with the families of the same name in
Massachusetts, though there was reason to suppose they had a common
ancestry.
Having entered upon this subject, and already said more than was
anticipated at the commencment, the opportunity is fitting to introduce
extracts from a statement made by himself and to accompany it with other
facts which have come into my possession since his death--facts of which
he had no knowledge.
In a brief autobiographical sketch of his life, written by himself, he
says:
I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, Kentucky. My
parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished
families--second families perhaps I should say. My mother, who died
in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of
whom now reside in Adams and others in Macon county, Illinois. My
paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham
county, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or
two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth,
when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors,
who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks county, Pennsylvania.
An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same
name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian
names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon,
Abraham, and the like.
My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age;
and he grew up literally without education. He removed from
Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year.
We reached our new home about the time the State came into the
Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals
still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so
called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond
reading, writing, and ciphering to the rule of three. If a
straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the
neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely
nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of
age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and
cipher, to the rule of three; but that was all. I have not been to
school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of
education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of
necessity.
I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.
At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in
Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon,
now in Menard county, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in
a store.
In addition to the foregoing I may add that among my acquaintance in
central Pennsylvania were several sisters whose maiden name was Winters.
Two of these sisters were wives of Judges of the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania. Another sister was the wife of William Potter, a member of
Congress of some note from that State and son of General Potter of the
Revolution. These sisters were the great aunts of President Lincoln, and
I subjoin an obituary notice of the younger sister, Mrs. Potter, who
died in 1875, at the advanced age of eighty-four. There are some
incidents not immediately connected with the subject that might be
omitted, but I think it best to present the obituary in full:
Died, in Bellefonte, at the residence of Edward C. Humes, on Sunday
morning, the 30th of May A. D. 1875, Mrs. Lucy Potter, relict of
Hon. William W. Potter, deceased, aged eighty-four years, nine
months, and two days.
Mrs. Potter was a member of a large and rather remarkable family;
her father having been born in 1728, married in 1747, died in 1794;
children to the number of nineteen being born to him, the eldest in
1748, the youngest in 1790--their birth extending over a period of
forty-two years. William Winters, the father of the deceased, came
from Berks county to Northumberland, now Lycoming county, in the
year 1778, having purchased the farm lately known as the Judge
Grier farm, near what was called Newberry, but now within the
corporate limits of the city of Williamsport. Mr. Winters was twice
married. His first wife was Ann Boone, a sister of Colonel Daniel
Boone, famous in the early annals of Kentucky. His marriage took
place in the year 1747 in the then province of Virginia. By this
union there were issue eleven children, four males and seven
females. His eldest daughter, Hannah, married in Rockingham county,
Virginia, Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of President Lincoln.
Shortly before his death, Lincoln, who was killed by the Indians,
visited his father-in-law at what is now Williamsport, and John
Winters, his brother-in-law, returned with him to Kentucky, whither
Mr. Lincoln had removed after his marriage; John being deputed to
look after some lands taken by Colonel Daniel Boone and his father.
They travelled on foot from the farm, by a route leading by where
Bellefonte now is, the Indian path "leading from Bald Eagle to
Frankstown."
John Winters visited his sister, Mrs. Potter, in 1843, and
wandering to the hill upon which the Academy is situated, a
messenger was sent for him, his friends thinking he had lost
himself; but he was only looking for the path he and Lincoln had
trod sixty years before, and pointed out with his finger the course
from Spring creek, along Buffalo run, to where it crosses the "Long
Limestone Valley," as the route they had travelled.
Upon the death of Mr. Winters's first wife, in 1771, he again, in
1774, married. His second wife was Ellen Campbell, who bore him
eight children, three males and five females, of which latter the
subject of this notice was the youngest.
The father of Mrs. Potter died in 1794, and in 1795 Mrs. Ellen
Winters, his widow, was licensed by the courts of Lycoming county
to keep a "house of entertainment" where Williamsport now is--where
she lived and reared her own children as well as several of her
step children.
Here all her daughters married, Mary becoming the wife of Charles
Huston, who for a number of years adorned the bench of the Supreme
Court of this State; Ellen, the wife of Thomas Burnside, who was a
member of Congress, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and finally
a Justice of the Supreme Court; Sarah, the wife of Benjamin Harris,
whose daughter, Miss Ellen Harris, resides on Spring street in this
borough; Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Alexander, a carpenter and
builder, who erected one of the first dwellings in Williamsport, at
the corner of what are now Pine and Third streets in that city, and
many of whose descendants are still living in Lycoming county;
Lucy, the wife of William W. Potter, a leading politician in this
county, who died on the 15th day of October, 1888, while a member
of our national Congress.
Mrs. Potter continued with her mother's family in Lycoming county,
frequently visiting her two sisters, Mrs. Huston and Mrs. Burnside,
who resided in Bellefonte, where, in 1815, she was united in
marriage, by Rev. James Linn, with William W. Potter, a young and
rising lawyer, and son of General James Potter, one of the early
settlers of the county. Here, with her husband until his death, and
then, upon the marriage of her niece, Miss Lucy Alexander, with Mr.
Edward C. Humes, she made her home, living continuously in this
town since her marriage, and having survived her husband for the
long period of thirty-seven years, being that length of time a
widow.
The biographers of President Lincoln have none of them given these facts
because they did not know them, nor was the President himself aware of
them. Of their authenticity so far as the relationship of Mr. Lincoln
with the family of Winters is concerned, I have no doubt. His ancestry
in this country, paternal and maternal--Lincoln, Boone, and Winters--is
to be traced to the county of Berks, Pennsylvania.
A roving child of the forest, where there were not even village schools,
Abraham Lincoln had little early culture, but his vigorous native
intellect sought information wherever it could be obtained with limited
means and opportunities, and overcame almost insuperable obstacles. His
quick perception and powers of observation and reflection, and his
retentive memory were remarkable; his judgment was good, his mental
grasp and comprehension equal to any emergency, his intentions were
always honest, and his skill and tact, with a determination to always
maintain the right, begot confidence and made him successful and great.
Party opponents imputed his success under difficulties that seemed
insurmountable to craft and cunning; but while not deficient in
shrewdness, his success was the result not of deceptive measures or wily
intrigue, but of wisdom and fidelity with an intuitive sagacity that
seldom erred as to measures to be adopted, or the course to be pursued.
It may be said of him, that he possessed inherently a master mind, and
was innately a leader of men. He listened, as I have often remarked,
patiently to the advice and opinions of others, though he might differ
from them; treated unintentional errors with lenity, was forbearing, and
kind to mistaken subordinates, but ever true to his own convictions. He
gathered information and knowledge whenever and wherever he had
opportunity, but quietly put aside assumption and intrusive attempt to
unduly influence and control him.
