Hiram rose early, notwithstanding the late hours of the previous night.
Innis breakfasted with him and then took his departure. On going to the
post office, Hiram found a letter from Mr. Burns, enclosing a full power
of attorney, as he had requested. He then went to H. Bennett & Co.,
where he took up at least an hour of that gentleman's time, apparently
quite to that gentleman's satisfaction. Thence Hiram proceeded to the
office of a well-known counsellor at law, who had been recommended to
him by Mr. Bennett.
The day was spent in preparing certain ominous-looking documents. I am
told that on the occasion Hiram exhibited a breadth and clearness of
comprehension which astonished the counsellor, who could not help
suggesting to the young man that he would make an excellent lawyer,
which compliment Hiram received with something very like a sneer. That
evening Hiram went to bed early. He slept well. His plans were
perfected--his troops in order of battle, only waiting for the signal to
be given.
He awoke about sunrise, and rang his bell. A sleepy servant at length
replied to it.
'Bring me a _Clarion_,' said Hiram.
'The papers won't be along, sir, for half an hour.'
'Well, let me have one the moment they come. Here's a quarter; bring a
_Clarion_ quick, and I shall ask no change.'
I record this instance of an impatient spirit in Hiram, as probably the
last he ever exhibited through his whole life. What could cause it?
Presently the waiter came back. The _Clarion_ was in his hand. Hiram
took it eagerly, turned swiftly to the 'City Items,' and nodded with
intense satisfaction as his eye rested on one paragraph.
* * * * *
At ten o'clock precisely, Hiram presented himself at the counting room
of Elihu Joslin. Again he was forced to wait some time, and again he
waited most patiently.
[I ought to state that Hill, in order to keep up his credit with his
employer, his bravado being sensibly cooled the following morning, had
made up all sorts of stories about Mr. Burns's affairs, which, as he
reported, had been pumped from Hiram, whom he professed to have left in
a most dilapidated state at the hotel.]
At length Mr. Joslin would see Hiram. The latter entered and sat down.
'Well, my young friend,' said the merchant, 'what do you think of New
York? Equal to Burnsville, eh? Did Hill do the polite thing by you?'
'Mr. Joslin,' said Hiram, seriously, and quite in his natural manner,
while he fixed his quiet but strangely searching eyes on him, 'I have an
important communication to make to you?'
'Well?'
'I am not what I appear to be!'
'No? What the devil are you then?'
'I am the CONFIDENTIAL CLERK of Joel Burns, sent here by him to ferret
out and punish your rascalities. Stay,' continued Hiram--perceiving
Joslin was about to break forth in some violent demonstrations. 'Sit
down, sir, and hear me through quietly. It is your best course. It is
your ONLY course. Now listen. You have undertaken to cheat my
employer. You have rendered false accounts of sales, using your own
clerks for sham purchasers, and employing stool-pigeon auctioneers. You
have attempted to swindle him generally. I have the whole story here.
_You are in my power_.'
'By----! that's more than I'll stand,' shouted Joslin, 'from any d----d
Connecticut Yankee.'
'Stop,' said Hiram, authoritatively. 'A word more, and you are ruined
past all redemption. Read that,' and he handed him the _Clarion_,
placing his finger on a particular paragraph. Joslin took the paper. His
hand trembled, but he managed to read as follows:
'Some extraordinary disclosures have reached us, involving a
wholesale paper house in Nassau street in large swindling
transactions. We forbear to give the name of the party implicated,
but understand that the police to-morrow will be in possession of
the facts.'
'Here,' said Hiram, showing a bundle of papers, 'are the documents.
Outside there on the curbstone stands an officer. I mean to make short
work of it. Will you behave rationally or not?'
Joslin sat down.
'What do you want?' he said at length.
'I want nothing but what is HONEST, sir--_that_ I mean to
have,' said Hiram, in a mild, but very firm tone. 'Here is the account
as it ought to be rendered. Look it over, and put your name to it.'
'Really, this will take time--a good deal of time,' said Joslin,
recovering from his stupor. 'I must consult my bookkeeper.'
'You will consult nobody, and you will settle this account before I
leave the room.'
Joslin took the document. He trembled from head to foot. He saw himself
completely circumvented.
Hiram proceeded to show him just how the account ought to stand. Very
coolly and very accurately he went through the whole.
'I suppose you are right,' said Joslin, moodily, and he affixed his
signature to the paper, and began to think he was getting off easy.
'Now, do you want anything more of me?'
'Yes,' said Hiram, 'considerably more. You own one half of the paper
mill with Mr. Burns. You must sell out to him. Here is an agreement to
sell, drawn ready for your signature.'
'D----d if I will do it for all Burnsville! You've settled with me, and
you can't stir a peg farther. Outwitted yourself this time!' said
Joslin, triumphantly.
'Not quite so fast. _You_ have settled with Mr. Burns by signing that
paper, which gives the lie to your other accounts, and is so much
evidence for me before a police court; but Mr. Burns has _not_ settled
with you, and _won't_ settle with you till you bind yourself, by signing
this document, to sell out to him, on reasonable terms.'
Joslin was again struck dumb.
'You will receive,' continued Hiram, 'just what you paid for it, less my
expenses, and charges for my time and trouble in coming to New York,
counsel fees, and so forth; and you may think yourself fortunate in
falling into conscientious hands!'
Not to pursue the interview farther, Hiram accomplished just exactly
what he undertook to do before he entered Joslin's store that morning.
The accounts were made right, and Hiram turned to leave the store with
the agreement to sell in his pocket. He stopped before going out.
'Mark you,' he said; 'when Joel Burns gets a clean deed of your half the
paper mill, according to this agreement, I will tear up these little
documents'--exhibiting some law papers. 'Don't forget. You have
undertaken to settle with me. I shan't have settled with you till I get
the deed. Good morning.'
It was only twelve o'clock when all this was concluded. Hiram marched
out of the store triumphant. His impulse on touching the pavement was to
jump up and down, run, kick up his heels, and shout all sorts of huzzas.
He did none of these, but walked up to the Park very quietly, and then
into Broadway. But his heart beat exultantly. A glow of absolute
satisfaction suffused his mental, moral, and physical system. It was
just the happiest moment of his life. The day was fine--the air clear
and bracing. Broadway was filled to overflowing. How he enjoyed the
promenade! It was when turning to retrace his steps, after reaching the
limits of fashionable resort, that his feelings became so buoyant that
it seemed as if he must find some outlet for them. The exquisite beauty
of the ladies, the richness of their dresses, and the air and style with
which they glided along, put new excitement into his soul.
'One of these days I shall make their acquaintance. Oh! what a place
this is,' he muttered.
Unconsciously he stopped quite still, almost in an ecstacy.
At that moment his attention was attracted by a hearse, which, having
accomplished its task, was proceeding at a rapid rate up Broadway.
Careening this way and that, it jolted swiftly over the pavement. The
driver, either hardened by habit, or, it may be, a little tipsy,
exhibited a rollicking, reckless air, as he urged his horse along. As he
came opposite Hiram, their eyes met. Influenced by I know not what,
perhaps for a joke, perhaps to give the young fellow who was so
verdantly staring at him a start, he half checked the animal, as if
about to pull up, and gesturing to Hiram in the style of an omnibus
driver, motioned him to get inside!
Never before, never afterward, did Hiram receive such a shock. Dismay
was so evident on his face, that the man gave vent to a coarse laugh at
the success of his experiment, applied the lash to his brute, and dashed
furiously on.
What sent that hearse along just then and there? It gave you a ghostly
reminder, Hiram. It made you recollect that you were not to lose sight
of the other side.
That morning Hiram forgot, yes, _forgot_ to say his prayers. So entirely
was he carried away by the Joslin business, that for once he neglected
this invariable duty. Now this was not singular under the circumstances.
To a genuine spirit the omission would have been followed by no morbid
recollections. As Hiram, after the affair of the hearse, took his way to
the hotel, the fact that he had not sought God's blessing on his
morning's work suddenly presented itself. He was persuaded the shock he
received was providential. Arrived at the Franklin, he mounted to his
room, and read three or four times the customary amount in the Bible,
and prayed longer and more energetically than he ever did before in his
life. He was now much more calm, but still a good deal depressed. It was
not till after he had partaken of an excellent dinner that he felt
entire equanimity.
That evening Hiram was to spend at Mr. Bennett's. True to his rule,
which he applied with severity, not to let pleasure interfere with
business, he had declined all his cousin's invitations. Now he was at
liberty to go and enjoy himself. Mr. Bennett lived in a very handsome
house in a fashionable street. His daughters were all older than Hiram,
but still they were very pretty, and by no means _passée_. Mrs. Bennett
was quite a grand lady. Mr. B. received Hiram very cordially, and asked
immediately how he had got along. Hiram replied briefly. Mr. B. was
delighted. Mrs. B. received Hiram very graciously, but with something of
a patronizing manner, very different from what she exhibited when
spending several weeks at Hampton. The two girls were more cordial.
Hiram's country-bred politeness, which omitted not the least point
required by books of etiquette, amused them much as the vigorous and
very scientific dancing of a country belle amuses the city-bred girl who
walks languidly through the measure. Notwithstanding, Hiram managed to
make himself agreeable. It was not till two or three young gentlemen of
the city came in that they showed slight signs of weariness, and Hiram
was transferred to mamma. Our hero was not slow to perceive the
disadvantage under which he labored. He was not one whit discouraged. He
watched his rivals closely. He smiled occasionally in disdain while
listening to some of the conversation. 'They are almost fools,' he said
to himself. 'The tailor has done the whole.' Never mind, I can afford to
wait.
