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THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY
VOL. V.--MARCH, 1864.--No. III.
AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.
LETTER NO. III. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.
LONDON, 10 Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,
_December 3d_, 1863.
It is generally believed, even when the American rebellion should be
suppressed, that there would be a great loss of wealth and resources on
the part of the United States. As an economical question the great truth
is not disputed by me, that, as a general rule, wars by a waste of
property, by large expenditures, and by the withdrawal of so much labor
from the pursuits of industry, impair the material interests of the
nation. The influence of such considerations in the United States is not
denied; but there are in the cause of this contest, as well as in its
effects and consequences, results which will more than compensate for
such losses. Slavery was the sole cause of this rebellion, and the
result will be the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery everywhere
extinguished. On this assumption, the question is, whether the
substitution of free for slave labor throughout every State and
Territory of the Union will not, as a question of augmented wealth and
invigorated industry, far more than compensate for the losses incurred
in the contest. Reasoning inductively, it might well be supposed that
the willing labor of educated and energetic freemen would be far more
productive than the forced labor of ignorant, unwilling, and uneducated
slaves. In the realm of science, as well as in the direction of labor,
knowledge is power, education is wealth and progress; and that this is
applicable to the masses who compose a community, and especially to the
working classes, is demonstrated by our American official Census. In
proof of this position, I will proceed by a reference to the official
tables of our Census of 1860, to show not only in particular Slave
States, as compared with other Free States, whether old or new, Eastern
or Western, or making the comparison of the aggregate of all the Slave
with the Free States, the annual product of the latter _per capita_ is
more than double that of the Slave States. I begin with Maryland as
compared with Massachusetts, because Maryland, in proportion to her
area, has greater natural advantages than any one of the Slave or Free
States; and if the comparison with the Free States is most unfavorable
to her, it will be more so as to any other Southern State; as the Census
shows that, from 1790 to 1860, as well as from 1850 to 1860, Maryland
increased in population per square mile more rapidly than any other
slaveholding State.
We must consider the area, soil, climate, mines, hydraulic power,
location, shore line, bays, sounds, and rivers, and such other causes as
affect the advance of wealth and population.
The relative progress of Maryland has been slow indeed. The population
of the Union, by the Census of 1790, was 3,929,827, of which Maryland,
containing then 319,728, constituted a twelfth part (12.29). In 1860,
the Union numbered 31,445,080, and Maryland 687,034, constituting a
forty-fifth part (45.76). In 1790, the Free States numbered 1,968,455,
Maryland's population then being equal to one sixth (6.12); but, in
1860, the population of the Free States was 18,920,078, Maryland's
number then being equal to one twenty-seventh part (27.52). But, if
Maryland had increased as rapidly from 1790 to 1860 as the whole Union,
her proportion, one twelfth part, would have made her numbers in 1860,
2,620,315; and if her proportional increase had equalled that of the
Free States, her ratio, one sixth, would have made her population in
1860, 3,153,392.
I take the areas from the report (November 29, 1860) of the Commissioner
of the General Land Office, where they are for the first time accurately
given, 'excluding the water surface.' The population is taken from the
Census Tables. I compare first Massachusetts and Maryland, because they
are maritime and old States, and both in 1790 had nearly the same
population, but, as will be shown hereafter, with vastly superior
natural advantages in favor of Maryland.
Area of Maryland, 11,124 square miles; shore lines, by tables of United
States Coast Survey, viz.: main shore, including bays, sounds, etc., 503
miles, islands 298, rivers to head of tide water 535; total, 1,336
miles.
Area of Massachusetts, 7,800 square miles; shore lines, by tables of
United States Coast Survey, viz.: main shore, including bays, sounds,
etc., 435 miles, islands 259, rivers to head of tide water 70; total,
764 miles. When we mark the Potomac and its tributaries, the lower
Susquehanna, the deep and numerous streams of the Chesapeake, the
commercial advantages of Maryland over Massachusetts are vast indeed.
Looking at the ocean shore of Maryland, and also at the Chesapeake Bay,
the largest and finest estuary in the world, indented with numerous
sounds and navigable inlets, three fourths of its length for both shores
being within Maryland, and comparing this deep and tranquil and
protected basin, almost one continuous harbor, with the rockbound coast
of Massachusetts, lashed by the stormy Atlantic, the superiority of
Maryland is striking.
Mortality in Maryland, by the late Census, viz., deaths from 1st June,
1859, to 31st May, 1860, 7,370 persons. Same time in Massachusetts,
21,303; making the ratio of deaths to the number living in Maryland, one
to every 92, and in Massachusetts one to every 57; and the percentage of
deaths in Maryland 1.09, and in Massachusetts 1.76. This rate of
mortality for Massachusetts is confirmed by the late official report of
their Secretary of State to the Legislature.
As to area, then, Maryland exceeds Massachusetts 43 per cent.; as to the
shore line, that of Maryland is nearly double that of Massachusetts. As
to climate, that of Maryland, we have seen, is far the most salubrious.
This is a vast advantage, not only in augmented wealth and numbers, from
fewer deaths, but also as attracting capital and immigration. This
milder and more salubrious climate gives to Maryland longer periods for
sowing, working, and harvesting crops, a more genial sun, larger
products, and better and longer crop seasons, great advantages for
stock, especially in winter, decreased consumption of fuel, a greater
period for the use of hydraulic power, and of canals and navigable
streams. The area of Maryland fit for profitable culture is more than
double that of Massachusetts, the soil much more fertile, its mines of
coal and iron, with the fluxes all adjacent, rich and inexhaustible;
whereas Massachusetts has no coal, and no valuable mines of iron or
fluxes. When we reflect that coal and iron are the great elements of
modern progress, and build up mighty empires, this advantage of Maryland
over Massachusetts is almost incalculable. The hydraulic power of
Maryland also greatly exceeds that of Massachusetts. Such are the vast
natural advantages of Maryland over Massachusetts. Now let us observe
the results. Population of Maryland in 1790, 319,728; in 1860, 687,034;
increase, 367,300. Population of Massachusetts in 1790, 378,717; in
1860, 1,231,065; increase, 852,348; difference of increase in favor of
Massachusetts, 485,048; excess of Massachusetts over Maryland in 1790,
58,989, and in 1860, 544,031. This result is amazing, when we regard the
far greater area of Maryland and her other vast natural advantages. The
population of Maryland in 1790 was 28 to the square mile (28.74), and in
1860, 61 to the square mile (61.76); whereas Massachusetts had 48 to the
square mile in 1790 (48.55), and 157 to the square mile in 1860
(157.82). Thus Massachusetts had only 20 more to the square mile in
1790, and 96 more to the square mile in 1860. But if the area of
Maryland and Massachusetts had been reversed, Massachusetts with the
area of Maryland, and the population of Massachusetts of 1860 to the
square mile, would have numbered then 1,755,661, and Maryland with the
area of Massachusetts, and the population of Maryland of 1860 to the
square mile, would have had then a population of only 481,728 upon that
basis, leaving Massachusetts in 1860, 1,273,393 more people than
Maryland.
By the census of 1790, Massachusetts was the fourth in population of all
the States, and Maryland the sixth; but in 1860, Massachusetts was the
seventh, and Maryland the nineteenth; and if each of the thirty-four
States increases in the same ratio from 1860 to 1870 as from 1850 to
1860, Maryland will be only the twenty-fifth State.
These facts all conclusively attest the terrible effects of slavery on
Maryland, and this is only one of the dreadful sacrifices she has made
in retaining the institution. As to wealth, power, and intellectual
development, the loss cannot be overstated.
Nor can manufactures account for the difference, as shown by the still
greater increase of the agricultural Northwest. Besides, Maryland
(omitting slavery) had far greater natural advantages for manufactures
than Massachusetts. She had a more fertile soil, thus furnishing cheaper
food to the working classes, a larger and more accessible coast, and
nearly eight times the length of navigable rivers, greater hydraulic
power, vast superiority in mines of coal and iron, a far more salubrious
climate, cotton, the great staple of modern industry, much nearer to
Maryland, her location far more central for trade with the whole Union,
and Baltimore, her chief city, nearer than Boston to the great West,
viz.: to the Ohio at Pittsburg and Cincinnati, the Mississippi at St.
Louis, and the lakes at Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago, by several
hundred miles. Indeed, but for slavery, Maryland must have been
a far greater manufacturing as well as commercial State than
Massachusetts--and as to agriculture; there could be no comparison.
But Massachusetts did not become a manufacturing State until after the
tariff of 1824. That measure, as well as the whole protective policy,
Massachusetts earnestly opposed in 1820 and 1824, and Daniel Webster, as
her representative, denounced it as unconstitutional. From 1790 to 1820,
Massachusetts was commercial, not manufacturing, and yet, from 1790 to
1820, Massachusetts increased in numbers 144,442, and Maryland in the
same time only 87,622. Yet, from 1790 to 1820, Massachusetts, the most
commercial State, was far more injured by the embargo and the late war
with England than any other State.
It is clear, then, that the accusation of the secession leaders that the
North was built up at the expense of the South, by the tariff, can have
no application to the progress of Massachusetts and Maryland, because
the advance of the former over the latter preceded by more than thirty
years the adoption of the protective policy, and a comparison of the
relative advance of the Free and Slave States, during the same period,
exhibits the same results.
There is one _invariable law_, whether we compare all the Slave States
with all the Free States, small States with small, large with large, old
with old, new with new, retarding the progress of the slaveholding
States, ever operating, and differing in degree only.
The area of the nine Free States enumerated in 1790, is 169,668 square
miles, and of the eight slaveholding States, 300,580 square miles, while
the population of the former in 1790 was 1,968,455, and of the latter,
1,961,372; but, in 1860, these nine Free States had a population of
10,594,168, and those eight Slave States only 7,414,684, making the
difference in favor of these Free States in 1860 over those Slave
States, 3,179,844, instead of 7,083 in 1790, or a positive gain to those
Free States over those Slave States of 3,172,761. These Free States
enumerated in 1790 and 1860, were the six New England States, New York,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and the Slave States were Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and
Kentucky: yet we have seen that the area of those Slave States was
nearly double that of those Free States, the soil much more fertile, the
climate more salubrious, as shown by the Census, that the shore line,
including main shore, bays and sounds, islands and rivers, to head of
tide water, was, for those Free States, 4,480 miles, and for those Slave
States, 6,560 miles. Thus it is clear that the increase of population of
these Slave States should have far exceeded that of those Free States.
The population of these Slave States per square mile in 1790 was 6
(6.52), and in 1860, 24 (24.66), and of those Free States in 1790, was
11 per square mile (11.60), and in 1860, 62 per square mile (62.44).
Thus, while the increase of those Slave States from 1790 to 1860 was
only 18 per square mile, that of those Free States was nearly 51 per
square mile (50.84), or in very nearly a triple ratio, while in wealth
and education the proportionate progress was much greater.
No cause except slavery can be assigned to this wonderful difference,
for the colonists of Maryland were distinguished for education,
intelligence, and gentle culture. Lord Baltimore was a statesman and
philanthropist, and his colony was a free representative government,
which was the first to repudiate the doctrine of taxation without
representation, and the first to introduce religious toleration. While
Maryland has produced many of the most eminent soldiers, statesmen, and
jurists, her relative decline in power, wealth, and population has been
deplorable, and is attributable exclusively to the paralyzing effect of
slavery.
While the advance of Massachusetts, with her limited area and sterile
soil, especially in view of the thousands of her native sons who have
emigrated to other States, is one of the wonders of the world, yet the
relative increase of the population of New Jersey from 1790 to 1860,
compared with that of Maryland, is still greater than that of
Massachusetts. The law is inflexible wherever slavery disappears.
Population of New Jersey in 1790, 184,139, in 1860, 672,035, being an
increase of 264 per cent. (264.96) for New Jersey, of 225 per cent.
(225.06) for Massachusetts, and for Maryland 114 percent. (114.88). The
ratio of increase per square mile from 1790 to 1860 was: Massachusetts,
48.55 in 1790, and 157.82 in 1860; Maryland, 28.74 in 1790, and 61.76 in
1860; and New Jersey, 22.01 in 1790, and 80.70 in 1860. Thus, while
Maryland from 1790 to 1860, little more than doubled her ratio of
increase per square mile (28.74 to 61.76), and Massachusetts little more
than tripled her ratio (48.55 to 157.82), New Jersey very nearly
_quadrupled_ hers (22.01 to 80.70). It must be conceded, however, that
the natural advantages of New Jersey are far greater than those of
Massachusetts, whose material and intellectual progress, in defiance of
such serious obstacles, now is, and most probably forever will be,
_without a parallel_. Now the area of New Jersey is but 8,320 square
miles; the soil of Maryland is far more fertile, the hydraulic power
much greater, the shoreline much more than double, viz.: 531 for New
Jersey, to 1,336 for Maryland; while New Jersey, with rich iron mines,
has no coal, and one third of her area is south of the celebrated Mason
and Dixon's line, the northern boundary of Maryland. While the Free
States have accomplished these miracles of progress, they have peopled
eleven vast Territories (soon by subdivision to become many more
States), immigration to which has been almost exclusively from the North
as compared with the South.
The Slave State which has increased _most_ rapidly to the square mile of
all of them from 1790 to 1860, has had a smaller augmentation per square
mile than that Free State which has increased most _slowly_ per square
mile during the same time of all the Free States, and the result is the
same as to wealth and education also. Under the _best_ circumstances for
the Slave States, and the _worst_ for the Free States, this result
proves the uniformity of the rule (like the great law of gravitation),
knowing no exception to the effect of slavery in depressing the progress
of States in population, wealth, and education.
The isothermals of the great Humboldt (differing so widely from
parallels), which trace the lines of temperature on the earth's surface,
prove, as to heat, the climate of the South (running a line from
Charleston to Vicksburg) to be substantially the same as that of Greece
and Italy-each, in its turn, the mistress of the world.
The Census of 1860 exhibits our increase of population from 1790 to 1860
at 35.59 per cent., and of our wealth 126.45. Now, if we would increase
the wealth of the country only one tenth in the next ten years, by the
gradual disappearance of slavery (far below the results of the Census),
then our wealth being now $16,159,616,068, the effect of such increase
would be to make our wealth in 1870, instead of $36,593,450,585, more
than sixteen hundred millions greater, and in 1880, instead of
$82,865,868,849, over three billions six hundred millions, or more than
three times our present debt.
Before the close of this letter, it will be shown that the difference,
_per capita_, of the annual products of Massachusetts and Maryland
exceeds $150. As to the other Southern States, the excess is much
greater. Now, if the annual products of the South were increased $150
each _per capita_ (still far below Massachusetts) by the exclusion of
slavery, then multiplying the total population of the South, 12,229,727,
by 150, the result would be an addition to the annual value of the
products of the South of $1,834,456,050, and in the decade,
$18,344,580,500. This change would not be immediate, but there can be no
doubt that with the vastly greater natural advantages of the South, the
superiority of free to slave labor, the immense immigration, especially
from Europe to the South, aided by the Homestead Bill, and the
conversion of large plantations into small farms, an addition of at
least one billion of dollars would be made in a decade, by the
exclusion of slavery, to the value of the products of the South.
Having considered the relative progress in population of Massachusetts
and Maryland, I will now examine their advance in wealth.
By Tables 33 and 36, Census of 1860, the value of the products of
Massachusetts that year was $287,000,000; and of Maryland, $66,000,000.
Table 33 included domestic manufactories, mines, and fisheries (p. 59);
and Table 36, agricultural products. Dividing these several aggregates
by the total population of each State, the value of that year's product
of Massachusetts was $235 _per capita_, and of Maryland, $96, making the
average annual value of the labor of each person in the former greatly
more than double that of the latter, and the gross product more than
quadruple. This is an amazing result, but it is far below the reality.
The earnings of commerce and navigation are omitted in the Census, which
includes only the products of agriculture, manufactures, the mines, and
fisheries. This was a most unfortunate omission, attributable to the
secession leaders, who wished to confine the Census to a mere
enumeration of population, and thus obliterate all the other great
decennial monuments which mark the nation's progress in the pathway of
empire.
Some of these tables are given as follows:
_First, as to Railroads._--The number of miles in Massachusetts in 1860
(including city roads) was 1,340, and the cost of construction
$61,857,203. (Table 38, pp. 230, 231.) The value of the freight of these
roads in 1860 was $500,524,201. (P. 105.) The number of miles of
railroad in Maryland at the same time was 380, the cost of construction
$21,387,157, and the value of the freight (at the same average rate)
$141,111,348, and the difference in favor of Massachusetts $359,412,883.
The difference must have been much greater, because a much larger
portion of the freight in Massachusetts consisted of domestic
manufactures, worth $250 per ton, which is $100 a ton above the average
value.
The passengers' account, not given, would vastly swell the difference in
favor of Massachusetts.
The tonnage of vessels built in Massachusetts in 1860 was 34,460 tons,
and in Maryland, 7,798 tons. (P. 107).
The number of banks in Massachusetts in 1860 was 174; capital,
$64,619,200; loans, $107,417,323. In Maryland the number was 31;
capital, $12,568,962; loans, $20,898,762. (Table 34, p. 193.)
The number of insurance companies in Massachusetts, 117; risks,
$450,886,263. No statement given for Maryland, but comparatively very
small, as the risks in Massachusetts were nearly one sixth of all in the
Union.
Our exports abroad, from Massachusetts, for the fiscal year ending 30th
June, 1860, were of the value of $17,003,277, and the foreign imports
$41,187,539; total of imports and exports, $58,190,816; the clearances,
746,909 tons, the entries, 849,449; total entered and cleared, 1,596,458
tons. In Maryland, exports, $9,001,600, foreign imports, $9,784,773;
total imports and exports, $18,786,323; clearances, 174,000 tons;
entries, 186,417; total of entries and clearances, 360,417. (Table 14,
Register of Treasury.) Thus, the foreign imports and exports abroad, of
Massachusetts, were much more than triple those of Maryland, and the
entries and clearances very largely more than quadruple. The coastwise
and internal trade are not given, as recommended by me when Secretary of
the Treasury, but the tables of the railroad traffic indicate in part
the immense superiority of Massachusetts.
These statistics, however, prove that, if the earnings of commerce and
navigation were added, the annual value of the products of Massachusetts
_per capita_ would be at least $300, and three times that of Maryland.
In estimating values _per capita_, we must find the earnings of
commerce very large, as a single merchant, in his counting house,
engaged in an immense trade, and employing only a few clerks, may earn
as much as a great manufacturing corporation, employing hundreds of
hands. Including commerce, the value, _per capita_, of the products and
earnings of Massachusetts exceeds not only those of _any State in our
Union_, BUT OF THE WORLD; and would, at the same rate, make the
value of its annual products three hundred billions of dollars; and of
our own country, upward of nine billions of dollars per annum. Such,
under great natural disadvantages, is the grand result achieved in
Massachusetts, by education, science, industry, free schools, free soil,
free speech, _free labor_, free press, and free government. The facts
prove that freedom is progress, that 'knowledge is power,' and that the
best way to appreciate the value of property and augment wealth most
rapidly, is to invest a large portion of it in schools, high schools,
academies, colleges, universities, books, libraries, and the press, so
as to make labor more productive, because more skilled, educated, and
better directed. Massachusetts has achieved much in this respect; but
when she shall have made high schools as free and universal as common
schools, and the attendance on both compulsory, so as to qualify every
voter for governing a State or nation, she will have made a still
grander step in material and intellectual progress, and the results
would be still more astounding.
By Table 35 of the Census, p. 195, the whole value of all the property,
real and personal, of Massachusetts, in 1860, was $815,237,433, and that
of Maryland, $376,919,944. We have seen that the value of the products
that year in Massachusetts was $287,000,000 (exclusive of commerce), and
of Maryland, $66,000,000. As a question, then, of profit on capital,
that of Massachusetts was 35 per cent., and of Maryland 17 per cent.
Such is the progressive advance (more than two to one) of free as
compared with slave labor. The same law obtains in comparing all the
Free with all the Slave States. But the proof is still more complete.
Thus, Delaware and Missouri (alone of all the Slave States) were ahead
of Maryland in this rate of profit, because both had comparatively fewer
slaves; and all the other Slave States, whose servile population was
relatively larger than that of Maryland, were below her in the rate of
profit. The law extends to _counties_, those having comparatively fewest
slaves increasing far more rapidly in wealth and population. This, then,
is the formula as to the rate of profit on capital. First, the Free
States; next, the States and counties of the same State having the
fewest relative number of slaves. The Census, then, is an evangel
against slavery, and its tables are revelations proclaiming laws as
divine as those written by the finger of God at Mount Sinai on the
tables of stone.
For seventy years we have had these Census Tables, announcing these
great truths more and more clearly at each decade. They are the records
of the nation's movement and condition, the decennial monuments marking
her steps in the path of empire, the oracles of her destiny. They are
prophecies, for each decade fulfils the predictions of its predecessor.
They announce laws, not made by man, but the irrevocable ordinances of
the Almighty. We cannot, with impunity, refuse to obey these laws. For
every violation, they enforce their own penalties. From these there is
no escape in the present or the past, nor for the future, except in
conformity to their demands. These laws condemn slavery; and the
punishment for disobedience is recorded in the result of every Census,
and finally culminated in the rebellion. Slavery and freedom are
antagonistic and discordant elements: the conflict between them is upon
us; it admits of no neutrality or compromise, and one or the other
system must perish.
We have seen that slavery is hostile to the progress of wealth and
population: let us now ascertain its influence on moral and intellectual
development.
By Table 15 of the Census of 1860, the result for that year was as
follows: In Massachusetts, value of books printed, $397,500; jobs,
$529,347; newspapers, $1,979,069; total, $2,905,916. Same year in
Maryland, books printed, $58,000; jobs, $122,000; newspapers, $169,000;
total, $350,155. By Table 37, Census of 1860, Massachusetts had 222
newspapers and periodicals, of which 112 were political, 31 religious,
51 literary, miscellaneous 28. Maryland had only 57, all political. The
whole number of copies issued in Massachusetts in 1860 was 102,000,760,
and in Maryland, 20,721,472. Of periodicals, Massachusetts has monthly,
1 political, 10 religious, 18 literary, 7 miscellaneous; quarterly,
religious 3, literary 2, miscellaneous 1, and 1 annual. Maryland had
_none_. Not a religious, literary, scientific, or miscellaneous
periodical or journal in the State! What terrible truths are unfolded in
these statistics! None but a political party press in Maryland, all
devoted, in 1860, to the maintenance, extension, and perpetuity of
slavery, which had 57 advocates, and not one for science, religion, or
literature.
We have seen that the circulation in 1860 of the press in Massachusetts
exceeded that of Maryland by more than eighty-one millions of copies.
These facts all prove that slavery is hostile to knowledge and its
diffusion, to science, literature, and religion, to the press, and to
free government.
For schools, colleges, libraries, and churches, I must take the Tables
of the Census of 1850, those of 1860 not being yet published. There were
in 1850 in Massachusetts, 3,679 public schools, 4,443 teachers, 176,475
pupils; native adults who cannot read or write, 1,861. In Maryland, 907
public schools, 1,005 teachers, 33,254 pupils; native adults who cannot
read or write, 38,426, excluding slaves, to teach whom is criminal.
Thus, then, slavery is hostile to schools, withholding instruction from
the children of the poor.
The number of public libraries in Massachusetts was 1,462, volumes
684,015. In Maryland, 124, and 125,042 volumes. Value of churches in
Massachusetts, $10,206,000. In Maryland, $3,947,884, of which $2,541,240
is in Baltimore (which has very few slaves), and the remainder is mainly
in the seven counties (from which slavery has nearly disappeared)
adjoining Pennsylvania.
As to schools, colleges, books, libraries, churches, newspapers, and
periodicals, it thus appears that Massachusetts is greatly in advance of
Maryland.
Now, then, let us contrast loyal Maryland with rebel South Carolina, the
author of secession, and assuming for many years to instruct the nation.
By the Census of 1860, she had a population of 703,708, of whom 402,406
were slaves; and Maryland, numbering 687,049, had 87,189 slaves. Now, by
the Census of 1860, South Carolina had 45 journals and periodicals, and
her annual circulation was 3,654,840 copies. The circulation therefore
of Massachusetts exceeded that of South Carolina more than ninety-eight
millions of copies, while Maryland exceeded South Carolina more than
seventeen millions of copies. So much for South Carolina as a great
political teacher. As to schools in 1850: South Carolina had 724 public
schools, 739 teachers, 17,838 pupils. Massachusetts, then, had 158,637
more pupils at public schools than South Carolina, and Maryland 15,416
more pupils at public schools than South Carolina.
The press of Massachusetts, we have seen, circulated in 1860 upward of
one hundred and two millions of copies, equal to 279,454 per day,
including journals and periodicals, each read, on an average, by at
least two persons. This is independent of books and pamphlets, and of
the very large circulation of papers from other States and from Europe.
What a flood of light is thus shed daily and hourly upon the people of
Massachusetts! This intellectual effulgence radiates by day and night.
It is the sun in its meridian splendor, and the stars in an
ever-unclouded firmament. It has a centre and a circumference, but no
darkness. Ignorance vanishes before it; wealth follows in its train;
labor rejoices in its association, and finds its products more than
doubled; freedom hails its presence, and religion gives it a cordial
welcome; churches, schools, academies, colleges, and universities
acknowledge its mighty influence. Science penetrates the secrets of
nature, and unfolds each new discovery for the benefit of man. Coal, the
offspring of the sun, develops its latent energy, and water contributes
its untiring hydraulic power. Machinery takes more and more the place of
nerves and muscles, cheapens clothing and subsistence and all the
necessaries of life, and opens new fields of industry, and more
profitable employment for labor. Steam and lightning become the slaves
of man. He performs the journey of a day in an hour, and converses in
minutes around the globe. The strength of man may not have been much
increased, but his power is augmented a thousand fold.
His life may not have been materially lengthened, but, in the march of
knowledge, a year now is as a century, compared with man's progress in
the darkness of the middle ages. The eternal advance toward omniscience
goes on, but is like that of the infinite approach of the asymptote,
which never reaches the hyperbolic curve. The onward of science is in a
geometrical ratio, so that in time, the intellectual progress of a day
in the future, must exceed that of a century in the past. Knowledge is
enthroned as king, and grand truths and new ideas are his ministers.
Science takes the diameter of the earth's orbit as a base line and unit
of measurement, and with it spans immensity, and triangulates the
nebulous systems amid the shadowy verges of receding space. Its
researches are cosmical upon the earth and the heavens, and all the
elements minister to its progress. Sink to the lowest mine, or fathom
the ocean's depth, or climb the loftiest mountains, or career through
the heavens on silken wings, and it is there also. On--on--on;
nearer--nearer--still nearer it moves forever and forever, with
accelerated speed, toward the infinite eternal. Such are the triumphs of
knowledge; and he who diffuses it among our race, or discovers and
disseminates new truths, advances man nearer to his Creator; he exalts
the whole race; he elevates it in the scale of being, and raises it into
higher and still higher spheres.
It is science that marks the speed of sound and light and lightning,
calculates the eclipses, catalogues the stars, maps the heavens, and
follows, for centuries of the past and the future, the comet's course.
It explores the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. With geology,
it notes the earthquake upheaval of mountains, and, with mineralogy, the
laws of crystallization. With chemistry, it analyzes, decomposes, and
compounds the elements. If, like Canute, it cannot arrest the tidal
wave, it is subjecting it to laws and formulas. Taking the sunbeam for
its pencil, it heliographs man's own image, and the scenery of the earth
and the heavens. Has science any limits or horizon? Can it ever
penetrate the soul of man, and reveal the mystery of his existence and
destiny? It is certainly exploring the facts of sociology, arranging and
generalizing them, and deducing laws.
Man, elevated by knowledge in the scale of being, controls the forces of
nature with greater power and grander results, and accumulates wealth
more rapidly. The educated free labor of Massachusetts, we have seen,
doubles the products of toil, _per capita_, as compared with Maryland,
and quadruples them (as the Census shows) compared with South Carolina.
One day's labor of a man in Massachusetts is more than equal to two in
Maryland, and four in South Carolina. So, if we take our savage tribes,
with their huts and tents, their rude agriculture, their furs, their few
and simple household manufactures, their hunting and fishing, the
average product of their annual labor, at four cents a day each, would
be $14.60 a year, or more than a fourth of that of South Carolina
(56.91). So that Massachusetts, in material progress, is farther in
advance of South Carolina than that State is of the savage Indians. Thus
we have the successive steps and gradations of man: Massachusetts, with
free labor and free schools, having reached the highest point of
civilization: South Carolina, with slavery and ignorance (except the
few), in a semi-barbarous stage; and the lowest savage condition, called
barbarous, but nearer to South Carolina than that State to
Massachusetts.
Slavery, then, the Census proves, is hostile to the progress of wealth
and population, to science, literature, and education, to schools,
colleges, and universities, to books and libraries, to churches and
religion, to the press, and therefore to free government; hostile to the
poor, keeping them in want and ignorance; hostile to labor, reducing it
to servitude, and decreasing two thirds the value of its products;
hostile to morals, repudiating among slaves the marital and parental
condition, classifying them by law as chattels, darkening the immortal
soul, and making it a crime to teach millions of human beings to read or
write. And shall labor and education, literature and science, religion
and the press, sustain an institution which is their deadly foe?
The discussion will be continued in my next letter.
R. J. WALKER.
PALMER, THE AMERICAN SCULPTOR.
Sculpture as an art is probably anterior to painting. Form being a
simpler quality than color, the means of imitation were found in a
conformity of shape rather than hue. The origin of sculpture is somewhat
obscured in the thickening mists of antiquity, but it was no doubt one
of the earliest symbols of ideas made use of by man. In fact, in its
primitive development, there is considerable evidence to show that it
was the first essay at a recorded language. The Egyptian hieroglyphics,
those mysterious etchings upon the rock, representing animals, men, and
nondescript characters, were unquestionably rude attempts to hand down
to posterity some account of the great events of those forgotten ages.
The next remove in the history of this art is its employment in the
production of the images of idolatrous worship; and, when confined to
this purpose, it never attained any appreciable excellence. The purely
heathen mind was incapable of conceiving those forms of ideal beauty
which are born of the contemplation of a divine and spiritual beauty
revealed in the word of God and the teachings of his immaculate Son.
The grotesque Egyptian images worshipped on the Nile before the building
of the pyramids, are, judging from the best preserved antiquities, not
very much inferior to the gilded deities to be seen to-day in the
thousand pagodas of heathen lands.
Take for example a Chinese idol of modern make: while it is less angular
and more elaborately finished than the ancient monstrosities found in
Egypt, still, so far as perfection of form or beauty of expression is
concerned, there is little to choose between the two. Each is a fitting
type of the degree of civilization and soul culture of the peoples that
produced them. It must not be urged that the success of sculpture in
Greece and Rome disproves the proposition that the art could not develop
itself among a strictly idolatrous race.
The splendid mythologies of the Greeks and Romans must not be considered
as the highest forms even of the worship of idols or inanimate things.
The gods and goddesses of these mythological systems were principally
the powers that were supposed to preside over the different forces and
elements of nature, and were invested with the celestial attributes of a
higher order of beings. Neptune ruled the sea, Pluto was director of
ceremonies in the infernal regions, while Jupiter was emperor of the sky
and king of all the lesser gods.
These deities were the invention of a cultivated intellect, a refined
taste and polished civilization, and furnish a striking proof of man's
longing after the Infinite, unguided by the star of revelation.
The imaginative Greeks did not worship the statues of the gods _per se_,
but only admired them as the fitting representations of those mysterious
forces that hold sway over earth, air, fire, and water, or reverenced
them as the symbols of noble sentiments or sublime passions. The thing
itself, the cunning but lifeless figure, was only incidental, while the
idea thus typified was the real incentive to worship. This was also the
age that produced hero worship, and the great man who won the praise and
admiration of the people by his exalted qualities, or his prowess in
arms, was considered as a demigod, or one in favor with the tenants of
Olympus, and his statue was accordingly erected, to stand beside that,
perhaps, of Mars, Apollo, or Mercury.
Thus we trace the history of sculpture in its steady progress from its
use as a chronicler of events to its employment in the production of the
objects of idolatry, and thence to the mythological period, when it
became the medium of æsthetic expression, attaining its highest
perfection in the palmy days of Greece.
In no people of which the records of the past give any account, can we
find such an active sense of the beautiful as that which permeated the
minds of the polished Greeks. The admiration of physical beauty became
an almost absorbing passion, and its attainment was sought after in
every process which human ingenuity could devise.
The Lacedemonian women were accustomed to place the statues of beautiful
gods or goddesses in their rooms, to the end that the children they
should give birth to, would, by nature's mysterious methods, assimilate
the artistic graces of these celestial models. Perfection of form and
manly strength were the pride of the wisest and most learned men of the
nation, denoting that physical excellence was considered the necessary
concomitant of moral or intellectual worth. Authentic annals tell us
that Plato and Pythagoras appeared as wrestlers at the public games; and
who shall say that these philosophical gymnasts did not derive much of
their mental vigor from this exciting exercise? In this age it is easy
to see that sculpture must have received every incentive to full
development. In the people about him the artist saw the most excellent
models for his chisel, while the national taste was educated to the
highest degree in the beauties of form and the harmonies of proportion.