Like all his Cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Blair, who had been
educated at West Point, he was without military pretension when he
entered upon his executive duties and encountered at the very threshold
a civil war which had been long maturing, was deeply seated, and in its
progress was almost unprecedented in magnitude. Neither he nor any of
his advisers had personal, official, practical experience in
administering the civil service of the Federal Government. The
commencement of hostilities, before they had time to become familiar
with their duties, imposed upon each and all labors and cares beyond
those of any of their predecessors. To these were added the conduct of
military operations as novel as they were responsible. Unprepared as the
country was for the sudden and formidable insurrection, the
Administration was not less so, yet it was compelled at once to meet it,
make preparations, call out immense armies, and select officers to
organize and command them.
These commanders were most of them educated military officers, but
possessed of limited experience. Their lives had been passed on a peace
establishment, and they were consequently without practical knowledge.
Many of these, as well as such officers as were selected from civil
life, seemed bewildered by their sudden preferment, and appeared to
labor under the impression that they were clothed not only with military
but civil authority. Some in the higher grades imagined that in addition
to leading armies and fighting battles, they had plenary power to
administer the Government and prescribe the policy to be pursued in
their respective departments. Much difficulty and no small embarrassment
was caused by their mistaken assumptions and acts, in the early part of
the war.
J. C. Fremont, the western explorer, a political candidate for the
Presidency in 1856, and made a major general by President Lincoln at the
beginning of the rebellion in 1861, was assigned to the command of the
western department. He evidently considered himself clothed with
proconsular powers; that he was a representative of the Government in a
civil capacity as well as military commander, and soon after
establishing his headquarters at St. Louis assumed authority over the
slavery question which the President could neither recognize nor permit.
General Hunter, at Port Royal, and General Phelps, in the Gulf, each
laboring under the same error, took upon themselves to issue
extraordinary manifestoes that conflicted with the Constitution and
laws, on the subject of slavery, which the President was compelled to
disavow. The subject, if to be acted upon, was administrative and
belonged to the Government and civil authorities--not to military
commanders. But there was a feeling in Congress and the country which
sympathized with the radical generals in these anti-slavery decrees,
rather than with the law, and the Executive in maintaining it. The
Secretary of War, under whom these generals acted, not inattentive to
current opinion, also took an extraordinary position, and in his annual
report enunciated a policy in regard to the slavery question, without
the assent of the President and without even consulting him. Mr. Lincoln
promptly directed the assuming portion of the report, which had already
been printed, to be cancelled; but the proceeding embarrassed the
Administration and contributed to the retirement of Mr. Cameron from the
Cabinet. These differences in the army, in the Administration, and among
the Republicans in Congress, extended to the people. A radical faction
opposed to the legal, cautious, and considerate policy of the President
began to crystallize and assume shape and form, which, while it did not
openly oppose the President, sowed the seeds of discontent against his
policy and the general management of public affairs.
The military operations of the period are not here detailed or alluded
to, except incidentally when narrating the action of the Administration
in directing army movements and shaping the policy of the Government.
Nearly one-third of the States were, during the Presidency of Mr.
Lincoln, unrepresented in the national councils, and in open rebellion.
A belt of border States, extending from the Delaware to the Rocky
mountains, which, though represented in Congress, had a divided
population, was distrustful of the President. Yielding the
Administration a qualified support, and opposed to the Government in
almost all its measures, was an old organized and disciplined party in
all the free States, which seemed to consider its obligations to party
paramount to duty to the country. This last, if it did not boldly
participate with the rebels, was an auxiliary, and as a party, hostile
to the Administration, and opposed to nearly every measure for
suppressing the insurrection.
There were among the friends of the Administration, and especially
during its last two years, radical differences, which in the first
stages of the war were undeveloped. The mild and persuasive temper of
the President, his generous and tolerant disposition, and his kind and
moderate forbearance toward the rebels, whom he invited and would
persuade to return to their allegiance and their duty, did not
correspond with the schemes and designs of the extreme and violent
leaders of the Republican party. They had other objects than
reconstruction to attain, were implacable and revengeful, and some with
ulterior radical views thought the opportunity favorable to effect a
change of administration.
These had for years fomented division, encouraged strife, and were as
ultra and as unreasonable in their demands and exactions as the
secessionists. Some had welcomed war with grim satisfaction, and were
for prosecuting it unrelentingly with fire and sword to the annihilation
of the rights, and the absolute subversion of the Southern States and
subjection of the Southern people. There was in their ranks unreasoning
fanaticism, and ferocity that partook of barbarism, with a mixture of
political intrigue fatal to our Federal system. These men, dissatisfied
with President Lincoln, accused him of temporizing, of imbecility, and
of sympathy with the rebels because he would not confiscate their whole
property, and hang or punish them as pirates or traitors. These radical
Republicans, as they were proud to call themselves, occupied, like all
extreme men in high party and revolutionary times, the front rank of
their party, and, though really a minority, gave tone and character to
the Republican organization. Fired with avenging zeal, and often
successful in their extreme views, though to some extent checked and
modified by the President, they were presuming, and flattered themselves
they could, if unsuccessful with Mr. Lincoln, effect a change in the
administration of the Government in 1864 by electing a President who
would conform to their ultra demands. Secret meetings and whispered
consultations were held for that purpose, and for a time aspiring and
calculating politicians gave them encouragement; but it soon became
evident that the conservative sentiment of the Republicans and the
country was with Mr. Lincoln, and that the confidence of the people in
his patriotism and integrity was such as could not be shaken.
Nevertheless, a small band of the radicals held out and would not assent
to his benignant policy. These malcontents undertook to create a
distinct political organization which, if possessed of power, would make
a more fierce and unrelenting war on the rebels, break down their local
institutions, overturn their State governments, subjugate the whites,
elevate the blacks, and give not only freedom to the slaves, but by
national decree override the States, and give suffrage to the whole
colored race. These extreme and rancorous notions found no favor with
Mr. Lincoln, who, though nominally a Whig in the past, had respect for
the Constitution, loved the Federal Union, and had a sacred regard for
the rights of the States, which the Whigs as a party did not entertain.
War two years after secession commenced brought emancipation, but
emancipation did not dissolve the Union, consolidate the Government, or
clothe it with absolute power; nor did it impair the authority and
rights which the States had reserved. Emancipation was a necessary, not
a revolutionary measure, forced upon the Administration by the
secessionists themselves, who insisted that slavery which was local and
sectional should be made national.