* * * * *
The next morning Hiram took the boat for New Haven, and on the following
morning reached Burnsville. He had written but a line to Mr. Burns, to
acknowledge the receipt of the power of attorney, and had given his
employer no inkling of what he was attempting to do.
As the stage, a little after sunrise, drove into that beautiful village,
Hiram felt glad to get back to its quiet, charming repose. He thought of
the glare and hustle and excitement of New York with no satisfaction,
contrasted with the placid beauty of the scene he now witnessed. The
idea of being welcomed by Louisa and Charlotte Hawkins filled his mind
with pleasure, and Sarah Burns did not at that moment suffer in
comparison with the Miss Bennetts.
'It _is_ a happy spot!' said Hiram. 'Can I do better than stay in it?'
It was an instinct of his better nature which spoke. He had given way to
it for a moment, but _only_ for a moment. The next, the old sense
returned and was triumphant.
* * * * *
The stage whirled on, and soon Hiram was driven up to the house of Mrs.
Hawkins. How rejoiced they all were to see him! The widow Hawkins had
missed him so much! As for Louisa and Charlotte, they were ready to
devour him.
Hiram hurried through his breakfast, hastily adjusted his toilette, and
walked over to Mr. Burns's house. He rang the bell. The door was opened
by Mr. Burns himself. He greeted Hiram most cordially.
'I did not expect you back so soon. Come in; we are just sitting down to
breakfast.'
'I have already breakfasted,' said Hiram, 'and am going to the office.
Please look these papers over,' he continued. 'By them you will see
precisely what I have been able to do.'
Mr. Burns took the papers and turned to go in. He thought Hiram had
accomplished little, and he did not wish to mortify him by asking what.
Just then Sarah Burns came tripping down stairs, and, passing her
father, extended her hand to Hiram, and said:
'Welcome back! What have you done?'
'Do not forget your promise,' replied Hiram, in a low, distinct tone. 'I
have WON!'
AURORA.
'For Waterloo,' says Victor Hugo, 'was not a battle: it was a
change of front of the universe.'
Great events are developed by nearness. "To-day," says Emerson, "is a
king in disguise." Probably half the soldiers of Constantine's army
regarded their leader's adoption of the Cross as his sign of hope and
triumph as of small account. Their pay and rations, their weapons, their
officers, were the same as before; the enemy before them, their duty to
beat him, were unchanged. What availed a symbol more or less on the
imperial banner? Even admit that it indicated the emperor's personal
rejection of the old and adoption of the newer faith, what of that?
Would not everybody else abide by the religion of his own choice,
whatever that might be? Away, then, with all theological babble, which
plain people can never half understand! Rome and the emperor for ever!
Yet in that despised symbol, announcing that the Empire had become the
protector instead of the persecutor of the Christian faith, was the germ
of a greater transformation than was wrought by the Deluge.
The Proclamation of Freedom by President Lincoln is doubtless open to
criticism. Why did he not declare all slaves emancipated? Why not make
such legal manumission operative at once? Why intimate that certain
States should (or might) be excepted from its operation? Why not declare
the slaves liberated because of the essential, inevitable wrong of
holding them in bondage? Why not appeal to God for His blessing on the
cause henceforward inseparably identified with that of Right and
Liberty? Such questions may be multiplied indefinitely; but to what end?
What matters that the Proclamation might or should be different, since
we have practical concern only with the Proclamation as it is?
For more than a lifetime, slavery has been accepted and regarded as a
national institution. The American in Europe was "perplexed in the
extreme" by the questionings and criticisms of humane, intelligent
observers, who could not comprehend how a country should contain Four
Millions of slaves by the official census, yet not be a slaveholding
country. With our capital a slaveholding city; with our fortresses in
good part constructed by the labor of slaves; with our flag the chief
shelter of the African Slave Trade, and our statute book disgraced by
the most arbitrary and inhuman Fugitive Slave Law ever devised, it _was_
a nice operation to prove this no slaveholding country, but only one
wherein certain citizens, by virtue of local laws, over which we had no
control, were permitted to hold Blacks in slavery. And, when it is
notorious that the active partisans of slavery filled every Federal
office, even in the nominally free States, and excluded rigorously from
office every opponent of the baleful system, it is certain that the
shrug of the polite Frenchman who listened to our demonstration that
ours, after all, was not a slaveholding country, was an indication of
complaisance rather than of conviction. To prove this nothing of the
sort, while Brazil was placed at the head of modern slaveholding
countries, was to overtax the resources of human sophistry.
The Proclamation is an immense fact. If it were no more than a
recognition from the highest quarter of the deadly antagonism between
slavery and the Union, it would have inexhaustible significance. The
American republic, bleeding at every pore while fighting desperately for
life, arraigns slavery as her chief enemy and peril. The truth was long
since clear to every candid mind; but truth gains force by recognition.
Thousands realize a fact thus proclaimed, who have hitherto ignored and
resisted it.
For thirty years, the charge of disloyalty has borne heavily on the
American champion of Universal Liberty. True, as to a very few, who
could not obtain the assent of their consciences to compacts which bound
them to aid the oppressor against his victim, they were made a weapon of
offense against all. Abolitionists were execrated and hooted by the mob
as champions at once of Negro Equality and of National dissolution.
The times are bravely altered. The partnership between Slavery and
Unionism is absolutely dissolved. Like most divorces, this involves a
deadly quarrel. Not even the soaring platitudes of George Francis Train
can longer evoke cheers for the Union blent with curses on Abolition. In
a strictly, sternly real sense, "Liberty and Union" are henceforth "one
and inseparable!"
For thirty years, our great seaboard merchants, our shippers, our
factors, have given their patronage to pro-slavery journals and their
votes to pro-slavery politicians, with intent to preserve the Union and
lay the red spectre of civil war. Their recompense is found in the
repudiation of the immense debts for merchandise due them from the
South, and a gigantic war waged by the Slave Power for the overthrow of
the Union. The profits of a lifetime of obsequious pandering to the
master crime of our era are swept away at a blow, and the arm that
strikes it is that of the monster they have made such sacrifices of
conscience and manhood to conciliate. Was ever retribution more signal?
To-day, the American Union, through the official action of its President
and Congress, stands distinctly on the side of Liberty for All. Its
success in the fearful struggle forced upon it involves the overthrow
and extinction of American slavery. The sentiment of nationality, the
instinct which impels every people to deprecate and resist the
dismemberment and degradation of their country, the impulse of loyalty,
are all arrayed against the traitorous "institution" which, after having
so long bent the Union to its ends, now seeks its destruction. It once
seemed to the majority patriotic to champion slavery; it is now a sacred
duty to resist the bloody Moloch unto death.
The very hesitation of the President to take the decisive step gives
weight to his ultimate decision. The compromisers have never tired of
eulogizing his firmness, his candor, his patience, his clearness of
vision, his independence, and his unsectional patriotism. His
associations were largely with the Border State school of conservatives.
His favorite counsellor was the most eminent and sturdy Republican
opponent of an emancipation policy. His decision in favor of that
policy, like the Proclamation which announces it, is entirely his own.
The "pressure" to which he deferred was that of an urgent public
necessity and the emphatic conviction of the great mass of our loyal
citizens.
And, though few days have elapsed since the Proclamation was uttered,
the evils predicted by its opponents are already banished to the limbo
of chimera. Those officers who threatened to resign in case an
emancipation policy were adopted make no haste to justify their menaces.
As yet, not one of them has done so; in time, a few may screw their
courage to the sticking-point. There are enough who can be spared; and
they are generally those who deprecate and denounce an "Abolition war."
May they yet prove men of their word!
Outside of the army, the general feeling is one of wonder that this act
of direst portent to the rebellion has been so long delayed. Even the
rebels share in this amazement. When secession was first openly mooted
at the South, every Unionist argued that secession was practical
abolition. It has puzzled them to comprehend the weary months through
which their prophecies were left unfulfilled. They will be perplexed no
longer.
The Opposition in the loyal States is manifestly weakened by the
Proclamation. Their dream is of wearing out the Unionists by
disappointments and delays, restoring a Democratic ascendency in the
government, and then buying back the rebels to an outward loyalty by new
concessions and guaranties to slavery. Hence torpid campaigns, languid
strategy, advances without purpose, and surrenders without necessity.
But the policy of emancipation brings the quarrel to a speedy decision.
The rebel States must promptly triumph or brave a social dissolution.
Every Union advance into a rebel region henceforth clears a broad
district of slaves. The few are hurried off by their masters; the many
escape to a land of freedom. How signally this process will be
accellerated after the first of January, few will yet believe. Let the
war simply go on, with fluctuating fortunes, for a year or two longer,
and the new slave empire will be nearly denuded of slaves. The process
is at once inevitable and irresistible. Whether the able-bodied slaves
thus escaping to the loyal States shall or shall not be used in whatever
way they may be found most serviceable against the cruel despotism which
so long robbed them of their earnings while crushing out their manhood,
is purely a question of time. There are thousands who would last year
have revolted against the employment of Blacks in any way in our
struggle, who are now ripe for it: every week, as it transpires, adds to
their number. Loyal men hesitated at first, believing that the rebellion
would easily and speedily be put down. These have now discovered their
mistake and amended it. An aristocracy of three hundred thousand
generally capable, energetic persons, accustomed to rule, and
recognizing a deadly foe in every opponent of their wishes, surrounded
by twice so many shrewd and skilful parasites, and wielding the entire
resources of ten millions of people, are not easily conquered. The poor
Whites fill the ranks of their armies; the Blacks grow the food and
perform the labor essential to the subsistence of those armies and of
their families. Slavery unassailed is the strongest natural base of a
gigantic rebellion: it easily adapts all the resources of a people to
the stern exigencies of war. Slavery resisted and undermined is a very
different affair, as the annals of this struggle are destined to prove.