But the grand conceptions of Phidias, full of majesty and of grandeur as
they are--the matchless finish of the works of Apelles and Praxiteles,
ravishing the senses with their carnal beauty, still lacked one element,
without which art can never reveal itself in the full perfection of its
latent capabilities.
Mere physical beauty, which contains no spiritual element, no drawing of
the immortal soul, no suggestion of purer and nobler sentiments
struggling for expression in the cunning marble, can never satisfy the
requirements of the Christianized taste of modern times.
The Venus de Medici was undoubtedly the ideal type of womanly perfection
in the age which produced it, but now the sex would hardly feel
themselves flattered by so poor an interpretation. The form is all that
could be desired, but the head and features are positively insipid, and
a phrenologist would tell you by the development of the cranium that
female education was not a part of the Grecian policy. There is in this
statue a certain air of wantonness, a perceptible consciousness of being
valued and admired solely for physical beauty, which just as plainly
tells the estimate placed upon woman in those times as we can read the
fact in history.
Thus we perceive sculpture as a representative art has become a
chronicler of the world's advancement, so that those who accept the
theory of human progression would naturally look for purer and more
spiritual conceptions in the artist's soul, with a corresponding
nobility in the creations of his genius. The æsthetic principle in its
higher manifestations is not the product of pagan mind, because ideal
beauty and the rules governing its expression can only be conceived by
him to whom Faith has opened the glorious possibilities of our existence
beyond the grave. In no classic picture or statue is there anything akin
to that divine affinity that is apparent in the Madonnas of the Italian
masters of the sixteenth century, investing them with a charm that
lingers like an autumn sunset In the recollection of long-departed
years. Compare the loveliest of the Madonnas of Correggio and Raphael
with the Venus of Cos, and we perceive the inferiority of mere physical
perfection to that spiritual beauty that exalts the soul of the
beholder, and awakens the slumber of his immortal longings.
Faultless finish, harmonious outlines, and voluptuous proportions are
only the result of mechanical skill, that a good imitator or copyist can
for the most part achieve by the aid of his master's model. But the
sentiment, emotion, passion, the _character_, so to speak, of the
statue, is the creation of the artist, the offspring of his quickened
brain.
It is to express the æsthetic idea struggling in the soul of genius,
that the marble takes its form, the canvas its color, sweet sounds
combine in melody, and language weaves itself into the wreath of song.
The same divine impulse, the same grasping after a higher excellence
inspires the sculptor, the painter, the composer, and the poet, but some
chance bent of nature has decided them to choose different mediums of
expression.
Some critic has written, had Coles' 'Voyage of Life' been executed in
verse, instead of a series of pictures, it would have ranked as one of
the grandest poems of the age. High art, then, whatever its kind, is the
language of the æsthetic feeling in man--it symbolizes the god-like
element in his nature. Cumulative and progressive, it keeps even pace
with an improving civilization, and should therefore furnish fairer
products to-day than in any period of the past. It assimilates the
spirit of the times in which it is exercised; for as Ralph Waldo Emerson
remarks in his subtle, essay: 'No man can quite emancipate himself from
his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the
religion, the politics, usages, and arts of his times shall have no
share.'
So we see from the very necessity of this truism, that if our painters
and sculptors would not be mere imitators of the exponents of another
age, there would be soon established a national school of art. We do not
mean by this a mere conventional type in finish and mode of treatment,
but certain marked, characteristic excellences and features that would
identify it with the history of our country and the peculiarities of our
people. There are a few native artists who have struggled to achieve
this consummation, and preëminent among these is Erastus D. Palmer, the
American sculptor.
The history of his career, his origin, his process of study, his choice
of subjects in all his great works, his rise and triumph as an artist,
all entitle him to this distinctive appellation. He commenced life as a
carpenter and joiner, but, while practising his trade in Utica, N. Y.,
his eye accidentally fell on a cameo likeness, and as the dropping of an
apple suggested to Newton the laws of gravitation, so the sight of this
little trifle was the talisman that revealed to Palmer the artistic
capabilities of his genius. Being thus led to attempt the portrait of
his wife upon a shell, he executed his task--which was in a twofold
sense a labor of love--with such fidelity to nature, such bold outline,
and delicacy of finish, that connoisseurs detected in it the hand of a
master. Thus encouraged, he for two years made cameo cutting his
business, and followed it with remarkable success, till, his eyes
becoming affected by the exercise of this talent, he was obliged to
relinquish it, with the expectation of returning to his old trade. But
happily he was induced to try his skill at modelling in clay, and then
he discovered what was in him. Taking his little girl for a model, he
produced a bust, styled the 'Infant Ceres,' which, when finished in
marble, immediately took rank as one of the gems of art. The sweet
_naïvete_ of budding childhood, the timid eyes and dimpled cheek, all
refined and sublimated by the ideal graces added by the magic wand of
genius, combined to make this earliest bust of our sculptor one of the
most felicitous products of his chisel.
Soon after this satisfactory experiment, Palmer removed to the city of
Albany, where he has since remained and won his well-deserved fame. His
two allegorical pieces, 'Resignation' and 'Spring,' we cannot forbear to
describe, familiar as they are to the _virtuoso_ of art, and well known
even to the great public.
The latter is a female bust, her hair bound with a fillet of grass and
half-developed grain, her face wearing an expression of modest coquetry,
quite in keeping with the capricious, 'celestial maid;' while the gently
swelling bosom suggests the latent forces of nature which only reach
their fulness in the summer sun. And about the eyes there is a look of
joy and freshness in which you fancy you can see
'the flowers begin to spring,
The skies to brighten, and the birds to sing.'
The 'Resignation' represents the refined voluptuousness of riper
womanhood. The features are exquisitely cut, and represent a type of
beauty fit for angelic spheres. The head, so finely proportioned, and
crowned with luxuriant, waving hair, inclines gracefully to one side, as
in submission to the chastenings of Providence. But in the downcast,
sorrowful eyes, there is an expression of mingled hope and patient
endurance such as Mary might have worn at the foot of the cross. The
marble is eloquent of that Christian sentiment: 'He doeth all things
well.' The religious feeling of the sixteenth century, which gave to art
both its inspiration and theme, never found so fair a mould as in this
bust of 'Resignation.'
Both of these works are entirely free from all explanatory accessories,
and interpret themselves to the most sluggish soul.
Another of Palmer's compositions, and one of the most purely ideal, is
the 'Dream of the Spirit's Flight.' This is a large bas-relief, executed
in medallion style. To give any idea by mere words of the spirit of this
performance is impossible. It is the half figure of a peri-like girl,
with tresses swaying in the higher air, with butterfly wings, arms and
drapery gracefully disposed, and all the parts uniting to impress you
with a sense of upward, soaring motion! There is a divine beauty about
the face reflected from a brighter world. Sculptured in pure white
marble, it seems a very soul just escaped from its prison house of clay,
and, listening to those 'sounds seraphic,' bearing away to the great
Beyond.
While gazing on this airy sprite, the beholder feels an exhilarating
influence steal over him, and involuntarily there goes up from his
heart, like incense, that yearning prayer:
'So grant me, God, from every care,
And stain of passion free,
Aloft through virtue's purer air
To hold my course to Thee!'
We cannot speak separately of his 'Morning and Evening,' 'Immortality,'
'Sleeping Peri,' his statue and bas-relief of 'Faith,' busts, and other
works, which are grouped in odd companionship about his studio. But the
'Indian Girl' and 'White Captive,' the crowning achievements of Palmer's
genius, and the ones that give a thoroughly American character to his
reputation, demand an elaborate consideration--not to explain their
merits, but to show what materials for art exist in our history, when
appropriated by the master's hand.
Romance and poetry have not often been successful in treating of the
character and customs of our aborigines, for the elements of true
heroism in the savage nature are so exceptional and few, that the red
man is a very poor subject for the higher manifestations of art. Cooper
and Longfellow alone have come back from this field with the trophies of
praise. But Palmer, with a striking originality and a subtle perception
of spiritual influences, sees in the effect of Christianity on the
'untutored mind' of the Indian, a theme to inspire his plastic clay. So
from this idea he evolves the 'Indian Girl,' standing in an attitude of
perfect repose, holding in her right hand a crucifix, on which her eyes
are bent pensively in a sweet, absorbing reverie, which shuts out the
consciousness of the external world. In the other hand, which hangs
listlessly by her side, she barely touches rather than holds a bunch of
feathers, evidently gathered to adorn her person, and which she forgets
in the contemplation of the story of the Cross. The artist supposes she
has found this crucifix, which the early Catholic missionaries were wont
to attach to the forest trees, and having heard from some of these
zealous teachers an exposition of Christ's mission, the better life has
already begun to dawn in her soul, and her whole aspect tells that this
mysterious influence is upon her.
The features are Indian, fair and comely--we do not say beautiful,
because this term expresses the highest excellence, and ought as a
descriptive phrase to be more sparingly used. The face is idealized, as
the rules of true art always require, but still preserves its fidelity
to the natural type. The form is nude to the waist, the drapery arranged
with unrivalled grace, the hair is clubbed so as to reveal the neck and
shoulders, while the perfection of contour and the completeness of
development satisfy the most critical eye for the study of detail. The
'Indian Girl' forms one of the landmarks in the history of American
sculpture.
But Palmer's grand, characteristic work, in which his genius seems to
have reached its noblest expression, is the 'White Captive,' which we
believe to be one of the most perfect creations of ancient or modern
art. It is something more than the nude figure of a surpassingly
beautiful woman, bound to the stake, and defying the gaze of her
barbarous captors--it is not merely an exciting incident in pioneer
life, but it has a grand symbolical meaning that reaches beyond a
literal interpretation of the situation.
We see in this statue the contact of civilization with savage instinct,
and in the expression of the 'White Captive,' peering through maiden
timidity, and rising triumphant above physical fear in a look of
intellectual and religious strength, before which the swarthy warrior
feels himself in the presence of a superior power--a ruler! As we gaze
on in mute admiration, we behold the race of the red man receding
westward before that same power pictured in this wonderful face: now the
Indian tribes pass the Rocky mountains, they come within the roar of the
Pacific, and, growing less and less, they at last vanish away into the
uncertain mists of the ocean--a lost people, who have served the purpose
for which they were created, and disappeared from our continent to make
room for a nobler humanity. It is this melancholy fate, this glorious
triumph, that Palmer has recorded in a language more forcible than
history, more eloquent than song, more ravishing than the lyre! To
define how the statue spreads before you this great vision, eludes the
acutest analysis; but there it is, told just as plainly as the Falls of
Niagara or the eternal stars tell the omnipotence of God.
The longer one studies this marvellous work, the more he sees to admire,
to reflect upon. There is something in the general effect that makes the
beholder forget the perfect nudity of the figure, which necessarily
grows out of the circumstances of the case, and which is entirely unfelt
by the captive in her terrible realization of the peril which surrounds
her. Thus two great difficulties that embarrass the execution of
undraped statuary are entirely overcome:
1. The nudity is only incidental to the general effect, and the subject
seems entirely unconscious of the fact.
2. The nudity is accounted for by the situation--the captive is tied
unclad to a tree, to be burned alive, according to Indian custom.
Thus a criticism that has been frequently made (and not unjustly) on the
_morale_ of certain works of art, has no application to this.
Of the details of this ideal creation--its matchless finish, the
graceful undulations of the perfect form, the firmness expressed in the
clenched fingers, the instinctive shudder gathered on the fair brow, the
lofty defiance of the eyes and half-parted lips, the radiant beauty of
the face--we can only say they live in our memory, but too deep for
words. We believe the truth of the artist's conception, that the
revengeful savages acknowledged the divinity of her beauty and Christian
reliance, and the 'White Captive' went free--the spirit of civilization
triumphed!
As a man's character is always more or less associated with his
achievements, the reader may wish to learn something of Mr. Palmer as a
man. In all kinds of soul-work, there is ever perceptible a certain
flavor of the mind which produces it, and the things thus created
usually suggest the qualities of the creator. So the works of the
sculptor are to some degree the exponents of his character, the
expressions of his inner life.
Therefore in Mr. Palmer we should expect moral and intellectual worth of
a high order, added to the purest and most exalted motives. He is in
spirit a reformer, taking an interest in every measure for the
improvement of our race, and sympathizing with every struggle of our
aspiring manhood.
The eccentricities, excuses, and conventional affectations of many real
and pretended geniuses he entirely eschews, feeling himself one of the
people, and laboring for their elevation.
Neither does he deem it any part of genius to neglect his family, forget
to pay his butcher's bill, and ignore the claim of his tailor. His ample
house and neat atelier, at the north end of Eagle street, in the city of
Albany, are the fruit of his patient and inspiring toil--his chisel has
won him moderate fortune as well as world-wide fame.
Photographs of the 'Palmer Marbles' are seen in the show windows of
Paris, London, and Berlin, while in this country they help to fill the
portfolios of the _virtuoso_, adorning the walls of the parlor and the
private gallery.
Though in youth Palmer did not receive an average common-school
education, he converses like a man of liberal culture, showing that he
belongs to the class of self-made men.
He has never visited the interminable art palaces of Europe, nor
studied, in the sense in which that term is used, the 'old masters;'
still he has appropriated all the valuable hints to be obtained from the
classic models, without regarding them as the _ne plus ultra_ of
artistic execution, and therefore to be only imitated, to the exclusion
of the higher ideals of an advanced civilization.
He has an intelligible and correct theory in regard to the fidelity of
art to nature. For instance, he insists that he should _represent_, not
imitate; and in making a bust of a man, the sculptor should express the
higher moods of his subject, and show him with his better qualities
brought to the surface. So the forms of nature should be idealized in
the direction of their primitive tendency, and thus art help to express
that ineffable longing of the soul, that reaching upward for a
perfection that is approximated on earth, but never attained. This
idealization is like the humor of Dickens, something more than nature in
its grotesqueness, yet a stimulated growth of the natural quality.
Palmer always takes nature for his model, and then assimilates it to
that ideal beauty which dwells in his imagination and sheds a spiritual
halo over the creation of his chisel.
Like every true disciple of genius, he feels that he has a mission to
perform, and that he is responsible for the influence he exerts on the
tastes and æsthetic culture of the people. As you chat with him in his
studio, dressed in his blouse and cap, his dark eye glowing with
enthusiasm for his art, or sparkling with playful humor, standing before
you tall and vigorous, you see in him one of the earnest workers for the
elevation of our humanity.
The utilities of the world will take care of themselves: let us foster
the beautiful, because, like all divine attributes, man reaches it
through striving, and is made better by its contemplation.
Palmer does not look older than forty, and has perhaps not yet attained
the fulness of his powers, but has in him the elements of a healthy
growth.
Work on, thou almoner of sweetest joys, thou pilgrim in that fairy realm
whence come the high ideals of life; work on, striver for the perfect
type of beauty and of truth, and in thy progress let the people trace
our human nature rising to diviner heights--expanding to sublimer
bounds!
CLOUDS.
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO PROFESSOR GUYOT.
High and fathomless above us vaults the pure aerial sky,
Solemn bends its arch of Beauty round a world where all things die.
On the dome through which Earth's swinging, spun of palpitating air,
Angel artists fresco vapors into pictures passing fair.
No cold canvas of dead color has the Mighty Master given:
Trembles with His Infinity the azure vault of Heaven.
On and in the lucent background float the ever-changeful forms,
Sometimes glowing into glory, sometimes glooming into storms.
God's blest seal is on creation; signs and symbols throng the sky,
Though too dull to read their meaning droops the stolid human eye.
Over mountain, over valley throng the clouds to soothe the sight;
Through the dim walls of the city gleam they buoyant, fleeting, bright.
Gentle, dreadful, or fantastic--nearer, farther as we gaze;
Varied, spiritual, tender, forms and melts the surging haze.
'Heavenly secrets' breathe around us--lowly flowers on the sod,
Cloudland's curves and grading colors veil the Infinite of God.
The Infinite--we shudder! but wild longings through us steal
As we vainly strive to grasp It till our failing senses reel.
Ever longing, never grasping, though in tenderness It stoop
To shade the scented cups of flowers, to bend them as they droop.
For through infinite gradations pass the changeful hues of light,
That the infinite through color may send greetings to the sight.
Through ne'er-returning, endless curves, flowers, trees, clouds,
mountains pass,
That man may see the Infinite through nature's magic glass.
Oh, tender stooping! soothing! Infinite Love must be
The cause, aim, end, the burning heart of everything we see.
Earth may cover deep her dying, parted hearts chant weary dirge,
But we _feel death is but seeming_ in the Cloudland's evening surge.
* * * * *
_CIRRI._
Floating high above the mountains, in the fields of upper air,
Multitudinous throng the Cirri, ranged in order, heavenly fair.
Rank upon rank in glory lie the transverse, plumy bars;
Tranquil beauty rules the union which disorder never mars.
Perfect symmetry, obedience, mark their finely chiselled lines--
In the highest sphere of being flexile _grace_ with _law_ combines.
Now they break in fleecy ripples as innumerably they press;
Shines the blue of Heaven between them as they fly the Wind's caress.
Millions fleck the face of Heaven, but no two alike are ever:
Restless mirror of the Infinite, form seems exhausted never.
Are they lambs 'mid Heaven's blue pastures? are they swans with
downy breast
Floating through that azure ocean round the region of the Blest?
Are they snowy wings of Cherubs gathering round the Throne above,
As the vesper hymn of Heaven rises to the Eternal Love?
Gazing on their wavy ripples, they seem mingling with the sky,
Yet the heavenly little islets still innumerable lie.
How the fleecy cloudlets glitter as they sail so clear and high!
Is light curdling into snowflakes as it streams athwart the sky?
Freezing? No--warm and glowing, ambient, changeful, feathery, bright,
Rather seem the floating vapors melting into roseate light.
With the white flame in their bosoms, and the pure blue depths above,
When the sunset rays dart kisses, how they kindle into love!
See, with every shaft electric flash the bright hues deeper, higher,
Till the chaste and snowy cloudlets fleck the Blue of Heaven with fire.
How they flush and how they quiver! how the virgin drifts of snow
Drink the sunset's dying passion, catch his ardent parting glow!
Love weaves close in chords harmonic all the finely fretted dome,
Blue, white, purple, gold, and crimson, fringe, melt, ripple into foam.
Thus the angels drape God's footstool with soft vapor, wind, and sun:
Does His smile rest on the artists when their pleasant work is done?
Do they see Him bend the Heavens, riding swiftly on the clouds,
Heat His Heart, and Light the shadow which His inner Glory shrouds?
Seraphs, cherubs, thronging round Him, shall our hearts no raptures move?
Shall we prove dull links reluctant in the chain of endless love?
No. We feel the electric secret flashing through the Perfect Whole,
'Bliss eternal' telegraphing upon every faithful soul.
* * * * *
_CUMULI._
Leave we now the upper regions
With their wonders pure and high,
Gone the barred and fleecy Cirri--
Mountain Cumuli storm the sky.
High the calmness floats above us,
Tears and rain lie far below,
As we sail the middle Cloudland,
Where the vapors come and go.
Throbs a wilder pulse of passion,
Stronger individual life,
Rapid, energetic motion
Tells of elemental strife.
Nearer seem they to the human,
Rearing dizzy forms on high,
Than the order-loving Cirri
Barring the translucent sky.
Lovingly they crest our mountains,
Hovering o'er them all the day,
Copying all the soaring outlines
In artistic, skilful play;
Following close on the horizon,
Dip, break, gap, and lofty peak,
As to build Earth into Heaven
Would the haunting vapors seek.
Drifting swiftly through the azure,
Chase they shadows over Earth:
Flying footsteps, soft and silent,
Flit o'er grassy graves in mirth.
Shudder not--the bearded harvest
Quivers not, so light the tread:
Let it glide o'er moss and violet--
Would its touch could wake our dead!
Piling now, the tossing vapors,
With a wild exultant power,
Rise in turrets, towers, mountains,
Changing with the changing hour.
Glittering, gleaming, dazzling, snowy,
Heart-tossed shadows in them lie;
Broken, scattered, wind-torn, foamy,
Haunt they through Earth's panting sky.
Luminous jets of boiling vapor
Topple into sudden rifts,
Open into yawning chasms,
Break in tortured whirling drifts,
Panting, surging, rocking, reeling,
Cradling in their hearts the storm,
Spirit, power, passion flashing,
Lightning bares each secret form.
Banding now in groups colossal,
Piling o'er the mountain crest,
Sweeping down his rocky summit,
Crashing through his wooded breast,
Shattering fall his pines and larches,
Rain, hail, tumult onward swell,
Lightning scathes the shuddering forest,
Thunder frights the leafy dell.
Sunset fires the whirling vapors,
Now they sway and rock in light,
Toppling crests fling back the radiance,
Through the rifts it glitters bright,
Gloomy clouds are ruby kindling,
Rippling fringed with molten gold,
Rosy streams of color pouring,
Through the tempest's blackness rolled.
Surging weird in fitful beauty,
Every moment fraught with change,
Every break and mystic chasm
Opening up a Heaven-range:
Now the eastern peaks are kindling
Glow as though the Morning's heart
Throbbed against them, while the formless
Clouds to phantom being start.
Thus through storm-tost human bosoms
God oft sends His rays divine;
Passionate errors, when forgiven,
Lead us on to trust sublime.
God rays light through moral tempests,
Brings repentance out of crime;
'Much forgiven' ploughs the spirit,
Former faults as beacons shine.
Through our ruins Love is gleaming,
Rippling o'er in molten gold,
Rosy streams of life are pouring
Through our tempest's blackness rolled.
Glittering thus in growing beauty,
Every moment fraught with change,
Through each rift and shattered chasm
We may see the Heaven-range.
Thus the angels build the pictures
In the vext or tranquil skies,
Of our changeful human passions,
Stormful fall and heaven-won rise.
Thus they write in love and pity,
Radiant with their heaven-dyes,
Lessons for the lost, the erring,
Hope for weary, dying eyes.
* * * * *
_RAIN CLOUDS._
High float the Cirri,
Passionless, pure;
Wild pile the Cumuli,
Never secure;
Low sweep the Rain Clouds
Over the sky,
Glooming the sunshine,
Slow trailing by.
Mystical region
Typifies Earth--
Light in the bosom
Of darkness has birth;
Magical mingling
Of beauty and gloom,
Calm follows tempest
As Heaven the tomb.
Shrouding the distance,
Legions of mist
Glide down the river
Joining the list
Of the shadowy army
Hurrying on
Over wide waters
To welcome the sun.
Catching his gleaming,
Faster they run,
Roseate surging,
Roll into one;
Filling the valley,
Luminous haze,
Heavenward soaring,
Rocks as we gaze;
Lifting strange columns
Of light in the air,
Weaves golden sunshine
Fitful and fair
Through the cloud pillars
Thrown to the sky,
Like the Dream-ladder
Jacob slept by.
Trailing o'er treetops,
Shadowing graves,
Gloomily weeping
While the wind raves,
Blurring the landscape
Rain clouds press on,
Lowering on nature
With leaden-hued frown.
Sulphurous, lurid,
Thunder is near;
Sobbings and mutterings
Fill us with fear.
Palls with wild fringes
Stream on behind--
Death may be riding
The wings of the wind.
Jagged clouds hanging
Formless and black,
Hurtle the whirlwind
Fast o'er their track;
Fiery flashes
Scathe the green plain;
Cataracts falling
In torrents of rain.
Thunder and lightning
Crash through the sky;
Whirlwinds are carding
The clouds as they fly!
Nature is reeling,
Sin at our heart,
Heaven is angered--
Well may we start!
God throws His shadow
Into the gloom;
The raindrops have caught it,
And break into bloom!
His light on Earth's teardrops
Gems Bliss on her clouds,
His rainbow of color
Paints Hope on her shrouds.
Tender and lovely,
Luminous, fair,
Infinite Beauty
Is bending through air,
Breathing through color,
Through Order, through Form,
That infinite Love
Rules the heart of the storm.
Caught in soft meshes,
Fractions the light,
Gold, green, or ruby,
Tremblingly bright.
Through the torn chasms
Smiles the lost blue--
The wilder the drifting,
The deeper the hue.
Beauty above us,
Beauty around,
Clouds, stars gem the heavens,
Trees, flowers paint the ground.
Rapturous meaning
Illumines the whole:
God gives us Beauty,
For Love is His Soul!
High-floating Cirri,
Passionless, pure;
Wild-piling Cumuli,
Never secure;
Low-trailing Rain Clouds
With rainbow-lit pall--
Softly ye whisper
That Love ruleth all!
SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.
II.--THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.
Who, in ascending the Hudson River, has not watched for the first
glimpse of the Catskills, and followed with delight their gradual
development of peak and clove, until, near Hudson, they stood fully
revealed, flooded with sunshine, flecked with shadows, or crowned by
storm-laden clouds?
This region is noteworthy, not alone from its beauty and incalculable
utility, but also from the associations clustering around it through the
pen of poets and writers of romance, the brush of the artist, and the
memories of thousands of tourists, who have found health and strength
for both body and mind upon its craggy heights or beside its numberless
wild and beautiful mountain torrents. It comprises the whole of Greene
County, a portion of Delaware, and the neighboring borders of Ulster,
Schoharie, and Albany. It truly deserves the appellation of 'many
fountained,' giving rise to great rivers, such as the Delaware, and one
of the main branches of the Susquehanna, and to manifold smaller
watercourses, as the Schoharie, Catskill, and Esopus. Unlike the
Highlands of Northern New Jersey and Southern New York, and the region
of the Adirondacs, its lakes are few and very small. The best known are
the twin lakes near the Mountain House, and Shue's Lake, not far from
the summit of Overlook Mountain. These are all at a height,
approximately, of two thousand feet above the river, and add greatly to
the variety and interest of the landscape in their vicinity.
Names among these hills are a commodity so scarce that their paucity
presents a serious obstacle to intelligible description. Round Tops and
High Peaks are innumerable. We hope, when Professor Guyot completes his
cursory survey of heights, made eighteen months ago, he will strive to
do as in North Carolina, and supply the deficiency. Nomenclature is a
difficult matter, and requires a poet, a poetic man of science, or the
imaginative intuitions of a primitive people.
The main range of the Catskills finds its southerly corner in Overlook
Mountain, not far from Woodstock, and about seven miles (more or less)
west of the Hudson. One ridge extends northerly (a little east, parallel
with the river) from twelve to fourteen miles, and then, at the North
Mountain, making an obtuse angle, turns to the northwest, and passes
through Windham into Schoharie County: the other ridge, starting from
Overlook, runs in a westerly direction along the southern border of
Greene County, and finally in Delaware sinks into broken hill ranges of
less elevation. The space intermediate between these two main ridges is
at first narrow, but gradually widens as they diverge from the starting
point; its interior (northwesterly) slope is drained by the Schoharie (a
branch of the Mohawk) and its tributaries, the East, the West, and
Batavia Kills. Singular gaps or cloves intersect the range, affording
easy communication with the lowlands bordering its base. Each clove has
its own stream, and in the main ones on the river front are found the
countless and beautiful waterfalls which constitute the chief
characteristic of Catskill scenery. The more primitive rocks of the
Highlands, the Adirondacs, and the White Mountains do not offer such
numerous and picturesque sheets of falling water as the red sandstone of
the Catskills.
Starting from Overlook Mountain, whence the view is said to be
magnificent, and proceeding northward, we first reach the Plattekill
Clove, up whose steep and wooded cleft winds a wild road, chiefly used
for quarrying purposes, and down whose abrupt declivity the Plattekill
leaps from crag to crag in a series of fine falls and cascades. The
quantity of water during the summer months, except after considerable
rain, is small, but the rock formations are very interesting, reminding
the traveller of wild passes in the Tyrol. This is perhaps the grandest
of all the Catskill clefts, but human ingenuity has here afforded no aid
to the sightseer, and strong heads and agile limbs are needed for the
enjoyment of its hidden beauties.
The mountain to the north of the Plattekill Clove has two crests, known
as High Peak and Round Top. It was long thought to be the loftiest
summit of the Catskills, but must now yield to the Windham High Peak or
Black Head, 3,926 feet high, and perhaps to other elevations in the same
range. Professor Guyot gives its height at 3,684 feet, and that of the
Mountain House as 2,245 feet. This mountain has frequently been
ascended, although there is no regular path leading to the summit, but
the thick growth of wood on the top greatly hinders the satisfactoriness
of the view. Between Round Top and the nearest mountain to the north
lies the Kauterskill Clove, known preëminently as _The Clove_, the home
of artists and the theme of poets. Its springs are drained by the
Kauterskill Creek, a branch of the Catskill, and it is one of the
loveliest spots in America. The road through this clove is one of the
main arteries to the back mountain country, and, from the summit of the
clove, near Haines's sawmill, winds for about three miles to the base,
by the side of streams offering fifteen fine falls and cascades in a
distance of five miles, and between steep and wooded mountain slopes or
rocky crags lifted high in air, now swelling out into the sunlight, and
anon curving back into amphitheatres of shadow. The main Kauterskill
flows from the twin lakes already mentioned, and just below the Laurel
House falls over a precipice of 175 feet, which, with another dash of 80
feet, makes the entire depth of the stream's first grand plunge into the
wild ravine 255 feet. A short distance below is the Bastion Fall, and,
immediately following, the Terrace Cascade, the united height of the two
being certainly not less than 100 feet. These four fine falls are found
in an easy walk of three quarters of a mile leading down the ravine from
the Laurel House to the Clove road.
The Little Kauterskill flows into the main stream at a short distance
below the bridge where the Clove road first crosses that torrent. The
ravine through which it flows is incomparably beautiful, with the grand
plunge (Haines's Fall or Fawn's Leap) at the head, and the seven
graceful cascades, all visible from one projecting table rock, soon
after following. Below the above-mentioned bridge are the Dog Fall, the
cascade at Moore's Bridge, and the Dog Hole, with its steep cliffs and
foaming rapids. At the mouth of the Clove is Palensville, a little
manufacturing village, where town-wearied denizens find fresh air and
pleasant walks and drives during the summer months. To our taste,
however, the summer climate at the various sojourning places, about two
thousand feet above the sea level, is far preferable to that at the base
of the mountain.
Rising to the north of the Clove is the South Mountain, from whose
beetling crags are obtained some of the finest views offered by the
Catskills; then follows the Pine Orchard, where are the well-known
Mountain House, the twin lakes, and the Laurel House at the head of the
Kauterskill Falls; and finally, the North Mountain, which looks down
upon a graceful spur to the east, Kiskatom Round Top, and then sweeps
away to the northwest. Beyond the North Mountain is a considerable
depression, down which passes an execrable road, leading from East
Jewett, within the mountain range, to Cairo, at its foot. Finally, we
reach Windham High Peak,[1] and the fine road crossing the mountains
from Catskill to Delhi, and passing through Windham and Prattsville.
On the southern side of the range, west of Overlook, are two wild and
beautiful clefts, the one known as the Stony Clove, and the other as
West Kill or Bushnell Clove. The first begins as a narrow gorge with
lofty hemlock and moss-clad mountain sides, and gradually opens out, at
Phoenicia, upon the hills of Ulster and Esopus Creek. It is watered by
a trout stream, and its few but cosey farm cottages offer shelter
sufficient for amateur fishermen and artists, bewitched by its fairy
recesses and fine forest growth. In the narrow portion of this clove are
ice caves, where ice may be found at all seasons of the year, and whence
issue cooling winds appreciable in the warmest summer days.
The West Kill, or Bushnell Clove, is said to be still finer and more
alpine than the Stony Clove. The last-mentioned gap and that of the
Plattekill join the main or Kauterskill Clove between Tannersville and
Hunter, while the Bushnell Clove does not intersect the valley of the
Schoharie until the West Kill flows into that stream near the charming
village of Lexington, six miles south, a little west of Prattsville.
These geographical details may seem uninteresting, but if the writer had
possessed them eight years ago, when first making the near acquaintance
of the Catskills, many a mystification might have been avoided, and many
a pleasant excursion, now only known to the fancy, have been found
practicable. One great attraction of the Catskills is, that the greater
number of the spots chiefly interesting are within walking or driving
distance from the chief points of sojourn. Visitors in general confine
themselves to the Mountain House and its immediate vicinity, and hence
see but little of the beauties hidden among the cliffs and ravines of
the inner peaks. The view from the Mountain House plateau is extensive,
but tame and monotonous in character; the horizon is not interesting,
and the cloud scenery is far more impressive than that of the land
beneath. The views from the very easily ascended North or South
Mountains, where, in addition to the river valley, the eye embraces the
lakes, the opening of the Clove, and the distant mountains toward
Lexington, are far superior. Clum's Hill, a terraced eminence, visible
from many points among the Catskills, and the Parker Mountain, east of
Tannersville, both offer peculiar and interesting prospects; but the
king of views is that obtained from the cliffs of the South Mountain
overhanging the Clove. This vista has furnished sketches for two
remarkable pictures painted by that rare artist and genuine son of
Helios, S. R. Gifford. Looking toward the west is the rolling plateau of
the Clove, with the far-away mountains beyond Hunter, the Parker and
North Mountains, the openings to the Stony and Plattekill Cloves, Clum's
Hill, and the silver thread of Haines's Fall. At the foot of the cliffs,
more than a thousand feet below, lie Brockett's (classic ground for
artists), the Clove road, Moore's Bridge, the Dog Fall, and the brawling
Kauterskill. Directly opposite stands the wooded crest of Round Top. The
entire mountain side is visible, and the cleft is so narrow that the
trees can almost be counted as they rise one above another to a height
of 2,500 feet above the roaring stream, which here receives two slender
cascades that have threaded their way through the tangled forest. Toward
the east, the river is visible, and the sloping mountain declivities
frame a lovely picture of lowland country and far-away Connecticut or
Massachusetts hills. The effects of light and shadow are such as we have
never seen surpassed. This earth there seems made of gold or crimson
lights, of gray seas of mist, or of every imaginable combination of
beautiful hues.