The war was, in fact, defensive on the part of the Government against a
sectional insurrection which had seized the fortresses and public
property of the nation; a war for the maintenance of the Union, not for
its dissolution; a war for the preservation of individual, State, and
Federal rights; good administration would permit neither to be
sacrificed nor one to encroach on the other. The necessary exercise of
extraordinary war powers to suppress the Rebellion had given
encouragement and strength to the centralists who advocated the
consolidation and concentration of authority in the general Government
in peace as well as war, and national supervision over the States and
people. Neither the radical enthusiasts nor the designing centralists
admitted or subscribed to the doctrine that political power emanated
from the people; but it was the theory of both that the authority
exercised by the States was by grant derived from the parental or
general Government. It was their theory that the Government created the
States, not that the States and people created the Government. Some of
them had acquiesced in certain principles which were embodied in the
fundamental law called the Constitution; but the Constitution was in
their view the child of necessity, a mere crude attempt of the theorists
of 1776, who made successful resistance against British authority, to
limit the power of the new central Government which was substituted for
that of the crown. For a period after the Revolution it was admitted
that feeble limitations on central authority had been observed, though
it was maintained that those limitations had been obstructions to our
advancing prosperity, the cause of continual controversy, and had
gradually from time to time been dispensed with, broken down, or made to
yield to our growing necessities. The civil war had made innovations--a
sweep, in fact, of many constitutional barriers--and radical
consolidationists like Thaddeus Stevens and Henry Winter Davis felt that
the opportunity to fortify central authority and establish its supremacy
should be improved.
These were the ideas and principles of leading consolidationists and
radicals in Congress who were politicians of ability, had studied the
science of government, and were from conviction opponents of reserved
rights and State sovereignty and of a mere confederation or Federal
Union, based on the political equality and reserved sovereignty of the
States, but insisted that the central Government should penetrate
further and act directly on the people. Few of these had given much
study or thought to fundamental principles, the character and structure
of our Federal system, or the Constitution itself. Most of them, under
the pressure of schemers and enthusiasts, were willing to assume and
ready to exercise any power deemed expedient, regardless of the organic
law. Almost unrestrained legislation to carry on the war induced a
spirit of indifference to constitutional restraint, and brought about an
assumption by some, a belief by others, that Congress was omnipotent;
that it was the embodiment of the national will, and that the other
departments of the Government as well as the States were subordinate and
subject to central Congressional control. Absolute power, the
centralists assumed and their fanatical associates seemed to suppose,
was vested in the legislative body of the country, and its decrees,
arbitrary and despotic, often originating in and carried first by a
small vote in party caucus, were in all cases claimed to be decisive,
and to be obeyed by the Executive, the judiciary, and the people,
regardless of the Constitution. Parliamentary discussions were not
permitted, or of little avail. The acts of caucus were despotic,
mandatory, and decisive. The several propositions and plans of President
Lincoln to reëstablish the Union, and induce the seceding States to
resume their places and be represented in Congress, were received with
disfavor by the radical leaders, who, without open assault, set in
motion an undercurrent against nearly every Executive proposition as the
weak and impotent offspring of a well meaning and well intentioned, but
not very competent and intelligent mind. It was the difference between
President Lincoln and the radical leaders in Congress on the question of
reconciliation, the restoration of the States, and the reëstablishment
of the Union on the original constitutional basis, which more than even
his genial and tolerant feelings toward the rebels led to political
intrigue among Republican members of Congress for the nomination of new
candidates, and opposition to Mr. Lincoln's reëlection in 1864. At one
period this intrigue seemed formidable, and some professed friends lent
it their countenance, if they did not actually participate in it, who
ultimately disavowed any connection with the proceeding.
Singular ideas were entertained and began to be developed in
propositions of an extraordinary character, relative to the powers and
the construction of the Government, which were presented to Congress,
even in the first year of the war. Theoretical schemes from cultivated
intellects, as well as crude notions from less intellectual but extreme
men, found expression in resolutions and plans, many of which were
absurd and most of them impracticable and illegal. Foremost and
prominent among them were a series of studied and elaborate resolutions
prepared by Charles Sumner, and submitted to the Senate on the 11th of
February, 1862. Although presented at that early day, they were the germ
of the reconstruction policy adopted at a later period. In this plan or
project for the treatment of the insurrectionary States and the people
who resided in them, the Massachusetts Senator manifested little regard
for the fundamental law or for State or individual rights. The high
position which this Senator held in the Republican party and in Congress
and the country, his cultured mind and scholarly attainments, his ardent
if not always discreet zeal and efforts to free the slaves and endow the
whole colored race, whether capable or otherwise, with all the rights
and privileges, socially and politically, of the educated and refined
white population whom they had previously served, his readiness and
avowed intention to overthrow the local State governments and the social
system where slavery existed, to subjugate the whites and elevate the
blacks, will justify a special notice; for it was one of the first, if
not the very first of the radical schemes officially presented to change
the character of the Government and the previously existing distinctions
between the races. His theory or plan may be taken as the pioneer of the
many wild and visionary projects of the central and abolition force,
that took shape and form not only during the war, but after hostilities
ceased and the rebels were subdued.
Mr. Sumner introduced his scheme with a preamble which declared, among
other things, that the "extensive territory" of the South had been
"usurped by pretended governments and organizations"; that "the
Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, cannot be displaced
in its rightful operation within this territory, but must ever continue
the supreme law thereof, notwithstanding the doings of any pretended
governments acting singly or in confederation in order to put an end to
its supremacy." Therefore:
_Resolved_, 1st. That any vote of secession, or other act by which
any State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the
Constitution within its territory, is inoperative and void against
the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a
practical _abdication_ by the State of all rights under the
Constitution, while the treason which it involves still further
works an instant _forfeiture_ of all those functions and powers
essential to the continued existence of the State as a body
politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under
the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the
State, being, according to the language of the law, _felo de se_,
ceases to exist.
2d. That any combination of men assuming to act in the place of
such State, attempting to ensnare or coerce the inhabitants thereof
into a confederation hostile to the Union, is rebellious,
treasonable, and destitute of all moral authority; and that such
combination is a usurpation incapable of any constitutional
existence and utterly lawless, so that everything dependent upon it
is without constitutional or legal support.
3d. That the termination of a State under the Constitution
necessarily causes the termination of those peculiar local
institutions which, having no origin in the Constitution, or in
those natural rights which exist Independent of the Constitution,
are upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State.
... Congress will assume complete jurisdiction of such vacated
territory where such unconstitutional and illegal things have been
attempted, and will proceed to establish therein republican forms
of government under the Constitution.
It is not shown how a usurpation or illegal act by conspirators in any
State or States could justify or make legal a usurpation by the general
Government, as this scheme evidently was, nor by what authority Congress
could declare that the illegal, inoperative, and void acts of usurpers
who might have temporary possession of or be a majority in a State,
could constitute a practical abdication by the State itself of all
rights under the Constitution, regardless of the rights of a legal,
loyal minority, guilty of no usurpation or attempted secession--the
innocent victims of a conspiracy; nor where Congress or the Federal
Government obtained authority to pronounce "an instant _forfeiture_ of
all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of a
State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory
falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory,
and the State, being, according to the language of the law, _felo de
se_, ceases to exist."