Let no doubts, then, vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the
issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to
the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the
most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. These millions are
humble, ignorant, timid, distrustful, and now grinding in the
prison-house of the traitors. They are not, let us frankly admit, the
equals in prowess, capacity, or opportunity, of four millions of Whites;
but they are, nevertheless, human beings; they have human affections and
aspirations, and they feel the stirrings of the universal and
indestructible human longing for liberty. "Breaking in a nigger" is a
rough and pretty effectual process: it crushes down the manhood of its
subject, but does not crush it out. Should the republic say to-morrow to
its Black step-children, "We want one hundred thousand of you to aid in
this struggle against the slaveholding rebels, and will treat you in
every respect as human beings should be treated," it would not have to
wait long for the full number. Hitherto a low prejudice, studiously
fostered by Democratic politicians for the vilest party ends, has
repelled and expelled this abused race from the militia service of the
Union. The exclusion is absurd where its impulse is not treasonable, and
must share the fate of all absurdities. "Would you," asked a Unionist of
a Democrat, "refuse the aid of a negro, if you were assailed and your
life threatened by an assassin?" "Yes," replied the Democrat; "I would
rather be killed by a White man than saved by a nigger." Who does not
_know_ that this man at heart sympathizes with the rebellion, and
deprecates the War for the Union as unnecessary and ruinous?
That war will go on. Our new and vast levies, our new iron-clads, our
new policy, will add immensely to the strength already put forth in
vindication of the rightful authority of the Federal government and the
integrity of the Union. Yet a little while, and the immense superiority
in every respect of the moral and material forces of the loyal States
will make themselves felt and respected. Yet a little while, and the
authority of the Nation will be acknowledged by its now revolted
citizens, and the rebellion will subside as suddenly as it broke upon
us. Yet a little while, and ours will again be a land of peace,
returning joyfully to the pursuits of productive industry and radiant
with the sunlight of Universal Liberty.
HOW THEY DID IT.
The magnates of Richmond all swore out of hand,
That the war must go in the enemies' land;
And it did: when they crossed to the Maryland shore
They turned all into foes who were friendly before!
FROM MOUNT LAFAYETTE, WHITE MOUNTAINS.
Silence and light and scenes stupendous greet
My wondering sense and sight! Here midway meet
Those rocky splendors where th' embracing clouds
Above, below, wrap them in misty shrouds.
Our mules with cautious feet the sharp ascent
Accomplish; and, the steep o'ertopped, all spent
Our strength, we look wild nature in the face,
Some features of the human soul to trace.
A phantom drap'ry betwixt sky and earth,
Of blending tints, spans in impulsive birth
Th' entranced view! A heav'nly arch it forms--
It seems suspended by some seraph's arms!
Ethereal Rainbow! Daughter of the Shower!
Thy beauty lends enchantment to the hour.
The seraph arm grows weary--now is furled
The gleam in dreamy vapor from the world!
And now in purple shadows stand the hills:
The night winds beat their stony sides, and trills
From hidden rivulets, and stealthy creep
Of some lone reptile down the grooved steep,
Divert the eye and ear--th' restricted breath
Of each rapt soul is heard--and still as death
Stand the dumb mules. Homeward we turn our eyes,
And leave the region of the naked skies.
INDEPENDENCE.
[1776.]
Freeman! if you pant for glory,
If you sigh to live in story,
If you burn with patriot zeal;
Seize this bright, auspicious hour,
Chase those venal tools of power,
Who subvert the public weal.
THE HOMESTEAD BILL.
After a severe struggle of more than a quarter of a century, from March,
1836, to May, 1862, the Homestead bill has become a law. We quote its
main provisions, as follows:
'That any person who is the head of a family or arrived at the age
of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or
shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as
required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and has
never borne arms against the United States government, or given aid
and comfort to its enemies, from and after the 1st January, 1863,
shall be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity
of unappropriated public land, upon which said person may have
filed a preëmption claim, or which may at the time the application
is made be subject to preëmption at $1.25 or less per acre, or
eighty acres or less of such unappropriated land at $2.50 per acre,
to be located in a body in conformity to the legal subdivisions of
the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed, &c.
'SEC. 2. That the person applying for the benefit of this
act shall, upon application to the register of the land office in
which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit before
the said register or receiver that he or she is the head of a
family, or is twenty-one years of age or more, or shall have
performed service in the army or navy of the United States, and
that he has never borne arms against the government of the United
Stales, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, and that such
application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and
that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and
cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or
benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever: and upon filing
the said affidavit with the register or receiver, and on the
_payment of ten dollars_, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to
enter the quantity of land specified,' &c.
Settlement and cultivation for five years required, when the patent
issues--the land secured in case of the settler's death, to the widow,
children, or heirs--the settler must be a citizen of the United States
before the patent is given--the land is subject to no debt incurred
before the emanation of the patent. As the title remains for five years
in the government, and until the patent issues, the land, in the
meantime, could scarcely be subject to taxation. The land is
substantially a gift, the $10 (£2. 0. 16.) being only sufficient to pay
for the survey and incidental expenses.
Whilst natives are included in this act, Europeans already here, or who
may come hereafter, participate alike in its benefits. The emigrant can
make the entry and settle upon the land merely on filing the declaration
of intention to become a citizen, and it is only after the lapse of five
years therefrom, that he must be naturalized.
This law should be widely circulated, at home and abroad, and especially
in Ireland and Germany. It should be published in all leading presses,
and distributed in printed circulars. By law, two sections (1,280 acres)
are reserved in each township of six miles square, from the sale of
which to establish free schools, where all children can be instructed,
so that our material progress may be accompanied by universal education
and intellectual development.
This great domain reserved, as farms and homesteads for the industrious
masses of Europe and America, is thus described by the Hon. Joseph S.
Wilson, in his great historical and statistical report, as commissioner
of the General Land Office of Nov. 29, 1860:
'Of the 3,250,000 of square miles which constitute the territorial
extent of the Union, the public lands embrace an area of 2,265,625
square miles, or 1,450,000,000 of acres, being more than two thirds
of our geographical extent, and nearly three times as large as the
United States at the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace
in 1783 with Great Britain. This empire domain extends from the
northern line of Texas, the gulf of Mexico, reaching to the
Atlantic ocean, northwesterly to the Canada line bordering upon the
great lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, extending westward
to the Pacific ocean, with Puget's sound on the north, the
Mediterranean sea of our extreme northwestern possessions.'
'It includes fifteen sovereignties known as the 'Land States,' and
an extent of territory sufficient for thirty-two additional, each
equal to the great central land State of Ohio.
'It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich
productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn,
and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of
California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the western,
northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region
from the valley of the Mississippi river to the Rocky mountains;
and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades,
the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is
found revealing its wealth.
'Instead of dreary inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times,
the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive
inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its
capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the
skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the
guidance of the science of the present age.
'Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but
it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with
cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed
with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element coal, the
source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent not
only for domestic purposes of life, but in the machine shop, the
steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization
and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of
active and constant intercommunication with every part of the
republic.'
Kansas having been admitted since the date of this report, our public
domain, thus described officially, now includes the sixteen _land
States_, and _all_ the Territories.
Of this vast region (originally 1,450,000,000 acres), there was surveyed
up to September, 1860, 441,067,915 acres, and 394,088,712 acres disposed
of by sales, grants, &c., leaving, as the commissioner states,'the total
area of unsold and unappropriated, of offered and unoffered lands of the
public domain on the 30th September, 1860, 1,055,911,288 acres.' This is
'land surface,' exclusive of lakes, bays, rivers, &c., 1,055,911,288
acres, or 1,649,861 square miles, and exceeds one half the area of the
whole Union. The area of New York being 47,000 square miles, is less
than a thirty-fifth part of our public domain. England (proper) has
50,922 square miles, France 203,736, Prussia 107,921, and Germany 80,620
square miles: The area then of our public domain is more than eight
times as large as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia,
more than twenty times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times
as large as England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe,
containing more than 200 millions of people.
As England (proper) contained in 1861, 18,949,916 inhabitants, if our
public domain were as densely settled, its population would exceed 606
millions, and it would be 260,497,561, if numbering as many to the
square mile as Massachusetts. But if, contrary to the opinion before
quoted of the commissioner, one fourth of this domain was unfit for
agriculture, grazing, mining, commerce, or manufactures, the remainder
would still contain 195,373,171 inhabitants (if as densely settled as
Massachusetts), and with every variety of soil, climate, mineral and
agricultural products. Its average fertility far exceeds that of Europe,
as does also the extent of its mines, especially gold, silver, coal, and
iron.
These lands are surveyed at the expense of the government into
town-ships of six miles square, subdivided into sections, and these into
quarter sections (160 acres), set apart for homesteads. Our system of
public surveys into squares, by lines running due north and south, east
and west, is so simple as to have precluded all disputes as to boundary
or title. This domain reaches from the 24th to the 49th parallel, from
the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its
isothermes (the lines of equal mean annual temperature) strike on the
north the coast of Norway midway, touch St. Petersburg in Russia, and
pass through Manchooria to the coast of Asia, about three degrees south
of the mouth of the Amour river. On the south, these isothermes run
through northern Africa, and nearly the centre of Egypt near Thebes,
cross northern Arabia, Persia, northern Hindostan, and southern China
near Canton. No empire in the world of contiguous territory possesses
such a variety of climate, soil, forests, and prairies, fruits, and
fisheries, animal, vegetable, mineral, and agricultural products. It has
all those of Europe, and many in addition, with a climate, as shown by
the international census, far more salubrious, with a more genial sun,
and millions in other countries are already fed and clothed by our
surplus products.