These cliffs are reached by a charming walk through a beech wood, and
are distant about a mile from the Laurel House. A longer and still
somewhat rough path was opened thither last summer from the Mountain
House. But we should never end were we to characterize all the beautiful
spots, the entrancing walks and drives to be found amid these cool and
healthful slopes and plateaus. A difference of at least ten degrees is
felt between the mountain resorts and the villages on the river bank,
and the air is inexpressibly fresh and invigorating.
These mountains have also a very interesting flora. The oak, beech,
birch, chestnut, hickory, maple, ash, hemlock--pines, black, white, and
yellow--spruces, fir, and balsam, are among the most widely spread
trees; and of fruits, the blackberry, gooseberry, raspberry,
whortleberry or blueberry, and strawberry, grow in profusion and of fine
flavor. Violets, anemones, liverworts, the fairy bells of the Linnea
Borealis, the fragrant stars of the Mitchella or partridge berry, the
trailing arbutus, Houstonia, the laurel, honeysuckle, sarsaparilla,
wintergreen, bottle gentian, white and blue, purple orchids, willow
herb, golden rod, immortelles, asters in every variety, St. John's wort,
wild turnip, Solomon's seals, wild lilies of the vale, fire lilies,
Indian pipe, with other flowers, ground pines, and varieties of moss and
ferns innumerable, border the winding woodpaths and secluded roads.
There are many regions in America more grand than that of the Catskills,
but none, we think, more easily and gratefully compensatory to a careful
survey.
* * * * *
Within Gethsemane's Garden kneeling,
Bends the Lord His sacred head,
His soul, each human sorrow feeling,
Quivers with keen shafts, sin-sped,
Every human misery knows,
Bears the burden of our woes.
Perchance not men alone His sinking,
Bleeding heart to weep is fain,
But poor dumb creatures sees He drinking
Deep the bitter cup of pain,
Hears the wailing, anguished cry,
Hears but curse and blow reply!
L. D. P.
THE ISSUES OF THE WAR.
The life of the soldier is one of constant anxiety and suspense. He
never knows with any certainty to-day what he shall have to do
to-morrow. Upon seemingly the greatest calm may suddenly burst the most
terrific storm. There is little incentive to thought, except of that
practical kind which directs the activities of the soldier's perilous
life. Here we are, thousands of us, an acting mass rather than an
assemblage of thinking individuals. Indeed, it is not strictly military
to think; implicit and unquestioning obedience is the law. When the
order was finally given on Monday night (September 21st) for the whole
army to fell back on Chattanooga, the writer remarked:
'Well, if we shall not have to go any farther--if we can hold
Chattanooga, we are not defeated;--it is even a victory, and we have won
Chattanooga at the battle of Chickamauga.'
'We want none of your speculations,' retorted our Prussian commander;
'it is a soldier's business to obey, and not to think.'
But, it is hardly natural for an American soldier to execute a movement
without inquiring the wherefore. And if we are marched over mountains,
and down the Lookout at Alpine Pass, within a few miles of Rome; and
then marched back again, up the perilous steep, and northward to
Stevens's Gap, and down again;--why, even common soldiers, without the
evidence of brains which there is, or ought to be, in shoulder straps,
inquire of each other for the strategic value there may be in all this
marching and countermarching, and find it hard to believe that it was
all provided for in the original programme.
But in a still higher sense is the American soldier given to thinking.
He is quite likely to have an opinion as to the origin and cause of the
war--as to the issues involved therein, and the results which it is
likely to bring about. There is, moreover, a multiplicity of views, and
not the unanimity of dulness.
The causes, the issues, the results of the war--momentous themes! and
likely to be thoroughly canvassed by those whom they so vitally
concern--the American citizen and our citizen soldiery.
The causes, issues, and results of the war are so intimately related
that we can scarcely think of one without also thinking of the others.
The causes are more especially a thing of the past--they already belong
to history: the results belong more particularly to the future; the
issues pertain to the present. It is these with which we have more
immediately to do, and which it behooves us, as intelligent actors in
the great drama, to understand. We should not be indifferent to results,
and we are not; but if there are real issues of right and wrong involved
in the contest, and we are in the right, we may rest assured that the
results of a successful prosecution of the war will be worthy of all our
sacrifices, and honorable to us as a people and nation.
In the midst of a beleaguered camp, with no notes of former reading, or
books of reference, it is a poor place for the elaboration of one's
ideas;--the writer, nevertheless, proposes to make a brief inquiry into
the issues involved in this terrible war.
The fact exists that there is a war between the North and South, brought
about, as we believe, by unwarranted and aggressive acts of the Slave
Power. This slave oligarchy of the South either had, or affected to
have, a profound contempt for what they supposed was the want of spirit
in the Northern people. It was a current swagger that we should barely
furnish them with an opportunity to show their superior military
prowess. 'This war shall be waged on Northern soil,' they said. Events
have shown that they miscalculated; but the raids of Jackson, Lee,
Morgan & Co. show how great their will has been to carry out their
threats of invasion. When the rebel guns opened upon Sumter, there was
no alternative left us but fight now, or soon. Had we hesitated and
compromised then, the arrogant spirit of the insurgents would have been
still further flattered and puffed up, and their contempt for the
submissive North made genuine, whatever it may have been before. A
compromise then would have made no lasting peace; the South would soon
have become tired of being merely 'let alone;' her exactions and
aggressions would have become more and more insolent and intolerable,
till warlike resistance or ignoble submission and slavery would have
been our only alternative. This war is, therefore, on our part and in
one sense, a war in self-defence; and this may be regarded as one of its
issues.
Every loyal soldier is fighting for the security of our Northern homes;
and the issue resolves itself into this: The resistance of invasion; the
vindication of our manliness as a people; the protection of our own
firesides--else be overrun, outraged, desolated, enslaved by the minions
of a Southern oligarchy, which indulges the insane conceit that it is
born to rule.
* * * * *
Unfortunately for our country, it embraces two distinct forms of
society, of dissimilar, if not of antagonistic character. It is a
heritage from our ancestors; but none the less an evil for its prestige
from the sanctities of time; and we are now reaping its bitter fruits in
the manifold and hideous forms of a great civil war. Taking human nature
as it is, there appears to be no escape from this cruel ordeal. We of
the North claim that we have transcended that type of society whose
vital and informing element is chattel slavery. There is natural and
irrepressible antagonism between the two forms of society; they cannot
subsist in peace and good feeling by the side of each other, and still
less under the same Government. Conflict was inevitable, and it came.
At this stage of the war and of elucidation respecting its cause and
origin, this may be only commonplace, yet necessary to fulness of
statement.
Slavery felt the necessity of efforts to save herself from impending
ruin; she became taunting and aggressive in her manners and acts, and
resorted at length to violence, reminding one of the oft-repeated
proverb, 'Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.' History has
no readings for the comfort of slavery. There is a progress in human
affairs, and the tide of that progress is against her. Threatening
attitudes and impetuous dashes do not appear to come with salvation; and
the promise--of glory for freedom, and doom for her--now is that, as a
turbulent and rebellious power, she will be completely overthrown; a
sudden and deserved judgment, the legitimate consequence of her own
violence and desperation.
This struggle between a progressive and triumphant civilization, on the
one hand, and a crude, unprogressive, and waning one on the other--if
civilization it can be called--is another of the issues of this war. It
is but the ultimate, the closing catastrophe of the 'irrepressible
conflict.'
Involved in this feature of the war, there is much beside the naked
issue of freedom and slavery.
Slavery has no respect for the affections, as is evinced by the
mercilessness with which she sunders every family tie. The refining
culture of growth in civilization demands respect for the domestic
loves, even of an inferior race. Where chattel slavery exists, labor is
not held in honor, and just in proportion to the depth to which one
class sinks by industrial oppression, does the other sink through
enervating indolence and exhausting indulgence. Where there is chattel
slavery, there cannot be free speech: the utterance of truth may indeed
be incendiary, and the rickety, combustible institution standing out of
its time, must needs protect itself. There must not be free education or
free inquiry. It would never do to teach the slaves; and it is likewise
the interest of this form of society to retain the lower strata of the
nominally free population in ignorance equally dense and impenetrable. A
cringing servility must be generated and maintained on the one side, and
a haughty and exacting superciliousness on the other.
All these may be regarded as constituting minor issues, which are
dependent for their vitality on that which is greater; and when the fate
of the issue between chattel slavery and its antagonist shall have been
determined, there will be no further trouble with the collaterals. When
the main trunk is torn up by the root, the branches will all die.
But while the issue between slavery and freedom thus comprehends within
itself a class of issues which are subordinate, may there not be a still
greater issue which dwarfs that of slavery and freedom into a secondary,
and comprehends within itself this and other issues of equal magnitude
and importance?
Our Government has never given out that its object in the prosecution of
the war is the extinction of slavery. It claims to have adopted
emancipation only as a war measure; the great purpose of the war being
avowedly the recovery of Governmental possessions and the restoration of
the Union. Many moralists, failing, as we believe, to see the real
significance of the idea of political unity, have looked upon the
proposed object of the Government as a low and unworthy one; but have,
nevertheless, rejoiced that the hand of Providence is in the work, and
overruling it to bring out of these meaner aims a great and noble
result.
It may be well to recollect in this connection that it is not always
when great moral ends are the real aim and purpose of a movement that
the greatest good has been accomplished. The greatest moral results have
often followed when the movement proposed no moral end whatever; while
efforts having a direct moral aim have resulted in signal failure, and
sometimes in disaster even to the very end proposed. Well-meant efforts
to save the heathen in a spiritual way have sometimes resulted in their
physical destruction, through the stealthy obtrusion of the pests of
civilization.
It is by no means as yet a settled question that emancipation will
enhance the happiness of our negro population, or that it may not be the
beginning of a series of disasters to the race which will eventuate in
its extinction on this continent. The settlement of the slave question
may be the beginning of the negro question; and the end of one
difficulty the beginning of another.
It may be that sympathy for the negro is seeking to put in train a
series of changes which would terribly revulse those same sympathies, if
the end could be seen from the beginning. Yet these sympathies, even if
mistaken in their direct object, may be working to a great and desirable
end, which they do not as yet recognize. The Crusaders aimed at what
they considered a good, but, failing in that, accomplished a real good
of which they had no conception. They did not make themselves permanent
masters of the Holy Land, but through their intercourse with each other
and with the more cultivated people of the East, they nourished the
germs of a forthcoming civilization in the West.
In the natural history of the world we discover that certain tribes of
sentient beings prey upon certain other tribes; and this seems, on a
cursory view, to be very shocking to the finer sensibilities of our
nature; yet it is an arrangement which results in a larger amount of
sentient enjoyment than could otherwise obtain among these lower
denizens of our inexplicable world. The most vigorous--that which
embodies within itself the greatest and the most various elements of
vitality and power--the most vigorous, I say, prevails; and if the negro
race of our continent should begin to wane and finally go as the 'poor
Indian' has done--a fate which I do not here predict for him--the field
thus vacated will not be lost, but occupied at once, and in time to its
fullest extent, by a race of greater capabilities for culture, progress,
and enjoyment. The physical world has attained to its present advanced
geological condition through much of violence and pain; the same is true
in a moral sense of mankind at large; and there may be still quite a
great deal of this same career to run.
Sympathy of itself is blind, and may 'kill with kindness.' It has often
done so. But it is a noble emotion: let it play its role, since, in the
working out of destiny, 'the will may be taken for the deed,' and a good
accomplished which was not intended or foreseen.
Governments may not be greatly at fault for not proposing 'high moral
aims.' We need only recall the names of Watt, Fulton, Stevenson, Morse,
and others of that class, to perceive that great moral changes are
brought about when no moral purpose is intended. It is not affirmed that
these benefactors of mankind never thought of the moral consequences
which their purely physical labors would produce, but only that the
moral consequences were not the incentive to the mechanical achievement.
The genius of invention had to work out its legitimate results through
the innate force of its own peculiar constitution. The impetus was that
of essential genius, not of moral calculation.
The same thing is true of the cultivation of science for its own sake.
The stargazer with his telescope, the chemist with crucible and retort,
the physiologist with his chemical and optical aids, the purely
scientific thinker--all who prosecute science for the love of it--have
wrought out results which are breaking as light of the clear morning sun
upon the history of nations, thus enabling us to avail ourselves of the
past in order to comprehend the status of the present and the
possibilities of the future.
Great social and political results have thus been attained without
consciously intending them, or seeing how they were to be brought about.
Our Government, without professing great moral purposes, may yet
accomplish more in that direction, and this, too, by the relentless and
bloody hand of war, than has ever been the result of purely moral design
by the most approved moral means, on the part of any combination of
mankind. It may be a crisis in history, and the ushering in of a new
era.
Our Government proposes to recover lost possessions, and restore the
integrity of the Union. Wherefore? Ours is the most beneficent
Government upon the earth, blessing the most human beings, and it should
be sustained. The whole nation has contributed to the acquisition of
Southern territory, and it is not meet that the Northern people should
surrender their interest in the same. The Mississippi River belongs as
naturally to the great West as to the South, and it should be under the
control of the same sovereign power, to be used for the good of one
great people. There is no natural division line between the North and
South, and it would be fatal to the future peace and prosperity of this
continent to attempt to make one.
These are some of the reasons ordinarily given for the prosecution of
this war--for our great effort to reëstablish the Union. They are
practical, readily comprehended, and to urge them is well--enough,
really, for present practical purposes; but may there not be in the idea
of political unity a meaning--a philosophical significance, if you
please, which these practical and obvious considerations do not reveal?
It is the confirmed conviction of the Northern people, with certain
unnatural exceptions, that it is our true policy to maintain the
integrity of the Union at any cost, however great; the people of the
South evidently take a different view of it; the political thinkers of
Europe appear to be divided in their sympathies between the North and
South.
An article appears in a British quarterly to prove that it is the fate
of great empires to fall to pieces; and that China, Turkey, Russia, and
the United States show signs of approaching dissolution. It is observed
that French writers of authority in the Government have issued pamphlets
to prove that the peace and stability of nations require the
dismemberment of the United States. The 'fire eaters' of the South are
not the only people who would like to see the United States in
fragments. We have such even in the North; and in Europe, especially
near the thrones, 'their name is legion.'
The thinking world has not yet settled into the conviction that a great
continental policy, preserving internal peace, and enduring for an
indefinite period into the far-off future, is a possible thing. The fate
of nations and empires, as revealed in history, is apparently against
such an idea. Many empires have already appeared, risen to power, fallen
into decay, and become dismembered, having run their course and
disappeared. May it not be so with our own great confederacy of States?
The authority against a great, practical, enduring political unity is
respectable. May we not be fighting for an illusion? What guarantee have
we in history, science, and common sense, that our Federal Union will
not crumble as the empires of the past have done, and as the political
prophets of Europe, casting the horoscope of nations in the shadows of
their own political fragmentarism, have predicted for us? Even should
the rebels South be chastised, and the Union restored for the present,
have we solid reasons for believing in the permanency of our
institutions? What is the warrant for our faith that American destiny
comprehends the principle of American unity?
People contract habits of thought in a great measure from the nature of
the institutions which surround them. Europe could think nothing but
feudalism at one time; she had no conception of religion outside the
Church of Rome. The Turk thinks by the standard of political absolutism
and the Moslem faith. The reflections of every people are cast in the
national mould; it is so the world over, and has been so in all times.
Europe, or at least a very influential portion thereof, thinks that the
'balance of power' system will yet be inaugurated among the family of
nations yet to spring up on this continent. Her people think balance of
power, and the London _Times_ and like organs of the existing polity
write balance of power for our edification, and for the future of
America. They cannot conceive that there is any other way to get along
for any considerable length of time. In like manner is it
concluded--keeping up the old trains of thought--that if nations once
fell into fragments when shaken, they will do just so again.
Now, perhaps we have contracted habits of thought from the character of
our country and her institutions, and are deceiving ourselves with hopes
which have no real foundation. These, we believe, are considerations
which have engaged the attention of every reflecting man; and it
behooves us, as intelligent Americans and members of a young nation of
hitherto unexampled prosperity and promise, to be able to give a reason
for the faith that is in us.
There are changes and crises in the course and destiny of political
systems. The conditions of one period of time are different from the
conditions of another period. Different conditions necessitate different
political systems. Feudalism did not last always; European diplomacy is
only three hundred years old. If Europe, out of her peculiar situation,
originated the doctrine of balance of power, thus innovating upon the
past, may not we, owing to the novelty of our situation, originate a
continental system which will endure to the remotest periods of time, or
so long as political systems shall have place on the earth?
One empire may fall into fragments to-day; while another may not only
not suffer dissolution, but really grow stronger, and appropriate, in a
most legitimate manner, parts of the dismembered empire.
We must allow, not only for the difference of conditions with reference
to time, but, also, for the different situations at the same time of
different political structures. To assume, because nations have been
ground to atoms, or have fallen to pieces of their own weight, that
therefore Russia and the United States are about to go in the same way,
is a species of reasoning which is hardly warranted by scientific
methods. It may be that the empire of Great Britain is itself doomed to
dissolution at no very distant day; but it does not follow that the
United States are, therefore, liable to the same fate, now or ever. So
far from this, it is possible, if not highly probable, that as the
remote provinces of the British empire shall fall away, the central
political system of this continent may very naturally absorb at least
one of the fragments, and thereby become stronger as a Government, and
more potent for good to the people of an entire world.
There are laws of dissolution, and laws of segregation and combination
in the political as in the natural world. Great Britain may fall into
fragments because her geographical and political conditions render her
amenable to the laws of dissolution; while the United States may go on
enlarging their boundaries and becoming more stable and powerful from
the fact that their political status and local surroundings render them
the legitimate subject of the laws of political growth and geographical
enlargement. The British possessions are geographically too remote; they
may not be united together by the necessary bonds of political union.
The weakness of Great Britain may now be what the weakness of the
Spanish empire once was. Her geography is against her. The day is
gradually passing away when arbitrary power may hold distant regions in
subjection to a central despotism; the day is at hand which demands that
the bonds of union shall be natural and just, not arbitrary--bonds which
forever assert their own inherent power to unite and grow stronger, not
weaker, with the inevitable changes constantly being wrought out by the
busy hand of time.
Man's social and political life depends much on the physical conditions
by which he is surrounded. We have only to instance a mountain and
valley population. The former is isolated and out of the way, and the
people simple, uncouth, and uncultivated--contented, it is true, but,
nevertheless, enjoying but little of the abundance and variety in which
people of culture luxuriate. The valley population have a city,
villages, rich lands, trade, and commerce; they are wealthy, cultivated,
and realize far more the legitimate fruition of our entire nature.
Even missionaries, whose prejudices may be presumed to have been in
favor of purely moral means, tell us that that heathen can only be
permanently Christianized through changes in their physical conditions
which commerce alone can bring about.
Physical conditions affect the destiny of nations, and go far to
determine the extent and character of political organizations. It makes
a great difference whether a country has or has not the means of ready
communication and transportation from one section to another. While the
great body of Europe was comparatively uncultivated, with only the
natural channels of commerce, and these unimproved, there could be
little communication between the different sections of country; and
Europe had no political or social unity. The people of the entire
continent were in a fragmentary and disorganized mass, comparatively
isolated, and independent of each other. The jurisdictions of the great
barons and of the cities became at length united into kingdoms. The
increase of commerce brought these kingdoms into relations with each
other, and diplomacy grew out of national necessities. As the countries
improved and the facilities and occasions for intercommunication and
commerce increased, the principle of political unity must needs
comprehend a wider range. At first, it took in only the component parts
of kingdoms, and then the kingdoms in the form of great national leagues
of more or less permanence. This form of political unity may be very
imperfect, but it is nevertheless unity consummated in the best possible
manner which the system of separate thrones would permit. Changes in the
conditions and relations of peoples render changes in their political
forms an absolute necessity. The facilities for education,
intercommunication, travel, and commerce, are the great unitizers of
peoples and nations.
A great, overgrown empire, which has been built up by arbitrary power,
may fall to pieces, because it is not bound together by the ligaments
which an ubiquitous commerce affords. Another, because thus interlaced
and woven together, cannot be sundered. The dependence of part on part
and the facilities of transportation from one section to another, render
such an empire a really vital organism, which cannot be divided without
destroying the whole; but since nations, as individuals, are tenacious
of life, the whole cannot be destroyed, and the empire cannot be
divided. There is no place for division, and none can be made. This
principle, we believe, applies to our own country.
Lines for the transmission of intelligence, the highways of travel, the
channels of intercommunication and commerce--these connect remote
sections with each other, and, in connection with the specialization of
industry, cause them to become mutually dependent, and thus form a web
of unity knitting the many into one. The Mississippi River has been
characterized by some one as a great original Unionist. It is so.
The channels and highways of commerce are of two kinds: natural and
artificial. The natural are the seas, lakes, rivers; and these only
become the means of political union according to the extent of the use
which is made of them. The improvement of harbors and of rivers, and the
modern revolutions in the art of navigation, have greatly increased
their power to make one section necessary to another, and bind people to
people. Were not steam applied to locomotion, the great rivers of North
America would afford far less of promise for American unity than they
now do.
Since whatever facilitates communication and transportation makes one
class of people dependent on another, through the mutual exchange of
social opportunity and of industrial productions, and binds them more
firmly together; hence, also, the political and social values of the
artificial channels of commercial intercourse. Wagon roads, canals,
railroads, telegraphs, are all so many political unitizers; but the
railroad, with its accompaniment, the telegraph, may be regarded as the
chief of all.
Let us notice for a moment the political value of our rivers, with the
improved navigation of the same, and of our railroads, in the
suppression of the existing rebellion.
Had there been no navigable rivers and no railroads uniting the North
and South, the chances for the local division of our country would be
far greater than they are under existing circumstances. The South would
have been comparatively isolated from the North, and our armies could
not have reached her territory with the facility they now do. Prolonged
for years, as the war must have been under such circumstances, the North
would have grown weary of prosecuting it; the chances for intervention
would have been greater, and the establishment of a Southern nation by
no means an impossible thing.
With facilities for penetrating the country, it may be easier to reduce
a dozen rebel States than one quarter of the territory if held by
uncivilized Indians. We were longer subjugating the Seminole Indians
than we are likely to be in putting down the rebellion. The facilities
of transportation in the one case, and their absence in the other, make
part of the difference. Besides, these same facilities and their
accompaniments render Southern society a really vital and sensitive
thing, so that a wound in some vital part, as Vicksburg or Chattanooga,
is felt to the remotest ends of Secessia. It will not require
extermination of all the members; a few mere such wounds, and the
rebellious creature will have to yield.
The Tennessee River enabled us to drive the enemy out of Western
Tennessee and Northern Mississippi and Alabama. By means of the
Mississippi River we have cut away a considerable limb of the
'confederacy,' and we believe it can never be restored. Nashville has
become a depot of supplies for the army of the Cumberland, because of
the Cumberland River and the railroad to the Ohio River.
When we advanced from Murfreesboro', on the 24th of June last, the rains
fell almost incessantly, and the roads became at length really
impassable. We were at Tullahoma and beyond it, on short rations. Had
there been no means of transportation other than the army wagon and the
common road, it is doubtful whether, under the circumstances, General
Rosecrans could have held his advanced position so easily won. When some
of the teams could not draw empty wagons back to Murfreesboro', it is
not likely that such means of transportation would have been sufficient
for the subsistence of our army in and around Tullahoma. But in less
than ten days the joyful whistle of the locomotive was heard, and the
army was soon abundantly supplied.
Take our present situation. Had there been no railroad from Nashville to
the Tennessee River, the campaign of last fall could not have been
undertaken with any prospect of success. But allow that it had been
undertaken, and the result of the battle of Chickamauga what it was:
could our army have terminated its retreat at Chattanooga, and held this
important military position? By no means: it would have recrossed the
mountains, a broken, discouraged, and almost demoralized host. The
trains have run almost constantly from Nashville to Stevenson and
Bridgeport, and the army has been on half rations for nearly two months.
If wagons could not bring supplies fifty miles, much less one hundred
and fifty. And now (November 15th) that the distance for teams has, for
some days, been reduced to six or seven miles, we are still very short
of supplies.
Let the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad receive due credit for the
part it has played in promoting the success of the campaign and 'saving
the Army of the Cumberland.' Railroads and all other channels of
commerce contribute most efficiently to the success of the great effort
of our Government to restore the integrity of the Union: let them
receive due credit, and be rightly remembered when the great conflict
is ended.
These facts may serve to suggest the value of the various commercial
facilities as means of political unitization. A country without the
means of travel and transportation may readily separate into independent
fragments whenever any arbitrary institution, as that of slavery,
develops antagonism between different geographical sections; and in that
case the arbitrary institution would triumph, and civilization would be
thrown backward. But in a country which speaks the same language, and is
checkered all over by the pathways of commercial and social
intercourse--since there is no place for division except by the rupture
of innumerable ligaments--the integrity of its oneness will maintain
itself; and if necessary to this end, the arbitrary institution, or
cause of attempted rupture, whatever It may be, will be swept out of
existence.
The vindication of national unity is the great issue; the abasement of
slavery a subordinate one.
Here, then, may we perceive some reasons why our labor and sacrifice for
the restoration of the Union are not given in vain; that we are not
struggling to sustain a structure which will be liable at any time to
pass into the history of the 'fall of empires.' We have the
encouragement of new conditions--of conditions which give a warrant,
wherever they obtain, for the permanence of political unity. Subdue the
present rebellion, reinstate the Union, multiply the facilities for
social intercourse and the mutual exchange of products, especially
railroads, wherever there is sufficient promise of a need; and our
country, thus knit together and united, has nothing to fear from the
madness of local factions. Permeate the body politic in all its members
by the nerves, veins, and arteries of a vital circulation, and it
becomes an organized unity which is not susceptible of division into
upper or lower, right or left, except by the destruction of the entire
organism.
But admitting that continental unity is to obtain some day, still the
question as to whether now is or is not the time for it to assume a more
distinct form, brings us by a rational necessity to a brief notice of
the influence of European diplomacy and the contingency of foreign
intervention.
It is very clear that the 'balance of power' system of Europe, and the
continental system which this war is waged on our part to sustain, are
very unlike, if not antagonistic systems. The tone, all through the war,
of a large portion of the British daily press, and of much of her
weightier literature; the intrigues of Napoleon and the outspeaking of
his minions, together with the measures which have been clandestinely
taken by persons of power and influence to advance the interests of
secession, show that there are influential classes in Western Europe,
allied by interest to her fragmentary political organizations, who would
gladly see the United States broken to pieces under the shock of
rebellion. Their sympathies have been with the rebellion all through the
war; and that they have not interfered more actively than they have, is
not to be attributed to their sincere love for justice and neutrality,
but to their own weakness--to the complicated nature of their own
diplomacy, and its critical status just now, when there is danger of
bursting volcanoes in their own midst.
It is a law of history that any political system of some degree of
prevalence seeks to extend itself; indeed, this is a law of all
movement, whether physical, chemical, social, or political. There is a
political leaven which permeates the whole mass, and brings it into the
same condition. It resulted once in the general prevalence of feudalism;
it afterward touched the cities of civilizing Europe, and they became
independent, and leagued together for a common purpose. It operated
again, and governments of organized and more orderly character came
into existence all over what was once feudal Europe. The prevailing
system, or that which is animated by the strongest and most active
principle, necessitates whatever is unlike it to become of the same
character with itself, even though it might seem like the surrender of
the better for the worse. This is very aptly shown by the fact that
under feudalism allodial titles were voluntarily surrendered for feudal
ones. This system subordinated even the church.
The question is legitimate: Have we nothing to fear from the leaven of
political fragmentarism in Europe? Is there not vitality enough in the
little-monarchy and balance-of-power system of Middle and Western Europe
to extend its influence into this country, contributing effectually to
the overthrow of American unity; and, by the operation of this political
'induction,' making the political system of America like the political
system of Europe? Or, has the time come for the more permanent
inauguration of the policy of continental unity--a system of very
different genius from that which prevails in the former centres of
civilization? We believe that there are the most rational grounds for
encouragement.
Political fragmentarism is comparatively a primitive condition. Europe
has bean growing out of it for hundreds of years. The grasp of political
unity has gradually taken hold of the nations, and brought them
organization and order out of isolation and anarchy. Even European
diplomacy is an expression of the unitizing tendency, since it seeks to
bind the nations together in leagues, making them as completely a unit
as may be consistent with the pride and interests of separate and
distinct sovereignties. Unitization is therefore in the line of
political development; it has gained strength with the march of
civilization and the growth of intelligence and freedom among the
people. Our struggle, therefore, would seem to be a spontaneous uprising
of the people for the security of a cardinal principle--a great torrent
of human movement, surging forward with the stream of political
development. History is, in its deepest heart, upon the side of unity,
and ours is a sure faith that victory will crown our efforts.
We are led further to hope that the time has come for unity, by the fact
that the European system has not as yet felt itself strong enough to
meddle in any direct manner in our affairs to the detriment of our
cause.
The fact that the political system of Europe is at present so completely
busied with its own complications, together with the fact that our own
country is so intersected by the natural and artificial channels of
commerce and general intercourse, and by the interrelation and
overlapping of interests, that there is no definite line for a fracture
to be found, while, at the same time, our armies can readily penetrate
into the enemy's country, and advance their base of supplies by means of
the great thoroughfares of trade; these are sources of encouragement,
and give us good reason to believe that the time has indeed come for the
ushering in of a new political era by the successful vindication of
American unity.
We repeat, this is the great issue of the war. Slavery has only sprung
upon us; and if slavery stands in the way of national unity and
political harmony, unity and harmony can only be secured by
subordinating the power of slavery.
* * * * *
As to the importance and full significance of the principle of political
unity, it is not proposed to enter into a detailed discussion here; the
theme is too vast. A few suggestions must suffice in this connection.
One of the consequences of the want of political unity is national
dissensions and frequent wars, by which the resources of nations are
drained, property destroyed, countries devastated, the arm of industry
weakened, commerce crippled, and progress in the means of civilization
generally retarded. Political unity would do away with national
quarrels, so disastrous to human well-being; while the emulation of
states and sections will furnish all the incentive that is necessary to
urge a people on to honorable achievements.
It does not promise well for the pacific character of unity, that we
have a great civil war; but wherefore? An antiquated and misplaced
institution--a relic of a more primitive and barbarous form of
society--has led to the development of antagonism between two local
divisions of our country. The war grew out of this antagonism: destroy
the cause of sectional misunderstanding, and this cause of war will
never more give us trouble.
But a difficulty is suggested: Our people will never become alike, never
a homogeneous people; the differences of country and climate will
forever prevent this. Very good; we don't want sameness throughout the
society of a great empire. This is a distinctly marked feature of
primitive society. The more unlike as to industrial pursuits, the more
variety in the tastes and wants of the people of different sections, the
more dependent may these different sections become upon each other; and
with facilities for intercourse, the more intimately do they become
related. Unity develops itself through the specialization of parts and
functions. This specializing process, as in the gradual formation of the
vital organs in fetal development, is the very creation of unlikeness;
and unity is the mutual dependence and necessary coöperation of these
dissimilar organs. The more diversity the more complete the unity. It is
antagonism--a very different thing--that does the mischief. It is not
desirable that a people should be homogeneous; that would be a falling
back into barbarous conditions. Unity demands that the people shall be
heterogeneous and diversified, with heterogeneous and diversified
occupations, tastes, and habits; and then, with proper facilities for
mental intercommunication, travel, and transportation, they become a
coöperative and coalescent people. It is coalescence we want, and not
homogeneity.
If such be the conditions of unity, then surely it is not to be feared,
because New England manufactures, the Middle States mine, the Western
States farm, and the Southern States plant, that, therefore, they must
needs be under separate and distinct governments. This very
dissimilarity of soil, climate, occupation, and production enables the
sections to contribute to each other's welfare, and is a condition of
their unity. The heart, liver, lungs, stomach, brain, and nerves cannot
dispense with each other in the vital economy; it is the very dependence
of one special part upon another through the channels of circulation,
that renders the superior animal organism so completely a unit. It
cannot be repeated too often that it is not sameness of function, but
heterogeneity of function, that unity requires. Hence, through the
specialization of industries--one kind of manufactures here, and another
there; mining in one locality, and farming in another; the growing of a
certain product in one section, and the growing of a different product
in a different section--all these, together with, the increasing
facilities for correspondence and transportation, are preparing society
for larger, more complete, and inevitable unity.