The administration of Mr. Buchanan had laid down as a rule of
government that a State could not be coerced. The whole country not in
rebellion had declared there should be no secession, division, or
destruction of the Federal Union, but here was the most conspicuous
leader of the Republican party in the Senate proposing a scheme to
punish a State, to annihilate and destroy its government, to
territorialize it, to exclude or expel it from the Union, to make no
discrimination in its exclusions and denunciations between the loyal and
disloyal inhabitants, but to punish alike, without trial or conviction,
the just and the unjust. There were, though he was unwilling to admit
it, and was perhaps unaware of it, vindictive feelings, venom, and
revenge in his resolutions and in his whole treatment of the States and
the white people of the South. From the time that he had been stricken
down by the bludgeon of Brooks in the Senate, Mr. Sumner waged
unrelenting war on the whites in the Southern States, and seemed to
suppose it was his special mission--he certainly made it the great
object of his life--to elevate the negro race--to give them at least
equal rights and privileges with the educated and refined class--and did
not conceal his intention and expectation to bring them in as
auxiliaries to the Republican party, and thereby give it permanent
ascendancy. All this was done in the name of humanity, and with apparent
self-convinced sincerity. He was unwilling to acknowledge that he was
governed or influenced by personal resentments in his revolutionary
plans to degrade the intelligent white and exalt the ignorant black
population by tearing down the constitutional edifice. In frequent
interviews which I held with him then and at later periods, when he
found it impossible to hold his positions under the Constitution, he
claimed that he occupied higher ground, and that his authority for these
violent measures was the Declaration of Independence, which declared all
men were born equal, etc. Mr. Sumner was an idealist--neither a
constitutionalist nor a practical statesman. He could pull down, but he
could not construct--could declare what he considered humane, right, and
proper, and act upon it regardless of constitutional compromises or
conventional regulations which were the framework of the Government. No
man connected with the Administration, or in either branch of Congress,
was more thoroughly acquainted with our treaties, so familiar with the
traditions of the Government, or better informed on international law
than Charles Sumner; but on almost all other Governmental questions he
was impulsive and unreliable, and when his feelings were enlisted,
imperious, dogmatical, and often unjust.
Why innocent persons who were loyal to the Government and the Union
should be disfranchised and proscribed because their neighbors and
fellow citizens had engaged in a conspiracy, he could not explain or
defend. By what authority whole communities and States should be
deprived of the local governments which their fathers had framed, under
which they were born, and with the provisions and traditions of which
they were familiar, was never told.
His propositions found no favor with the Administration, nor were they
supported at the beginning by any considerable number even of the
extremists in Congress. It required much training by the centralizing
leaders for years and all the tyranny of caucus machinery after the
death of Mr. Lincoln to carry them into effect by a series of
reconstruction measures that were revolutionary in their character, and
which to a certain extent unsettled the principles on which the
Government was founded.
But the counsel and example of the distinguished Senator from
Massachusetts were not without their influence. Resolutions by radical
Republicans and counter resolutions, chiefly by Democrats, relative to
the powers and limitations of the Federal Government and the status of
States, followed in quick succession. On the 11th of June, the subject
having been agitated and discussed for four months, Mr. Dixon, a
Republican Senator from Connecticut, whose views coincided in the main
with those of Mr. Lincoln and the Administration, submitted, after
consultation and advisement, the following:
_Resolved_, That all acts or ordinances of secession, alleged to
have been adopted by any legislature or convention of the people of
any State, are as to the Federal Union absolutely null and void;
and that while such acts may and do subject the individual actors
therein to forfeitures and penalties, they do not, in any degree,
affect the relations of the State wherein they purport to have been
adopted to the Government of the United States, but are as to such
Government acts of rebellion, insurrection, and hostility on the
part of the individuals engaged therein, or giving assent thereto;
and that such States are, notwithstanding such acts or ordinances,
members of the Federal Union, and as such are subject to all the
obligations and duties imposed upon them by the Constitution of the
United States; and the loyal citizens of such States are entitled
to all the rights and privileges thereby guaranteed or conferred.
The resolution of Dixon traversed the policy of Sumner and was the
Executive view of the questions that were agitated in Congress as to the
effect of the rebellion and the condition of the States in insurrection.
The Administration did not admit that rebellion dissolved the Union or
destroyed its federative character; nor did it adopt or assent to the
novel theory that the States and the whole people residing in them had
forfeited all sovereignty and all reserved State and individual rights,
because a portion of the inhabitants had rebelled; nor did it admit that
the usurpation of a portion of any community could bring condemnation
and punishment on all. The usurpations and acts of the rebels were
considered not legal acts, but nullities.
GIDEON WELLES.
LUCILLE'S LETTER.
Out of the dreary distance and the dark
I stretch forth praying palms--yet not to pray;
Hands fold themselves for heaven, while mine, alas!
Are sundered--held your way.
Brief moments have been ours, yet bright as brief;
Oh! how I live them over, one by one,
Now that the endless days, bereft of you,
Creep slowly, sadly on.
Garnered in memory, those bewildering hours,
A golden harvest of enchantment yield;
Here, like a pale, reluctant Ruth, I glean
A cold and barren field--
Barren without a shelter: and the hedge
Is made of thorns and brambles. If I fain
Would lean beyond the barrier, do you see
The wounding and the stain?
Did God make us to mock us, on the earth?
Why did he fuse our spirits by His word,
Then set His awful Angel in our path,
His Angel with the sword?
Why, when I contrite kneel confessing all,
And seek with tears the way to be forgiven--
Why do your pleading eyes look sadly down
Between my face and heaven?
Why does my blood thrill at your fancied touch--
Stop and leap up at your ideal caress?
Ah, God! to feel that dear warm mouth on mine
In lingering tenderness!
To lie at perfect peace upon your heart,
Your arms close folded round me firm and fast,
My cheek to yours--oh, vision dear as vain!
That would be home at last.
Leon, you are my curse, my blessing too,
My hell, my heaven, my storm that wrecks to save:
Life daunts me, and the shadows lengthen out
Beyond the grave.
MARY L. RITTER.
SOME OLD ALMANACKS.
Do you know, gentle reader, what an interesting, valuable, and useful
book an "Almanack" once was? You are gorged with books, and newspapers
lie about thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Do you ever buy an Almanac for
five cents? I trow not. Therefore you do not know how much careful
calculation, skill, and knowledge are to be had for that small piece of
money.
Therefore you cannot sit down in the evening and pore over its mystic
signs. Indeed, I fear you do not know what a zodiac is, or what the
meaning of "Cancer the Crab" and "Gemini the Twins" may be. It is more
than likely you will reply, "Oh, yes; if the Crab had a Cancer, he would
cry Gemini to the Twins"--and in that light and flippant way you will
try to hide your brutal ignorance, if a male, your shallow
understanding, if a female.