Of this vast domain, less than two per cent. is cursed by slavery, which
is prohibited by law in ten of these land States, and in all the
Territories. Indeed, when the present rebellion shall be crushed, and
this vast territorial region (accelerated by the Homestead bill) shall
be settled and admitted as States, three fourths of the States will then
be free States, and thus authorized by the Constitution to amend that
instrument. Thus we can by just and lawful measures make emancipation
universal. From the progress of events, we shall probably celebrate the
4th of July, 1876, our first centennial, now less than fourteen years
distant, as a nation, of _freemen_, with slavery abolished or rapidly
disappearing. State will then have succeeded State in unbroken column,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, united by imperial railroads
traversing the continent. Adjacent regions, geographically connected
with us, will then consummate the political union designed by
Providence, The Homestead bill, having accomplished its great work
within our present limits, will then commence a new career, and carry
our banner in peaceful triumph, over the continent. Our Review, then, is
called CONTINENTAL, as prefiguring the destiny of our country.
Now, however, within our present vast domain, not only the poor, but our
own industrious classes and those of Europe may not only find a home,
but a farm for each settler, substantially as a free gift by the
government. Here all who would rather be owners than tenants, and wish
to improve and cultivate their own soil, are invited. Here, too, all who
would become equals among equals, citizens (not subjects) of a great and
free country, enjoying the right of suffrage, and eligible to every
office except the presidency, can come and occupy with us this great
inheritance. Here liberty, equality, and fraternity reign supreme, not
in theory or in name only, but in truth and reality. This is the
brotherhood of man, secured and protected by our organic law. Here the
Constitution and the people are the only sovereigns, and the government
is administered by their elected agents, and for the benefit of the
people. Those toiling elsewhere for wages that will scarcely support
existence, for the education of whose children no provision is made by
law, who are excluded from the right of suffrage, may come here and be
voters and citizens, find a farm given as a homestead, free schools
provided for their children at the public expense, and hold any office
but the presidency, to which their children, born here, are eligible.
What does England for any one of its toiling millions who rejects this
munificent offer? He is worked and taxed there to his utmost endurance,
or pressed into military service. He has the right to _work_, to
_fight_, and _pay taxes_, but not to vote. Unschooled ignorance is his
lot and that of his descendants. If a farmer, he works and improves the
land of others, in constant terror of rent day, the landlord, and
eviction. Indeed, the annual rent of a single acre in England exceeds
the price--$10 (£2. 0. 16)--payable for the ownership in fee simple of
the entire homestead of 160 acres, granted him here by the government.
For centuries that are past, and for all time to come, there, severe
toil, poverty, ignorance, the workhouse, or low wages, impressment, and
disfranchisement, would seem to be his lot. Here, freedom, competence,
the right of suffrage, the homestead farm, and free schools for his
children.
In selecting these homestead farms, the emigrant can have any
temperature, from St. Petersburg to Canton. He can have a cold, a
temperate, or a warm climate, and farming or gardening, grazing or
vintage, varied by fishing or hunting. He can raise wheat, rye, Indian
corn, oats, rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, cane or maple sugar and
molasses, sorghum, wool, peas and beans, Irish or sweet potatoes,
barley, buckwheat, wine, butter, cheese, hay, clover, and all the
grasses, hemp, hops, flax and flaxseed, silk, beeswax and honey, and
poultry, in uncounted abundance. If he prefers a stock farm, he can
raise horses, asses, and mules, camels, milch cows, working oxen and
other cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. In many locations, these will
require neither housing nor feeding throughout the year. He can have
orchards, and all the fruits and vegetables of Europe, and many in
addition. He can have an Irish or German, Scotch, English, or Welsh,
French, Swiss, Norwegian, or American neighborhood. He can select the
shores of oceans, lakes, or rivers; live on tide water or higher lands,
valleys or mountains. He can be near a church of his own denomination;
the freedom of conscience is complete; he pays no tithes, nor church
tax, except voluntarily. His sons and daughters, on reaching twenty-one
years of age, or sooner, if the head of a family, or having served in
the army, are each entitled to a homestead of 160 acres; and if he dies,
the title is secured to his widow, children, or heirs. Our flag is his,
and covers him everywhere with its protection. He is our brother, and he
and his children will enjoy with us the same heritage of competence and
freedom. He comes where labor is king, and toil is respected and
rewarded. If before, or instead of receiving his homestead, he chooses
to pursue his profession, or business, to work at his trade, or for
daily wages, he will find them double the European rate, and subsistence
cheaper. From whatever part of Europe he may come, he will meet his
countrymen here, and from them and us receive a cordial welcome. A
government which gives him a farm, the right to vote, and free schools
for his children, must desire his welfare. And well has this been
merited by our immigrants, for, side by side with our native sons, have
they ever upheld our banner with devoted courage.
Of all the epidemic insanities which occasionally afflict nations, none
exceeded in folly the recent frenzy, which, by diminishing immigration,
would have retarded our progress in wealth, power, and population,
Nearly all our railroads and canals have been constructed mainly by
immigrants, thus rapidly improving our whole country, and furnishing
profitable business, employment, and augmented wages in all the pursuits
of industry. Simultaneously with the homestead, Congress has provided
the means for constructing the imperial railway which will soon unite
the Atlantic with the Pacific. Passing, as it will, for several thousand
miles, through our public domain, it will add much to the value of the
homestead lands. It should be remembered, especially by the Irish and
Germans, who are asked in the South to fight the rebel battles, that,
but for the opposition of Mr. Calhoun and the secession leaders, this
bill would long since have been a law.
It was first proposed by Robert J. Walker, in October, 1830, and again,
in a speech made by him against nullification and secession, at Natchez,
Mississippi, on the first Monday of January, 1833, and then published in
the _Mississippi Journal_. From that speech we make the following
extract: 'The public lands are now unincumbered by the public debt: no
more sales are necessary, unless (to settlers) at a price required to
pay the expenses of survey and sale. This is the period for the new
States to produce this beneficial change in the policy of the
Government, (instead of) the present onerous system, which arrests the
cultivation of our soil, and growth of our country.' Here the Homestead
bill was recommended by a _Union_ man, in a speech against secession;
and as the opponent of that heresy, he was elected to the United States
Senate by Mississippi, on the 8th of January, 1836.
In the United States Senate Journal, of 31st March, 1836, will be found
the following entry: 'Agreeable to notice, Mr. Walker asked and obtained
leave to bring in a bill to reduce and graduate the price of the public
lands in favor of actual settlers only, to provide a standing preëmption
law, to authorize the sale and entry of all the public lands in forty
acre lots, &c. On motion by Mr. Calhoun, that this bill be referred to
the Committee on Public Lands, ayes 19, nays 25. On motion by Mr.
Walker, ordered that this bill be referred to a select committee of
five, to be appointed by the Vice-President. Mr. Walker (chairman),
Ewing of Ohio, Linn, Prentiss and Ewing of Illinois, are appointed the
committee.' And now, that we may understand the motive of the hostile
motion made by Mr. Calhoun, I make the following extract from Gales &
Beaton's _Congressional Register_, vol. xii., part 1, page 1027, March
31, 1836, containing the debate, on this bill: 'Mr. Walker asked and
obtained leave to introduce a bill to reduce and graduate the price of
public lands to actual settlers only, &c. The bill having been read
twice, Mr. Walker moved that it be referred to a committee of five. Mr.
Calhoun opposed the bill, and moved a reference to the Committee on
Public Lands. Mr. Walker rose and said:
* * 'He had heard with regret the actual settlers denounced in the
Senate as squatters, as if that were a term of reproach. Our glorious
Anglo-Saxon ancestry, the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth rock, the
early settlers at Jamestown, were squatters. They settled this continent
with less pretension to title than the settlers on the public lands.
Daniel Boone was a squatter; Christopher Columbus was a squatter.
* * They are the men who cultivate the soil in peace, and defend your
country in war, when those who denounce them are reposing upon beds of
down. These are the men who, in the trackless wilderness and upon the
plains of Orleans, carried forward to victory, the bannered eagle of our
great and glorious Union. These are the men with whom the patriot
Jackson achieved his great and glorious victories; and if but one
thousand of these much abused squatters, these Western riflemen, had
been at Bladensburg beneath their great commander, never would a British
army have polluted the soil where stands the capitol of the Union. They
would have driven back the invader ere the torch of the incendiary had
reached the capitol, or they would have left their bones bleaching there
(as did the Spartans at Thermopylæ), alike, in death or victory, the
patriot defenders of their country's soil, and fame, and honor. [Here
Mr. Walker was interrupted by warm applause from the crowded galleries.]
It is proposed to send this bill to the Committee on Public Lands, that
has already reported against reducing the price of the public lands,
against granting preemptions to settlers, against every other material
feature of this bill--to send this bill there, to have another report
against us. No, said Mr. Walker; we have had one report against the new
States, and the settlers in them, and now let them be heard through the
report of a select committee: let argument encounter argument, and the
question be decided on its real merits.'
The opposition of Mr. Calhoun to this measure, was based upon the idea,
_originating with him_, that, selling the public lands, only in small
tracts, and at reduced prices, exclusively to actual settlers, would be
hostile to large plantations, prevent the transfer of slavery to new
Territories, and the multiplication of slave States. This view was
gradually adopted by nearly all the advocates of secession, and delayed
for years the success of the homestead policy. The measure also
encountered then serious opposition from the supporters of the bill
(opposed by Mr. Calhoun), distributing among the States the proceeds of
the sales of the public lands. A majority of the Committee of Public
Lands of the Senate favored then the distribution policy, and therefore
Mr. Calhoun's motion to refer the Homestead bill to that committee was
designed to defeat the measure.