There need be no fear of confirmed hostility of feeling between the
North and South when the war is over, should it end in the
reëstablishment of the Union. Southern journalists say:
'If the North is successful in its mad scheme of conquest, we shall
look upon ourselves as a subjugated people, and there never can be
cordial union between the people of the two sections.'
Nonsense. With the coming of peace, there will also come a very
different spirit over the dream of the entire South. The great mass of
her people have been cruelly duped, and not less cruelly coerced; and
once the war is over, these people will become undeceived, and at once
relieved from the gyves of a remorseless conscription. There will be a
violent reaction in Southern sentiment, and a storm of indignation will
be hurled against the instigators of rebellion for all the torture and
agony and ruin they have brought to the millions of a once happy nation.
The war for the Union will yet find an altar in every Southern home; it
will become as truly appreciated there as here; the Southern people will
one day glory as greatly in its magnificent results. There will be no
longer a few thousand aristocrats, calling themselves 'the South,' and
teaching hatred to freedom and progress. This class will be shorn of
power and influence, as one of the consequences of the war; and being no
longer competent for good or mischief, they may, indeed, nurse their
gloom, and torture their lives to the bitter end with the wail, 'We are
a subjugated people.' But it will be the wail of selfishness for the
sceptre which has departed forever from their hands. There is nothing to
fear from these. Very soon after the Government shall have vindicated
its competence and extended its jurisdiction over the rebel States, will
the most influential and active of their people range themselves on the
side of the 'powers that be'--such is the charm of power, the magic of
interest, the welcome of peace. All the antagonism generated and
cherished by slavery will have totally disappeared; and the South will
soon be on the side of all freedom. There will be cordial coöperation
under free labor and free trade, between her people and our people; and
though diversified as to occupations, habits, and tastes, they will
constitute essentially one great political brotherhood.
When slavery, the cause of the present unhappy strife, is extinguished,
our country has little to fear, except, perhaps, from the Rocky
Mountains, which interpose so formidable a barrier between the Atlantic
and Pacific States of our great Federal Union. This mountain barrier and
the great distance by water may one day afford an occasion for the
encouragement of ambitious men to repeat the experiment of secession.
The antidote to this possible evil is the reduction of the most
formidable features of the barrier, and the shortening of the forbidding
interval. Span the mountains and intervening valleys with railroads and
lines of telegraph, and every wire and rail assumes the dignity of a
social and political power in the bonds of an indissoluble unity.
If there be so little to create apprehension for the future, may we not
rationally hope that the diminution of war, if not its ultimate
extinction, is one of the promises of political unity?
Great, strong, noble men--those who are great and noble in all the
elements of their nature--such are never pugilists, and never fight: it
is those of distorted and defective development--those who have not
completeness and integrality within themselves, that are turbulent and
break the peace.
Another value of comprehensive unity is that only in great coöperative
combinations of mankind can the _individual man_ find the fullest
expression for all the faculties of his nature. There is no unity
proper--no organization--in savage society; and life there is very
simple, with little variety of expression and little enjoyment. As man
becomes cultivated his wants increase, and he becomes a more social
being. His happiness becomes more and more dependent on others; hence
arise societies and organizations of various kinds. The more cultivated
any people and the more diversified their wants, the more various do
their relations become, and the more extensive their combinations. This
is given merely as a fact of history. The truly philosophic eye, we
believe, cannot be long in discerning that these larger combinations
and more comprehensive unities are only a necessary outgrowth of an
improving civilization, and indispensable to the fullest measure of
happiness; since in them only can the life of a cultured people find the
means of its best expression. The growth of unity, as revealed in
history, is not an arbitrary thing incident to a chance concurrence of
causes, but naturally growing out of the needs of a steady progress in
the education and freedom of the people.
To say that it is through great social and political institutions that
the individual finds the most ample means for the culture and
satisfaction of the faculties and wants of his nature, is but another
way of saying that it is through such institutions that he finds the
widest range for individual liberty. A very little observation of
history will show that as political unity has enlarged and political
organization become more distinctly marked, the radii of individual
freedom have at the same time swept a wider field.
Despotism curtails enterprise, and prevents the specialization of parts
and functions as the genuine condition of unity. The free play of
intelligence and interest is necessary to develop the diversity upon
which unity depends. Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to
every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a
self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to
each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand
in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at
the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing the individual in
the exercise of his legitimate rights. Unity and liberty are mutually
dependent and forever inseparable. Hence the inestimable value of unity,
the leading issue of the war.
The issues of the war might be symbolized by the picture of a great
river; the smaller branches forming still larger ones, and these putting
into the main stream--unity--itself, as it descends, widening into the
great ocean of the future.
These issues might, also, be exhibited in a kind of formula. The
following is no doubt very imperfect, but it may be somewhat suggestive.
The first includes the second, the second the third:
I. Political unity _vs._ secession:
{ A progressive civilization _vs._ a stagnant one;
{ A republican form of government _vs._ an aristocratic one;
II. { Personal freedom _vs._ chattel slavery;
{ General peace _vs._ diplomatic intrigue and war;
{ An enlarged individual freedom _vs._ espionage, censure,
{ and restriction:
{ Common schools and general intelligence _vs._ partial
{ culture and general ignorance;
{ Free inquiry _vs._ conventional stultification;
{ Free speech and a free press _vs._ the surveillance
{ of a mercenary police;
{ The political equality of classes _vs._ the inequality of
{ ruling, servile, and disfranchised classes;
{ Respect for the affections _vs._ disregard for ties of
{ home and family;
{ Wages labor _vs._ compulsory labor;
III. { The dignity of labor _vs._ the opprobrium and servility
{ of labor;
{ A healthy industrial activity _vs._ indolence and
{ crushing toil;
{ The continual specialization of industry _vs._ industrial
{ sameness;
{ Incentives to invention and improvement _vs._ mechanical
{ inactivity;
{ A constantly renewed soil _vs._ an exhausted one;
{ A great navy and flourishing commerce _vs._ general
{ commercial apathy;
{ Great industrial prosperity _vs._ industrial
{ stagnation;
{ Greater variety and versatility in life _vs._ a narrow
{ and bigoted uniformity.
As I close the preparation of this article for the press (November
26th), it becomes positively known that General Bragg is in full
retreat. This is a great victory, and splendidly won. There has been no
'straggling to the rear,' no faltering, no serious reverse; the entire
three days' conflict, from first to last, has gone right on. A noble
victory, and worthy of a noble cause! Soldiers from every great section
of the Union--from every State almost--have stood by the side of each
other in the perilous conflict. Many have fallen a sacrifice to their
country's great cause, unity. Let homage and gratitude from the
deep-stirred heart of the nation be theirs; may they long be remembered;
and may those who survive, long live to enjoy the fruits of their
victory!
The South could ill afford to lose such a battle, here and now. Not long
can she hold out in her unnatural struggle against destiny. The tide of
a progressive civilization will roll over her, though for a time it must
needs be crimsoned with the blood of martyrs.
ÆNONE:
A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.
CHAPTER I.
When, in the second year of Titus Vespasian, the Roman general Sergius
Vanno returned from his armed expedition in the East, and asked for
public honors, there were some in the senate who made objection. It was
not fitting, they argued, that formal tokens of national commendation
should be too readily bestowed. It had not been so in the time of their
fathers. Long years of noble, self-sacrificing zeal and arduous service,
crowned with conquests of supreme importance, had then been the only
acknowledged title to the prize. It was scarcely proper that the same
distinctions which had hitherto been awarded for the acquisition of the
most valuable provinces should be granted for the annexation of a mere
strip of worthless territory upon the extreme borders of the
empire--wild, rugged, and inhospitable, and inhabited by nomadic tribes,
who could only be brought under a nominal authority, and who would never
prove otherwise than turbulent and unprofitable subjects. Nor was it a
matter to be mentioned with especial laudation that Sergius Vanno had
succeeded in repressing, with overwhelming force, a revolt in a few of
the Ægean islands. If exploits such as these were to be so liberally
recompensed, what honors could there be left to bestow upon deeds of
acknowledged brilliancy and importance?
So, with cautious discrimination, spoke some of the senators; and so, in
the secrecy of their hearts, most of them thought. But against all this
were brought to bear, not only the influence which Sergius naturally
commanded as a patrician of the highest rank, but also the far more
powerful pressure of popular clamor. Sergius was a favorite with the
people. His noble birth and lineage entitled him to their respect. He
was of a rare type of manly beauty--was wealthy, and used his gold with
liberality--gave abundant largesses to the poorer classes--was lavish in
his expenditure upon the arts--did not disdain, at times, to descend
from his natural station and associate with his inferiors, thereby
pleasing the fancy of the masses for social equality--patronized poets
and actors, who, in return, sang or spouted his praise, and thus still
further added to his fame--and was noted for a bold, frank, out-spoken
demeanor, which tended to conciliate all classes with him. These were
virtues not always to be found combined in one person. Moreover, he was
impulsively brave; and, though still young, was gifted with more than
ordinary military genius, and had carried on his campaign with that
rashly daring energy which, when rewarded with success, never fails to
commend its possessor to popular adulation. In addition to all this,
other considerations of a less personal character exerted their
influence. Many months had elapsed since Rome had enjoyed any great
civic festivity, and the people had begun to long for a new stimulant.
The completion of the colossal Flavian amphitheatre had been delayed
beyond public expectation; and though its speedy inauguration had been
announced, there was serious doubt whether the lower and more turbulent
orders of the populace, so long restrained, would possess themselves
with sufficient patience to await the occasion with proper calmness. In
fact, some outlet must be given to their excited appetite for novelty;
and therefore, after much solemn consideration, the senate yielded to
the public clamor, and voted an ovation.
As a token of national appreciation, therefore, the honor thus bestowed
upon Sergius Vanno was not one of the first order; nor were such
pageants a novelty to the Roman people. Several times before, within the
memory of that generation, victorious generals had entered the city with
myrtle wreaths upon their brows, and had exhibited to applauding throngs
the gathered wealth of conquered provinces. Nor had many years elapsed
since the present emperor--then prince--crowned with the richer and more
lavish glories of a triumph, had ridden through the Via Sacra, greeted
with welcoming acclamations as the destroyer of the Jewish
capital--displaying before him the spoils of the sacred temple, and
bringing in his train such thousands upon thousands of captives, that it
had seemed as though all Palestine was being emptied into Rome. Compared
with such exploits, those of Sergius were of trifling importance. But it
now entered little into the minds of the people to make these
comparisons. Whatever had been done in past time by other commanders,
was not worth considering at present. Whoever might have been renowned
before, Sergius Vanno was the hero of to-day. To him should be all the
honor which tens of thousands of ringing voices and applauding hands
could lavish. And therefore, once more, as in the days of the past, the
balconies of the palaces and villas lining the broad Sacra Via were
gorgeous with rich gold and purple tapestries--the Forum glowed bright
and resplendent with statues and decorated arches--altars smoked with
sacrifice in front of columned temples--and the walls and slopes of the
Palatine Hill were joyous with triumphal tokens, while, upon the summit,
the house of the Cæsars glittered with banners and brave devices, and
such costly adornments as were best fitted to grace the festivity and do
honor to the exploits of a much-esteemed subject.
We know the scene. At first--in the full blaze of the noonday
sun--standing silent and nearly deserted, except by a few workmen and
artisans, who here and there lingered to complete the festive
preparations, or by scattered parties of the prætorian guard, who, in
holiday armor, moved slowly to and fro, to watch that order was
maintained. Later--when the shadows deepened, and the air grew
cooler--the avenues and prominent positions along the established route
of the ovation beginning to fill with that great concourse of varied
nationalities and conditions which only the imperial city could display.
In the open streets a disorderly rabble of slaves and bondmen--pouring
in steady streams from their kennels behind the palaces and from the
unhealthy purlieus of such quarters as had been spared from the
architectural encroachments of the wealthy, and allowed to fester in
their own neglected corruption. Gathered together in close fraternity,
the Briton, the Goth, the African, and the Jew--each bearing his badge
of life-long servitude, some even wearing marks of recent chastisement,
but almost all awaiting the approaching spectacle with pleased and
animated countenances, and in seeming forgetfulness that so many of
their own number had graced former displays, and, by their degradation,
had afforded amusement to other equally unsympathetic concourses. Among
them, the lesser Romans--citizens in name, indeed, but, from their
poverty and the overbearing exactions of the patricians, almost as much
in slavery as those around them--disdainfully asserting their free
birth, and in turn contemned by the slaves themselves, as men to whom
liberty was but another title for slow starvation, and who would not
dare to resent the vilest insults heaped upon them by noble-owned and
protected menials--and now equally with the common herd obliged to
submit to the strong argument of sword and lance, as, every little
while, the soldiers along the line drove the whole writhing crowd,
without distinction, into smaller and more confined compass. Here and
there, knights and soldiers of high rank--riding up on horseback, and
pushing through the struggling mass of slaves to the front, or more
leisurely, but to equal purpose, waiting until their own menials had
gone before, and, with mingled threats and blows, had cleared out a
vacant space for them. Other crowds, standing in favorable positions
upon housetops and upon hastily constructed stagings; and more
especially upon the great amphitheatre, whose arches were blackened with
clusters of spectators, and whose summit, in place of the last few
layers of stone, so soon to be adjusted, had its deep human fringe. Upon
palace balconies, patricians and noble ladies, displaying a dazzling
array of gold and purple and rare jewelry, and attended by Ethiopian
slaves, who, in glittering armlets, stood behind, holding feathered
canopies to shield their mistresses from the sun. All this confusing
concourse of wealth and poverty each moment increasing in breadth, and
density, as every avenue emptied new swarms into the packed arena, until
it seemed as though not only all Rome, but half the empire had gathered
there.
Later yet, the music of flutes and hautboys--which, for a time, had been
only indistinctly heard--breaking upon the ear with a clearer sound, and
the van of the procession suddenly emerging into full view from behind
the Circus Maximus, and, accompanied by the ringing shout of thousands
spreading abroad new and louder welcomes, beginning to file past with
rapid steps. First in order, the magistrates in full official robes; the
spoils of war; the white sheep dressed for the sacrifice, and the
priests bearing the holy vessels of the altar; gay trappings, flaunting
standards, and all that could most readily inspire the heart with
elation and enthusiasm. After these, and guarded on either side by
detached parties of troops, the captives, of barbaric and Grecian origin
mostly, but here and there interspersed with men of other races--Jews,
Syrians, and Huns--who, through contiguity of place or love of arms or
self-interest, or a kindred hatred of the Roman rule, had been drawn
into the battle--and who, having bravely stood their ground, striving
for success, and with hearts well prepared for the consequences of
failure, had been overtaken by the usual defeat, and dragged into utter
and hopeless slavery. Among them, men of the Ethiopian race, also--who,
having been slaves in Greece, had fought, not for principle or for
freedom, but simply at their owners' bidding, and had thereby, upon
being overcome, merely changed one class of masters for another--owners
and slaves now knowing no difference in position, but standing involved
in the same common fate. Some appearing defiant, others downcast and
sullen, a few excited and curious, most of them walking with unfettered
limbs, but here and there one heavily chained, betokening a fierce and
unsubdued nature, upon which it was still necessary to put restraint.
All marching or being dragged along at an equal pace; sometimes with an
approximation to military exactness--at other points breaking into a
confused mass, as women and children clung despairingly together and
prevented the maintenance of any regular order. Around them, the
spectators closely pressing, with morbid curiosity, discussing with loud
approval the value of whatever of strength or beauty met their eyes, and
occasionally greeting some undersized and misshapen victim with jeers of
derision. And closing up the straggling line, more soldiers, marching in
well-formed ranks, poising aloft myrtle-decked lances, and, while
interchanging salutations with the eddying crowd, singing in measured
cadence their songs of victory.
And at last, as the sun sank yet lower toward the horizon, a yet
brighter brilliancy investing the scene, as far down the line new shouts
arose, and the struggling throng caught up the loud acclaim and carried
it onward like a great wave, betokening the speedy approach of the most
distinguished feature of the procession--the conqueror himself--hailed
Imperator by his troops--with his most noble friends clustered about
him, the myrtle wreath encircling his brow, and his earnest gaze fixed
upon the Capitol, the honorable termination of his route.
In every respect, indeed--except in the display of those few distinctive
formalities required to mark, as with a legal stamp, the actual and
comparative value of the honor--the same old familiar story, so often
hitherto rehearsed upon that line of Sacra Via and of Forum: incense
burning upon the altars, which had blazed for other heroes; garlands
hanging from the arches which had graced past festivities; and surging
crowds, heedful only of the present glory, and, with the customary
popular fickleness, ready to forget it all as soon as the fleeting
pageant should be over, now with indiscriminating zeal cheering the
march of Sergius Vanno as frantically as in other days they had greeted
the triumphal cars of Cæsar and of Vespasian.
CHAPTER II.
Gradually the sun approached and dipped below the blue line of extended
plain which lay between the city and the sea; the long shadows of
afternoon began to blend into the one deeper shade of evening; the
groups of distant buildings became more and more indistinct; the arches
of the Colosseum softly faded away, leaving but a broad mass of unbroken
wall; upon the Palatine Hill the great house of the Cæsars shone less
and less gloriously as the sky darkened behind the pile of decorated
roofs; here and there a light gleamed from some distant quarter; here
and there stars began to glisten in the sky.
Then the concourse of people, who had waited so long and patiently,
began to break apart. The pageant was not yet entirely over, for fresh
battalions of soldiers still marched past at rapid pace, tuning their
steady tramp to the cadence of their songs of triumph. But the great
feature of the occasion--the conqueror himself--had ridden by; and what
yet remained was but a faint recapitulation of the glories which had
gone before. Therefore the patricians retired from their balconies, the
horsemen abandoned their stations and plunged down the many streets
which led out from the Forum, and the crowd of slaves and menial
citizens, already rendered so indistinct in the fading light as to
resemble one writhing, struggling monster rather than separate beings,
began to stretch out its long arms into the narrow lanes and byways, and
so gradually to melt away.
Withdrawing from the front balcony of the Vanno palace, where, shielded
from the sun, she had sat and watched the procession pass by, Ænone, the
young and fair wife of the conqueror, now sought rest and retirement in
an inner apartment. Thither one of her women had preceded her, and had
drawn forward a cushioned lounge, had beaten up the silken pillows, had
placed a table near at hand, with a light repast spread upon it, had
trimmed and filled with fresh olive oil the large bronze lamp which
swung from the ceiling, and now stood by awaiting further orders.
Throwing herself upon the lounge, Ænone covered her face with her hands.
What unbidden thought was it that came creeping into her heart to
trouble her? Why was it that something of the bright joyousness of
spirit with which she looked forward to that day had vanished? Surely
nothing had occurred which of itself could bring to her either sorrow or
repining. All things had happened as she had anticipated. She had seen
her honored lord pass by with the myrtle wreath upon his brow, his most
worthy officers at his side, and his bravest guards around him. She had
seen that he was strong and without wound, as he had departed from her.
She had heard the shouts of applause which had welcomed his approach as
though he were a god; and, with her heart generously and unselfishly
alive only to his honor, and unable to realize that all this frantic joy
and adulation were not the passion of the nation's life, but were merely
one single, careless throb of its fevered pulse, she had rejoiced with
him, believing that he had indeed done what had made him the greatest of
all living men. And, better than all, amid this scene of triumph, he had
not seemed unmindful of her, for he had looked up and waved to her a
salute, which the responsive crowd had joined in and carried along with
redoubled acclamations, and he had sent to her his most trusty slave
with a loving message. What, then, could she ask more?
Nothing that she could name, or that if she named, to others, would have
seemed a reasonable desire. And yet at her heart there was a certain
dim, indistinct foreboding of evil, which she could not entirely
repress. Was it that, in his glance, as he rode by and beheld her
awaiting him, there was less of longing love than of gratified pride? Or
did that flush upon his bronzed face indicate too surely his enjoyment
of this pageant for its own sake rather than for the pleasure which he
might have supposed that she would derive from it? Was it from
forgetfulness of her that, after he had ridden past, he did not again
look back to wave one more recognition, but rather seemed to gaze
eagerly forward to where the assembled senators stood ready to greet
him? Or, on the contrary, were all these merely vague and empty
imaginings arising from the exhaustion and wearisomeness of long,
impatient waiting?
At length, raising her head, she saw her attendant bondwoman standing at
the distance of a few paces, with her hands crossed upon her breast. The
steady tramp of marching troops outside had ceased, for the last
battalion had passed; and now the only sound was the silver bubbling and
plashing of a little fountain that adorned the courtyard upon which the
window of the apartment looked out.
'The pageant is over now,' said Ænone, 'and he will soon be here. Let me
know as soon as my lord returns.'
The woman bowed her head in silence; and then, feeling that nothing more
was wanted of her, slowly turned to depart. As she did so, a new comer
entered the room--a male slave of Gallic birth, who, by reason of his
lofty stature as well as wonderful strength, had been promoted from the
lowest order of servitude to become Sergius Vanno's armor bearer and
chief attendant. In that capacity he had fought through the late
campaign, and had now returned, bearing among his fellows his own share
of honor for successful and daring exploits. He had been released from
personal attendance only a few moments before, and was now carrying back
his master's sword and buckler, to hang them up in their accustomed
place, and himself subside into well-earned idleness. Being the first
time, for many months, that he had seen his mistress, he muttered some
rough ejaculations expressive of servile devotion, and then stood in
lazy attitude awaiting her permission to speak further.
'Your master, Drumo?'
'Will not return to-night,' the man responded. 'The emperor demands his
presence.'
'And that will detain him--'
'He knows not how long. But immediately after that there is to be a
brave feast at the house of the poet Emilius, and it will doubtless be
morning before they separate.'
'He bade you tell me this?'
The giant nodded.
'It is well. That is all; you can go. You may both go, for I would be
alone.'
The armor bearer turned upon his heel and strode away, the sword and
buckler, together with his own rougher trappings, rattling at his back
as he passed down the hall; and behind him slowly crept away the
bondwoman. And Ænone, once more leaning back upon the lounge, gave
herself up to sombre reflection.
It was of course no more than proper, she mused, that her lord should
obey the behests of the emperor and wait upon him. Perhaps new honors
would then be showered down; and, at the least, it was no light
privilege to stand in the presence of the ruler of the world, and there
give personal narration of his exploits. But when that interview was
over, what need to join the revels of another household, instead of
hurrying back to place his newly won garlands at her feet?
She pondered upon the dubious reputation which attached to the house of
the poet Emilius, and recalled the terrible stories which, from time to
time, she had heard regarding it. What might be the realities of the
scenes there enacted, none could truly tell, except the few most
intimate frequenters of the place; but report gave no flattering
description of them. Even among the Roman ladies with whom she was
associated, and whose information was confined to such stray bits of
gossip as they had picked up from slaves and menials, and who, standing
in unconscious awe of her simple purity of heart, often forebore to
speak with her as freely and unguardedly as with each other, she had
occasionally heard such startling tales of the wild dissipations there
enacted, as surpassed conception, and left her horrified senses no calm
refuge except in unbelief. The gorgeous feasts, the night-long
libations, the social intimacy with dancing girls and gladiators, the
mockery of all that was pure and holy, the derisive insults to the gods
themselves--these were practices which the public voice connected with
the house of Emilius, not as occasional outbreaks of wild frivolity, but
as the fixed habits of his daily life. And if these things were true,
what claim of pride or policy could such a place advance to distract her
lord from the allegiance due to his own home alone?
But possibly these things might not be true. She reflected that the poet
was wealthy; and as long as the world continues to be envious, riches
will seldom fail to bring false report upon their possessor. He was a
man of genius, also; and all such can scarcely fail to find rivals who
will turn satirists and attack them in their homes and daily life.
Certainly, it is not difficult for slander to magnify the genial
gatherings of kindred spirits into scenes of wild debauchery. And it
was also true, that if mere outside appearance is of any value as an
index of what is hidden, the slight figure, the pale and almost girlish
face, and the winning and courteous demeanor of the poet were far from
indicating a man of low and debasing inclinations. Moreover, his
writings as surely spoke the contrary; and as she thus reasoned, Ænone
lifted from its case a vellum roll with which Emilius himself had
presented her, containing many of his poems, exquisitely engrossed.
These poems treated not upon the pleasures of wine and love--those
fruitful and ever-varying subjects of the Horatian school. Instead of
this, they pursued, in deep-sounding and majestically rolling dactyls,
the less favorite and trodden track of Socrates and Plato, and
discoursed upon temperance and honor--upon the satisfaction derived from
a well-spent life, and the delights attending a peaceful death--upon the
immateriality of the soul, and the reward bestowed by the gods upon
those who have honored them by leading a virtuous career. As Ænone
slowly turned over leaf after leaf of the parchment roll, she felt her
heart perplexed within her. She could scarcely believe that none of
those tales of reckless dissipation were true, for she remembered that
some of them had reached her ear attended by evidence so circumstantial
that it was impossible to reject them; but, if true, how account for
these grand maxims of lofty morality? What object could their author
have in thus uselessly playing the hypocrite, when amatory and
bacchanalian choruses would not only have been more consonant with his
own feelings, but doubtless more acceptable to the world? She had not
yet learned what it often takes the wisest man a lifetime to
discover--that every inconsistency of conduct is not hypocrisy, but that
it is one of the most common idiosyncrasies of the mind to write and
believe one thing, and as self-approvingly to feel and act the reverse.
With a sigh she closed the volume, and restored it to its place within
the case. Why ponder upon such things as these? The real character of
the poet Emilius was, after all, a matter of but little consequence to
her. Whether the meeting at his house was a wild, reckless orgy, or a
mere intellectual gathering of literary genius, it was none the less
certain that her lord was tarrying there, away from her side. But
perhaps, indeed, even this was a duty which he owed to his fame and
station; and her face brightened up with new hope as the suggestion
flashed upon her. It might be that at this feast there would be present
some poet of lofty epic powers, or historian of wondrous descriptive
talent, ranking as the brightest star of Roman literature; and either of
these, if properly conciliated, would doubtless celebrate her lord's
exploits so grandly that in future ages his campaign would shine with
far greater lustre than if simply committed to parchment in the dry
detail of unadorned fact, and so filed away in the national archives. It
was most fitting, therefore, that he should not permit his impatient
love for her to allow him to neglect the opportunity of cultivating, by
a wise and condescending courtesy, the world-renowned talents of these
men, and thereby redoubling the resplendence of his own bright fame.
Easily satisfying her mind with this pleasing reasoning, she retired for
the night into the innermost apartment--a retreat adorned with every
luxury which could gratify pride and administer to a cultivated taste.
The floor was covered with tesselated marbles of different shades and
arranged in ingenious and novel patterns. The ceiling was resplendent
with allegorical frescoes by the most celebrated masters of the day.
There were glowing paintings upon the walls, rich tapestries in the
windows, embroidered hangings upon the bed. Beside the tables stood
bronze figures holding forth lamps ready trimmed and lighted; fresh
flowers had been placed in their allotted vases, and weighed down the
air with perfume; and in a deep recess stood the bath ready filled, and
scented with carefully plucked rose leaves floating upon the water. But
all this display of magnificent luxury and elaborate taste, if regarded
by her at all, now seemed to affect her with weariness rather than with
pleasure.
Why, as she lay down upon her couch, and prepared to yield herself up to
pleasant slumber, did her thoughts wander back to the time when poverty
instead of luxury had been her lot? Why did those olden memories of the
past so strongly haunt her? They were, perhaps, never entirely absent
from her heart; but now they thronged about her with a force that would
not bear repression. Perhaps it was that the very magnificence and pomp
of power of which she was now the centre, recalled the memory of the
distant past, by virtue of strong contrast alone; perhaps that the
unsatisfied longing and vague foreboding of her soul necessarily
impressed upon her the consciousness that wealth and honor alone cannot
give perfect happiness, and thereby naturally led her thoughts back to
the time when she had found true content in poverty and loneliness.
However that might be, now, as she closed her eyes and shut out the view
of the costly adornments around her, more vividly than ever before were
pictured before her mind the scenes of her childhood: her father's
cottage on the outskirts of Ostia--the olive grove upon the slope
behind--the roadside well, where the villagers would sometimes gather
about some invalided soldier from the German army, and listen to his
tales of the last campaign--and in front, the bay, sparkling in the
bright glare of the sun and laden with the corn-freighted ships of
Alexandria.
And there, too, was the old wave-worn rock--the scene of her life's only
romance--where, stealing out from her father's cabin at the evening
hour, and seating herself so close to the waterline that the spray of
the tideless sea would dash up and bathe her naked feet, she would wait
in all innocence for the coming of the young sailor from Samos. How
rapidly those hours used to pass! How pleadingly, on the last evening,
he had knelt beside her, with his arm resting upon her knee, and there,
gazing up into her face, had asked her for one long tress of hair! How
foolish she had been to give it to him; and how earnestly he had vowed
that he would come back some day, no longer poor and forlorn, but in his
own two-masted vessel, with full banks of oars, manned by the slaves
whom he would capture, and would then bear her away unto his own home!
And how, like a silly girl, she had believed him, as though wandering
sailor boys ever did come back to seek the loving hearts which had
trusted them! And so the year had passed away, and, as she might well
have known from the first, he had not returned. Nor was it to her
regret; for but a little afterward the youthful patrician, already
flushed with budding honors, had chanced to meet her; had loved her with
a generous passion, lifting him above all sordid calculation about
wealth or social differences, and had taught her in turn to bestow upon
him an affection more true and absorbing than she had yet believed her
heart was able to contain. And so her first romantic dream had ended, as
all such childish dreams are apt to end. Let it go. Her heart had found
its true bourne; she could well look back upon the past without regret,
and smile at the youthful fancies connected with it.
One prayer to the gods--a further special invocation to her favorite
goddess, who, at the foot of the couch, stretched forth marble arms
lovingly toward her--and then the silver tinkling of the little
courtyard fountain lulled her softly to sleep.
CARL FRIEDRICH NEUMANN, THE GERMAN HISTORIAN OF OUR COUNTRY.
The first volume of a history of the United States by Carl Friedrich
Neumann, of Berlin,[2] has just been announced as the first history of
our country ever written originally in the German language. The
appearance of such a work at this juncture in our national existence, is
a noteworthy event, and the man who takes so unique an interest in our
affairs should be introduced to our people. Having known him personally
and intimately for many years, I shall attempt such sketch, making much
of it anecdotal, for which purpose material is not wanting.
Dr. Neumann, born near Bamberg, in the kingdom of Bavaria, of Jewish
parents, is now about sixty-five years of age, was educated at
Heidelberg, passed over to the Protestant church at Munich, afterward
attended lectures at Göttingen, and soon after became rector of the
gymnasium at Speyer, but was dismissed from this place on account of the
freedom with which he expressed himself on some religious topics in his
historical teachings. He gave private lessons for a time in Munich, and
then went to learn in a Benedictine monastery in Venice the Armenian
language. This was in 1827. In 1829 he studied the Chinese language in
Paris, went over to London, and sailed thence to visit India and China.
He collected for himself about ten thousand volumes of Chinese works,
embracing every department of the literature of this language, and
bought for the Royal Library at Berlin two thousand four hundred
volumes. Such collections had been till then unknown in Europe, and
hence this was quite an event. Returning in 1831 from India, he made a
present of all his Chinese books to the Royal Library at Munich, and was
appointed conservator of this collection, and professor of Chinese and
Armenian in the university of that capital.
Of Dr. Neumann's attainments in Oriental literature I know only what
fame says, nor does it concern us much in this sketch. I once, however,
sat with him in a retiring room of the Munich Museum (a great reading
room), when Baron Tautphoeus, whose accomplished wife is so well known
in this country as authoress of the 'Initials' and 'Quits,' entered, and
asked if we had seen the notice of Dr. Neumann in the last number of the
London _Times_. The doctor had read it; I had not, but immediately did
so. It made him the equal of the greatest orientalists of the past and
present ages, comparing him particularly with Klaproth. The _Times_, it
is true, had a motive for this notice, as always, both in its praises
and its lampoons. It had found views of Dr. Neumann on British India
which it desired to commend, but even in our view this would not cancel
the eulogy. His authorship in connection with Chinese and Armenian
philosophy and history is very considerable, and outside of this field
he won, in 1847, a prize offered by the French Institute for the best
work on the 'Historical Development of the Peoples of Southern Russia.'
What was to be done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of
course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general
history and ethnography. His powers of elocution were of a high order,
and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of
utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's
or Pope's instinct for making rhymes--it was his nature, and could not
be whipped out of him; and it was equally natural that it should assume
the form of wit and humor.