Now I have just had a sort of musty satisfaction in looking over some
old Almanacs, which dated as far back as 1727. They seem to have been
the property of somebody whose letters were W. S. His almanacs were so
prized that he had interleaved them, and then he recorded his profound
observations. He thus had learned, what I fear you have not, that the
moon had many mysterious influences besides making the tides rise and
fall, if it does. It seems, if we can believe "A Native of New England,"
who made B. Greene's Almanack for 1731, that the "Moon has dominion over
man's body," and that when she gets into "Cancer the Crab" you must
expect every sort of bedevilment in your breast and stomach. When she
gets into "Gemini," the same in your arms and shoulders. When she is in
"Scorpio" your bowels and belly are in danger, and so on all through
your body; so that we might well enough wish the moon were wholly
abolished; for the little wishy-washy light she gives to lovers and
thieves is not at all a balance for such fearful threatenings.
Who was the "Native of New England" is a secret, and well it is, for in
1727 he graced his title-page with this poem:
----Man--that Noble Creature,
Scanted of time, and stinted by Weak Nature,
That in foretimes saw jubilees of years,
As by our Ancient History appears;
Nay, which is more, even Silly Women then,
Liv'd longer time than our grave Graybeard Men.
"Graced," did I say? May we not put a _dis_ before it? "Silly Women!"
"Noble Creature!" Did the Native mean that woman then was silly and man
then noble? Well for him is it that our "Mrs. Ward Howes" and "Mrs.
Lillie Blakes" cannot make rhymes upon _his_ name; well for him that he
went his way holding his mantle before his face.
But he himself did not hold himself lightly. He knew all about Apogé and
Perigé (we now spell them Apogée and Perigée). But does the Radical Club
itself know anything at all about Apogée and Perigée? He knew when some
"fine moderate weather" would come, when "winds enough for several"
would blow, when "bad weather for hoop petticoats" would be; and that
was on the 29th and 30th of January, 1727. Fearful weather, we may
believe; but he, the _Native_, knew. But alas for us! On the 2d, he puts
it down as "sloppy and raw cold." Now it so chances that W. S. has kept
his MS. notes against this day, and he has it "_Very fine and
pleasant_," and the next day, "_Dry and dusty._" Lamentable indeed for
the Native! But he is not to be shaken for all that; he prognosticates
through all the year just as if all was to come exactly right. One would
like to know what W. S. thought of his prognosticator, and if he kept on
studying and believing just the same as if all had come right. _I_ do
not doubt he did.
And now we come to some positive statements about Eclipses, and learn
what we may depend on in that quarter.
The Native goes on to say, "As to the effects, they chiefly affect those
Men that live by their Ingenuity; I mean Painters, Poets, Mercurialists,
&c." What is a mercurialist? Does he mean the worshippers of Mercury,
thieves, and that sort? "But"--and mark the cautious tone here--"but
whether it forbodes good or ill to them I shall not now determine; only
advise them to prepare for the worst!" Pretty good advice in all times
of eclipse; and in these days even when there is no eclipse. Mark his
modesty: "I do not pretend to Infallibility in my Conjectures, yet (as I
said last year) they many times come out too True to make a jest of."
Then he goes on: "I have read of a story which _Thaurus_ is said to
relate of _Andreas Vesalius_, a great Astrologer who lived in the reign
of _Henry the VIII._; to wit, that he told _Maximilian_ the Day and Hour
of his Death, who, giving credit thereto, ordered a great feast to be
made, inviting his Friends, sat and Eat [ate?] with them; and
afterwards, having distributed his Treasures among them, took leave of
them and Dyed at the time predicted." Most kind of this Maximilian, for
it must have secured a good patronage to the astrologers.
"Yet it does not from hence follow that a certain rule may be laid
down"--a very fine astrologer, you perceive, may fail--"whereby exactly
to discover the Divine appointments. But there are many concurring
Causes of Mundane Accidents of which Humanity must be content to remain
Ignorant, and (as a wise Author affirms) No Index can be found or formed
whereby to give us any certain Diary or Destiny saving that of our
dear-bought Experience." But how can we learn about our own dying by
experience--which is what we die to know about? He continues: "And here
I cannot but take notice of our _Negro-mancers_, who, under pretence of
knowledge in the Motions of the _Heavens_, take upon them to Fore tell
the Appointments of Fate with respect to particular Persons, and thereby
betray the Ignorant part of the World Inevitably into the Worship of the
Devil. But if the Wholesome Laws of the Province were duly executed on
such _Negro-mancers_, I could venture to Fore tell what would soon be
their Fortune; You may Read it at large in this Province, New Law Book,
_page_ 117.
"_Marblehead_, Sept. 28, 1726.
"N. Bowen."
Ah, friend Bowen was too alarmingly near the Salem witch times when
Minister Parris and Judge Hawthorne had come so nigh putting the Devil
to rout by hanging an old woman or two and squeezing poor Giles Cory to
death. He knew what the Law could do to those wicked negro-mancers if
they went about predicting things in a wicked way. And what a bore it
might become to have a negro-mancer foretelling in a rash and
miscellaneous way one's death and bringing it to pass too some fine and
inconvenient day! Who would not hang a negro-mancer like that?
But suppose they should go on and squeeze the life out of such mild
negromancers as N. Bowen, Esq., too. What then?
In 1729 we get an Almanac made by a student _with_ a name--Nathaniel
Ames, junior, _student in Physick and Astronomy_. He does not apply his
intellect to such great speculations as Bowen grappled with, but runs
easily into poetry of the true Homeric stamp. Listen:
_January_--
The Earth is white like NEPTUNE's foamy face,
When his proud Waves the hardy Rocks embrace.
_February_--
Boreas's chilly breath attacks our Nature,
And turns the Presbyterian to a Quaker.
What wicked waggery is here hidden, who can tell? One thing is sure,
that Februarys ought to be abolished by the General Court if such is
true; for a Quaker then was an abominable thing.
_March_--
Phoebus and Mars conjoined do both agree,
This month shall Warm (nay, more than usual) be.
We pray that our Almanac makers will conjoin Phoebus and Mars in all
our Marches hereafter, so that we too may "Warm (more than usual) be."
How melodious that line!
_April_ gives a sweet strain, possibly premature--
The Birds, like Orphans, now all things invite
To come and have Melodious, sweet delight.
Like Orphans! Why? Should _Orpheus_ come in there, or are orphans
children of Orpheus? We are perplexed. The words sound alike.
_May_ like a Virgin quickly yields her Charms,
To the Embrace of Winter's Icy Arms.
It is not easy to see how that can be. Does he mean that winter had come
back and given May a late frost? And then Virgins do not, so far as I
know, yield to the Embrace of Winter's Icy Arms. Do they? I ask persons
of experience.
_June_ comes upon us heavily--
SOL's scorching Ray puts Blood in Fermentation,
And is stark raught to acts of Procreation.
That has a terrible sound. What does he mean?
_July_--
The Moon (this Month), that pale-faced Queen of Night,
Will be disrobed of all her borrowed light.