Mr. Walker's bill granted a homestead of a quarter section to every
settler on payment of twenty dollars, _after_ three years' occupancy and
possession.
The special committee, to which this bill was referred, would not go so
far, but authorized Mr. Walker to report 'A bill to arrest monopolies of
the public lands and purchases thereof for speculation, and substitute
sales to actual settlers only, in limited quantities, and at reduced
prices,' &c. This report will be found in vol. 5, Sen. Doc., 1st
session, 24th Congress, No. 402. 'In Senate of the United States, June
15, 1836, Mr. Walker made the following report:'
_Extracts._--'The committee have adopted the principle that the public
lands should be held as a sacred reserve for the _cultivators of the
soil_; that monopolies by individuals or companies should be prevented;
that sales should be made only in limited quantities to _actual
settlers_, and the price in their favor reduced and graduated.' * * The
old system 'is throwing the public domain into the hands of speculating
monopolists. It is reviving many of the evils of the old feudal system
of Europe. Under that system, the lands were owned in vast bodies by a
few wealthy barons, and leased by them to an impoverished and dependent
tenantry.'
A bill based on this principle, and reported by Mr. Walker at a
succeeding session, passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House. In
each of his annual reports as Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Walker
strongly recommended the homestead policy, which encountered the
continual opposition of Mr. Calhoun.
In his inaugural address as Governor of Kansas, of the 27th May, 1857,
Mr. Walker thus strongly advocated the Homestead policy:
'If my will could have prevailed as regards the public lands, as
indicated in my public career, and especially in the bill presented
by me, as chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, to the Senate
of the United States, which passed that body but failed in the
House, I would authorize no sales of these lands except for
settlement and cultivation, reserving not merely a preëmption, but
a HOMESTEAD of a quarter section of land in favor of every
_actual settler_, whether coming from other States or _emigrating
from Europe_. Great and populous States would thus be added to the
Confederacy, until we should soon have one unbroken line of States,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, giving immense additional power
and security to the Union, and facilitating intercourse between all
its parts. This would be alike beneficial to the old and to the new
States. To the _working men_ of the old States, as well as of the
new, it would be of incalculable advantage, not merely by affording
them a home in the West, but by maintaining the _wages of labor_,
by enabling the working classes to emigrate and become cultivators
of the soil, when the rewards of daily toil should sink below a
fair remuneration. Every new State, beside, adds to the customers
of the old States, consuming their manufactures, employing their
merchants, giving business to their vessels and canals, their
railroads and cities, and a powerful impulse to their industry and
prosperity. Indeed, it is the growth of the mighty West which has
added, more than all other causes combined, to the power and
prosperity of the whole country; whilst, at the same time, through
the channels of business and commerce, it has been building up
immense cities in the Eastern Atlantic and Middle States, and
replenishing the Federal treasury with large payments from the
settlers upon the public lands, rendered of real value only by
their labor, and thus, from increased exports, bringing back
augmented imports, and soon largely increasing the revenue of the
Government from that source also.'--_See Doc. Vol. I., No. 8, 1st
Sess. XXXVth Congress._
It will no doubt be remembered how much this address was denounced by
the secession leaders, and with what fury Mr. Walker was assailed by
them for insisting on the rejection of the Lecompton Constitution, by
which, it was attempted, by fraud and forgery, to force slavery upon
Kansas, against the will of the people.
In June, 1860, a Homestead bill was passed by Congress, securing to
actual settlers a quarter section of the public lands, at twenty-five
cents per acre, which was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan. The veto message says:
'The Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public
lands for the nest fiscal year at $4,000,000, on the presumption that
the present land system would remain unchanged. Should this bill become
a law, he does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this
source.' It would thus seem that Jacob Thompson, then Secretary of the
Interior, was permitted to dictate the financial portion of this veto.
He is now in the traitor army; but before leaving the Cabinet, he
communicated to the enemy at Charleston important information he had
received officially and confidentially. Whilst still Secretary, he was
permitted by Mr. Buchanan to accept from Mississippi, _after_ she had
seceded, the post of her ambassador to North Carolina, to induce her to
secede; which public mission he openly fulfilled, still remaining a
member of the Cabinet. Such was the abyss of degradation to which the
late Administration had then fallen. Indeed, Thompson (like Floyd and
Cobb), was never dismissed by Mr. Buchanan, but resigned his office,
receiving then, after all these treasonable and perfidious acts, a most
complimentary letter from the late President.
Mr. Thompson's financial argument against the Homestead bill is most
fallacious. Our national wealth, by the last census, was
$16,159,616,068, and its increase during the last ten years
$8,925,481,011, or 126.45 per cent. Now if, as a consequence of the
Homestead bill, there should be occupied, improved, and cultivated,
during the next ten years, 50,000 additional farms by settlers, or only
5,000 per annum, it would make an aggregate of 8,000,000 acres. If,
including houses, fences, barns, and other improvements, we should value
each of these farms at ten dollars an acre, it would make an aggregate
of $80,000,000. But if we add the products of these farms, allowing only
one half of each (80 acres) to be cultivated, and the average annual
value of the crops, stock included, to be only ten dollars per acre, it
would give $40,000,000 a year, and, in ten years, $400,000,000,
independent of the reinvestment of capital. It is clear that, thus, vast
additional employment would be given to labor, freight to steamers,
railroads, and canals, and markets for manufactures.
The homestead privilege will largely increase immigration. Now, beside
the money brought here by immigrants, the census proves that the average
annual value of the labor of Massachusetts _per capita_ was, in 1860,
$220 for each man, woman, and child, independent of the gains of
commerce--very large, but not given. Assuming that of the immigrants at
an average annual value of only $100 each, or less than 33 cents a day,
it would make, in ten years, at the rate of 100,000 each year, the
following aggregate:
1st year 100,000 = $10,000,000
2d " 200,000 " 20,000,000
3d " 300,000 " 30,000,000
4th " 400,000 " 40,000,000
5th " 500,000 " 50,000,000
6th " 600,000 " 60,000,000
7th " 700,000 " 70,000,000
8th " 800,000 " 80,000,000
9th " 900,000 " 90,000,000
10th " 1,000,000 " 100,000,000
-----------
Total, $550,000,000
In this table, the labor of all immigrants each year is properly added
to those arriving the succeeding year, so as to make the aggregate, the
last year, one million. This would make the value of the labor of this
million of immigrants, in ten years, $550,000,000, independent of the
annual accumulation of capital, and the labor of the children of the
immigrants after the first ten years, which, with their descendants,
would go on constantly increasing.
But, by the actual official returns (see page 14 of Census), the number
of alien immigrants to the United States, from December, 1850, to
December, 1860, was 2,598,216, or an annual average of 259,821, say
260,000. The effect, then, of this immigration, on the basis of the last
table, upon the increase of national wealth, was as follows:
1st year 260,000 = $26,000,000
2d " 520,000 " 52,000,000
3d " 780,000 " 78,000,000
4th " 1,040,000 " 104,000,000
5th " 1,300,000 " 130,000,000
6th " 1,560,000 " 156,000,000
7th " 1,820,000 " 182,000,000
8th " 2,080,000 " 208,000,000
9th " 2,340,000 " 234,000,000
10th " 2,600,000 " 260,000,000
------------
Total, $1,430,000,000
Thus the value of the labor of the immigrants from 1850 to 1860, was
fourteen hundred and thirty millions of dollars, making no allowance for
the accumulation of capital by annual reinvestment, nor for the natural
increase of population, amounting by the census in ten years to about
twenty-four per cent. This addition to our wealth by the labor of the
children, in the first ten years, would be small; but in the second, and
each succeeding decennium, when we count children and their descendants,
it would be large and constantly augmenting. But the census shows, that
our wealth increases each ten years at the rate of 126.45 per cent. Now
then, take our increase of wealth in consequence of immigration as
before stated, and compound it at the rate of 126.45 per cent, every ten
years, and the result is largely over three billions of dollars in 1870,
and over seven billions of dollars in 1880, independent of the effect of
any immigration succeeding 1860. If these results are astonishing, we
must remember that immigration here is augmented population, and that it
is population and labor that create wealth. Capital, indeed, is but the
accumulation of labor. Immigration, then, from 1850 to 1860, added to
our national wealth a sum more than double our whole debt on the first
of July last, and augmenting in a ratio much more rapid than its
increase, and thus enabling us to bear the war expenses.
As the homestead privilege must largely increase immigration, and add
especially to the cultivation of our soil, it will contribute more than
any other measure to increase our population, wealth, and power, augment
our revenue from duties and taxes, and soon enable us to repeal the tax
bill, or, at least, confine it to a few articles of luxury.
Nor has this immigration merely increased our wealth; but it has filled
our army with brave _volunteer_ soldiers, Irish, Germans, and of other
nationalities, who, side by side with our native sons, are now pouring
out their blood on every battle field in defence of our flag and Union.
Thousands of them have suffered in rebel dungeons, where many are still
languishing--thousands are wounded, disabled for life, or filling a
soldier's grave.
Thus has the immigrant proved himself worthy to participate with our
native sons in the homestead privilege. He fights our battle, and dies,
that the Union may live.
Come, then, our European brother, and enjoy with us every privilege of
an American citizen. The altar of freedom is consecrated by the
sacrament of our commingled blood. Countrymen of Lafayette and
Montgomery, of Steuben and DeKalb, of Koscinsko and Pulaski! you are
fighting, like them, in the same great cause, under the same banner, and
for the same glorious Union, and, like them, you will reap an
immortality of glory, and the gratitude of our country and of mankind.