There are not a few anecdotes in the popular mouth illustrating this
trait. He seems to have had no great liking to that race of men called
kings, and it is said that he once alluded to them, in a lecture, in the
not very respectful remark that 'they were numbered, like the hacks in
our streets.' The reader's apprehension of the point of another
anecdote, in which Dr. Neumann appears in an attitude not very
respectful to his own sovereign, Louis II of Bavaria, will depend upon
his knowing something of the situation and history of the university
buildings in Munich. The king, among the many things he did for the
architectural adorning of the city, built a street to be called by his
name. It is all outside of the old wall, and its outer end is closed by
a triumphal arch. Next to this, and outside of the city as it _then_
was, the king purchased ground, perhaps because it was cheap, and built
the present university edifice. As much farther out of the then city
proper lies the miserable little town of Schwabing. Professors and
students disliked to be taken so far from their lodgings and their
beerhouses, and the old university had been quite within the city. When
the removal took place, Dr. Neumann sketched the history of the
institution in a lecture, referring to its original establishment at
Ingolstadt, its removal thence to Landschut, and thence to Munich, and
then added, that _'his Majesty King Louis II had now been pleased to
remove it to Schwabing_.' We can imagine the sensation which such a
sally would produce among students already stirred up for its
appreciation, by having to walk from a half mile to a mile from those
depots of beer barrels from which so many of them sucked their sluggish
life and inspiration. But such jokes were not treason, or contempt of
majesty, or anything else against law.
It should be added in this connection, for Dr. Neumann's benefit, that
these stories, and many of the kind, are floating around, and are just
like him, but I have never had any confirmation of them from him, and in
all our intercourse, which was frequent and intimate for six years,
while he spoke much and freely in favor of democratical and against
monarchical institutions, I never found him indulging in coarse and
clamorous denunciations of his king or Government.
When the great revolutionary movement of 1848 broke upon the land, the
sovereigns of Germany saw and accepted their condition. The popular mind
was so penetrated by this unrest, and the revolutionary leaders were so
substantial in character, that resistance was folly, and the monarchs
yielded, waiting the time when some change would enable them to divide
the revolutionists and turn them against each other. They allowed and
even encouraged the formation at Frankfort of a provisional Parliament,
called the Fore-Parliament, which looked toward a permanent central
Government at that place for united Germany. Of this body Dr. Neumann
was a member. It was a fine field for the display of his free and
liberal instincts, and we cannot conceive of his passing through its
debates without making large drafts upon his exhaustless fund of humor
and sarcasm. It would be strange, indeed, if he could witness the dawn
of that freedom which he loved without showing signs of exultation,
accompanied with occasional taunts at the regime which was passing away
and seemed already beyond recovery.
But, although a regular Parliament followed--although a quasi emperor
was elected in the person of the Archduke John of Austria, and
his way, as he proceeded to Frankfort, was a perfect triumphal
procession--although he selected his ministers, set them to work, and
Parliament was progressing with its constitution, and this continued for
almost a year, still, that which the shrewd ministers of some of the
sovereigns had doubtless foreseen and waited for, came. Radicals outran
their wiser and more rational brethren, and took up arms. They would
demolish at once those sovereignties which would have died by the slow
action of time, had the central Government been fully established and
wisely administered. But this new Government rather deliberated than
acted. That which more than all else arouses the German mind--the
Schleswig-Holstein question, identified as it is with the great question
of the unity of the Teutonic race--was not taken up by the Government at
Frankfort, but by that at Berlin. In the mean time the several
Governments of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria had gained the mastery over
their own domestic revolutions, so that they could act more freely.
Austria called home its archduke and its members in the Frankfort
Parliament, and finally the whole movement subsided into the old order
of things.
The various Governments were now in a position in which they could
punish those disturbers of their peace who had endangered their very
existence. Of these Dr. Neumann was one, and in 1852 he was notified
that his lectures were no longer needed in the university of Munich. It
was doubtless thought that he would make some slight formal concessions,
and be permitted to continue his active duties, as others had done. But
he felt too independent. He had means to live upon. His retiring pension
could not be withheld. He could now, moreover, give his individual
powers to authorship, without feeling hampered by the thought that he
had a Government to please. He has persevered in this course,
notwithstanding the express wish of the philosophical faculty for his
return to active duty in the university.
He had been occupied with a history of the British empire in India. To
this he gave increased attention, and published it some years ago; but
the Indian rebellion breaking out soon after its publication, he was led
to sketch its history as an appendix. His investigations in the East
brought him in contact with the peculiar history of the Japanese empire,
and he threw off by the way a brief history of Japan, devoting a chapter
to the results of the American expedition thither.
It was while prosecuting his inquiries into the history of Eastern Asia,
that he met with such evidences of the commercial enterprise of the
United States, and obtained such views of the future of our country, as
to conceive the thought of writing its history for the German people,
commencing with the war of 1812, the point at which he considered our
wonderful growth and expansion to have begun; and long before finishing
his history of British India, he was collecting material for this work.
He found, however, that he could not begin at the point he had chosen
without striking upon roots and rudely severing them, which had struck
deeply into the soil of all the earlier periods of our existence. His
plan was therefore enlarged.
The breaking out of the rebellion was a sad blow to him--it could not
have been more so to an American. It was likely not only to spoil _our_
country, but _his_ history of it. It either cut off or dimmed or
confused that prospect of growth and expansion which had been stretched
out interminably before him. He read the daily London _Times_--he had
for years taken the New York _Herald_, and his reliance upon this sheet
had been rather too implicit. Years before the breaking out of the
rebellion, I had suggested this, and introduced to him the New York
_Times_ and _Evening Post_, one of which he has taken ever since, not,
however, without occasional intervals of sighing for his old companion
the _Herald_, much as his ancestors, after having left Egypt, sighed
for its leeks and onions. Although he coupled the _Herald_ and London
_Times_--_par nobile fratrum_--as joint sharers of a favorite epithet of
his--_great liars_--he still liked to read them.
Dr. Neumann had been a Democrat in his politics--for he was familiar
with our distinctions in this country--but since the outbreak of the
rebellion he has scarcely known where to place himself. He had made the
personal acquaintance of Buchanan, when that 'old public functionary'
was our Minister in London, and felt, as was quite natural, a little
vain of this acquaintance when Buchanan became the head of the
Government of that unseen land of his most enthusiastic admiration. The
man, however, was less than the country, and he could drop him; but he
still desired to see him succeeded by a Democrat. We often had little
spats, in which I took the ground that such had been the extravagant
demands of the South, made through the platforms of that party, that
with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier
antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and
Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter
by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a
Republican. But _after the rebellion_, his friends never knew what he
was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the
rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause.
In that land, where a thousand volunteers could not be raised to save a
throne, how did his heart swell with just pride when the President
called for seventy-five thousand, and afterward in succession for
hundreds of thousands, and they came forth at the call! How depressed at
instances of want of skill or decision in Government or generals! He
nearly lost his patience with young men who were quietly pursuing their
studies in Europe, when their country was in peril and its armies needed
them; and he quite lost it when he met Americans who sympathized with
the rebellion, or even seemed indifferent to their country's fortunes.
There was an American lady in Munich, soon after the rebellion broke
out, whose husband had died some years before, while holding a position
in the army which entitled her to a pension, for which she had drawn
while there. She had heard of Professor Neumann's love for our country
and country people, but had no idea of the strictness of his
discrimination between the parties--thought that he might feel much like
the thousands of Germans who quietly ask us which side we are on--she
may, too, have inferred something from his having a brother in Savannah,
Georgia. She soon found her mistake; for he informed her, in terms of no
doubtful import, that his sympathy did not embrace those of her class;
and thus the result of the pleasant visit she had promised herself was
little short of being turned out doors.
About the 10th of December, 1861, we had at our house a little company
of about thirty persons, and Dr. Neumann, with his wife and two
daughters, was among them. An American gentleman, who had been known to
his family and ours, had left for Russia two years before, and returned
that very day, was one of the company, and we had not yet learned his
views of secession. The first thing with Dr. Neumann and his daughters
was to know how he stood on this question. They found him a rebel, and
in giving him their minds in relation to this matter, one of the
daughters expressed to him her wonder that I should allow him to enter
my house as they would not allow him in theirs. The stir made in the
company by this little brush at arms arrested the attention of all, and
gave the Americans their first information as to where our quondam
friend stood, as well as set them an example of zeal and enthusiasm in
their own cause.
I must close this notice with an incident which lies quite outside of
Dr. Neumann's relations to America and Americans. On his retirement from
his university labors, he withdrew mainly from the exciting scenes of
public life. But in November, 1859, occurred the centennial anniversary
of Schiller's birth. Of all the men connected with German popular
literature, Schiller is most in the hearts of the people of Germany. The
spirit of liberty shown in his 'William Tell'--his exile from his native
Wirtemberg for the free expressions used in the first play he ever
wrote--his high order of genius as a poet and historian--the subjects he
chose, and the way he treated them, and, finally, his social and
domestic character, have all combined to endear him to the whole people.
This festival was everywhere observed, and with the highest enthusiasm;
for although Governments were afraid of its effects, they were still
more afraid to refuse permission to hold it. It lasted for several days,
on one of which was a great public dinner, with several hundred in
attendance, of which Dr. Neumann consented to be one. Champagne flowed
freely, and although I did not taste this beverage, and know by
experience little of its effects, it was easy to perceive that the
animation could not all be accounted for by love to the memory even of
Schiller. Poems were read, and speeches were made describing his
character as poet, historian, or otherwise, according to the fancy of
each speaker. I remember one from Bodenstedt, than whom few stand higher
in the walks of polite literature, and one from Sybel, than whom no one
in Germany ranks higher as a historian. Dr. Neumann, who, like an old
parade horse long withrawn from the excitements of a parade, felt amid
these scenes the spirit of former days stirred within him, rose to
speak. We shall be prepared to appreciate the effect when we get an idea
of the preternatural sensitiveness of those who composed the audience. A
well-known poet, who may perhaps be called the poet-laureate of Bavaria,
had read a poem on the occasion. It contained nothing to which any one
could object, as we might infer from his position with the king, and yet
I heard the poet himself say a few days afterward that the editors of a
certain well-known journal, in publishing it, left out the stanzas
containing the word _Freiheit_ (liberty), so fearful were they of not
pitching their tune to a key that would suit royal and Government ears.
A similar sensitiveness pervaded the whole body present--nearly all drew
their bread and beer from the Government, and did not wish it stopped or
diminished. This class had gotten up the meeting, and hoped to control
it. When they saw Dr. Neumann rise, they felt that _there_ was a man
_naturally_ fearless, and _now_ quite beyond that special sense of
danger which made them cautious. Recollection passed over his seven
years' silence, and called up the power with which he had harangued in
other years. Nor was it so much what he said as the man who said it,
which produced the effect, and yet there was much in the speech. He said
that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and
historian; but nothing had been said of him as a _politician_, and he
should speak of him in this character. The _rising_ of _such_ a man was
an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe
tremble from centre to circumference. The word _politician_ was a
_second_ shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of
that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded
to compare Schiller with Goethe--the _former_ frankly addressing himself
to his friend in correspondence on the great questions of their
politics, and trying to draw him out, the _latter_, then a minister of
state, cautiously and warily declining to expose his views--he but
carried out the impression made in his rising and his announcement. It
was the only properly stump speech--I use the phrase in the high sense
in which it might be used of O'Connell or Clay--I ever heard in Germany.
Such is the man who has undertaken to write our country's history for
the Germans. Of his _work_ I have said nothing, for I have not seen it;
I write this impromptu on seeing the newspaper announcement of the first
volume. He will doubtless do much to set us right in the eyes of his own
people, where, however, there is less need of this than in _another_
land, whose people are more nearly related to us, where such service,
however, is less likely to be done.
THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.
_PART THREE._
In the last preceding article on this subject in THE CONTINENTAL, we
concluded by considering the consequences of an early victory of the
North over the entire South, _followed by the restoration of the old
Union upon precisely the old basis_. We showed that, in such an event,
the war would have been barren of results even to the extent of removing
its own cause, or preventing its almost immediate and more desperate
renewal; that the question at issue is a question of paramount governing
power between two adverse theories of social existence; between two
distinct and conflicting civilizations; between two antagonistic and
irreconcilable political and moral forces; and that it must be fought
out to the complete subordination of the less advanced or more barbarous
and backward-tending of those forces--unless the wheels of progress on
this continent are to be reversed, and the watchword of despotism be
substituted for that of freedom: not only that it must be fought out on
the battle field, but that the fruits of the victory must not be blindly
or foolishly surrendered after the obvious and external victory is won.
We may say here, however, for the purpose of reserving the still more
radical consideration of the nature of this conflict for some future
day, that, adverse as these theories of social existence are--distinct
and conflicting as are these two civilizations--antagonistic and
irreconcilable as these contending political and moral forces now seem,
and for present practical purposes must be taken to be--they are not
_essentially_ irreconcilable. Slavery, bad as it is, represents a truth
in the larger Compound Truth of an Integral Social Philosophy. A deeper
understanding of the whole problem of human society, possessed by the
leading personages, North and South, would have saved the necessity of
this war--would at this day even, adjust it peaceably, harmoniously, and
perfectly, and would render unnecessary the whole view of the subject
which we are now taking. The world, however, is not yet quite prepared
for the peaceable intervention of scientific and truly philosophic
methods in the settlement of its disputes; and the knowledge of the
existence, even, of such methods, is as yet too little diffused to make
them in any sense available for the purposes of the hour. The point of
view from which these papers are being written, is, indeed, as stated in
the last preceding number, higher than that of the ordinary politician,
the constitutional lawyer, or even that of common statesmanship and
patriotic devotion. It is a point of view from which the interests of
all mankind are taken into the account, and hence pertains, in a sense,
to the domain of practical philosophy, or the universal aspect of
politics; the politics of the globe and of all humanity, in all time.
But it offers still a presentation of the subject toned down to the
actual state of readiness in the world to hear reason, and to be
influenced or governed by the suggestions contained in the writing. It
is therefore an adaptation to an imperfect order of things, a mixed or
concrete phase of political practical philosophy, which is the most that
can now be aspired to. The point of view in question is therefore far
lower than that of a final social philosophy having its basis in a
perfect scientific theory, and working out from that basis into
practical life. Perhaps, as will be again suggested in the course of
this article, the events of this war may conduce to a readiness on this
continent, or may create an earnest demand even, for higher solutions
and the thorough treatment, by some competent mind, of all our Political
and Sociatory problems. The day, however, for such a radical diagnosis
and treatment of the disease of human society has not yet arrived.
In the mean time we must content ourselves with partial remedies,
alleviations, best temporary resorts, and even desperate expedients. It
is from this stand-point that the writer of these articles now speaks;
that, feeling deeply in his heart and recognizing clearly in his head
the common brotherhood and the equal essential manhood of the
inhabitants of the Southern and Northern States--sympathetically and
socially drawn, even, to the Southern side, by many endearing
associations and recollections; that, clearly appreciating the
fratricidal nature of this war--its essential non-necessity, if men were
wise enough to avail themselves of better known and feasible,
methods--he still deliberately and forcibly insists, under the
circumstances which are, that the North should not only fight out the
war to the last word of determinate conquest, but that it should, with
wise but merciless rigor, extinguish the cause of the war, and hold with
unflinching hand every advantage it gains, until new institutions and
new methods of thought shall have been securely planted on every inch of
the soil of the South.
Since, even, the last previous part of this series of papers was sent to
the press, new and alarming indications have appeared in various
quarters, of the drift in the public mind--North--in favor of an
easy-going and conceding policy toward the South as the war draws to a
close; a policy which would be nearly certain to lose to ourselves and
to the world all the benefits of the war; to deprive the South, even, of
those higher and ulterior benefits which would come to her also; to
leave untouched the causes of the war, and to foster its early renewal
with more than its former desperation.
Not to mention the reiterated and urgent renewals of the subject of
reconstruction in quarters where we are accustomed to look for a partial
loyalty or a covert opposition to the war, articles like the following,
from the New York _Times_, of November 19th, frequently appear in the
undoubtedly loyal press:
'RECONSTRUCTION.--Since we have been at the trouble of
conquering the rebels in the State of Arkansas--since, after many
great victories, we have now complete military possession of the
State, and have armies posted on its eastern, western, and northern
lines, and at its capital in the centre--we think it would be worth
while in the Government to take steps to reorganize the civil
administration there, and inaugurate a system of policy such as was
adopted in Missouri two years ago, and which has proved so
successful in pacifying that State. The loyal element in Arkansas
is large, as is made evident by the action of the people wherever
our forces have penetrated, and by the enlistment of a good number
of its citizens in the armies of the Union. One of the Senators
from Arkansas, Senator Sebastian, whose term of office is as yet
unexpired, is, and always has been, we believe, a sound loyal man;
and Mr. Gantt, who was elected to Congress just before the outbreak
of the rebellion, has recently given proof of his repentance and
devotion to the Union in the remarkable address which we published
last week. We do not see why the process of reconstruction might
not be at once commenced in Arkansas, and why, before the close of
next session, the State might not have a full congressional
delegation in Washington.'
Not a word is here said of the important question of Slavery. The
proposition is pure and simple to readmit the rebellious State of
Arkansas to the Union, upon precisely the same footing as that upon
which we retained the allegiance of Missouri--to treat, in other words,
loyal and rebellious States in the same way.
In a subsequent article of the same able journal, one of the organs of
the Republican party, this easy-going policy, the _laissez-faire_ of
statesmanship, is expanded at large, and explicitly adopted and
recommended. The appearance of such an article in such a quarter is such
a remarkable index of the existence in the public mind of the delusions
we are exposing, that we transfer it bodily to our columns, for the sake
of commenting upon its positions. Calhoun's famous expression, 'masterly
inactivity,' is significantly adopted as a caption:
'CIVIL POLICY TOWARD SLAVERY.--There is a class of men who
stick to the idea that something positive must be done by the
Federal Government to end slavery. Even the issue of the
Emancipation Proclamation, a military measure for military ends
solely, does not satisfy them. They want civil power exercised, and
would gladly have even a breaking down of State lines and a
reconstruction of the Government itself, as the only effectual
means of destroying the institution of their special abhorrence.
'Now we, too, claim a good hearty hatred of slavery. We are as
anxious as any to see it under the sod, beyond resurrection. But we
don't believe in making any superfluous sacrifice to get it there.
Seeing that it is dying, we are quite content to let it die
quietly, without any attempt to pull the house down about its ears
and our own ears. This seems to us to be a very absurd sort of
impatience--prompted by giddy passion rather than sober reason.
'But how do we know slavery is dying? We know it from the unanimous
testimony of all personal observers of its condition. There is not
a man within the Union lines South, however friendly he may be to
the institution, who pretends that there is any chance whatever of
its being saved, _if present causes continue_. Two things are
killing it.
'_The first is the wear and tear of the war. Military operations
always tend to disjoint and break up, within their scope, all the
relations of society. They inevitably remit, to a greater or less
extent, the social man to a state of nature. Inter arma leges
silent_. This is felt in every social connection, even the closest
and strongest; for they all are, more or less, dependent on civil
law. But it must be felt particularly in that connection, which of
all others is the most forced and arbitrary--the connection between
master and slave. Liberty is a natural instinct. The caged bird is
not surer to fly through the parted wires than the slave, in his
ordinary condition, from the broken chain--_and the chain must be
broken when the civil law, which alone gives it strength, passes
away_. There are men who complain of the anti-slavery war policy of
the President. A policy that was anything else would not be a war
policy at all. The war upon the rebellious slaveholding people of
necessity involves an interruption of their laws; and unless the
advancing army should make good this absence of civil rule by
applying its own military power to keeping watch and ward over the
slaves, and thus abandon its proper military business, the result
is inevitable _that the institution must melt away as the war goes
on_. Abraham Lincoln might be as much attached to slavery as
Jefferson Davis himself, and yet no human sagacity would enable him
to fight Jefferson Davis honestly and effectually without mortal
injury to slavery. _It is the war which kills slavery, and not the
man who leads the war_.
'_The other destroying agency in open discussion_. Slavery can live
only in silence. There is a deadly antagonism between itself and
free speech. Where the one exists the other cannot. The vitality of
the one rests in pure force, and force and reason never agree. It
always has been, and always will be, that force must either
suppress reason or reason will subvert force. One of the first acts
of the slavery propagandists in Kansas was to pass enactments
through their spurious Legislature, making it a felony, punishable
by imprisonment and hard labor, for any man to 'assert or maintain
by speaking or writing that persons have not the right to hold
slaves in this Territory.' It has been so in every Slave State, and
worse. _Not only have slave codes interdicted, in every one of
them, all adverse discussion of the institution, but a mob power
has always been at hand to take summary vengeance upon it with
Lynch law. These resorts were not a mere caprice; they were a
necessity_. Slavery being once accepted as the prime object, there
was no alternative but to protect it just in this manner. _But the
war has ended all that. There can be no mobs where the bayonet
governs; nor arbitrary local laws where general military law is
paramount. The discussion of slavery is as free now in New Orleans
as in New York_. It is no more within the province of the military
Governor, Shepley, to interfere with fair discussion there, than it
is within the rightful power of the civil Governor, Seymour, to
interfere with it here. _And in the Border States, where the civil
laws still prevail, hostility to the rebellion has excited such a
dissatisfaction with slavery as its cause, that by general consent
perfect freedom is allowed in arguing against the institution._ The
consequence of this freedom has been that Missouri has already
determined to abolish it; Maryland and Delaware have put declared
emancipationists in places of their highest trusts by unprecedented
majorities; and Kentucky is visibly casting about to see how she
can best rid herself of the curse.
'_We say, then, that even if the National Government had the right
to institute new civil measures against slavery, it would not be
necessary. The unavoidable military operations of the war, and the
free discussion which is sure to attend it, are enough of
themselves to break down the institution. The Government has simply
to stand quiet, and let these agencies work_.'
The italics are our own, inserted for the sake of more easy reference.
Not only is it unnecessary, according to this writer, to take any active
and positive steps against Slavery at the South, but so soon as the
rebel States wish to return within the Union, with all their old
privileges and with Slavery surviving, they should be permitted to do
so, and should be received with open arms. The Proclamation of
Emancipation itself is thus quietly wiped out, and a policy sketched
which, in the event of mere military defeat on their part, would, in the
next place, be the most acceptable of all possible policies;--not to the
loyal black men who are now struggling, fighting, and dying alongside of
us, in the ranks; not to the small and feeble but growing anti-slavery
party, which, in the presence of, and under the protection of our armies
of the North, is just springing up and consolidating itself in the
South;--but to Jefferson Davis himself, and to all the devoted and
fanatical adherents of the slaveholding system in the South, and their
'Copperhead' friends in the North. The _Times_ article concludes as
follows:
'But we go farther, and say, that any other interference would not
only be superfluous, but positively mischievous. To insure that
slavery, when it dies, shall never rise again, you have got to
depend largely upon the disposition of the Southern people. That
disposition should not be needlessly embittered. It can't help
becoming so if, as some propose, their States are reduced to the
condition of mere territorial dependencies. Americans can never be
satisfied to be underlings. Whatever the fortunes of war
legitimately bring, they are sensible enough to submit to; but it
is not in their spirit to consent to any permanent degradation.
Undertake to deprive them permanently of their civil rights, and
you simply make them your permanent enemies. _Territorialize them
because you hate slavery, and the inevitable effect will be that
you will only make them love slavery the more, and hate you the
more. This could not always continue. State rights, sooner or
later, would have to be restored. We don't believe that three years
would elapse after the close of the war before the keeping those
States in a territorial condition would be abandoned as an
insufferable anomaly in our system of government. State rights once
restored, the people, maddened by the thrall that had been put upon
them, would be very likely to vindicate these rights by
rehabilitating slavery. Every incentive of high pride and every
impulse of low spite would combine to urge this; and the National
Government would have no legitimate way of preventing it_.
'It will never do to try to give slavery its lasting quietus by
mere arbitrary force. To secure this we have got to rely in no
small measure upon reason. We must never forget that just as Force
is the natural ally of Slavery, just so Reason is the natural ally
of Freedom. _When the South has been overcome in fair fight, we
must give its reason a fair chance to assert itself_. Military
authority over each reclaimed State should last until the majority
of the people have made up their mind to resume, in good faith,
their old relations to the Government, and have had a fair
opportunity to canvass how that resumption shall best be
inaugurated. Of course the machinery of the State Government cannot
be given over to traitors; _but whenever there is sound reason to
believe that a fair loyal majority of the State want it, let them
have it--and that, too, without imposing any conditions concerning
slavery. If this just and rational policy is faithfully carried
out, and no arbitrary issues are foisted in to impose a sense of
subordination, we have not a doubt that every Slave State will
follow the emancipating policy which the Border States, of their
own accord, have already entered upon with such decision. Even if
loyal duty don't prompt it, interest will. For slavery, after
having been crippled as it has been by the war, even if it could
live, would only be an encumbrance. But it can't live. It is
already half dead. Let the loyal men of the South finish it and
bury it in their own way_.'
Compare, now, in the fair spirit of criticism, the beginning and the end
of this unstatesman-like editorial. Slavery, we are emphatically told,
is dying; first, because the presence of the war in its immediate
vicinity is killing it; and, secondly, because free discussion, excited
by the war and the presence of Northern influence incidental to the war,
is killing it--_therefore let us hasten to withdraw the military power,
and the causes of free discussion, where, for a century, it has been
annihilated until now, and has only now begun to exist, and leave in
full activity all the causes of reaction and the reëstablishment of the
old STATUS. 'There is not the slightest chance, whatever,' says the
writer, 'of slavery being saved_, IF PRESENT CAUSES CONTINUE.' Therefore
_hasten to discontinue present causes, by all means, and surrender the
field to the operation of the old causes. 'The chain'_ of the slave
'_must be broken when the civil law, which alone gives it strength,
passes away_.' Therefore hasten to restore the civil law to its old and
tyrannical potency over the destiny of the slave. '_The institution must
melt away as the war goes on_.' Therefore, hasten not merely to finish
the active stage of the war, but _to surrender the power which victory
will place in your hands to continue the same emancipating influences_;
and to surrender it into the hands of men avowedly hostile to your
policy, and who have been conquered fighting for their franchise to
enslave.
'_Not only_,' continues our editor, '_have slave codes interdicted, in
every one of the Slave States, all adverse discussion of the
institution, but a mob power has always been at hand to take summary
vengeance upon it with Lynch law. These resorts were not a mere caprice;
they were a necessity_.' Hasten, therefore, to reëstablish these engines
of terrorism and the institution which inevitably demands their
existence. Ignore and set aside the Proclamation of Emancipation; betray
the auxiliary black man; throttle and destroy the incipient party of
freedom in its birth; turn the Young South, just rising into existence
as the friend of liberty and progress, over, stripped and unprotected,
into the hands of the Old South, with its thongs, its thumbscrews, and
its Lynch law; throw aside, the moment it is acquired, the power to
civilize and regenerate the South--not because the war and the free
discussion which accompany the war _have killed slavery_, but because
they _are killing it_, and will be sure to kill it unless they are
speedily withdrawn.
'But the war,' we are told, 'has ended all that. _There can be no mobs
where the bayonet governs; nor arbitrary local laws where general
military law is paramount. The discussion of slavery is as free now in
New Orleans as it is in New York.'_ _True: therefore_, hasten to restore
the reign of mobs, or you will hurt the feelings of the men who make the
mobs. Withdraw speedily 'the general military law,' and its 'paramount'
control, expressly in order that the operation of 'the arbitrary local
laws' may be resumed. Urge up the measures which will put an end to the
state of affairs in which 'the discussion of slavery is as free in New
Orleans as it is in New York.'
_'And in the Border States, where the civil laws still prevail,
hostility to the rebellion has excited such a dissatisfaction with
slavery as its cause, that, by general consent, perfect freedom is
allowed in arguing against the institution.'_ This is true while a
United States force is in the vicinity to overawe traitors--while the
friends of freedom feel confident that they have the strength of a
nation at their back to aid them in resisting the local tyranny; hasten,
therefore, to remove these supports, and leave them to struggle single
handed and hopelessly against an inveterate and hoary despotism, which
knows no law higher than its own will; and which has always been
competent to crush out every rising aspiration toward freedom; until the
accidental advantages of the war encouraged that timid utterance of true
American sentiment in those quarters which is just now beginning feebly
to make itself heard and felt. Hasten, therefore, to withdraw that
support at the instant of time when the local friends of freedom have
just been induced to declare themselves, and so to become the unshielded
victims of slaveholding vindictiveness the instant the provisional
security of the new party derived from abroad ceases to exist. What
would 'the dissatisfaction with slavery' from 'hostility to the
rebellion' have amounted to in Maryland, as a power, against the haughty
and overbearing authority of the slaveholding Despotism, at the
commencement of the war, without the intervention of General Butler; or
that of Missouri, without that of General Fremont? What would that same
dissatisfaction with Slavery amount to at this very day even, in those
States, against the reflex wave of pro-slavery influence and power, if
all influence from the armies and authority of the United States were
completely withdrawn? Or, granting even that in those two Border States,
the most advanced of all, the most under ordinary influences from the
Free States, there is already inaugurated an Anti-slavery Movement which
would retain energy enough to carry on the struggle without foreign
aid--which even is extremely doubtful; the case would stand wholly
otherwise in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or Arkansas, where no
well-constituted Party of Freedom has as yet achieved any successes, and
where the slaveholding interest and desperation are ten times stronger
than they are in the Border States.
'_'We say, then,_ says the _Times_ writer, '_that even if the National
Government had the right to institute new civil measures against
slavery, it would not be necessary. The unavoidable military operations
of the war, and the free discussion which is sure to attend it, are
enough of themselves to break down the institution. The Government has
simply to stand quiet and let those influences work._'
All this, urged for the purposes for which it is here urged, is simply
crying, Peace! peace! when there is no peace. If these influences, the
presence of the war power and free discussion, be to continue, very
good. Then, indeed, is there a chance, amounting almost to a certainty,
that Slavery will have to succumb, and all of these considerations,
urged as a reason why the war power should be retained for an adequate
period over the Slave States, even after their nominal submission, and
free discussion encouraged and protected by that power--which we
understand to be the policy recommended by General Butler--are
consequent, logical, and patriotic; but put forth as reasons why we
should hasten to surrender the influence over the destiny of man which
has been so providentially, and yet with such immense sacrifice, placed
in our hands, they are practically hostile to the vital purposes of the
war, however honest and simple minded may be the individuals who
recommend them.
Again: _'Territorialize them because you hate slavery, and the
inevitable result will be that you will only make them love slavery the
more,'_ etc.
It is not our purpose to insist on the technical process of
_territorializing_ the conquered rebel States. What we do insist on is
that the military authority, which the nation has so laboriously
asserted and acquired over them, shall not be withdrawn until the
natural and necessary and appropriate consequences of the war shall have
been attained; and that among these is the inauguration of Freedom
instead of the reinstitution of that hideous anomaly of the nations,
American Slavery. We insist that the rising, but as yet the feeble and
timid Freedom Party of the South, including the blacks and a growing
number of the poor whites, so fast as they become rightly informed, with
a small number of enlightened, generous, and noble-minded men of the
planter class, who sympathize with freedom, and are truly loyal in
sympathy and soul to American principles and the American Government, be
regarded and treated as the new and loyal South; and not a trumped-up
party, which may arise any day, of as bitter traitors as ever lived, but
who, seeing the hopelessness of their cause, which is, at bottom,
Slavery, and nothing else, under the present issue of war, shall give in
a hollow and pretended profession of loyalty, in order to secure, by
other means, the same end. Does this truly loyal party at the South
anywhere as yet wish the withdrawal of the protection of the General
Government, and desire to be turned over to the tender mercies of their
false and subtle enemy--which are unheard-of cruelties? Let the
representation of the thousand loyal men from Middle Tennessee, recently
made to the President of the United States, answer. On the contrary,
there is nothing which those men so greatly dread--nothing which so
checks their more rapid development as a party--as the fear that they
may be so abandoned before their work is sufficiently advanced to secure
its completion.
The three years which the _Times_ writer concedes to the existence of an
anomaly in our Government, may be amply enough to accomplish all that is
required. So far from imbittering the feelings of the true friends of
the Union in the South, assurance of the continuance of such a
protection over them, even for that length of time, would infuse new
confidence and new activity into all their movements. It is clearly the
right of the policeman to judge when the mob is effectually suppressed,
and as much his duty not to allow himself to be surprised and
over-mastered by a pretended and hollow submission for the sake of
seizing an advantage, as it is to inflict effectual blows of his cudgel
while the row is in its more flagrant stages of development. The United
States, having interfered by force to suppress a national riot, has a
clear right, and a bounden duty, not to abandon the region of the
disturbance until the _animus_ of rebellion is subdued as effectually as
its open manifestation; and knowing that that _animus_ is identical
with the spirit, purposes, and designs of the slaveholding class--a
conspiracy, in fine, to overthrow the Government in that sole behalf--it
is alike bound effectually to cripple or actually to exterminate that
malign influence.