No month for lover's madness, this. Not a lover can steal forth by the
light of the moon, or do any foolish thing this month, thanks be to God!
_August_--
The Earth and Sky Resound with Thunder Loud,
And Oblique streams flash from the dusky Cloud.
That first line demands many capital letters, and what a fine word
Oblique is in the second.
_September_ says--
The burthened earth abounds with various fruit,
Which doth the Epicurean's Palate Suit.
It is to be hoped these wicked Epicureans got no more than their share,
and that church members were not converted to the heathen philosophy by
such baits.
_October_--
The Tyrant Mars old Saturn now opposes,
Which stirs up Feuds and may make bloody Noses.
October then was the fighter's month. This begins nobly, but ends
waggishly.
_November_--
Now what remains to Comfort up our lives,
But Cordial Liquor and kind, loving Wives?
"Comfort up," that is good. But the Cordial Liquor is doubtful; and then
are there no girls in the sweet bloom of maidenhood left to Comfort up
our lives? Sad indeed!
_December_ closes up--
The Chrystal streams, congealed to Icy Glass,
Become fit roads for Travellers to pass.
Excellent for the travellers.
But now in the column of "Mutations of Weather," we find this":
"Christmas is nigh;
The bare name of it
to Rich or Poor
will be no profit."
We are startled. Does he mean to speak ill of Christmas--to stab it? We
look again. No--it is that Christmas without roast Turkeys and Mince
pies will be very bad. The "bare _name_"--that is what he will none of.
But on the contrary the real thing he will have, with Roasts and bakes,
and--possibly--Cordial Liquor to "Comfort up" the day. What a good word
that "Comfort up" is. We thank Nathaniel for it.
Now in the volume for 1730 are other interesting items, and the seer and
poet seems to be our old friend, Nathan Bowen. He inclines somewhat to
poetry also, for he thus sings:
Saturn in Thirty Years his Ring Compleats,
Which Swiftest Jupiter in Twelve repeats;
Mars Three and Twenty Months revolving spends,
The Earth in Twelve her Annual Journey Ends.
Venus thy Race in twice Four Months is run,
For his Mercurius Three demands. The Moon
Her Revolution finishes in One.
If all at Once are Mov'd, and by one Spring,
Why so Unequal in their Annual Ring?"
Here again the sensitive soul, anxiously pondering, asks, Are students
of astronomy prone to infidelity, and does this last question mean to
convey the faintest shadow of a doubt? If not, why that "Why"?
We gladly pass on to another topic, hoping that Nathan was not damned
for skepticism.
"N. B.--The paper Mill mentioned in last year's almanack (at Milton) has
begun to go. Any person that will bring Rags to D. Henchman & T.
Hancock, shall have from 2d. to 6d. a pound according to their
goodness."
"Begun to go." I like that word. "Commenced operations," "started in
business": how new and poor those great three-syllabled words seem!
"Begun to go"--that is good.
In 1731 he tells us:
"Ready money is now
the best of Wares."
"Some gain & some loose."
Dear, dear, how bad! Almost, not quite so miserable, as to-day--all lose
now.
Then he informs us officially what salutes are to be fired at Castle
William, as follows:
March 1 Queen's Berthday 21 guns.
May 29 Restoration of K. Ch. II. 17 "
June 11 K. George II. accession 21 "
Oct. 11 K. G. II. coronation 33 "
Oct. 30 K. G. II. Berthday 27 "
Nov. 5 Powder Plot 17 "
Jan. 19 Prince of W. Berthday 21 "
In 1732 the Native of New England (if it be Nathan Bowen of Marblehead)
takes hold again and breaks into song:
Indulge, and to thy Genius freely give;
For not to live at Ease is not to live.
Death stalks behind thee, and each flying Hour
Does some loose Remnant of thy Life devour.
Live while thou livest, for Death shall make us all
A Name of Nothing, but an Old Wife's Tale.
Speak: wilt thou AVORICE or PLEASURE Chuse
To be thy Lord? Take One & One Refuse.--_Perseus_.
We begin to fear indeed that Nathan is little better than one of those
wicked Epicureans himself. _Avorice_ or _Pleasure_. Take one? Must we
indeed? Pleasure? It looks as if Nathan was a very naughty man.
Things have evidently not gone quite smoothly with N. Bowen this last
year, for, in his "Kind Reader" of 1733, he says: "Having last year
finished Twelve of my Annual Papers [he means Almanacks], I proposed to
lay down my pen and leave the Drudgery of Calculation to those who have
more leisure and a Clearer Brain than I can pretend to. Indeed, the
Contempt with which a writer of Almanacks is looked on and the Danger he
is in of being accounted a Conjurer"--a negro-mancer--"should seem
sufficient to deter a man from publishing anything of this kind. But
when I consider that all this is the effect of Ignorance, and,
therefore, not worth my Notice or Resentment, and that the most
judicious and learned part of the World have always highly valued and
esteemed such Undertakings as what are not only great and noble in
themselves; but as they are of absolute necessity in the Business and
Affairs of Life, I am induced to appear again in the World, and hope
this will meet with the same kind acceptance with my former."
With me he meets with the same kind acceptance, for I believe in the
Nobility of the Almanac; and it is certain that every man should believe
in the Nobility of his work whatever it is--then he is sure of _one_
ardent Admirer. It is sad to think that some carping critic had been
riling the sweet soul of Nathan in the year 1732. It is all over now.
Let us hope he is not damned for his Epicureanism, but is reaping his
crop of praise in a better climate than Marblehead. He gives us more
poetry in 1733, and a clear account of why Leap years are necessary,
which I do not repeat here, the popular belief being that they were
invented in order that maidens might if they wished make love to swains,
which belief I would do nothing to shake.
In the next year we have quite a learned discourse about the Julian Æra,
Epochs, Olympiads, etc., from which I can only venture to take the
following concise and valuable and accurate statement of this
astronomer:
"JESUS CHRIST the SAVIOUR of the World was Incarnate in the 4,713 year
of the Julian Period; the 3,949 of the Creation, the 4th of the 194th
Olympiad, and the 753 Currant Year of the Roman Foundation."
Persons having any doubts as to the time of our blessed Saviour's
appearance had better cut this out and keep it carefully for future
reference and for the confusion of "skepticks."
Let us not leave these interesting vestiges of an earlier creation
without a few words as to W. S. He, as I have said, was the purchaser
and owner of these sacred books. His almanacs were carefully interleaved
and evidently were intended to be not only a record of the wisdom of the
"Students in Physick and Astronomy," but also of events in the lives of
devout owners. We find W. S. begins with fervor and fidelity to record
daily interesting facts such as, in February:
"Fine, somewhat cold.
"Very pleasant.
"A storm of snow.
"More snow, but clears away windy.
"A very fine day.
"_Idem_, but windy."