As century shall follow century, in marking this crisis of human
destiny, history will record the stupendous fact, that the blood of all
Europe commingled freely with our own in the mighty contest, the pledges
of the freedom and brotherhood of man!
We have seen that the Homestead bill was of Union origin, opposed by Mr.
Calhoun and the pro-slavery party. We have seen that the bill was vetoed
by Mr. Buchanan, quoting the opposing argument of a traitor member of
his Cabinet, now in the rebel army. The vote in the Senate after the
veto, was, yeas 28 (not two thirds), and nays 18. (Sen. Journal, 757,
June 23, 1860.) Of the yeas, all but three were from the free States;
and of the nays, _all_ were from the slave States. The opposition, then,
as foreshadowed by Mr. Calhoun in 1836, was _exclusively sectional_ and
pro-slavery. As Mr. Buchanan changed his policy as to Kansas upon the
threats of the secession leaders in 1857, so he sacrificed upon their
mandate the Homestead bill in 1860.
Most of the eighteen Southern Senators who voted against this bill, are
now in the rebel service. Among these eighteen nays, are Jefferson
Davis, Bragg, Mason, Hunter, Mallory, Chesnut, Yulee, Wigfall,
Fitzpatrick, Iveson, Johnson of Arkansas, Hemphill, and Sebastian. Now,
then, when Irish and Germans in the South are asked to fight for the
pro-slavery rebellion, let them remember that the secession leaders
voted unanimously against the homestead bill, whilst the North then gave
its entire vote in, favor of the measure, and have now made it the law
of the land.
As it is a blessed thing for the poor and landless to receive,
substantially as a gift, a farm from the Government, where they and
their children may till their own soil, and enjoy competence, freedom,
and free schools, let them never forget, that this was the act of the
North, and opposed by the South. If the rebels succeed, they will hold
the public domain in their States and Territories for large plantations,
to be cultivated by slaves, and sink their 'poor whites,' as nearly as
practicable, to the level of their slaves, in accordance with their
theory, that capital should own labor.
Texas, is very nearly six times as large as New York, and more than one
half the area is public domain of the State, with a most salubrious
climate, with all the products of the North and South, as shown by the
census, and with three times as many cattle (2,733,267) as in any other
State. This vast domain, if the South succeeds, will be cultivated in
large tracts by slaves; but with our success, the State title will be
forfeited to the Government, and the land colonized by loyal freemen,
and subjected to the Homestead law, so that educated free white labor
can raise there sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, and indigo, as well as the
crops of the North. It appears by the history of the reign of Henry II.,
that Ireland (in the year 1102) was the _first country which abolished
slavery_, England still retaining it for many centuries; and Germany
scarcely participated in the African slave trade. And now those two
brave and mighty races, the Celtic and Teutonic, so devoted to liberty
and the rights of man, will never erect the temple of their faith upon
the Confederate _corner stone_, the ownership, of man by man, and of
labor by capital. No--they are fighting in the great cause, (now,
henceforth, and forever inseparable,) of LIBERTY and UNION. And when, as
the result of this rebellion, slavery shall disappear from our country,
the words of the Sermon on the Mount, announcing the brotherhood of man,
and adopted by our fathers in the Declaration of American Independence,
may be inscribed on our banner, 'that _all men_ are created EQUAL; that
they are endowed by their CREATOR with _inalienable_ RIGHTS; that among
these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.' Such was the
faith plighted to God, our country, and humanity, on the day of the
nation's birth; in crushing this rebellion, and inaugurating the reign
of universal freedom, we are now fulfilling that pledge. Slavery having
struck down our flag, having dissevered our States, having, with
sacrilegious steps, entered our holy temples, separated churches, and
erected a government based on dehumanizing man, under the _Union as it
was_: liberty will reunite us by fraternal and indissoluble ties, under
the UNION AS IT WILL BE.
LITERARY NOTICES
THE PATIENCE OF HOPE. By the Author of A PRESENT
HEAVEN. With an Introduction by JOHN G. WHITTIER,
'_Et teneo et teneor._' Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
A work less remarkable for talent than for tender, pious feeling--less
marked by genius than goodness, yet of a kind which the impartial critic
will still sincerely commend, simply because its defects are negative
while its merits are positive and apparent to all who will read only a
few pages in it. The author seems to us as one who has gleaned the best
from mystical Christianity or Quietism, without having taken up its
defects--one who has found in TAULER or GUYON, or perhaps still more in
FÉNÉLON, something to love, and has loved it without effort. We are
certain that the work is one which will enjoy a very extensive
popularity among all liberal-minded yet truly devout Christians.
HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH THE SECOND, CALLED FREDERICK THE
GREAT. By THOMAS CARLYLE. In four volumes. Vol. III.
New York: Harper & Brothers. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.
To judge CARLYLE well, one should have outgrown a love for him. Then,
and not till then, will the reader ace him as he is--a genius obscured
and belittled by eccentricity in judgment and grotesqueness in literary
art; a man who must be seen, out of whom much may be taken, but not with
profit unless we leave much behind; a writer who was ahead of his age in
1830, but who is wellnigh thirty years behind it now; one still
worshipping heroes, and quite ignorant that great ideas are taking for
the world the place of great men. It is curious to consider that
CARLYLE, without understanding the first principles of the French
Revolution, should have written most readably on it, and that, still
more blind to the manifest path of free labor and of utility, he should
still have assumed a pseudo-radical position. Yet, after all, nothing is
strange when a man is wrong in his premises. Carp at them as he may,
CARLYLE is of the destructives rather than the builders, and, like all
literary destructives, continually flies for shelter to the
conservatives, even as Rabelais fled for safety to the Pope.
In this third volume of Friedrich the Second, he who neither overrates
nor underrates CARLYLE may read with great profit. In it one
sees, as in a brilliant series of highly-colored views--overcolored very
often--shifting with strange rapidity and in wild lights, how from June,
1740, to August, 1744, King Frederick lived his own life, and
incidentally that of Prussia and a good part of the civilized world with
it, as all active and earnest monarchs are wont to do. That it is
piquant and interesting--to the well-educated taste more so than any
novel--is true enough; and if the author acts despotically and talks
arbitrarily, we may smile, and leave him to settle it with his dead men.
He must be dumb indeed who can read it and not feel his thinking powers
greatly stimulated, and with it, if he be a writer, his faculty of
creating.
JENKINS'S VEST-POCKET LEXICON. BY JABEZ JENKINS.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.
A dictionary is generally referred to for unfamiliar--not for well-known
words; but it is in large and copious ones only that such words are
given, and every one has not always at hand his WEBSTER and WORCESTER
'unabridged.' In view of this want, JABEZ JENKINS has compiled an
admirable little two-and-a-half-inch square English 'Lexicon of all
_except_ familiar words, including the principal scientific and
technical terms, and foreign moneys, weights, and measures.' The common
Latin and French phrases of two and three words, and the principal names
of classical mythology, are also given; 'omitting,' says J.J., 'what
everybody knows, and containing what everybody wants to know, and
cannot readily find.' It would be difficult to exaggerate the great
practical utility of this admirable little book, in which, we have, so
to speak, the very quintessence of a dictionary given _in poco_. We
should not have looked for a joke, however, in an abridged
dictionary--but there is one. 'This Lexicon,' says its author, 'will be
found a convenient, and, it is hoped, a valuable _vade mecum_; and,
though not inspiring the same degree of _veneration_ as some of its
leviathan contemporaries, may possibly occupy a place much nearer the
heart, viz., in the heart-pocket.' Let us not forget, by the way, to
mention that S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE has indorsed this little work as one of
the most important and useful publications of the day.
INSIDE OUT. A Curious Book by a Singular Man. New York:
Miller, Mathews & Clasback, 767 Broadway. Boston; A.K. Loring.
The first instalment of the promised oddity of this work occurs in the
first page--in fact, several pages before it--in the assertion that
'this work is respectfully dedicated to the first young lady who can
truthfully assert that she has read from title page to colophon WITHOUT
SKIPPING. Such is the determination of the author.'
It is needless to say that the determined author has hit upon a
tolerably effectual means of securing a few lady readers. As for the
work itself, it is, with more eccentricity of thought and less
familiarity with composition than we should anticipate in a bad one. It
is bold, rather sensational, involving a high-pressure murder and the
somewhat _connu_ father-in-difficulties with a daughter, but
interesting, and on the whole likely enough--in New York, where any
amount of anything may be supposed to take place at any time without in
the slightest degree violating the conditions of probability. For his
_bete noir_ or grand villain, the Singular Man seems to have studied
very carefully the gentleman who is said to have _poséd_ for
'DENS-DEATH' in 'Cecil Dreeme,' and has to our mind approached
him more closely even than WINTHROP has done. Among the
characters one--'Charles Tewphunny'--strikes us as a reality; a
vigorous, earnest, cheerful nature, clear and fine even through the
obscurity and occasional crudity of his word-painter. We like
Charles--_he_ should have been the favored one by love, as he is in
being the true hero of the tale.
The work is in fact crude, as though hastily written and had not been at
all reviewed--at least by an experienced writer. On the other hand, its
author is evidently a gentleman, one widely familiar with life--even a
town life in many details--and is most unmistakably a scholar of rare
ripeness. So manifest is his ability, and so remarkable the varied
learning and experience which gleam (unknown to the author himself)
through many unconscious allusions, that we wonder at finding such
peculiar gifts turned to illustrate a tale, above all one so carelessly
constructed as this is. We find fault with the names: 'Malfaire,'
'Tewphunny,' 'Mrs. Kairfull,' are not well devised; and yet again we at
once regret all harsher judgment in some truly human, refined, and
delicate passage, which is as creditable to the author's taste as heart.