Again says our writer under review: '_When the South has been overcome
in fair fight, we must give its reason a chance to assert itself._' Very
true, if the mode of doing so be not foolishly misunderstood. The error
here is in speaking of the South as one, whereas from this time forward
and for some years to come, there will be an Old South, rebellious at
heart, malignant, defiant, cruel, and revengeful to the last
degree--bold, accustomed to rule with unquestioned authority--and, when
conquered, refusing to remain conquered, except as the grapple of the
conqueror is still at its throat; and a New South, loyal, loving, and
devoted to its deliverers, but timid, shrinking, and tentative of its
powers--liberty-loving, and truly American in sentiment, but unused to
the exercise of political supremacy, unorganized, and weak;--an old
South, refusing every appeal to reason, and only thirsting for
vengeance; and a new South, ready to reason and to be reasoned with, and
looking gratefully to the National Government as its guide and protector
in the unequal contest before it--more fearful to it than ever--at the
close of the war. How, then, shall we 'give the reason of the South a
chance to assert itself'? By withdrawing our support from our friends,
and the friends of America, and of man, in the South, and turning them
over, like sheep to the wolves, to their unreasoning and vindictive
enemies; or by standing by them in the weakness of their first essay to
depend on reason and justice in the place of force or fraud; by
developing, in fine, the reason of the South, which has been for a
century overridden and suppressed by the incubus of an organized
despotism, from which there is now, for the first time, the chance of a
redemption, if these _friends_ of Southern reason do not commit a
blunder in their understanding of the case?
'_Whenever_,' says the _Times_ writer, '_there is sound reason to
believe that a sound loyal majority of the State want it
(reconstruction), let them have it--and that, too, without imposing any
conditions concerning slavery_.' That is to say, abandon the
Proclamation of Emancipation, betray the colored man, who, trusting to
our faith, is now enrolling himself in our armies; betray the timid
friends of freedom, who, by our encouragement, have dared to proclaim
their love of liberty, and subject themselves to inevitable banishment
or extermination, unless the programme of a new free South be executed
triumphantly and to the letter; furnish to the most malignant
slaveholding faction an equal chance at the very least, on a hollow
pretence of loyalty, to recover the ascendant and annihilate the new
party of emancipation and a regenerated South; and all this to save the
Southern malignants from being subjected to an unpleasant sense of
'subordination;' to prevent imbittering their sentiments; as if it were
possible to add bitterness to gall, or venom to the virus of the
rattlesnake. The most imbittering and offensive thing that _can ever be
done_ to those men _is done_ the moment you pronounce the words of
freedom and human rights, in conjunction with each other, as if they
were the same thing. That done, every other measure grows mild. To
territorialize the whole South, and place a satrap over every parish and
county of it--saying no word for freedom--would be a gentle and
conciliating procedure compared with the most innocent utterance of a
mere sentiment in behalf of emancipation and the elevation of the negro
to the status of a man. Why, then, strain at a gnat when we have already
swallowed a camel? If we mean anything by Emancipation Proclamations,
the organization of negro troops, or even by our own inherent love of
liberty, nothing after that need ever be handled gingerly with the
South. Every recommendation to abstain from giving her offence is simply
a recommendation to recede, not only from our whole war policy now so
happily inaugurated, but to recede from every genuine and efficient
sentiment the Northern people may entertain, or ever have entertained,
in behalf of the distinctively American idea: the freedom and equality
before the law of all men.
_'If this just and rational policy is faithfully carried out,'_
continues our editor, _'and no arbitrary issues are foisted in to impose
a sense of subordination, we have not a doubt that every Slave State
will follow the emancipating policy which the Border States, of their
own accord, have already entered upon with such decision. Even if loyal
duty don't prompt it, interest will; for slavery, after having been
crippled, as it has been by the war, even if it could live, would only
be an encumbrance. But it can't live. It is already half dead. Let the
loyal men of the South finish it and bury it in their own way'._
Now it is precisely this simple-minded and easy credence that everything
will go right if it be at once handed over to the management of the men
who may have been whipped in the battle field--this overweening
confidence on the part of good men, and intelligent men, too, in the
ordinary sense of intelligence, at the North, which is the most
dangerous feature of the whole matter. We are just entering upon the
real crisis of the war, when the war, by many, will be thought finished.
It is exceedingly doubtful whether in any single Border State the
Anti-slavery Movement has received as yet any such impetus or gained any
such secure foothold that it could maintain the struggle for a six
months, if the influence growing out of the presence of the war in their
midst were withdrawn, and the political power were remanded in full to
the local authorities; and, in respect to the States farther South, and
wholly committed to the institution, it is certain that Slavery has
hardly received what would prove a serious scratch upon its epidermis,
if such changes were now to take place.
Indeed, on the contrary, there was never a time when temptation to
slaveholding was a third part what it is to-day, aside from the threat
of danger hanging over it from the continuance of the war, and the
supposed determination of the Northern conquerors to put an end to it.
The vital principle of Slavery which overrides every other
consideration, is the extra-profitable nature and state of slave-labor
products. The writer has himself seen Slavery firmly seated in the
saddle and unassailable in an exposed region of the South, with cotton
at from eight to twelve cents on the pound, and the same institution
trembling toward its downfall when cotton fell to four and a half and
five cents on the plantation. What must then be its hold on the cupidity
of Southern men when the condition of Slavery, by virtue of the same
state of war which threatens its existence on the one hand, has caused
the price of cotton to rule, on the other hand, from twenty-five to
seventy-five cents a pound, and has affected, in a somewhat similar way,
every other product of the sort! An immense premium is thus offered for
the continuance of the institution, and the danger is not slight that
our own Northern men, thrown into the South, would be seduced, in great
numbers, by the temptation, into becoming themselves slavery
propagandists, unless the exigencies of the war, the _esprit du corps_,
and the solidarity of interests springing up between them and the negro
soldiers, and the prompt and energetic activity of the Government in
behalf of an emancipation policy were all to combine to prevent it. In
talking of Slavery, its power, its weakness, or its prospects, men,
unless they have been intimately mixed up with its workings, are apt to
be reckoning without their host. Our own sentiment of justice in the
matter, North, poor and feeble as it is in most of us, is immensely
aided by the negative fact that our interests do not happen to be
immediately involved adversely. Not one in ten thousand of Northern men
or Europeans, thrown into the South previous to the war, ever withstood
the infection of pro-slavery sentiment and action. Our soldiers do so
now, only because they are in large bodies, because they are fighting
the Southern men, and because they are becoming more and more identified
with a distinct national policy in behalf of emancipation and the rights
of man. Withdraw these causes, and the effects would be rapidly
reversed. Northern officers and men could not be trusted to fraternize
with the slave-holding aristocracy, previous to the time when the
backbone of the institution of Slavery should have been effectually
broken; not because they are bad men, but because they are men, and
would act, under similar circumstances, as men--alike Northern,
Southern, and European men--have acted in the years that are past. There
is a far more reliable and trustworthy party of Southern anti-slavery
men than are as yet their Northern allies; men who have suffered
intensely from actual contact and struggle with the institution, and who
have felt, in some measure, the steel of Slavery enter their own souls;
but they are not numerous enough to stand without the aid of these same
untrustworthy Northern auxiliaries, who already, at the first indication
of incipient success for our arms, propose, like this writer, to remand
them to the tender mercies of a Southern majority rule. It is the fear
of this treachery which makes them so few as they are, and so weak. It
is these men whom we wish to see sustained, recognized as the loyal and
the new South, and aided in the work of reconstruction, when the
somewhat distant period for it to be safe and wise shall have arrived.
They are the men who will teach us wisdom, if we will follow their
advice; and they, be assured of it, will not clamor for any early and
thoughtless surrender of our present advantages, for fear of hurting the
sensibilities of the South by imposing a sense of 'subordination.' With
the agony of despair, such men would remonstrate against any such
suicidal policy, and entreat the Government of the United States and the
people of the North to stand by them in their great distress, through,
until the end. While writing, the following newspaper paragraph attracts
our attention, and is a fair expression of the truth we are seeking to
inculcate:
'The Hon. Silas Casey, of Kentucky, brings news of the most intense
feeling, on the subject of holding slaves in the Border States,
among Union men. They contend that the restriction in the
President's Proclamation has made Kentucky and Tennessee a
'national slave pen,' where slaves, fleeing from the 'confederate'
States, are bought and sold by the thousand. He says the Unionists
to a man are in favor of immediate and sweeping emancipation of all
slaves within their borders--that there can be no protection for a
Unionist as long as aristocratic secessionists are allowed to hold
all their old slaves, and are protected in buying human beings,
once freed by the President's Proclamation. The last and most
important step to be taken by the Government, to insure Unionism in
the Border States, is to emancipate the slaves of disloyalists in
Kentucky and Tennessee. The military once removed from Kentucky,
and again would commence the barbarism of slavery. Defenders of the
Government would be murdered--freedom of speech be denied; the
expulsion of Northern ministers, and the tar-and-feathering of
Northern schoolmasters, for only preferring Union to secession,
freedom to slavery, would go on as freely as in the palmiest days
of the chivalry; Parson Brownlow would be driven from Knoxville,
his press and dwelling burned, Casey and Green and Adams exiled
forever, and the same old war would have to be fought over again,
with all its blood and horror, on Kentucky soil.'
The following comments are equally true:
'Again we call the attention of thoughtful men to the current
phases of 'Border State' politics, and ask that they be deeply
considered. If we open a hundred 'conservative' journals in
succession, we shall find at least ninety of them asserting or
assuming that the revolted States are to be reconciled to the Union
by new concessions, new guarantees to slavery. But those States
themselves emphatically repel this assumption. Every man in
Delaware, in Maryland, in Tennessee, in Missouri, who is heartily
and thoroughly anti-rebel is also anti-slavery, and nearly every
one is for immediate, not gradual, emancipation. They were not
Republicans; not one in twenty of them voted for Lincoln; they make
no special pretensions to philanthropy; but they mean to live and
die in the Union, and they do not choose to have their throats cut
by rebels; so they desire that slavery should die, knowing by
practical experience, by personal observation, that slavery and the
rebellion are but two phases of the same thing--two names for one
reality.'
Slavery, as things are, is neither 'crippled' nor 'half dead.' It is
only a little sick, and threatened with being made more so, if the same
effectual blows which have been dealt it are followed up hereafter with
other blows still more effectual.
We have reason to believe that the writer of the _Times_ article we have
been reviewing, has passed some time with the Army of the Cumberland;
that he has viewed the subject impartially from what he deems a large
field of observation; and that he speaks honestly what he believes. But
no observation even of that kind is sufficient to open the whole case.
Let him be a Southern man, or a Northern man residing at the South, and
committed to the emancipation policy; let him stay behind and see the
banners of our army gradually retiring to the North, and the banished
leaders of the rebellion and other slaveholding tyrants and harpies
gathering in the wake and gradually surrounding him and his little band
of patriots--reclaiming all their old authority and overawing and
trampling down every incipient blade of the crop of freedom, which had
been planted in the presence and under the shadow of our armies--and he
will be better prepared to judge. From even the high authority of
General Grant himself, on this subject, we dissent. Let him first
grapple with a Southern slaveholding public sentiment, as a peaceable
citizen holding adverse opinions, and without a victorious army at his
back, and he will be better qualified to form and give a reliable
opinion. He is represented as having said, in a private letter to the
Hon. E. F. Washburn, of the date of August 13th, 1863, that the people
of the North need not quarrel over the institution of Slavery; that what
Vice-President Stevens acknowledges as the corner stone of the
confederacy is already knocked out; that Slavery is already dead, and
cannot be resurrected; that it would take a standing army to maintain
Slavery in the South, if we were to make peace to-day guaranteeing to
the South all their former constitutional privileges, etc. With profound
respect for General Grant as a man and a soldier, we would still prefer
the opinion, on this point, of any earnest member of the young and
feeble anti-slavery party of the South, who resides a few miles away
from the actual reach of the authority and influence of a Federal army.
It is refreshing to know that to this opinion of the victorious general,
of exceedingly doubtful value, upon the specific point in question, he
adds these memorable and patriotic words:
'I never was an Abolitionist, not even what would be called
anti-slavery, but I try to judge fairly and honestly, and it became
patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South
could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and
that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see peace established,
I would not, therefore, be willing to see any settlement until this
question is forever settled.'
Almost the only men in the nation who are really competent to judge when
Slavery is really dead, in any region, are those Northern and Western
anti-slavery men who have come into long and deadly collision with its
spirit and power in Kansas and upon the western border of Missouri. Even
Northern and Eastern Abolitionists, better versed perhaps in the theory
of the subject, would prove very incompetent if matched in practical
hostility with slaveholding opinion and might--slaveholding
vindictiveness, cunning, treachery, and recklessness of every
consideration, human or divine, but the gaining of their one end, the
retention of their hold over the slave.
It is again refreshing, in the midst of the open or covert defence and
protection among us of the surviving remnant of Slavery at the South,
granting for the moment that it is now reduced to that, and in the midst
of such easy and over-credulous and mistaken assumptions of its
complete, virtual destruction already, by undoubted friends of freedom,
as in the case of the _Times_ editor, General Grant, and numerous
others, to listen to such hearty utterances, in the keynote of the right
policy, as were made by Secretary Chase in his recent speech at
Cincinnati, and to be able to believe that they foreshadow the course of
the Administration in this trying epoch of our country's history. We
quote the following report:
'It was never intended to interfere with States that were loyal.
This Proclamation comes up as a great feature in this war. In my
judgment the Proclamation was the right thing in the right place,
and without it I am just as sure as I am of my own existence that
we could not have made the progress we have made. And I hold that
the man who denounces the Proclamation either speaks ignorantly,
speaks about that of which he knows little or nothing, or else he
really desires that the rebellion should succeed.
'There are two classes of States in the South; there is the class
of States that is affected by the Proclamation, and a class of
States that is not. With this last class of States, which is not
affected by the Proclamation, we have simply nothing to do, except
to bid God speed to the unconditional Union men of those States,
that they will do their own work in their own way and in their own
time, and all we have to do is to stand by them.
'But in the States which are affected by the Proclamation the case
is different. Either the Proclamation was a great, monstrous sham,
and an imposition in the face of the world, or else that
Proclamation was an effectual thing, and there are no slaves to-day
in the rebel States. They are all enfranchised by the Proclamation,
for what says it? All the slaves of these States are declared now
and forever free, and the executive power is pledged to the
maintenance of their freedom. If it were not so it would be a
national imposture, and I would no more be guilty of that piece of
infamy than I would steal into your house at night and rob your
pantry. But what have we to do with this Proclamation in the
rebellious Slave States? It is a very simple thing: _just simply
recognise the Union men who remain in those States_. Such men as
Mr. Flanders, and Mr. May, and a whole host of others, who were
known as slaveowners, are now satisfied that the Union men of the
South must see to it that slavery must never be permitted to be
reëstablished in those States. Take such a man as the Hon. Charles
Anderson. When he went home and stood up for the Union, what did
the slave aristocracy do for him? They drove him from the State,
and his wife and little ones were obliged to take shelter in the
bush. And so with multitudes of Union men in Texas at the present
day. But all of them wish to get back and establish a Free State in
Texas; because, they say, no other than a Free State can ever
protect them from the enemies of human freedom, and, I was going to
say, of human nature. Again, in Florida there were many who were
driven away who are now anxious to return. Is there a man here who
wants these noble, generous Union men of the South _to go back to
be trampled under foot by restored rebels_! Let them go back, but
let them go back under the ægis of the American Union, and the
protection of the Government pledged to them, and then they will
take care to settle this question of slavery. They will amend the
Constitution so as to put the slavery question where it ought to
be. When that is done, who is going to talk about the Proclamation?
You have here, my fellow citizens, an intelligent statement, as it
seems to me, of the manner in which this thing can be settled:
simply by standing by the unconditional Union men--who almost all
of them have embraced the doctrine of emancipation in the Border
States--and standing by the Union men in the rebellious States, and
letting them protect themselves against the institution of
slavery.'
At this stage of the present writing, and having just transferred these
manly, patriotic, and statesmanlike sentiments to our columns, hoping
that they might foreshadow the fixed policy of the Administration, of
which Mr. Chase is so able and distinguished a member, we are overtaken
by more than a full fruition of the hope in the publication of the
President's Message and Proclamation of Amnesty to the South, upon the
sole condition of the perpetual maintenance of the Proclamation of
Emancipation issued a year ago; in other words, upon the condition of
the total and definitive extinction of Slavery in the South. The men of
the South who are ready for this are to be recognized as the loyal
citizens, the New South--precisely what ought to be done. The machinery
of the old State Governments is to remain intact, but to be turned over
to this regenerated Southern party for administration. The whole
military and civil force of the Union is to retain its guardianship over
the South, during the transition, and to remain pledged to the
maintenance of the status of freedom united with loyalty, until, by the
growth and stability of the new order of things, the conquered territory
shall dispense with its continued intervention. The plan devised by the
President is admirable, and symptoms already exist that, like so many
other of his leading measures, it is destined to meet with unbounded
acceptance and popularity, from even the most diverse and disharmonious
quarters. Trusting, therefore, that the practical administration of the
war is drifting into the right policy, based on the true theory of its
causes and legitimate termination, we may leave these merely political
and military questions, and revert, in conclusion, to the possible
remaining eventualities of the war. These may be, for the time, (1.)
Seemingly prosperous and fortunate, or, (2.) Seemingly accompanied with
disaster, discouragement, and dismay--ulterior even to the eventual
triumph of our arms over the open enemies of the existing order of
things.
Firstly, then, it may happen, that from this time out we shall be more
and more decisively triumphant over the 'rump' of the rebellion still
extant in the South; that the new policy of emancipation now so
favorably inaugurated may work like a magical charm, and that among the
happy and startling surprises to which we are daily becoming addicted,
may be that of an unexpected readiness in the exhausted and repentant
South to acquiesce in the new order of things; that our new financial
scheme may develop germs of commercial prosperity more than adequate to
compensate for all the strain upon our national energy and resources
imposed by the war; that an immense and unparalleled expansion of
national prosperity, hardly marred by the ripple of our financial
encumbrances, may be in waiting for the future United States of America,
and lie spread out in the immediate future before us; that untold wealth
may be unearthed from our mines, marvellous discoveries and inventions
made to increase our manufactures and means of locomotion, and new
sources of learning and art and practical action be opened.
Suppose even less brilliant and rapid results. Suppose that the war
lingers; that numerous and desperate battles have yet to be fought, and
some reverses to be endured; but that we continue to hold the heart of
the South up to our present lines in Georgia and East Tennessee; that
the new system of things is gradually established and becomes solidified
within the States already possessed: even this state of things, if
providentially enforced on us after our best exertions have been put
forth to succeed, may, again, unexpectedly prove to have concealed under
seeming failure a more fortunate termination of our herculean work.
Perhaps there is even yet not enough national virtue among us to leaven
the whole lump, and thus, by being delayed of our too greedy aspirations
for success, we may only the more surely succeed. A halt at this period
of the war was foreshadowed, it will be remembered by the reader, in the
earlier portion of this series of papers, written more than two years
ago. At any rate, if the remaining resistance of the rebel government
should prove more obstinate and prolonged than is now generally
anticipated, let there be no discouragement, and no serious
disappointment. Remember again, in that event, that our supreme triumphs
are moral and social, for which our military successes are merely a
basis; and that moral and social changes demand time to be consolidated
and secured. Immense changes are being rapidly effected in the public
sentiment and the prospective action of the reconquered portions of the
South; but such changes are not made in a day; and some retardation of
the national aspiration for a speedy termination of the war may prove
our providential security against evils which, our own precipitancy
might possibly otherwise incur. The retention of our present hold, the
gradual but slow progress to a complete final conquest, and the steady
assimilation of the reintegrated portions of the South with our Northern
and the truly American character and sentiment, would still, therefore,
deserve to be reckoned upon the side of seeming or obvious success.
But on the other hand, let us consider, for a moment, the other
alternative--that of apparent disaster, incurred from the war, not so
much in the light of overwhelming military defeats, which need hardly
now to be seriously apprehended, as from financial exhaustion and other
secondary causes introduced into the working of our national and social
life through the operation and influence of the war. Mr. Cobden,
undoubtedly a friend of our nation, and a shrewd observer of the world's
affairs on the basis of experience, or a knowledge of the past, warns us
to look forward to a period of almost utter prostration after the war
shall have terminated, and to a train of serious consequences from the
terrific strain put by it upon our energies and resources. Forebodings
of a similar kind haunt the imaginations of many of our own citizens.
The history of past wars and their results justify the anticipation.
Perchance all this may prove an unnecessary fear. It may happen that the
almost boundless recuperative energies of this young American
civilization of ours may be destined to astonish our enemies, our
friends, and ourselves, as much as the extent of our resources for
action have already done--that the strain put upon us, instead of
enfeebling us in the least, has been merely a healthy exercise for the
growing muscles and thews of a young giant just now ripening into a
first manhood, and never heretofore called upon for any adequate
exertion to display his strength. We once heard an enthusiastic and
progressive orator, referring to the marvels of modern development,
utter, with a sublime and audacious eloquence, the startling assertion
that '_Experience is a fool._' There is a sense, no doubt, in which the
sentiment is true. Neither the growth, nor the inherent power, nor the
elasticity of the rebound from seeming exhaustion, nor the immense
acceleration of the rapidity of the future career of the American
people, is to be safely measured by a reference to what has occurred
with former nationalities, in other and different times. Our experience
of the future, whatever it may be, will be, no doubt, essentially
different from any of the past.
But assume, on the contrary, that the prediction is essentially well
founded; that we have before us, in the immediate future, a period of
extreme exhaustion, depression, and even of temporary discouragement in
the public mind. All this need not, to the philosophic mind, cause the
slightest apprehension of permanent evil results--of any serious check
even, to our inevitable destiny, as the heirs of unbounded prosperity
and the leaders of the vanguard of the progress of the world. A halt, in
this sense, in the rapidity of our career, would be only the necessary
price of our immense and invaluable achievement, the elimination of
chattel slavery from the constitution of our social and political life.
We have still other and great social evils remaining behind. The
scientific and harmonious adjustment of the relations of capital to
labor, of the employers to the employed, in the constitution of our free
competitive society as it will still remain after Slavery is dead, is
the next great practical question which will force itself upon our
attention, and insist upon being definitively settled, before we can
enter upon that ulterior triumphant national development which is
reserved, in the decrees of destiny, for us as a people. This problem,
seemingly so difficult, will be found unexpectedly easy of solution, so
soon as the thinking and practical mind of the people is seriously
called to its consideration. It is worthy of observation, that periods
of great pecuniary depression are favorable to the progress of ideas. It
is written in the Providence of God that the American people must,
within the few years to come, solve the whole problem of justice to the
laboring man; must, indeed, accept its office as the Champion and the
Illustrator, in a practical way, of Universal Justice, in all the
relations of life. Are we prepared to enter on this career,
intelligently, lovingly, and with voluntary alacrity, from affection to
the True and the Good; or must we be again scourged into the
consideration of great questions lying immediately in our way, by the
providential inflictions of disaster and distress?
We can now see easily enough, that had we been ready and desirous, as a
people, to do justice to the black man, we should have escaped the
horrors of a great war. We may predict, with the assurance of a
religious faith, backed, we might almost affirm, by the certainty of a
scientific demonstration, that if we are already sufficiently prepared
to be simply just, we shall be saved from the serious infliction of more
national suffering; and that if, on the contrary, this preparation of
the heart and the head has not been wrought in us by what we have
already endured, we shall be called directly and continuously to the
suffering of more and perhaps greater inflictions. 'Whom the Lord loveth
he chasteneth,' but not blindly nor uselessly, and not, therefore, after
the right frame of mind has been wrought in the subject of the
punishment. The law is precisely the same, whether we speak
theologically or from the profoundest philosophical principles; and it
may almost be said that the American people have only to choose whether
they will immediately enter, with the close of the war, upon a higher
career of prosperity, or whether they will endure an additional term of
tuition in the school of adversity. These words may seem mystical,
unaccompanied with further illustration and elaboration of the ideas,
but it is not the place here to pursue them.
Let us proceed with the supposition that we have before us, at the
conclusion of this war, a period of great national suffering. Such
periods, we have already said, are favorable to the development of
thought. We may add, they are alike favorable to the growth of earnest
purpose. Through suffering we are perfected. Thought and high purpose
are secure bases of noble achievement. If we are not yet prepared to be
inducted into our national mission, through providential favor, then let
us come to it through the inverse method: _through Ulterior and
Reactionary Consequence_.
It may be that we are to endure still more grievous afflictions than
pecuniary and commercial revulsion and depression. Our political
constitution still bears in its bosom, even after Slavery is removed,
dangerous seeds of anarchy and prospective revolution. Within the two
years past, grave mutterings, to which American ears have been
heretofore altogether unused, have been heard in various quarters,
touching the superior advantages of 'strong government,' the speakers,
mostly of the higher or wealthier order of life, meaning thereby, the
old and retrograde forms of monarchy, or something of that sort. Periods
of disaster tend to reveal a latent lack of confidence in the permanency
of existing things. Investigations in Sociology impeach the wisdom of
our institutions, in common with that of all others that have been tried
in the past, from another point of view. Periods of distress and
privation stimulate the turbulence of the 'dangerous classes.' All
national experience reveals, in fine, the existence, in the very nature
of human society, of great antagonistic principles struggling with each
other in mighty conflict, and with which no political or governmental
arrangements heretofore extant have been adequate rightly to cope.
The great and bloody contest with Slavery, now going on, is an instance
of such a conflict; and the fact that we, in the midst of this
nineteenth century, had arrived at the knowledge of no better solution
of it than an appeal to the old, barbarous, uncertain, and terrible
ordeal of battle, is an illustration of the incompetency in question.
Slavery, bad as it is, is the representative of a great social
principle, which, separated from the special mode of its manifestation,
has in it that which is good and right. Mr. Cobden justly characterizes
the great American war as an insurrection of aristocracy against the
principle of democracy. But aristocracy is not wholly wrong, nor is
democracy wholly right, in the nature and constitution of things. These
are two great antagonistic principles, when sifted to the bottom; one
the principle of Order, through Subordination, the soul of Conservatism;
and the other the principle of Freedom, through Individuality, the soul
of Progression. Neither will ever expunge or expel the other from the
constitution of man, individually or collectively; and it pertains to
Science, the Science of Politics, based on the Unity of the Sciences
below that level, to be arrived at by humanity in the future, to
discover and lead in the complete harmony and reconciliation between the
two. The writer of these papers has in manuscript a labored document
upon the Slavery question from this more radical and philosophical point
of view, which was prepared just previous to the outbreak of the
existing war, in the hope of attracting the leading minds, North and
South, to the peaceable and scientific solution of the whole Slavery
question. But the antagonism was too far advanced, passions too much
aroused, the popular ignorance of the existence of higher methods of
solution too dense, and the crisis too imminent for the existence of any
demand for such considerations then; and the publication of the document
was withheld. In it were shown the significance of Slavery as a Fact in
History and a Principle in Nature; its Compensations and Advantages; its
positive value, in fact, in the larger sense, in the development of
human society on the planet; then its destiny to give way in our
advancing civilization to the higher doctrine of abstract rights and
individual culture through intellectual means; and again, the
insufficiency of the latter doctrine, when taken for the whole truth;
and finally, to show how, by the intervention of the science of the
subject, the value of both the Principles in conflict could be extracted
and made coöperative, and their evils completely neutralized. The world
not being ripe for the adoption of the superior and rational methods
here intimated for the adjustment of our difficulties--the readiness of
one party even, without the equal readiness of the other, being
inadequate--the crisis and the conflict could not be averted; and that
again being the case, it is of the utmost importance that the second in
order of the two adverse principles, the principle of democracy, be
completely triumphant; not because it is more true, but because it is a
more _advanced_ truth, and one step nearer, therefore, to the final
solution,_ which will then lap back, and subsume and assimilate and
reconcile the whole family of fundamental principles upon which the
existence of human society is inexpugnably based_. It is upon this lower
ground of adaptation to the exigency of the age and the occasion, and as
a means to the development of still higher truths, that we urge the
inestimable importance of the effectual conquest over the South by the
North.
But the two Principles, thus brought face to face with each other, in
deadly array, under the present guise of chattel slavery and republican
freedom, are not extinguished in the world, nor in America even, nor are
they to be permanently reconciled with each other by any outcoming
whatsoever of the present war. These principles are the Aristocratic and
the Democratic; the principle of conservative order and progressive
freedom. Both are vital and essential forces, ever living, ever active;
always antagonistic; never reconciled in the past; never to be
reconciled in the future, till it be done finally, effectually,
and forever, through the SCIENCE of the subject. By the
contingencies of this war still future, by the lingering and disastrous
_sequelæ_ of the war, or by other and possible eventualities not yet
sufficiently developed to be distinctly cognizable, the inherent and
unconquerable antagonism (until reconciled through science) of the great
opposing forces in human society is liable to be burst upon us with a
conflagration in comparison with which even the devastations of the
present war will seem trifling. The writer of these papers anticipated
and predicted for a long time, and has not yet fully ceased to
anticipate, that the present conflict may gradually shape itself into a
desperate and universal struggle, North and South, between these two
principles, in their bald, undisguised, and unmitigated hostility; that,
in other words, as a party of freedom should be developed at the South,
there would be developed _pari passu_ at the North a great reactionary
party; assimilating the elements of a _bogus_ democracy and all those
who by organization or position are inherently and overweeningly
aristocratic; a party bold, powerful, and desperate enough to bring home
the civil war to our own doors; in other words, that the war would
become a war wholly of Ideas; and those defined down to their sharpest
and most ultimate differences of logical significance. In that case, the
events of the French Revolution would have been, or will be, repeated in
America, on a more gigantic scale. Warning symptoms have already
appeared among us of the possibilities of all this. If it be in the good
providence of God that we are to escape this terrible ordeal--if it be
permitted that this cup of national evils pass from us--it can only be
that we are a step farther on in the completion of our education, as a
nation, than was obviously revealed to the investigation of the
observer; that, as a people, we are nearer to a genial and willing
acceptance of truth and obedience to the dictates of justice than
appeared.
Still the conflict of principles endures in the world at large--the
Aristocratic Principle, represented by autocracy, absolutism, prelacy,
and slaveholding authority, on the one hand, and the Democratic
Principle, represented by republicanism, Protestantism, dead-levelism,
with free and destructive competition, on the other. As Slavery and
Freedom have been preparing for their local conflict in America during
the thirty years past; so, for the whole century gone by, the
threatening cloud of the final conflict between the two great governing
ideas in the world has been gathering. Occasional sharp and some
terrific encounters have been had. Is this conflict of opinion to become
more and more consolidated and defined, and finally embodied in two
great hostile camps, covering the whole earth with an actual war,
replete with desolation and carnage--not a war of distinct
nationalities, but of the partisans of the two great antagonistic drifts
of human development? Is there to be literally the great battle of
Armageddon in the world before the incoming of a better age? or has the
ignorant wrath of man sufficiently prevailed, and are we in truth
prepared to investigate with sobriety, accept with simple honesty, and
faithfully to practise the lessons of wisdom which the experience of the
past or the new discoveries of the present or the future may bring? The
religious world is becoming deeply penetrated with the conviction that
we are, in the world at large, upon the verge of great events--that we
are nearing the termination of an Old Dispensation and the commencement
of a New; without, perhaps, defining very clearly, or attempting even to
define distinctly to the imagination the nature of the change. The
deepest philosophy of the age forecasts similar eventualities for an
early day and for the whole earth. Thus it is that the investigation of
The Great American Crisis, actual and urgent, might properly lead us up
to the consideration of a Great World Crisis, impending and probable. On
some other occasion it may be thought proper to give to this latter
subject a distinct and more elaborate treatment. The object which we
have proposed in the present series is now sufficiently accomplished,
and the writer takes leave of the reader, with a profound conviction
that to the anxious cry, What of the night? the answer, All is well, can
be conscientiously returned. Even should the seemingly disastrous
features sketched above in the alternative programme of our national
future yet providentially reveal themselves in the scroll of our
nation's history, let not the patriot or the lover of mankind for a
moment despair. It will be but the intensified darkness preceding the
light--the crisis of a deep-seated disease prognosticating health. The
destiny of America is the destiny of man; and that is, that we come soon
into the inheritance of new glories--an unlimited development and
prosperity, founded on Religion married to Science, eventuating in the
reconciliation of Order and Progression, in Universal Justice, and in
the elevation, protection, mutual coöperation and happiness of all.
THISTLE-DOWN.
Pale and fleecy, ghosty and white,
Onward borne in their unknown flight--
Flimsy and fragile, pure and fair--
Mystic things the thistles are.
Drifting about on a windy day--
Ghosty children at their play--
Revelling up above the trees,
Hither and thither on the breeze.
Slow and sadly, how they fly,
Chasing shadows in the sky!
Never resting, never still,
Through the valley, o'er the hill.
Walking round o'er the churchyard mould,
Up above the bosoms cold;
Flitting past each marble door,
Sadly breathing: 'Gone before!'
Spectres _wild_ with their viewless steeds,
Riding on where nothing leads;
Up to the sky when the earth gets brown--
_Ever restless_ thistle-down.
Through the forest cool and dark,
Never hitting the destined mark;
Over the earth and through the air,
Downy thistles _everywhere_.