Aha! here, then, we have a man who knew _Latin_ in the Year of our Lord
1727. "_Idem_"--that is such a good word that he uses it often, and it
has a good sound, too. Through January, February, March he attends daily
to this high duty, and tells us how it was:
"A bright morning, but a dull day.
"Windy.
"Cool."
On the 27th, "Much rain, a violent storm, snow'd up."
In April things change. His interest flags. He does not write down his
record every day. Has W. S. grown lazy? Is it too warm for assiduous
tasks, or has a new element come into his life? Let us see. He begins
April:
"1. A clearer day.
"2. Set my clock forward 20 m.
"3. Lethfield arrived from London."
The clock--that, I believe, was the great event, and that it came from
London. What may it have been? Clearly one of those tall, stately pieces
with the moon and the sun showing their faces on the silver dial, the
fine mahogany case worthy to uphold all. Where is that clock now? Who
can tell? From this time forth this was the object of interest, for in
nearly all the months we have this record, "Set my clock." He grows
terribly indifferent to the weather. A clock then was a wonderful thing,
and it is a wonderful thing now. Think of it. How these little wheels
and springs are so contrived that they tick the seconds and the minutes
and the hours day and night, so that Father Time might himself set his
watch by some of them. But then it was a rarer and a more interesting
thing than now. We can easily fancy the neighbors gathering to see the
fine clock standing in its place in the hall, telling its monotonous
tale all the nights and days.
But another interesting record now comes in. This, too, is an event--in
May:
"17. I bottled cyder."
And then in October again:
"20. Cyder come."
Cyder is not a thing to be despised even by a man who knows Latin. But
is not cyder an important thing to everybody? They had neither tea nor
coffee then, and man likes to drink. We may know, too, that in those
days every good woman made a few bottles of currant wine, made also her
rose cakes to sweeten her drawers, gathered and dried lavender to make
lavender-water, also sage and hoarhound, "good for sickness." Alas! that
people might be sick even in those "Good old Times," we know, and we
find that in January, 1727, W. S. puts down carefully this:
"A Recipe for y^e cure of Sciatica pains--viz.:
"Take 2 ounces of flowered brimstone, four ounces of Molasses. Mix y^m
together, and take a spoonfull morning and evening, and if y^t do not
effect a cure, take another spoonfull at noon also." You continue until
you get well, or--something!
Why endure sciatica pains after this? We make no charge for this
valuable knowledge.
But in June we find it put down:
"Mr. Davenport Chosen Tutor And confirmed by y^e overseers."
Here we have a clue to the Latin.
And in August is another entry:
"Governor Burnett, upon an invitation, came to visit y^e Coll:
besides---- y^e Civil Officers in Cambridge w^th some others, together
with y^e Masters of Art in College, were invited to dine w^th him. There
was an Oration in y^e hall by Sir Clark, some of y^e neighboring Clergie
were present, & about sixty persons in all had a handsome dinner in y^e
Library."
Here _was_ an event to be recorded. But was W. S. present? We remain in
the dark.
Entries now become more and more uncommon. We learn little more of the
clock or of the cyder; and we are at a loss to explain the reason why.
But lo! we have it! In November there is but one entry, on the
"21. _I was married_."
There is the gospel, without note or comment. To whom? We ask in vain.
"I was married," and that is all. But is not that enough? No more
records about clocks and cyder! What need of those things? Very few
entries are made in this year, and these are records of the thermometer.
Evidently a new one had come from London. But in October is a short and
significant record:
"19. Bille was born at 5 a clock morning."
It was inevitable--cause and effect--a striking example--most
philosophic! Had he black eyes or blue? Was he like his father or his
mother? Was he little or big? Did he weigh eight pounds or ten? Did he
live to be a man? None of these things are recorded, and we shall never
know. After this supreme event few entries appear in the diary through
the years. Life has become engrossing, important. Let us hope it was
sufficing and not full of failure and trouble; let us enjoy the pleasure
of believing so, as we well may. The clock, the cyder, the thermometer,
the little Bille: what more important matters had he or have we to
record? We part with the three, the four faint shadows, Nathaniel,
Nathan, W. S., and little Bille, with a mild regret, hoping we may meet
them, and especially "little Bille," on the other side. Till then
farewell.
CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT.
TO WALT WHITMAN.
O Titan soul, ascend your starry steep
On golden stair to gods and storied men!
Ascend! nor care where thy traducers creep.
For what may well be said of prophets when
A world that's wicked comes to call them good?
Ascend and sing! As kings of thought who stood
On stormy heights and held far lights to men,
Stand thou and shout above the tumbled roar,
Lest brave ships drive and break against the shore.
What though thy sounding song be roughly set?
Parnassus' self is rough! Give thou the thought,
The golden ore, the gems that few forget;
In time the tinsel jewel will be wrought....
Stand thou alone and fixed as destiny;
An imaged god that lifts above all hate,
Stand thou serene and satisfied with fate.
Stand thou as stands that lightning-riven tree
That lords the cloven clouds of gray Yosemite.
Yea, lone, sad soul, thy heights must be thy home.
Thou sweetest lover! love shall climb to thee,
Like incense curling some cathedral dome
From many distant vales. Yet thou shalt be,
O grand, sweet singer, to the end alone.
But murmur not. The moon, the mighty spheres,
Spin on alone through all the soundless years;
Alone man comes on earth; he lives alone;
Alone he turns to front the dark Unknown.
Then range thine upper world, nor stoop to wars.
Walk thou the heights as walked the old Greeks when
They talked to austere gods, nor turned to men.
Teach thou the order of the singing stars.
Behold, in mad disorder these are set,
And yet they sing in ceaseless harmonies.
They spill as jewels spilt through space. They fret
The souls of men who measure melodies
As they would measure slimy deeps of seas.
Take comfort, O uncommon soul. Yet pray
Lest ye grow proud in such exalted worth.
Let no man reckon he excels. I say
The laws of compensation compass earth,
And no man gains without some equal loss:
Each ladder round of fame becomes a rod,
And he who lives must die upon a cross.
The stars are far, but flowers bless the sod,
And he who has the least of man has most of God.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
MADCAP VIOLET.
BY WILLIAM BLACK.
CHAPTER XLIV.
JOY AND FEAR.
Was this man mad, that he, an invalid, propped up in his chair, and
scarcely able to move a wine-glass out of his way, should play pranks
with the whole created order of things, tossing about solar systems as
if they were no more than juggler's balls, and making universal systems
of philosophy jump through hoops as if he were a lion tamer in a den?
These poor women did not know where to catch him. Violet used to say
that he was like a prism, taking the ordinary daylight of life and
splitting it up into a thousand gay and glancing colors. That was all
very well as a spectacular exhibition; but how when he was apparently
instructing them in some serious matter? Was it fair to these tender
creatures who had so lovingly nursed him, that he should assume the airs
of a teacher, and gravely lead out his trusting disciples into the
desert places of the earth, when his only object was to get them into a
bog and then suddenly reveal himself as a will-o'-the-wisp, laughing at
them with a fiendish joy?