Taking it altogether, 'Inside Out' is, according to promise, a very
curious book indeed. In justice to the publishers, we must say a word in
favor of its neat binding and very attractive typography.
COUNTRY LIVING AND COUNTRY THINKING. By GAIL
HAMILTON. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.
The Essay, after long years of sleep, has sprung up of late to, at
least, popularity, and from the pens of the Country Parson and his
disciples has sent word-pictures and personal experiences well through
the country. Among the most promising of the American members of the
'Parson's' flock is GAIL HAMILTON, a lively, well-writing,
intensely-Yankee woman; that is to say, a bird who would fly far and
fast indeed were she not well bound down by Puritanical chains, and who,
in default of other experience-means of expression, clinks her fetters
in measures which are merry enough for the many, albeit somewhat
sorrowful at times to those who feel how much more she might have done
under more genial influences and in a freer field. We could also wish a
little less of the endless I and Me and Mine of the Essays, and wonder
if the author will never tire of her intense self-setting forth. But
this is the constant fault of the personal essay, let who will write it;
and since it has great names to sanction it, we may perhaps let it
pass.
EDITOR'S TABLE
The President's Proclamation is based mainly on the act of Congress to
which he refers. That act was passed with great approach to unanimity
among unconditional Unionists, and met their approbation throughout the
country. That the rebel States, as a military question, must be deprived
of the 'sinews of war,' which, with them, are the _sinews of slaves_, is
quite certain. They have boasted, as well before as since the rebellion,
that their great strength in war consisted in their ability to send all
the whites to battle, whilst the slaves were retained at home to
cultivate the lands and provide subsistence for armies. Take from the
South its slaves, and the necessary supplies must cease for want of
laborers in the field, or the whites must be withdrawn from the armies
to raise provisions. In either event, the rebellion must terminate in
defeat. There are thousands then, who, under ordinary circumstances,
would oppose emancipation, yet who will support this measure as a
_military necessity_. As regards the Border States, the President still
adheres to his original programme: emancipation with their consent,
compensation by Congress, and colonization beyond our limits.
As regards the seceded States, the proclamation only applies to such of
them as shall persist in rebellion after the first of January next, and
even in those States compensation for their slaves is to be made to all
who are loyal.
The friends of Secession in Europe, and especially in France and
England, have contended that slavery was not the cause of the rebellion,
and it has been suggested that the rebels would themselves adopt a
system of gradual emancipation. Even now it is alleged that if MR.
LINCOLN had not issued this proclamation, we should have had
something very similar from JEFFERSON DAVIS.
However this may be, these professions of the friends of the South in
Europe, and particularly of their friends in France and England, will
soon be tested.
If the South objects to emancipation, and denounces this proclamation,
they will make this contest, on their part, still more clearly a war for
the maintenance, perpetuity, and unlimited extension of slavery.
If, under such circumstances, England continues to support the
rebellion, she must do so as the open and avowed advocate of slavery.
What is to be done with the slaves when they are emancipated? is a grave
question, which we shall discuss at a future period. There can be little
doubt, however, that emancipation, on a scale so extensive, would give a
great impulse to the cause of colonization.
There are, however, three classes of States in which this proclamation
will have no effect on the 1st of January next:
1st. The Border States.
2d. Such of the rebel States, and such
parts of them, as shall return to their allegiance
before that date.
3d. Such of the rebel States, and such
parts of them, as shall not then have been
conquered.
In the mean time there may be rebel States, or portions of them, where
the apprehended loss of their slaves, as a consequence of persisting in
the rebellion, may induce a return to the Union, and thus hasten a
successful conclusion of the war.
How far this proclamation, merely as such, would avail to change the
status of slaves in such seceded States as may not be occupied by us and
conquered before the first of January next, may be more appropriately
discussed when, if ever, such a contingency shall happen.
In the mean time, whatever may be the effect of this proclamation upon
the institution of slavery, which was the cause of the war, let us all
unite in its vigorous prosecution, and in carrying, promptly and
triumphantly, the flag of the Union throughout every State, from
Richmond and Charleston to Mobile and Savannah. Our next campaign must
witness the final overthrow of the rebellion.
THE REBEL NUMBERS.
The whole number of males in the rebel States, by the census of 1860,
between 15 and 60 years of age (excepting East Tennessee and Western
Virginia), is less than one million; of whom, from physical disability,
sickness, alienage, &c., at least 100,000 are not available. Of the
remaining 900,000, at least 200,000 have been withdrawn by death,
wounds, sickness, parole, capture, &c., reducing the number to 700,000;
of whom, for indispensable pursuits, at least one third must remain at
home, reducing their present maximum forces to 466,000. Now, if these
disappear no more rapidly in the future than in the past (although the
war will be prosecuted with much more vigor), their numbers would be
diminished at the rate of at least 12,000 a month. Therefore, as there
are no means of obtaining new recruits, it is clear that the rebellion
must soon fail for want of troops to meet our immense armies. It is true
no allowance has been made for recruits from the Border States; but
these (greatly overestimated) would be more than counter-balanced by the
inability to obtain troops from that large portion of the Rebel States
occupied by our forces, such as all the coast from New Orleans to
Norfolk, nearly all the Mississippi River, and considerable sections of
West and Middle Tennessee, North Alabama, North Mississippi, and
Arkansas. The days of the rebellion, then, are numbered.
* * * * *
Sharpsburg is a name which will be long remembered, and is destined to
be found in many a lay and legend. Among the earliest written
commemorating it, we have the following, from one whose lyrics are well
known to our readers:
THE POTOMAC AT SHARPSBURG.
BY H. L. SPENCER.
Once smiling fields stretched far on either side,
Where bowed to every breeze the ripening grain;
But now with carnage are those waters dyed,
And all around are slumbering the slain.
Patriots and heroes! unto whom in vain
Ne'er cried the voice of Right,--their names shall be
Graved on a million hearts, and with just pride
Shall children say, 'For Truth and Liberty
Our fathers fought at SHARPSBURG, where they fell--
They _bravely fought_, as history's pages tell.'
Not for the fallen toll the funeral bell,--
_Their_ rest is peaceful--_they_ the goal have won.
Let the thinned ranks be filled, and let us see
Complete the glorious work by them begun.
Yes--forward! onward! Let it be complete. _Scripta est_--it is written,
and it will be done. After going so far in the great cause which has
become our religion and our life, it were hardly worth while to retreat.
Life and fortune are of small account now in this tremendous opening of
new truths and new interests. And we are only at the beginning! With
every new death the cause grows more sacred, and the North more grandly
earnest. 'Hurrah for the faithful dead!'
* * * * *
MRS. H. BEECHER STOWE AND THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND.
MY DEAR MRS. STOWE:
Your great work, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' will no longer circulate in
England. Mr. Mason, the Southern ambassador, has convinced us all that
slavery is a divine institution, that whipping and branding are really
good for the negro, and education dangerous. Indeed, we dare not educate
our own working classes. We begin to perceive the truth of the _corner
stone_ principle of the Southern Confederacy, that capital should always
own labor, whether white or black. Then we would have no more strikes,
or riots, or claims for higher wages, or for the right of suffrage, and
all would be peace. You see my opinion of slavery has changed; and so
has that of England in church and state, except the working classes, who
wish to vote, and such pestiferous democrats as Bright and Cobden.
This rebellion came just in the right time for us. In a few years more
of your success, we should have been compelled to establish free
schools, give the vote by ballot, and extend the suffrage, until the
people should rule here, as with you. But now that your rebellion has
proved the failure of republics, we shall yield no more. Slavery, in
dissolving your Union, has accomplished all this for us, and therefore
must be a good institution. Some one has sent me one Edmund Kirke's
anti-slavery novel, entitled, 'Among the Pines.' Your people seem to
have gone crazy over it; but it will have no readers here. Is this Kirke
a Scotchman? I had a tenant called Kirke, who was evicted for avowing
republican opinions. Can this be the same man? I told the Confederate
minister, Mr. Mason, that if some Southron would write a good novel in
favor of slavery, it would have a great circulation here; and he said he
would name this in his next despatch to his Government. He has a fine
aristocratic air, and could scarcely be descended from the women
(imported and sold as wives for a few pounds of tobacco to the
Virginians) who were the mothers of the F. F. V.'s. But Mr. M. says
slavery will soon build up a splendid nobility in the South.
Jefferson Davis is very popular here, and was lately cheered in Exeter
Hall; but Yancey and Wigfall are idolized. Our great favorite in the
North is Ex-President Buchanan. When did the head of a Government ever
before have the courage to aid a rebellion against it, so gracefully
yielding it the national forts, ships, mints, guns, and arsenals? But
what we most admire is his message, in which he proved you have no right
to coerce the South or suppress rebellion. This was a splendid discovery
for us, as it demonstrated how superior our Government is to yours. If
Mr. Buchanan would come here, we would raise him to the peerage, and, in
commemoration of his two great acts, would give him the double title of
the Duke of Lecompton and Disunion. Floyd, Cobb, and Thompson should
each be earls. Thompson should be called Earl Arnold, in gratitude for
the services to us of the celebrated Benedict Arnold.
I told Mr. M. how much we had condemned his fugitive slave law; but he
convinced me that it was a most humane and excellent measure. Fugitives
from the kindest masters, and ungrateful for all the blessings of
slavery, why should they not be brought back in chains? He reminded me
of Generals Shields, Corcoran, and Meagher, Irishmen commanding Irish
troops for the North, and said they should be brought back to Ireland
and hung on Emmet's scaffold. You know we keep that scaffold still
standing, as a terror to Irish rebels, although we admire so much
rebellion in America. Mr. M. spoke also of Sigel, Heintzelman,
Rosecrans, Asboth, and expressed his surprise that the Bourbon princes
would fight side by side with the _mudsills_ of the North.