Darting in at the open door,
Telling of joys that come no more;
Robed in grave clothes fine and thin--
Shades of phantoms, ever dim.
Up the church-aisles Sabbath-days,
Where the dusky twilight plays;
Round the altar, o'er the bier,
Preaching _more than priests do here_.
Solemn are the words they say--
_Silent sermons free of_ PAY;
And the _lessons_ they impart,
_Never vanish from the heart_.
THE LOVE LUCIFER.
[The author of 'The Love Lucifer' says in regard to it: 'I enclose
a narration of _facts_. Not noted for assurance, I yet feel well
assured that its publication in THE CONTINENTAL 'will do
uses.'' Should there be any among our readers who have inquired
into our modern necromancy, they will not fail to recognize in the
excited, wild, incoherent, and uncultured jargon of the spirits of
'The Love Lucifer,' the same style and character evinced by those
to whom they may have been introduced by the 'mejums.' The two
Bulwers, the Howitts, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Halls, the De
Morgans, &c., have taken a deep interest in these half-comic,
half-serious, and always incoherent demonstrations.
Perhaps the matter-of-fact experience of our author may shield some
of our readers from 'obsessions, delusions, magnetic streams of
Od,' be they angelic, human, demoniac, or Koboldic in their
origin.--_Ed. Con._]
CHAPTER I.
The things herein might well remain in soak for one decade, at least.
The writer certainly did well to let a dozen sane, practical years pass
between these experiences and their narration.
I was a youth after the own heart of my Presbyterian
preceptors--proposed to become a Presbyterian preceptor. The son of a
New York merchant, I was schooled in the schooling of such; and was
steadfastly minded to know no life-purpose but the salvation of sinners.
But I was a little restive--felt that the limits of the Shorter
Catechism were too short and strait for me. The shadow of
Schleiermacher's readjustment of Christianity was upon me. I felt that
some old things were passing away. In common with so many others who
inclined toward the sacerdotal office, I was unconsciously turning my
back upon it, on account of the crudities contained in the only existing
creeds for which I had any respect. American Protestant youth have not
been alone in this regard. Says the London _Times_, 'The number of men
of education and social position who enter into orders is becoming less
and less every year.' Let then ancient, true, everlasting Christianity
be speedily adjusted to modern facts, lest it further lapse.
Free thoughted, earnestly disposed toward the acquirement and
dissemination of absolute spiritual truth, as was not unnatural, I
thoroughly investigated the 'Supernaturalism' of the day. I soon
assented to the general proposition that sociability with the invisibles
is practicable, if not profitable; but ever held at a cheap rate the
philosophies and religions, harmonious and other, which the full-blooded
ghost-mongers so zealously promulgated. I still maintain that great good
will result from these chaotic developments; for instance, that the
impartial mind will find in them that scientific foundation for belief
in much of the supernaturalism (to repeat the absurd expression) of the
Bible, of which the age stands in such woful need. That this generation
does experience such a lack is made sufficiently apparent in the 'Essays
and Reviews.' On no other point are the noble freemen who therein and
thereby grope after the 'readjustment,' so utterly deaf, dumb, halt, and
blind, as they are in respect to Scripture miracles. In fact, these
writers cast the most wondrous of the _actæ sanctorum_ to the winds.
Methinks the more thoughtful and earnest men of Christendom must, then,
assent to the proposition that we have pressing need of a new flood of
such practical phenomena as sturdy old Baxter gave to the Sadducees of
his day, in his 'Certainty of the World of Spirits.' Whether these
strange doings gradually cease, or take on new and more striking
aspects, I doubt not they will help to give a healthy vigor to our
emaciated faith in the existence of an unseen and spiritual world. Let
us not, then, utterly scorn the strange rabble who have rushed headlong
after this curiousest curiosity of modern times--except the
rebellion--even though they may remind us of 'the Queen's ragged
regiment of literature.' It should be taken for granted that so
startling a novelty would attract the floating scum of society, whether
the solid folk heeded or derided it.
Though the following narrative may bring upon me an infinite derision, I
have long felt that it should be published, on account of the light it
throws upon some of the most mysterious facts of existence. Others may
have had similar experiences; but, if so, pride keeps them from
confessing how utterly they have been hoodwinked and enslaved by those
invisible loafers who form so large a portion of the newcomers and who
are permitted--not to put on too fine a point--to do the dirty work of
cleansing the modern mind of its gross Augean Sadduceeism. The only
theory promotive of self-complacency that I could ever concoct, as to
why I was put through such an ordeal, is, that I was suffered for my own
and the general benefit to see the dangers of necromancy, and especially
the awful psychodynamical methods used by spirits to obsess and
gradually craze human brains. I, at least, received a scare that made me
careful, ever after, how I called spirits from the vasty deep, or
elsewhere. After passing perils manifold, both carnal and
spiritual--having gone, torrent-borne, through the yawning chasms
represented in Cole's 'Voyage of Life' pictures, I come into calmer
seas, the lines fall in pleasant places; and now I sit me down, in
life's high noon--having lighted on a certain place where was a den (a
pleasanter than Bunyan's)--to write the strange things that befell me in
the seeming long ago--the dew and freshness of my youth. And though I be
reckoned of many a dreamer of dreams, he shall not, I think, go
unprofited, who can rightly 'read my rede.'
To come, then, to the details. I had been for several months, whether
wisely or unwisely doth not appear, a link in one of those human chain
rings supposed to be as peculiarly receptive of extra and super and
ultra mundane facts as a legislative 'ring' is of the loose change of
the lobby; and had sought in vain for personal contact with the world to
come, when one afternoon a streak of the 'od' lightning suddenly ran
down my right arm, as I sat in my private apartment, and behold I was a
'writing mejum.' The usual 'proofs' of relationship were given. Not
being very credulous, however, I did not, at first, acknowledge them as
such. But as my time was at my own disposal just then, I gave myself up
to the influence for several days. The consequence was, that I became so
thoroughly mesmerized, or 'biologized,' that I ceased to be complete
master of my own faculties, and was _forced_ to give a half assent to
all the absurdities that were communicated. Be it understood, then, that
these experiences are given as those of a person whose will, whose very
soul and _proprium_ had been temporarily subjugated by some other will
or wills; and whose natural powers of discrimination were as much
distraught as are those of the subjects of the itinerant biologist; who
are made to believe, most firmly, that cayenne pepper is sugar, that
water is fire, that a cane is a snake. As for the readers of this
periodical who still insist that even animal and spiritual magnetism are
humbugs, I can only say, with the author of the 'Night Side of Nature,'
'How closely their clay must be wrapped about them!' For one, I have
generally avoided any witnessing of marvels of this class--priding
myself in believing in their occurrence because of the pure _à priori_
reasonableness of the thing.
It will be observed that in this, as in most other alleged intercourses
with the invisible world, there is persistent, continuous attempt to
excite _the vanity_ of the mortal who is venturing the dangerous
experiment. If the secret history of all the modern mediums were
revealed--no matter what their natural disposition to vanity--it would
be found that the vast majority of them had been incessantly flattered
by their spiritual familiars, and each informed that he or she was the
very individual of whom a forlorn, misguided world had been all this
while in anxious expectation! This appears to have been the history of
necromancy from the beginning. Flattery has ever been the chief stock in
trade of those beings who are so properly called 'seducing spirits.'
'Tis ever with glozing words that these children of the wilderness gain
the ear and the affections, and entrance through the heart-gates kept by
Parley the Porter. Let me not be supposed to include in this class all
the spirits who have been of late years so busy among us mortal and
immortal Yankees. I consider that the old expression 'white, black, and
gray' fully describes the denizens of the 'interior.' In fact, all seers
insist that human creatures, in and out of the body, appear to them
white or variously shaded toward black, according to their moral status.
It is probable that the reason why the black and gray varieties have
been so almost exclusively heard from, of late, is to be found in the
fact, that it is contrary to the laws of God and nature for us to _seek_
society beyond the terrestrial plane; and that our only proper course,
in this regard, is to avoid the supernatural, as a general thing; and
when it is apparently thrust upon us, to have only so much to do with it
as is quite inevitable. When the authorities of heaven have anything to
say to a mortal, they will _force_ him to listen, if necessary--even if
they have to throw him, like Paul, from his horse.
Well, I had embarked, like Virgil, or Dante, on my perilous tour through
Hades. There was, at once, a crowding about my pathway (only a bridle
path) of ostensible, estimable deceased relatives, who, after imparting
a variety of priceless information, started off in the usual style,
magnifying mine office. According as their influence over my rational
faculties became more complete, the proportions of their Munchausenisms
increased. Unfortunately for the duration of the fantasy, their jumble
of Scripture prophecies concerning me--which was then made to appear
nearly coherent--was so plainly writ, that as soon as the blockade of my
faculties was raised, the illusion, never more than half complete, was
dispelled. My 'great mission' was not fully developed at the first
session; but when I had become perfectly clairaudient (I never became
clairvoyant), and could dispense with the pencil, a queer mixture of
metempsychosis and Parseeism was poured into my ear. It ran somewhat as
follows: The two beings first created were, a Lucifer predominant in
love, and a Lucifer predominant in intellect; whom we may call the Love
Lucifer and the Intellectual Lucifer. The latter was the individual who
fell, who played the copperhead in Eden, and has been kicking up such a
bobbery ever since. The story ran, that these two persons--the original
Ahriman and Ormozd--have been tilting against each other all through
earth's career--appearing in the forms of the principal good and bad
men. Thus their quarrels gave the outline and the skeleton to the whole
story of Adam's race. According to this new 'philosophy of history,'
these spirits of light and darkness have been, from the beginning,
striving for the mastery; on the one hand, in the persons of the most
eminent saints, from Abraham to Augustine, and others not yet canonized;
on the other hand, in the persons of the world conquerors noted for
heartless intellectuality, from Nimrod to Napoleon (shall we add Jeff.
Davis?). Well, I, great I, was to enjoy the distinguished honor of
finishing the list of Love Lucifers; and, after winding up the small
affairs of earth, was to lock up the other big dog--after he had
appeared in his last great role--and then inaugurate the millennium--a
new latter-day Jacob's ladder having been established in the centre of
Africa to forward the work.
It soon appeared that there was a star, a _prima donna_, in this company
who--after adding a few loose planks to life's little stage--were
striving to still personate mortals and put off immortality. A deceased
damsel, of whom I had heard as 'a morning star among the living,'
appeared now, as 'a Hesper among the dead;' and was imposingly
introduced to me, by a _quasi_ near 'relative,' as being only too happy
to learn that she was one half of the eternal unit of which I was the
complement. I began to be as lordly and self-satisfied as the bewildered
sot in the 'Taming of the Shrew.' After exhausting my small stock of
writing paper, I concluded to allow my new friends to spend their
loquacity on some old college note books, the handiwork of a
relative--every other page being blank. The venerable professors of
Columbia College would have had their dignity and propriety quite
frightened out of them, had they seen what weird statements were
presently sandwiched in with their dry disquisitions on science and
philosophy. Whenever an especially startling announcement was made, a
furious gust of the 'od' would run down my arm; and each word would be
made to cover half a page. We went into the new business regardless of
expense.
My invisible charmer, who had--it must be said, not very
prudishly--proposed for my hand, no sooner got possession of it, than
'she' began to protest that when she learned what a splendid fate was in
store for her, as _tender_ to my royal highness, she could only weep for
joy for several days. Presently she sent out through my captive digits
the following:
'We have, indeed, a long journey to travel together, most loving
partner; and how my innermost soul exults, in view of that unending
oneness, of soul and spirit, which is to be our portion! .... Ah me, why
was I chosen to join my eternal being with yours? when innumerable
seraphs would salute you 'husband' with enthusiastic joy and
gratitude!....'
Here is one plain fact, whatever else may be doubted. After conversing
for two days with this extraordinary visitor, I became most desperately
in love with her, or him, or it--as you please. Though past my majority,
my placid nature had never before been thoroughly aroused in this
direction. Now, by reason of the tact and knowledge of my nature,
possessed by the invisible party, and still more because of my state of
mesmeric subjection, I was sighing like a furnace or a Romeo. Not
Ulysses, Circe tempted--not Sintram seeking his Undine--not the hapless
sailor wight pursuing the maiden of the _mer_, was more utterly enamored
than was I. As a proof that I was no bad specimen of the 'gushing'
persuasion, at this period, read the following expressive though
sometimes commonplace retort. I do not profess to know, and do not much
care, whether it was the utterance of an artful fiend, a misguided
saint, or one of those 'sympathetic spirits' of whom Swedenborg makes
frequent mention. According to his statement, these beings are in such a
condition, that whenever they come in contact with a mortal, they chime
in with and encourage the views and tendencies of their terrestrial
acquaintance; and often, without meaning it, lead him into great
errors--being themselves used as cats' paws by decidedly evil spirits.
But here is the tender missive, which I transcribe from between two
heavy pages of notes on the Aristotelian and Baconian philosophies:
'I thought that I had experienced the joys of reciprocal affection; but
never until now have begun to realize what an unbounded sea of bliss two
kindred souls can bathe in. Ah! who could have convinced me that so
much rapture could be crowded into a few moments, as was mine while you
were pouring forth the inexhaustible treasures of your mind upon my
entranced ear? Spare me the sudden transition from mere esteem to such
huge, melodious irresistible outpouring of affection. It takes away my
strength; while the expression of my warm feelings can never so affect
your sturdy, much tried, trouble-scathed manhood.'
You see that the flattery is never forgotten. But adulation is an
instrument of the weak as well as of the deceitful. The utterer of this
may have been innocent of fraud, and, like myself, mesmerized into
following the will of a more powerful being. Again, the purpose of
_this_ being may have been a good one. Such, and so many, and so great,
and varied, and strange, seem to be the possibilities and dangers of the
inner life.
A systematic series of attempts seems to have been made--by some person
or persons to the deponent most emphatically unknown--to get my cool,
phlegmatic nervous system and brain excited. The two principal means
made use of to complete the obsession were, that just mentioned, and the
announcement of a succession of 'big things,' as about to occur--the
biggest kind of things--those the expectation of which was best
calculated to set my brain in a whirl. It will be seen, in the sequel,
that, failing to thoroughly accomplish their purpose by such means, my
spirit friends or fiends, as the case may be, undertook the bug-a-boo,
frightening process; which was apparently working successfully, when
their operations, in that style, were suddenly brought to a final close,
by some means which must ever, I suppose, remain unknown to me. The
startling events stated as imminent were generally made dependent upon
the clairvoyant opening that had been promised me.
The first beatific vision that was to greet my gaze would be, of course,
that one which I was to behold most frequently throughout the æons
without end--even the face of that radiant being who had gone before, to
await me in the angelhood; where, beaming seraphic upon me forever, it
was to be to me the embodiment of all ideals of loveliness, grace,
refinement, love. In its every lineament I was to read and decipher an
endless series of ever fresh and most celestial arcana--was continually
to find new proof of love and wisdom, and of the divine ability to adapt
human to human. Since the love of the mate is next to the love of the
Maker, it is no profanity to say that,
'When I'd been there ten thousand years,
Bright, happy as the sun,
I'd have no less days to sing its praise
Than when I first begun.'
Instead of through a fast-waning honeymoon of love, that face was to
entrance me while the sun of heaven stood in the zenith of heaven--and
we read that there is _no_ night there, forevermore. Was not this
promised sight a sufficient cause for excitement? What prospect--save
that of a vision of Deity--could be better adapted to arouse the
loftiest and most exquisite emotions? What better fitted to gather into
one all long-cherished feelings of admiration and reverence for the
noble of the other sex--to aggregate and revive all those chivalrous,
gallant, elevating, purifying, tender thoughts which we have ever had,
with regard to them, in our highest moments?
Some reader may say: 'Why will you thus attempt to dignify ideas that
you acknowledge were excited in a confused brain, by apparently
mischievous or irresponsible spirits?' I answer, that even if the
immediate exciting cause of this current of ideas was some ill-designing
being, the ideas themselves were not, necessarily, either evil or
undignified; and that only such portion of the brain was addled as would
be likely to rebel against the obsession.
Waiting the appointed hour, I sat imagining the scene. I saw _myself_
suddenly rising ('sudden Ianthe rose') from the prone body and all
circumjacent grossness--rising, through clouds and darkness, to some
delightsome plane of the inner world. A dozen yards in front of me,
beside a graceful tree, would stand 'the only.' We would gaze at each
other, with intense scrutiny, for some moments. Each would think, 'There
is plenty of time; it is to last forever.' We would even look about us,
still saying nothing. Being eternally modelled, fitted, fore-ordained,
and predestined for each other, love arrows would, of course, have
pierced our centres of palpitation at the first mutual glance. Still,
though quivering with emotion, neither would be disposed to lessen the
distance. Methought we would even seat ourselves on the mossy banks--the
dozen yards still intervening--and, each leaning back against a tree,
would 'face the enemy'--the eternal joy-sharer, sorrow-sharer, worship,
wisdom, love, pity, wonder, use, sport, hope-sharer; while,
occasionally, a premonitory, prophetic pang of rapture out of the coming
eternities of bliss would thrill through us. I had even a fancy that
there would be no interchange of words, no lessening of the coy distance
of space and manner, during this first interview. 'It is to last so
long! so long!' Again, I fancied that we might sit there only weeping,
as we looked and _loved_. 'So long! so long!' Tender, dewy eyes
wandering naively, innocently, over each feature of face and
form--inquiry, wonder, joy in them--pleased surprise, that such and such
points of the vision should be as they are. Indefinite longings becoming
definite, as all things longed for appear embodied, as faith is lost in
sight. Again, I imagined laconic speech might ensue--like the
single-line dialogue of Greek tragedies. But here the wings of
imagination drooped, and I could only see the separation. She would
glide toward me. Her warm finger-tips would touch my palm, her tender
azure eyes would beam once fully and closely upon me. One moment I would
see the inner heaven opened; and the next--the familiar furniture of my
room would be before me. Thus I imagined. The curious may learn what
actually befell, on a future occasion.
AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.
LETTER NO. IV. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.
LONDON, 10 Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,
_January 1st, 1864._
In my third and last letter on American Finances and Resources, the
effect of the substitution of free for slave labor in the United States
by the abolition of slavery was discussed. In that letter it was shown
by the official American Census of 1860, that the product that year,
_per capita_, of Massachusetts was $235; _per capita_, Maryland $96; and
of South Carolina $56. Massachusetts had no slaves; Maryland, 87,189;
and South Carolina, 402,406. Thus we see the annual value of the
products of labor decreased in proportion to the number of slaves. In
further proof of the position assumed in that letter, that the progress
of wealth, of population, and education in the United States, was most
injuriously affected by slavery, I now present other official facts from
our Census of 1860. My first comparison will be that of the Free State
of New York with slaveholding Virginia.
By the Census, the population of Virginia in 1790 was 748,308, and in
1860, 1,596,318, making the ratio of increase 113.32 per cent. In 1790
New York numbered 340,120, and in 1860, 3,880,735, the ratio of increase
being 1,040.99. (Table 1, Prelim. Census Rep., p. 132.) Thus, the rate
of increase in New York exceeded that of Virginia more than nine to one.
In 1790, the population of Virginia was largely more than double that of
New York. In 1860, the population of New York was very largely more than
double that of Virginia. In 1790, Virginia, in population, ranked first
of all the States, and New York the fifth. In 1860, they had reversed
their positions, and New York was the first, and Virginia the fifth.
(Rep. p. 120.) At the same rate of progress, from 1860 to 1900, as from
1790 to 1860, Virginia, retaining slavery, would have sunk from the
first to the twenty-first State, and would still continue, at each
succeeding decade, descending the inclined plane toward the lowest
position of all the States. Such has been, and still continues to be,
the effect of slavery, in dragging down that once great State from the
first toward the last in rank in the Union. But if, as in the absence of
slavery must have been the case, Virginia had increased from 1790 to
1860 in the same ratio as New York, her population in 1860 would have
been 7,789,141, and she must always have remained the first in rank of
all the States.
AREA.--The natural advantages of Virginia far exceed those of
New York. The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and that of New
York 47,000. The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was
12.19, and in 1860, 26.02. That of New York, in 1790, was 7.83, and in
1860, 84.36. Now, if New York, with her present numbers per square mile,
had the area of Virginia, her population, in 1860, would have been
5,175,654, and that of Virginia, reduced to the area of New York, on the
basis of her present numbers per square mile, would have been 1,320,000.
This illustrates the immense effect of area, as one of the great
elements influencing the progress of population. But wonderful as are
these results, the great fact is omitted in this calculation, that
Virginia, in 1790, had largely more than double the population of New
York. Thus, if we reverse the numbers of New York and Virginia in 1790,
and take the actual ratio of increase of each for the succeeding seventy
years, the population of Virginia, in 1860, would have been 728,875, and
that of New York, as we have seen, would have been 7,789,141, making the
difference exceed seven millions, or very largely more than ten to one.
Reverse the areas also, and the difference would exceed eight millions.
SHORE LINE.--As furnishing cheap and easy access for imports
and exports, creating marts for commerce with great cities, and
affecting the interior most beneficially, the shore line, with adequate
harbors, constitutes a vast element in the progress of states and
empires. Now, by the last tables of the United States Coast Survey, the
shore line of Virginia was 1,571 miles, and of New York 725 miles. The
five great parallel tide-water rivers of Virginia, the Potomac, the
Rappahannock, the York River, James River, and Roanoke (partly in North
Carolina), with their tributaries, furnish easy access for hundreds of
miles into the interior, with both shores of the noble Chesapeake Bay
for many miles, as well as its magnificent outlet and the main ocean for
a considerable distance, all within the limits of Virginia. We have seen
that the coast line of Virginia is largely more than double that of New
York, and the harbors of Virginia are more numerous, deeper, and much
nearer the great valley of the Ohio and Mississippi. By the Coast Survey
tables, the mean low water in the harbor of New York, by Gedney's
Channel, is 20 feet, and at high-water spring tides is 24.2; north
channel, 24, mean low water, and 29.1 spring tides, high water; south
channel, 22, and 27.1; main ship channel, after passing S. W. spit buoy,
on N. E. course, one mile up the bay, for New York, 22.5-27.06. By the
same tables, from capes at entrance of Chesapeake Bay to Hampton, at
mean low water, 30 feet; spring tides, high water, 32.8. Anchorage in
Hampton Roads, 59-61.8. From Hampton Roads to Sewell's Point, 25-27.8.
South of Sewell's Point (one mile and a half), 21-23.8; up to Norfolk,
23-25.8. From Hampton Roads to James River, entering to the northward of
Newport News, middle ground, 22-24.8. From Hampton Roads to James River,
entering to the southward of Newport News, middle ground, 27-29.8. From
abreast the tail of York Spit, up to Yorktown, 33-35.8. Elizabeth River,
between Norfolk and navy yard, 25.5-28.3.
When we leave the tide-water rivers for the interior navigable streams,
Virginia has a vast advantage. New York has no such rivers above tide,
but Virginia has the Ohio for hundreds of miles, with its tributaries,
the Kanawha, Guyandotte, and Big Sandy. It is true, New York has several
of the great lakes, and the vast advantage of connection with them
through her great canal. But, in the absence of slavery, the canal
projected by Washington (preceding that of New York) would have
connected, through Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay with the Ohio River. The
James River, flowing into the Chesapeake, cuts the Blue Mountains, and
the Kanawha, a confluent of the Ohio, cuts the Alleghany; thus opening
an easy and practicable route for a great canal from the eastern to the
western waters. The valley of the lakes, with which New York is
connected by her canal, has an area of 335,515 square miles. The valley
of the Mississippi, with which the Chesapeake would long since, in the
absence of slavery, have been connected by the Virginia canal, has an
area of 1,226,600 square miles. The shore line of the Mississippi and
its tributaries, above tide water, is 35,644 miles. (Page 35, Compend.
Census of 1850.) Our shore line of the lakes is 3,620 miles, including
bays, sounds, and islands; and that of the British, 2,629. (Ib. 35.) The
connection of the lakes with the Ohio and Mississippi would be the same
for both States, the one being from the lakes to these rivers, and the
other from the rivers to the lakes. The location of Virginia is more
central than that of New York, and Virginia runs farther west by several
hundred miles. We are so accustomed to look at the connection of New
York with the West by her canal, and Virginia with no such union, that
it is difficult to realize the great change if Virginia had been
connected by her progressing work with the Ohio and Mississippi, and
thence, by the present canals, with the lakes.
It is apparent, then, that, as regards easy access to the West, the
natural advantages of Virginia surpass New York, and with greater
facilities for artificial works. How many decades would be required,
after emancipation, to bring the superior natural advantages of Virginia
into practical operation, is not the question; nor do I believe that the
city of New York will ever cease to be the centre of our own trade, and
ultimately of the commerce of the world. But although Virginia, in
adhering to slavery, has lost her supremacy in the Union, it is quite
certain that, as a Free State, she would commence a new career of
wonderful prosperity, that capital and population from the North and
from Europe would flow there with a mighty current, her lands be doubled
in value, and her town and city property far more than quadrupled.
MINES.--Virginia has vast mines of coal, the great element of
modern progress. New York has none. It is coal that has made Great
Britain a mighty empire, giving her power, by land and sea, equal to
the manual force of all mankind. It is stated by the Commissioner of the
General Land Office, in his report before referred to, of November,
1860, 'that an acre of coal, three feet thick, is equal to the product
of 1,940 acres of forest trees; and each acre of a coal seam four feet
in thickness, and yielding one yard of pure coal, is equivalent to 5,000
tons, and possesses, therefore, a reserve of mechanical strength in its
fuel, equal to the life labor of more than 1,600 men.'
This statement of the Commissioner is made on the highest authority, and
proves the vast natural advantages of Virginia over New York. Virginia,
also, has far more abundant mines of iron, more widely diffused over the
State, reaching from tide water to the Ohio. She has also these iron
mines in juxtaposition with coal and all the fluxes. Virginia, also, has
valuable mines of gold, lead, and copper. New York has no gold or copper
mines, and produced in 1860 but $800 worth of lead. (Table 14.)
HYDRAULIC POWER.--Omitting Niagara, which thus far scorns the
control of man, the hydraulic power of Virginia very far exceeds that of
New York. It is to be found on the Potomac and its tributaries, and upon
nearly every stream that flows into the Chesapeake or Ohio. The superior
mildness of the climate of Virginia makes this power available there for
a much greater portion of the year. The great falls of the Potomac,
where Washington constructed the largest locks of the continent, has a
water power unsurpassed, and is but twelve miles from tide water, at
Washington. This point is a most healthy and beautiful location,
surrounded by lands whose natural fertility was very great, and, in the
absence of slavery, must have been a vast manufacturing city. This water
power could move more spindles than are now worked on all this
continent.
AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES.--The natural fertility of the
soil of Virginia far exceeded that of New York, with a more genial sun,
and much more favorable seasons for agricultural products, as well as
for stock. The number of acres of land in Virginia susceptible of
profitable culture, is nearly double that of New York, but much of it
has been impoverished by slave labor, scratching and exhausting the
soil, without manure or rotation of crops. The Census shows that
Virginia has all the products of New York, and cotton in addition.
Virginia produced, in 1860, 12,727 bales of cotton (Table 36), worth, at
present prices, nearly $3,000,000. She also adjoins the States of North
Carolina and Tennessee, producing, in 1850, 372,964 bales, worth, at
present prices, nearly $90,000,000. Virginia is also much nearer than
New York to all the other cotton States. With these vast advantages,
with her larger area, more fertile soil, cheaper subsistence, her coal
and iron and great hydraulic power, with so much cotton raised by
herself and in adjacent States, Virginia should have manufactured much
more cotton than New York. But, by the Census (Table 22), the value of
the cotton manufacture of Virginia in 1850 was $1,446,109, and in 1860,
$1,063,611--a decrease of one third. In New York, the value of the
cotton manufacture in 1850 was $5,019,323, and in 1860, $7,471,961, an
increase of over 48 per cent. So, if we look at the tables of mines,
manufactures, and the fisheries, with the vastly superior advantages of
Virginia, the whole product in 1860 was of the value of $51,300,000, and
of agriculture $68,700,000; while in New York these values were
respectively $379,633,560 and $226,376,440. (Tables of Census, 33 and
36.)
CLIMATE AND MORTALITY.--By Table 6, page 22, of the Census,
there were for the year ending June 1st, 1860, 46,881 deaths in New
York, being 1 in every 82 of the population, and 1.22 per cent. The
number of deaths in Virginia, in the same year, was 22,472, being 1 in
every 70 of the population, or 1.43 per cent. There was, then, a slight
difference in favor of New York. But Virginia is divided into four
geographical sections; the tide-water, the Piedmont (running from the
tide-water region to the Blue Mountains), the valley between these
mountains and the Alleghanies, and the trans-Alleghany to the Ohio.
These three last sections, containing three fourths of the area and
white population of the State, surpass New York in salubrity, with the
most bracing and delightful climate. The climate of Virginia is far more
favorable for stock and agricultural products than New York, with longer
and better seasons, and is more salubrious than the climate of Europe.
(Comp. 1850.)
PROGRESS OF WEALTH.--We have seen how great was the advance in
population of New York over Virginia, from 1790 to 1860, being in the
ratio of more than 9 to 1. Now let us compare the relative progress of
wealth. It is contended by the advocates of slavery, that it accumulates
wealth more rapidly, and thus enriches the nation, although it may
depress its moral and intellectual development, its increase of numbers
and of power, and tarnish its reputation throughout the world. As
population and its labor create wealth, it must be retarded by a system
which, as we have seen in this case, diminishes the relative advance of
numbers in the ratio of more than 9 to 1. But the Census proves that
slavery greatly retards the increase of wealth. By Tables 33 and 36 of
the Census of 1860, it appears, omitting commerce, that the products of
industry, as given, viz., of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and
fisheries, were that year in New York $606,000,000, or $156 _per
capita_; and in Virginia $120,000,000, or $75 _per capita_. This shows a
total value of product in New York more than five times greater than in
Virginia, and _per capita_ more than 2 to 1. If we include the earnings
of commerce, and all business not given in the Census, I think it will
be shown hereafter, that the value of the products and earnings of New
York, in 1860, exceeded those of Virginia at least 7 to 1. As to the
rate of increase, the value of the products of agriculture,
manufactures, mines, and fisheries, of Virginia, in 1850, was
$84,180,428 (Table 9), and in New York $358,736,603, showing an increase
in Virginia from 1850 to 1860 of $35,519,572, being 41 per cent., and in
New York $249,263,397, being 70 per cent., exhibiting a difference of 29
per cent. Now the increase of population in Virginia from 1850 to 1860
was 12.29 per cent., and in New York 25.29 per cent., the difference
being only 13 per cent. (Table 1, p. 131.) Thus, it appears, the
increase of wealth in New York, exclusive of the gains of commerce, as
compared with Virginia, was more than double the ratio of the
augmentation of population. By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195,
'The true value of the real and personal property, according to the
eighth Census was, New York, $1,843,338,517, and of Virginia,
$793,249,681.' Now we have seen the value of the products of New York in
1860 by the Census was $606,000,000, and in Virginia $120,000,000. Thus,
as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of New York was 34
per cent., and Virginia 15 per cent.; the annual product of capital
being more than double in New York what it was in Virginia. The problem
then is solved in Virginia, as it was in Maryland and South Carolina,
and all the South compared with all the North, that slavery retards the
progress of wealth and accumulation of capital in the ratio of 2 to 1.
Our war taxes may be very great, but the tax of slavery is far greater,
and the relief from it, in a few years, will add much more to the
national wealth than the whole deduction made by the war debt. Our total
wealth, by the Census of 1860, being, by Table 35, $16,159,616,068, one
per cent. taken annually to pay the interest and gradually extinguish
the war debt, would be $161,596,160; whereas, judging by Virginia and
New York, the diminished increase of the annual product of capital, as
the result of slavery, is 2.10 per cent., or $453,469,250 per annum,
equal in a decade, without compounding the annual results, to
$4,534,692,500.
That our population would have reached in 1860 nearly 40,000,000, and
our wealth have been more than doubled, if slavery had been extinguished
in 1790, is one of the revelations made by the Census; while in science,
in education, and national power, the advance would have been still more
rapid, and the moral force of our example and success would have
controlled for the benefit of mankind the institutions of the world.
By Table 36, page 196, of the Census of 1860, the _cash_ value of the
farms of Virginia was $371,096,211, being $11.91 per acre, and of New
York $803,343,593, being $38.26 per acre. Now, by the Table, the number
of acres embraced in these farms of New York was 20,992,950, and in
Virginia 31,014,950, the difference of value per acre being $25.36, or
much more than 3 to 1 in favor of New York. Now, if we multiply this
number of acres of farm lands of Virginia by the New York value, it
would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia,
$1,186,942,136, and the _additional_ value caused by emancipation
$815,845,925. But, stupendous as is this result in regard to lands, it
is far below the reality. We have seen that the farm lands of Virginia,
improved and unimproved, constituted 31,014,950 acres. By the Census and
the Land Office Tables, the area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres. Deduct
the farm lands, and there remain unoccupied 8,250,330 acres. Now,
Virginia's population to the square mile being 26.02, and that of New
York 84.36, with an equal density in Virginia, more than two thirds of
these Virginia lands, as in New York, must have been occupied as farms.