What, for example, was all this nonsense about the land question--about
the impossibility of settling it in England so long as the superstitious
regard for land existed in the English mind? They were quite ready to
believe him. They deprecated that superstition most sincerely. They
could not understand why a moneyed Englishman's first impulse was to go
and buy land; they could give no reason for the delusion existing in the
bosom of every Englishman that he, if no one else, could make money out
of the occupation of a farm that had ruined a dozen men in succession.
All this was very well; but what were they to make of his sudden
turning round and defending that superstition as the most beautiful
sentiment in human nature? It was, according to him, the sublimest
manifestation of filial love--the instinct of affection for the great
mother of us all. And then the flowers became our small sisters and
brothers; and the dumb look of appeal in a horse's eye, and the singing
of a thrush at the break of day--these were but portions of the
inarticulate language now no longer known to us. What was any human
being to make of this rambling nonsense?
It all came of the dress coat, and of his childish vanity in his white
wristbands. It was the first occasion on which he had ceremoniously
dressed for dinner; and Violet had come over; and he was as proud of his
high and stiff collar, and of his white necktie, as if they had been the
ribbon and star of a royal order. And then they were all going off the
next morning--Miss North included--to a strange little place on the
other side of the Isle of Wight; and he had gone "clean daft" with the
delight of expectation. There was nothing sacred from his mischievous
fancy. He would have made fun of a bishop. In fact he did; for,
happening to talk of inarticulate language, he described having seen
"the other day," in Buckingham Palace road, a bishop who was looking at
some china in a shop window; and he went on to declare how a young
person driving a perambulator, and too earnestly occupied with a sentry
on the other side of the road, incontinently drove that perambulator
right on to the carefully swathed toes of the bishop; and then he
devoted himself to analyzing the awful language which he _saw_ on the
afflicted man's face.
"But, uncle," said Amy Warrener, with the delightful freshness of
fifteen, "how could you see anybody in Buckingham Palace road the other
day, when you haven't been out of the house for months?"
"How?" said he, not a whit abashed. "How could I see him? I don't know,
but I tell you I did see him. With my eyes, of course."
He lost his temper, however, after all.
"To-morrow," he was saying, "I bid good-by to my doctor. I bear him no
malice; may he long be spared from having to meet in the next world the
people he sent there before him! But look here, Violet--to-morrow
evening we shall be _free_--and we shall celebrate our freedom, and our
first glimpse of a seashore, in Scotch whiskey--in hot Scotch
whiskey--in Scotch whiskey with the boilingest of boiling water, just
caught at the proper point of cooling. You don't know that point; I will
teach you; it is perfection. Don't you know that we have just caught the
cooling point of the earth--just that point in its transition from being
a molten mass to its becoming a chilled and played out stone that admits
of our living----"
"But, uncle," said Amy, "I thought the earth used to be far colder than
it is now. Remember the glacial period," added this profound student of
physics.
This was too much.
"Dear, dear me!" he exclaimed. "Am I to be brought up at every second by
a pert schoolgirl when I am expounding the mysteries of life? What have
your twopenny-halfpenny science primers to do with the grand secret of
toddy? I tell you we must _catch it at the cooling point_; and then,
Violet--for you are a respectful and attentive student--if the evening
is fine, and the air warm, and the windows open and looking out to the
south--do you think the doctor could object to that one first, faint
trial of a cigarette, just to make us think we are up again in the
August nights--off Isle Ornsay--with Aleck up at the bow singing that
hideous and melancholy song of his, and the Sea Pyot slowly creeping
along by the black islands?"
She did not answer at all; but for a brief moment her lip trembled. Amid
all this merriment she had sat with a troubled face, and with a sore and
heavy heart. She had seen in it but a pathetic bravado. He would drink
Scotch whiskey--he would once more light a cigarette--merely to assure
her that he was getting thoroughly well again; his laughter, his jokes,
his wild sallies were all meant, and she knew it, to give her strength
of heart and cheerfulness. She sat and listened, with her eyes cast
down. When she heard him talk lightly and playfully of all that he meant
to do, her heart throbbed, and she dared not lift her eyes to his face,
lest they should suddenly reveal to him that awful conflict within of
wild, and piteous, and agonizing doubt.
Then that reference to their wanderings in the northern seas--he did not
know how she trembled as he spoke. She could never even think of that
strange time she had spent up there, and of the terrible things that had
come of it, without a shudder. If she could have cut it out of her life
and memory altogether, that would have been well; but how could she
forget the agony of that awful farewell; the sense of utter loneliness
with which she saw the shores recede; the conviction then borne in upon
her--and never wholly eradicated from her mind--that some mysterious
doom had overtaken her, from which there was no escape. The influence of
that time, and of the time that succeeded it, still dwelt upon her, and
overshadowed her with its gloom. She had almost lost the instinct of
hope. She never doubted, when they carried young Dowse into that silent
room, but that he would die: was it not her province to bring misery to
all who were associated with her? And she had got so reconciled to this
notion that she did not argue the matter with herself; she had, for
example, no sense of bitterness in contrasting this apparent "destiny"
of hers with the most deeply-rooted feeling in her heart; namely, a
perfectly honest readiness to give up her own life if only that could
secure the happiness of those she loved. She did not even feel injured
because this was impossible. Things were so; and she accepted them.
But sometimes, in the darkness of her room, in the silence of the
night-time, when her heart seemed to be literally breaking with its
conflict of anxious love and returning despair, some wild notion of
propitiation--doubtless derived from ancient legends--would flash across
her mind; and she would cry in her agony, "If one must be taken, let it
be me! The world cares for him. What am I?" If she could only go out
into the open place of the city, and bare her bosom to the knife of the
priest, and call on the people to see how she had saved the life of her
beloved--surely that would be to die happy. What she had done, now that
she came to look back over it, seemed but too poor an expression of her
great love and admiration. What mattered it that a girl should give up
her friends and her home? Her life--her very life--that was what she
desired, when these wild fancies possessed her, to surrender freely, if
only she could know that she was rescuing him from the awful portals
that her despairing dread saw open before him, and was giving him
back--as she bade him a last farewell--to health, and joy, and the
comfort of many friends.
With other wrestlings in spirit, far more eager and real than these mere
fancies derived from myths, it is not within the province of the present
writer to deal; they are not for the house-tops or the market-places.
But it may be said that in all directions the gloomy influences of that
past time pursued her; wherever she went she was haunted by a morbid
fear that all her resolute will could not shake off. Where, for example,
could she go for sweeter consolation, for more cheering solace than to
the simple and reassuring services of the church? But before she
entered, eager to hear words of hope and strengthening, there was the
graveyard to pass through, with the misery of generations recorded on
its melancholy stones.