In a few years, Mr. M. said, the South would establish a monarchy, and
that a son of the Queen should marry a daughter of Jefferson Davis, and
thus unite the two dynasties by kindred ties. It was his opinion that
the South would limit the right of suffrage to slaveholders, numbering
about two hundred thousand; that they would have a house of peers, lords
temporal and spiritual, composed (including bishops) of all who held
over five hundred slaves; but that their Archbishop of _Canting_bury
should own at least one thousand. He thought the number requisite for
the peerage would be enlarged after the reopening of the African slave
trade, which would soon furnish England cheap cotton. His remarks on
this subject reminded me how large a portion of my fortune was
accumulated, during the last century, by the profits of the African
slave trade. Mr. M. told me the King of Dahomey would furnish the South
one hundred thousand slaves a year, for twenty dollars each, and that
England should have the profits of the trade as before, and Liverpool
again be the great slave port. He alluded to the CONTINENTAL
MONTHLY, which he said was an abolition journal, and denounced
Kirke, Kimball, Leland, Henry, Greeley, Stanton, and Walker. He was
specially severe on Walker and Stanton, charging them with the defeat of
the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, and the consequent accession of
Kansas and all the Territories to the free States, He said Walker and
Stanton had no right to reject the Oxford and McGee returns, although
they were forged. And now, dear Mrs. Stowe, if you would only change, as
we all have here, and write, as you only can, a great novel to prove the
beauties of slavery, its circulation here would be enormous, and we
would make you a duchess. Adieu until my next.
P.S.--I have invested all my United States stock in Confederate bonds.
* * * * *
The style of the foregoing letter would point to the Duchess of
Sutherland as the author, but such a change would be miraculous. Was the
copy of the letter found in an intercepted despatch from Mr. Mason to
Jefferson Davis?
* * * * *
THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
EDITORS:
HON. ROBERT J. WALKER, CHARLES G. LELAND,
HON. FRED. P. STANTON, EDMUND KIRKE.
The readers of the CONTINENTAL are aware of the important
position it has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the
brilliant array of political and literary talent of the highest order
which supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so
successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with
the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very
certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or
preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of
faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in
the land or it is nothing. That the CONTINENTAL is not the
latter is abundantly evidenced _by what it has done_--by the reflection
of its counsels in many important public events, and in the character
and power of those who are its staunchest supporters.
By the accession of HON. ROBERT J. WALKER and HON. F. P.
STANTON to its editorial corps, the CONTINENTAL acquires a
strength and a political significance which, to those who are aware of
the ability and experience of these gentlemen, must elevate it to a
position far above any previously occupied by any publication of the
kind in America. Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which
a thousand journals have attributed to it, it will at once greatly
enlarge its circle of action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every
principle involved in the great questions of the day. The first minds of
the country, embracing men most familiar with its diplomacy and most
distinguished for ability, are to become its contributors; and it is no
mere "flattering promise of a prospectus" to say, that this "magazine
for the times" will employ the first intellect in America, under
auspices which no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, the accomplished scholar and author, who has
till now been the sole Editor of the Magazine, will, beside his
editorial labors, continue his brilliant contributions to its pages; and
EDMUND KIRKE, author of "AMONG THE PINES," will contribute to each
issue, having already begun a work on Southern Life and Society, which
will be found far more widely descriptive, and, in all respects,
superior to the first.
While the CONTINENTAL will express decided opinions on the
great questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal:
much the larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore,
by tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the CONTINENTAL will be
found, under its new staff of Editors, occupying a position, and
presenting attractions never before found in a magazine.
TERMS TO CLUBS.
Two copies for one year, Five dollars.
Three copies for one year, Six dollars.
Six copies for one year, Eleven dollars.
Eleven copies for one year, Twenty dollars.
Twenty copies for one year, Thirty-six dollars.
PAID IN ADVANCE
_Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, TO BE PAID BY THE SUBSCRIBER.
SINGLE COPIES.
Three Dollars a year, IN ADVANCE.--_Postage paid by the Publisher._
JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St., N.Y.
PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.
As an inducement to new subscribers, the Publisher offers the
following very liberal premiums:
Any person remitting $8, in advance, will receive the Magazine from
July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing the whole of Mr. KIMBALL's
and Mr. KIRKE's new serials, which are alone worth the price of
subscription. Or, if preferred, a subscriber can take the Magazine for
1863 and a copy of "AMONG THE PINES," or of "UNDERCURRENTS OF WALL ST.,"
by R. B. KIMBALL, bound in cloth (the book to be sent postage paid).
Any person remitting $4.50, will receive the Magazine from its
commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing Mr.
KIMBALL'S "WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?" and Mr. KIRKE's "AMONG THE PINES" and
"MERCHANT'S STORY," and nearly 8,000 octavo pages of the best literature
in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own postage.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE FINEST FARMING LANDS WHEAT CORN COTTON FRUITS &
VEGETABLES]
~EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!~
MAY BE PROCURED
~At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,~
Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of
Civilization.
1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in
ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.
* * * * *
The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the
beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of their
Railroad. 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms for
enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to make for
themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they can call
THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:
ILLINOIS.
Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and
a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the
Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of
Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of
climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great
staples, CORN and WHEAT.
CLIMATE.
Nowhere can the Industrious farmer secure such immediate results from
his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much
ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the
Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200
miles, is well adapted to Winter.
WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.
Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is
grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets
are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate
vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the
Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch,
and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising
portion of the State.
THE ORDINARY YIELD
of Corn is from 60 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep
and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is
believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for
Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to
which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure
profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and
Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147
miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are
produced in great abundance.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any
other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels,
while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the
crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,
Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,
Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast
aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons
of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.
STOCK RAISING.
In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for
the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,
Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large
fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to
enter with the fairest prospects of like results. Dairy Farming also
presents its inducements to many.
CULTIVATION OF COTTON.
The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing
in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption
on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to
the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young
children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in
the growth and perfection of this plant.
THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD
Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the
Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the
Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the
road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.
CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS.
There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one
every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient
distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity
may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where
buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.
EDUCATION.
Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by
the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the
schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the
church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the
Great Western Empire.
* * * * *
PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT--ON LONG CREDIT.
80 acres at $10 per acre, with interest at 6 per ct. annually
on the following terms:
Cash payment $48 00
Payment in one year 48 00
" in two years 48 00
" in three years 48 00
" in four years 236 00
" in five years 224 00
" in six years 212 00
40 acres, at $10 00 per acre:
Cash payment $24 00
Payment in one year 24 00
" in two years 24 00
" in three years 24 00
" in four years 118 00
" in five years 112 00
" in six years 106 00
* * * * *
Number 12 25 Cents.
The
Continental
Monthly
Devoted to Literature and National Policy.
DECEMBER, 1862.
NEW YORK:
JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET
(FOR THE PROPRIETORS).
HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.
CONTENTS.--No. XII.
The Union. Hon. Robert J. Walker, 641
Something we have to Think of, and to Do. C. S. Henry, LL.D. 657
Cambridge and Its Colleges, 662
A Physician's Story, 667
La Vie Poetique, 679
The Ash Tree. Charles G. Leland, 682
An Englishman in South Carolina, 689
The Causes of the Rebellion. Hon. F. P. Stanton, 695
On Guard. John G. Nicolay, Private Secretary to President
Lincoln, 706
Railway Photographs. Isabella McFarlane, 708
The Obstacles to Peace. A Letter to an Englishman.
Hon. Horace Greeley, 714
Thank God for All. Chas. G. Leland, 718
A Merchant's Story. Edmund Kirke, 719
The Freed Men of the South. Hon. F. P. Stanton, 730
Was He Successful? Richard B. Kimball, 734
Gold. Hon. Robert J. Walker, 743
Literary Notices, 747
Editor's Table, 750
* * * * *
ANNOUNCEMENT.
The Proprietors of THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, warranted by its
great success, have resolved to increase its influence and usefulness by
the following changes:
The Magazine has become the property of an association of men of
character and large means. Devoted to the NATIONAL CAUSE, it
will ardently and unconditionally support the UNION. Its scope
will be enlarged by articles relating to our public defences, Army and
Navy, gunboats, railroads, canals, finance, and currency. The cause of
gradual emancipation and colonization will be cordially sustained. The
literary character of the Magazine will be improved, and nothing which
talent, money, and industry combined can achieve, will be omitted.
The political department will be controlled by HON. ROBERT J. WALKER and
HON. FREDERIC P. STANTON, of Washington, D.C. Mr. WALKER, after serving
nine years as Senator, and four years as Secretary of the Treasury, was
succeeded in the Senate by JEFFERSON DAVIS. MR. STANTON served ten years
in Congress, acting as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and of Naval
Affairs. MR. WALKER was succeeded as Governor of Kansas by MR. STANTON,
and both were displaced by MR. BUCHANAN, for refusing to force slavery
upon that people by fraud and forgery. The literary department of the
Magazine will be under the control of CHARLES GODFREY LELAND of Boston,
and EDMUND KIRKE of New York. MR. LELAND is the present accomplished
Editor of the Magazine. MR. KIRKE is one of its constant contributors,
but better known as the author of "Among the Pines," the great picture,
true to life, of Slavery as it is.
THE CONTINENTAL, while retaining all the old corps of writers,
who have given it so wide a circulation, will be reënforced by new
contributors, greatly distinguished as statesmen, scholars, and savans.
* * * * *
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1862, by
JAMES R. GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.