This would have been equivalent, at two thirds, to 5,500,000 acres,
which, at their present average value of $2 per acre, would be worth
$11,000,000; but, at the value per acre of the New York lands, these
5,500,000 acres would be worth $206,430,000. Deduct from this their
present value, $11,000,000, and the remainder, $195,430,000, is the sum
by which the unoccupied lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would
have been increased in value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced
value of their present farms, $815,845,925, and the result would be
$1,011,275,925, as the gain of Virginia in the value of lands by
emancipation. To these we should add, from the same cause, the
enhancement of the town and city property in Virginia to the extent of
several hundred millions of dollars. In order to realize the truth, we
must behold Virginia as she would have been, with New York railroads and
canals, farms, manufactures, commerce, towns, and cities. Then we must
consider the superior natural advantages of Virginia, her far greater
area, her richer soil, her more genial sun, her greater variety of
products, her mines of coal, iron, gold, copper, and lead, her
petroleum, her superior hydraulic power, her much larger coast line,
with more numerous and deeper harbors--and reflect what Virginia would
have been in the absence of slavery. Her early statesmen, Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Mason, Tucker, and Marshall, all realized
this great truth, and all desired to promote emancipation in Virginia.
But their advice was disregarded by her present leaders--the new, false,
and fatal dogmas of Calhoun were substituted; and, as a consequence,
Virginia, from the first rank (_longo intervallo_) of all the States,
has fallen to the fifth, and, with slavery continued, will descend still
more rapidly in the future than in the past.
By Census Table 36, p. 197, the value, in 1860, of the farm lands of all
the Slave States, was $2,570,466,935, and the number of acres
245,721,062, worth $10.46 per acre. In the Free States, the value of the
farm lands was $4,067,947,286, and the number of acres 161,462,008,
worth $25.19 per acre. Now if, as certainly in the absence of slavery
would have been the case, the farm lands of the South had been worth as
much per acre as those of the North, their total value would have been
$6,189,713,551, and, deducting the present price, the _additional_ cash
value would have been $3,619,246,616.
But if, to this, we add the _increased_ value of the _unoccupied_ lands
of the South, by multiplying them by the difference between their value
per acre and that of the _unoccupied_ lands of the North, the result is
$2,240,000,000, which, added to that of the farm lands, makes
$5,859,246,616, as the augmented value of the lands of the South caused
by emancipation.
By Census Tables of 1860, 33 and 36, the total value of the products of
agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries in the Free States was
$4,150,000,000, and of the Slave States $1,140,000,000, making the
products of the Free States in 1860 nearly 4 to 1 of the Slave States,
and $217 _per capita_ for the Free States, and for the Slave States $93
_per capita_. This is exclusive of commerce, which would greatly
increase the ratio in favor of the North, that of New York alone being
nearly equal to that of all the Slave States. Now, multiplying the
population of the Slave States by the value of the products _per capita_
of the Free States, and the result is $2,653,631,032, making, by
emancipation, the increased annual product of the Slave States
$1,511,031,032, and in ten years, exclusive of the yearly accumulations,
$15,110,310,320.
By the Table 35, Census of 1860, the total value of all the property,
real and personal, of the Free States, was $10,852,081,681, and of the
Slave States, $5,225,307,034. Now, the product, in 1860, of the Free
States, being $4,150,000,000, the annual yield on the capital was 39 per
cent.; and, the product of the Slave States being $1,140,000,000, the
yield on the capital was 22 per cent. This was the gross product in both
cases. I have worked out these amazing results from the Census Tables,
to illustrate the fact, that the same law, by which slavery retarded the
progress of wealth in Virginia, as compared with New York, and of
Maryland and South Carolina, as compared with Massachusetts, rules the
relative advance in wealth of all the Slave States, as compared with
that of all the Free States. I have stated that the statistics of
commerce, omitted in these tables, would vastly increase the difference
in favor of the Free States as compared with the Slave States, and of
New York as contrasted with Virginia. I shall now resume the latter
inquiry, so as to complete the comparison between New York and Virginia.
By commerce is embraced, in this examination, all earnings not included
under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the mines, or fisheries.
RAILROADS.--The number of miles of railroads in operation in
New York, in 1860, including city roads, was 2,842 miles,[3] costing
$138,395,055; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807. (Census
Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230 and 233.) Now, by the same Census Report,
p. 105, the value of the freights of the New York roads for 1860 was as
follows: Product of the forest--tons carried, 373,424; value per ton,
$20; total value, $7,468,480. Of animals--895,519 tons; value per ton,
$200; total value, $179,103,800. Vegetable food--1,103,646 tons; value
per ton, $50; total value, $55,182,000. Other agricultural
products--143,219 tons; value per ton, $15; total value, $2,148,055.
Manufactures--511,916 tons; value per ton, $500; total value,
$391,905,500. Other articles--930,244 tons; value $10 per ton; total
value, $9,302,440. Grand total, 4,741,773 tons carried; value per ton,
$163. Total values, $773,089,275. Deducting one quarter for duplication,
makes 3,556,330 tons carried on the New York roads in 1860; and the
value, $579,681,790. The values of the freights on the Virginia roads,
as estimated, is $60,000,000, giving an excess to those of New York of
$519,681,790, on the value of railroad freights in 1860. The passenger
account, not given, would largely increase the disparity in favor of New
York.
CANALS.--The number of miles of canals in New York is 1,038,
and their cost $67,567,972. In Virginia, the number of miles is 178, and
the cost $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The estimated value of
the freight on the New York canals is 19 times that of the freight on
the Virginia canals. (Census.)
TONNAGE.--The tonnage of vessels built in New York in 1860 was
31,936 tons, and in Virginia 4,372. (Census, p. 107.)
BANKS.--The number of banks in New York in 1860 was 303;
capital $111,441,320, loans $200,351,332, specie $20,921,545,
circulation $29,959,506, deposits $101,070,273: and in Virginia the
number was 65; capital $16,005,156, loans $24,975,792, specie
$2,943,652; circulation $9,812,197, deposits $7,729,652. (Table 34, p.
193, Census.)
INSURANCE COMPANIES.--The risks taken in New York were
$916,474,956, or nearly one third of those in the whole Union. Virginia,
estimated at $100,000,000; difference in favor of New York $816,474,956.
(Census, p. 79.)
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS, ETC.--Our exports abroad from New York for
the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, were $145,555,449, and the
foreign imports $248,489,877; total of both, $394,045,326. The
clearances same year from New York were 4,574,285 tons, and the entries
4,836,448 tons; total of both, 9,410,733 tons. In Virginia, the exports
the same year were $5,858,024, and the imports $1,326,249; total of
both, $7,184,273; clearances, 80,381 tons, entries, 97,762 tons; total
of both, 178,143 tons. (Table 14, Register of United States Treasury.)
Revenue collected from customs same year in New York, $37,788,969, and
in Virginia $189,816, or 200 to 1 in favor of New York. (Tables U. S.
Com. of Customs.) No returns are given for the coastwise and internal
trade of either State, but the tables of the railway and canal
transportation of States show nearly the same proportion in favor of New
York as in the foreign trade. Thus the _domestic_ exports from New York
for the above year abroad were $126,060,967, and from Virginia
$5,833,370. (Same Table, 14.) And yet Virginia, as we have seen, had
much greater natural advantages than New York for commerce, as well as
for mines, manufactures, and agriculture. But slavery has almost
expelled commerce from Virginia, and nearly paralyzed all other
pursuits.
These Tables, taken from the Census and the Treasury records, prove
incontestably, that slavery retards the progress of wealth and
population throughout the South, but especially in Virginia. Nor can the
Tariff account for the results; for Virginia, as we have seen, possesses
far greater advantages than New York for manufactures. Besides, the
commerce of New York far surpasses that of Virginia, and this is the
branch of industry supposed to be affected most injuriously by high
tariffs, and New York has generally voted against them with as much
unanimity as Virginia. But there is a still more conclusive proof. The
year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs, and yet, from
1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of increase of New
York over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to 1860. Thus, by Table 1
of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population in Virginia was as
follows:
From 1790 to 1800 17.63 per cent.
" 1800 " 1810 10.73 "
" 1810 " 1820 9.31 "
" 1820 " 1830 13.71 "
" 1830 " 1840 2.34 "
" 1840 " 1850 14.60 "
" 1850 " 1860 12.29 "
The increase of population in New York was:
From 1790 to 1800 72.51 per cent.
" 1800 " 1810 63.45 "
" 1810 " 1820 43.14 "
" 1820 " 1830 39.76 "
" 1830 " 1840 26.60 "
" 1840 " 1850 27.52 "
" 1850 " 1860 25.29 "
In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318, in 1820, 1,065,129, and
in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of New York was 340,120, in
1820, 1,372,111, and in 1860, 3,880,735. Thus, from 1790 to 1820, before
the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase of the
population of New York, as compared with Virginia, was very far greater
than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the Tariff had no
influence whatever in depressing the progress of Virginia as compared
with New York.
We have heretofore proved by the Census the same position as regards the
relative progress of Maryland and Massachusetts, and the same principle
applies as between all the Free, as compared with all the Slave States.
In New York, we have seen that from 1790 to 1820, in the absence of high
tariffs, and even before the completion of her great canal, her advance
in population was much more rapid than from 1820 to 1860. Indeed, it is
quite clear that, so far as the Tariff had any influence, it was far
more unfavorable to New York than to Virginia, New York being a much
greater agricultural as well as commercial State.
Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been
retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and
intellectual development.
NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.--The number of newspapers and
periodicals in New York in 1860 was 542, of which 365 were political, 56
religious, 63 literary, 58 miscellaneous; and the number of copies
circulated in 1860 was 320,930,884. (Census Tables, Nos. 15, 37.) The
number in Virginia was 139; of which 117 were political, 13 religious, 3
literary, 6 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860
was 26,772,568. Thus, the annual circulation of the press in New York
was twelve times as great as that of Virginia. As to periodicals: New
York had 69 monthlies, of which 2 were political, 25 religious, 24
literary, and 18 miscellaneous; 10 quarterlies, of which 5 were
religious, and 5 literary; 6 annuals, of which 2 were political, 2
religious, and 2 miscellaneous. Virginia had 5 monthlies, of which 1 was
political, 2 religious, 1 literary, and 1 miscellaneous; and no
quarterlies or annuals. The annual circulation of the New York monthlies
was 2,045,000; that of Virginia was 43,900; or more than 43 to 1 in
favor of New York.
As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must
take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged
and printed. The number of public schools in New York in 1850 was
11,580, teachers 13,965, pupils 675,221; colleges, academies, etc.,
pupils 52,001; attending school during the year, as returned by
families, 693,329; native adults of the State who cannot read or write,
23,341. Public libraries, 11,013; volumes, 1,760,820. Value of churches
$21,539,561. (Comp. Census, 1850.)
The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937, teachers
3,005, pupils 67,438; colleges, academies, etc., pupils 10,326;
attending school during the year, as returned by families, 109,775;
native white adults of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868.
Public libraries, 54; volumes, 88,462. Value of churches, $2,902,220.
(Compend. of Census of 1850.) By Table 155, same compend., the
percentage of native free population in Virginia over 20 years of age
who cannot read or write is 19.90, and in New York 1.87, in North
Carolina 30.34, in Maryland 11.10, in Massachusetts 0.32, or less than
one third of one per cent. In New England, the percentage of native
whites who cannot read or write is 0.42, or less than one half of one
per cent.; and in the Southern States 20.30, or 50 to 1 in favor of New
England. (Compend., Table 571.) But, if we take the whole adult
population of Virginia, including whites, free blacks, and slaves, 42.05
per cent., or nearly one half, cannot read or write; and in North
Carolina, more than one half cannot read or write. We have seen, by the
above official tables of the Census of 1850, that New York, compared
with Virginia, had nearly ten times as many pupils at schools, colleges,
and academies, twenty times as many books in libraries, and largely more
than seven times the value of churches; while the ratio of native white
adults who cannot read or write was more than 10 to 1 in Virginia,
compared with New York. We have seen, also, that in North Carolina
nearly one third of the native white adults, and in Virginia nearly one
fifth, cannot read or write, and in New England 1 in every 400, in New
York 1 in every 131, in the South and Southwest 1 in every 42 of the
native white adults. (Comp. p. 153.)
My next comparison will be that of two great new Western
States--Illinois, a Free State, and Missouri, slaveholding.
The comparison is just, for while Missouri has increased since 1810 in
wealth and population, much more rapidly than any of the Slave States,
there are several Free States whose relative advance has exceeded that
of Illinois. The rapid growth of Missouri is owing to her immense area,
her fertile soil, her mighty rivers (the Mississippi and Missouri), her
central and commanding position, and to the fact that she has so small a
number of slaves to the square mile, as well as to the free population.
The population of Illinois, in 1810, was 12,282, and in 1860, 1,711,951;
the ratio of increase from 1810 to 1860 being 13,838.70. (Table 1, Cens.
1860.) The population of Missouri in 1810, was 20,845, and in 1860,
1,182,012; the ratio of increase from 1810 to 1860 being 5,570.48. (Ib.)
The rank of Missouri in 1810 was 22, and of Illinois 23. The rank of
Missouri in 1860 was 8, and of Illinois, 4.
AREA.--The area of Missouri is 67,380 square miles, being the
4th in rank, as to area, of all the States. The area of Illinois is
55,405 square miles, ranking the 10th. Missouri, then, has 11,875 more
square miles than Illinois. This excess is greater by 749 square miles
than the aggregate area of Massachusetts, Delaware, and Rhode Island,
containing in 1860 a population of 1,517,902. The population of Missouri
per square mile in 1810 exceeded that of Illinois .08; but, in 1860, the
population of Missouri per square mile was 17.54, ranking the 22d, and
that of Illinois, 30.90, ranking the 13th. Illinois, with her ratio to
the square mile and the area of Missouri, would have had in 1860 a
population of 2,082,042; and Missouri, with her ratio and the area of
Illinois, would have had in 1860 a population of 971,803, making a
difference in favor of Illinois of 1,110,239 instead of 529,939. The
absolute increase of population of Illinois per square mile from 1850 to
1860 was 15.54, and of Missouri 7.43, Illinois ranking the 6th in this
ratio and Missouri the 14th. These facts prove the vast advantages which
Missouri possessed in her larger area as compared with Illinois.
But Missouri in 1810, we have seen, had nearly double the population of
Illinois. Now, reversing their numbers in 1810, the ratio of increase of
each remaining the same, the population of Illinois in 1860 would have
been 2,905,014, and of Missouri, 696,983. If we bring the greater area
of Missouri as an element into this calculation, the population of
Illinois in 1860 would have exceeded that of Missouri more than two
millions and a half.
MINES.--By Census Tables, 9, 10, 13, and 14, Missouri produced,
in 1860, pig iron of the value of $575,000; Illinois, none. Bar and
rolled iron--Missouri, $535,000; Illinois, none. Lead--Missouri,
$356,660; Illinois, $72,953. Coal--Missouri, $8,200; Illinois, $964,187.
Copper--Missouri, $6,000; Illinois, none. As to mines, then, Missouri
has a decided advantage over Illinois. Indeed, the iron mountains of
Missouri are unsurpassed in the world. That Illinois approaches so near
to Missouri in mineral products, is owing to her railroads and canals,
and not to equal natural advantages. The number of miles of railroad in
operation in 1860 was, 2,868 in Illinois, and 817 in Missouri; of
canals, Illinois, 102 miles; Missouri, none. (Tables 38, 39.) But if
Missouri had been a Free State, she would have at least equalled
Illinois in internal improvements, and the Pacific Railroad would have
long since united San Francisco, St. Louis, and Chicago.
Illinois is increasing in a _progressive_ ratio as compared with
Missouri. Thus, from 1840 to 1850 the increase of numbers in Illinois
was 78.81, and from 1850 to 1860, 101.01 per cent., while the increase
of Missouri from 1840 to 1850 was 77.75, and from 1850 to 1860, 73.30.
Thus, the ratio is augmenting in Illinois, and decreasing in Missouri.
If Illinois and Missouri should each increase from 1860 to 1870, in the
same ratio as from 1850 to 1860, Illinois would then number 3,441,448,
and Missouri, 2,048,426. (Table 1.) In 1850, Chicago numbered 29,963,
and in 1860, 109,260. St. Louis, 77,860 in 1850, and 160,773 in 1860.
(Table 40.) From 1840 to 1850 the ratio of increase of Chicago was
570.31, and from 1850 to 1860, 264.65, and of St. Louis, from 1840 to
1850, 372.26 per cent., and from 1850 to 1860, 106.49. If both increased
in their respective ratios from 1860 to 1870 as from 1850 to 1860,
Chicago would number 398,420 in 1870, and St. Louis, 331,879. It would
be difficult to say which city has the greatest natural advantages, and
yet when St. Louis was a city, Chicago was but the site of a fort.
PROGRESS OF WEALTH.--By Census Table 36, the cash value of the
farms of Illinois in 1860, was $432,531,072, and of Missouri,
$230,632,126, making a difference in favor of Illinois of $201,898,946,
which is the loss which Missouri has sustained by slavery in the single
item of the value of her farm lands. Abolish slavery there, and the
value of the farm lands of Missouri would soon equal those of Illinois,
and augment the wealth of the farmers of Missouri over two hundred
millions of dollars. But these farm lands of Missouri embrace only
19,984,809 acres (Table 36), leaving unoccupied 23,138,391 acres. The
difference between the value of the unoccupied lands of Missouri and
Illinois, is six dollars per acre, at which rate the increased value of
the unoccupied lands of Missouri, in the absence of slavery, is
$148,830,346. Thus it appears, that the loss to Missouri in the value of
her lands, caused by slavery, is $340,729,292. If we add to this the
diminished value of town and city property in Missouri, from the same
cause, the total loss in that State in the value of real estate, exceeds
$400,000,000, which is nearly twenty times the value of her slaves. By
Table 35, the increase in the value of the real and personal property of
Illinois from 1850 to 1860, was $715,595,276, being 457.93 per cent.,
and of Missouri, $363,966,691, being 265.18 per cent. At the same rate
of increase from 1860 to 1870, the total wealth of Illinois would then
be $3,993,000,000, and of Missouri, $1,329,000,000, making the
difference against Missouri, in 1870, caused by slavery, $2,664,000,000,
which is more than double the whole debt of the nation, and more than
twice the value of all the slaves in the Union.
The total wealth of the Union in 1860 exceeded $16,000,000,000. If this
were increased $1,000,000,000 in time, by the augmented wealth of
Missouri, and our revenue from duties and taxes should be $220,000,000,
the increased income, being one seventeenth of the whole, would exceed
$12,000,000 per annum; or, if the increase of wealth should be only
$200,000,000, then the augmented proportional annual revenue would be
$2,750,000, or nearly one eightieth part of the whole revenue.
By overthrowing the rebellion, the taxes to pay the national debt will
be collected from all the States, instead of being confined to those
that are loyal. The rebel Confederate debt, never having had any
existence in law or justice, but having been created only to support a
wicked rebellion, will of course be expunged by the reëstablishment of
the Union. All the rebel States' debt incurred since the revolt, for the
purpose of overthrowing the Government, will, of course, have no legal
existence. Under the Federal Constitution, no State Legislature can have
any lawful existence, except in conformity with its provisions,
accompanied by a prior oath of every member to support the Constitution
of the United States. These assemblages, then, since the revolt in the
several States, calling themselves State Legislatures, never had any
legal existence or authority, and were mere assemblages of traitors.
Such is the clear provision of the Federal Constitution, and of the law
of nations and of justice. It would be strange, indeed, if conventicles
of traitors in revolted States could legally or rightfully impose taxes
on the people of such States, loyal or disloyal, to overthrow the
Government. Indeed, if justice could have her full sway, the whole debt
of this Government, incurred to suppress this rebellion, ought to be
paid by the traitors alone.
My next comparison will be that of the Free State of Pennsylvania with
Virginia.
Virginia was a considerable colony when Pennsylvania was occupied only
by Indian tribes. In 1790, Virginia was first in rank of all the States,
her number of inhabitants being 748,308. (Census Rep., 120, 121.)
Pennsylvania then ranked the second, numbering 434,373 persons. (Ib.) In
1860 the population of Virginia was 1,596,318, ranking the fifth;
Pennsylvania still remaining the second, and numbering 2,905,115. (Ib.)
In 1790 the population of Virginia exceeded that of Pennsylvania
313,925; in 1860 the excess in favor of Pennsylvania was 1,308,797. The
ratio of increase of population of Virginia from 1790 to 1860 was 113.32
per cent., and of Pennsylvania in the same period, 569.03. At the same
relative ratio of increase for the next seventy years, Virginia would
contain a population of 3,405,265 in 1930; and Pennsylvania 19,443,934,
exceeding that of England. Such has been and would continue to be the
effect of slavery in retarding the progress of Virginia, and such the
influence of freedom in the rapid advance of Pennsylvania. Indeed, with
the maintenance and perpetuity of the Union in all its integrity, the
destiny of Pennsylvania will surpass the most sanguine expectations.
The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was 12.19, and in
1860, 26.02; whilst that of Pennsylvania in 1790 was 9.44, and in 1860,
63.18. (Ib.) The absolute increase of the population of Virginia per
square mile, from 1790 to 1860, was 13.83, and from 1850 to 1860, 2.85;
whilst that of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1860, was 53.74, and from 1850
to 1860, 12.93. (Ib.)
AREA.--The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and of
Pennsylvania 46,000, the difference being 15,352 square miles, which is
greater by 758 square miles than the aggregate area of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Delaware, containing in 1860 a population of
1,803,429. (Ib.) Retaining their respective ratios of increase per
square mile from 1790 to 1860, and reversing their areas, that of
Virginia in 1860 would have been 1,196,920, and of Pennsylvania
3,876,119. Reversing the numbers of each State in 1790, the ratio of
increase in each remaining the same, the population of Pennsylvania in
1860 would have been 5,408,424, and that of Virginia, 926,603. Reversing
both the areas and numbers in 1790, and the population of Pennsylvania
would have exceeded that of Virginia in 1860 more than six millions.
SHORE LINE.--By the Tables of the Coast Survey, the shore line
of Virginia is 1,571 miles, and of Pennsylvania only 60 miles. This
vastly superior coast line of Virginia, with better, deeper, more
capacious, and much more numerous harbors, unobstructed by ice, and with
easy access for so many hundred miles by navigable bays and tide-water
rivers leading so far into the interior, gives to Virginia great
advantages over Pennsylvania in commerce and every branch of industry.
Indeed, in this respect, Virginia stands unrivalled in the Union. The
hydraulic power of Virginia greatly exceeds that of Pennsylvania.
MINES.--Pennsylvania excels every other State in mineral
wealth, but Virginia comes next.
SOIL.--In natural fertility of soil, the two States are about
equal; but the seasons in Virginia are more favorable, both for crops
and stock, than in Pennsylvania. Virginia has all the agricultural
products of Pennsylvania, with cotton in addition. The area, however, of
Virginia (39,265,280 acres) being greater by 9,825,280 acres than that
of Pennsylvania (29,440,000 acres), gives to Virginia vast advantages.
In her greater area, her far superior coast line, harbors, rivers, and
hydraulic power, her longer and better seasons for crops and stock, and
greater variety of products, Virginia has vast natural advantages, and
with nearly double the population of Pennsylvania in 1790. And yet,
where has slavery placed Virginia? Pennsylvania exceeds her now in
numbers 1,308,797, and increased in population from 1790 to 1860, in a
ratio more than five to one. Such is the terrible contrast between free
and slave institutions!
PROGRESS OF WEALTH.--By Census Tables (1860) 33 and 36, it
appears (omitting commerce) that the products of industry, as given,
viz., of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year
in Pennsylvania, of the value of $399,600,000, or $138 _per capita_; and
in Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 _per capita_. This shows a total value
of product in Pennsylvania much more than three times that of Virginia,
and, _per capita_, nearly two to one. That is, the average value of the
product of the labor of each person in Pennsylvania is nearly double
that of each person, including slaves, in Virginia. Thus is proved the
vast superiority of free over slave labor, and the immense national loss
occasioned by the substitution of the latter for the former.
As to the rate of increase: the value of the products of Virginia in
1850 was $84,480,428 (Table 9), and in Pennsylvania, $229,567,131,
showing an increase in Virginia, from 1850 to 1860, of $35,519,572,
being 41 per cent.; and in Pennsylvania, $170,032,869, being 51 per
cent.; exhibiting a difference of 10 per cent. in favor of Pennsylvania.
By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195, the true value then of the
real and personal property was, in Pennsylvania, $1,416,501,818, and of
Virginia, $793,249,681. Now, we have seen, the value of the products in
Pennsylvania in 1860 was $399,600,000, and in Virginia, $120,000,000.
Thus, as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of Pennsylvania
was 29 per cent., and of Virginia, 15 per cent. By Census Table 35, the
total value of the real and personal property of Pennsylvania was
$722,486,120 in 1850, and $1,416,501,818 in 1860, showing an increase,
in that decade, of $694,015,698, being 96.05 per cent.; and in Virginia,
$430,701,082 in 1850, and $793,249,681 in 1860, showing an increase of
$362,548,599, or 84.17 per cent.
By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the _cash_ value of the farms of
Virginia was $371,092,211, being $11.91 per acre; and of Pennsylvania,
$662,050,707, being $38.91 per acre. Now, by this table, the number of
acres embraced in these farms of Pennsylvania was 17,012,153 acres, and
in Virginia, 31,014,950; the difference of value per acre being $27, or
largely more than three to one in favor of Pennsylvania. Now, if we
multiply the farm lands of Virginia by the Pennsylvania value per acre,
it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia
$1,204,791,804; and the _additional_ value, caused by emancipation,
$835,699,593. But the whole area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres,
deducting from which the farm lands, there remain unoccupied 8,250,330
acres. Now, if (as would be in the absence of slavery) the population
per square mile of Virginia equalled that of Pennsylvania, three fifths
of these lands would have been occupied as farms, viz. 4,950,198, which,
at the Pennsylvania value per acre, would have been worth $188,207,524.
Deduct from this their present average value of $2 per acre, $9,800,396,
and the remainder, $178,407,128, is the sum by which the unoccupied
lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been increased in
value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced value of their present
farms, and the result is $1,014,106,721 as the gain, on this basis, of
Virginia in the value of her lands, by emancipation. To these we should
add the increased value of town and city lots and improvements, and of
personal property, and, with emancipation, Virginia would now have an
augmented wealth of at least one billion and a half of dollars.
The earnings of commerce are not given in the Census Tables, which would
vastly increase the difference in the value of their annual products in
favor of Pennsylvania as compared with Virginia. These earnings include
all not embraced under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the
mines, and fisheries. Let us examine some of these statistics.
RAILROADS.--The number of miles of railroad in operation in
Pennsylvania in 1860, including city roads, was 2,690.49 miles,[4]
costing $147,283,410; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807.
(Census Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230, 232.) The annual value of the
freight carried on these roads is estimated at $200,000,000 more in
Pennsylvania than in Virginia, and the passenger account would still
more increase the disparity.
CANALS.--The number of miles of canals in Pennsylvania in 1860
was 1,259, and their cost, $42,015,000. In Virginia the number of miles
was 178, and the cost, $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The
estimated value of the freight on the Pennsylvania canals is ten times
that of the freight on the Virginia canals.
TONNAGE.--The tonnage of vessels built in Pennsylvania in 1860
was 21,615 tons, and in Virginia, 4,372. (Census, p. 197.)
BANKS.--The number of banks in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 90;
capital, $25,565,582; loans, $50,327,127; specie, $8,378,474;
circulation, $13,132,892; deposits, $26,167,143;--and in Virginia the
number was 65; capital, $16,005,156; loans, $24,975,792; specie,
$2,943,652; circulation, $9,812,197; deposits, $7,729,652. (Census Table
35, p. 193.)
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS, ETC.--Our exports abroad from
Pennsylvania, for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, and foreign
imports, were of the value of $20,262,608. The clearances, same year,
from Pennsylvania, and entries were 336,848 tons. In Virginia the
exports the same year and foreign imports were of the value of
$7,184,273; clearances and entries, 178,143 tons. (Table 14, Register of
U. S. Treasury.) Revenue from customs, same year, in Pennsylvania,
$2,552,924, and in Virginia, $189,816; or more than twelve to one in
favor of Pennsylvania. (Tables U. S. Commissioner of Customs.) No returns
are given for the coastwise and internal trade of either State; but the
railway and canal transportation of both States shows a difference of
ten to one in favor of Pennsylvania. And yet, Virginia, as we have seen,
had much greater natural advantages than Pennsylvania for commerce,
foreign and internal, her shore line up to head of tide water being
1,571 miles, and Pennsylvania only 60 miles.
We have seen that, exclusive of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania
in 1860 were of the value of $399,600,000, or $138 _per capita_; and in
Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 _per capita_. But, if we add the earnings
of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania must have exceeded those of
Virginia much more than four to one, and have reached, _per capita_,
nearly three to one. What but slavery could have produced such amazing
results? Indeed, when we see the same effects in _all_ the Free States
as compared with _all_ the Slave States, and in _any_ of the Slave
States, as compared with _any_ of the Free States, the uniformity of
results establishes the law beyond all controversy, that slavery retards
immensely the progress of wealth and population.
That the Tariff has produced none of these results, is shown by the fact
that the agriculture and commerce of Pennsylvania vastly exceed those of
Virginia, and yet these are the interests supposed to be most
injuriously affected by high tariffs. But there is still more conclusive
proof. The year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs,
and yet, from 1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of
increase of Pennsylvania over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to
1860. Thus, by Table 1 of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population
in Virginia was as follows:
From 1790 to 1800 17.63 per cent.
" 1800 " 1810 10.73 "
" 1810 " 1820 9.31 "
" 1820 " 1830 13.71 "
" 1830 " 1840 2.34 "
" 1840 " 1850 14.60 "
" 1850 " 1860 12.29 "
The increase of population in Pennsylvania was:
From 1790 to 1800 38.67 per cent.
" 1800 " 1810 34.49 "
" 1810 " 1820 29.55 "
" 1820 " 1830 28.47 "
" 1830 " 1840 27.87 "
" 1840 " 1850 34.09 "
" 1850 " 1860 25.71 "
In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318; in 1820, 1,065,129, and
in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of Pennsylvania was 434,373;
in 1820, 1,348,233, and in 1860, 2,906,115. Thus, from 1790 to 1820,
before the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase
of the population of Pennsylvania, as compared with Virginia, was very
far greater than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the
tariff had no influence in depressing the progress of Virginia as
compared with Pennsylvania.
Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been
retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and
intellectual development.
NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.--The number of newspapers and
periodicals in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 367, of which 277 were
political, 43 religious, 25 literary, 22 miscellaneous; and the total
number of copies circulated in 1860 was 116,094,480. (Census Tables,
Nos. 15, 37.) The number in Virginia was 139, of which 117 were
political, 13 religious, 3 literary, 6 miscellaneous; and the number of
copies circulated in 1860 was 26,772,568, being much less than one
fourth that of Pennsylvania. The number of copies of monthly periodicals
circulated in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 464,684; and in Virginia, 43,900:
or much more than ten to one in favor of Pennsylvania.
As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must
take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or
printed. The number of public schools in Pennsylvania in 1850 was 9,061;
teachers, 10,024; pupils, 413,706; colleges, academies, &c., pupils,
26,142; attending school during the year, as returned by families,
504,610; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 51,283;
public libraries, 393; volumes, 363,400; value of churches, $11,853,291;
percentage of native free population (adults) who cannot read or write,
4.56. (Comp. Census of 1850.)
The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937; teachers,
3,005; pupils, 67,438; colleges, academies, etc., pupils, 10,326;
attending school, as returned by families, 109,775; native white adults
of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868; public libraries, 54;
volumes, 88,462; value of churches, $2,902,220; percentage of native
free adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, 19.90. (Comp. Census
of 1850.) Thus, the church and educational statistics of Pennsylvania,
and especially of free adults who cannot read or write, is as five to
one nearly in favor of Pennsylvania. When we recollect that nearly one
third of the population of Pennsylvania are of the great German race and
speak the noble German language, to which they are greatly attached, and
hence the difficulty of introducing common _English_ public schools in
the State, the advantage, in this respect, of Pennsylvania over Virginia
is most extraordinary.
My last comparison will be that of our two smallest States--Rhode
Island, a Free State, and Delaware, slaveholding.
In 1790 the population of Rhode Island was 69,110, and that of Delaware
59,096. In 1860, the former numbered 174,620, the latter 112,216. Thus,
from 1790 to 1860, the ratio of increase of population of Rhode Island
was 152.67 per cent., and of Delaware, 89.88. At the same relative rate
of increase, for the next, as for the last seventy years, the population
of Rhode Island in 1930, would be 441,212, and of Delaware, 213,074.
Thus in 1790, Rhode Island numbered but 10,014 more than Delaware,
62,404 more in 1860, and, at the same ratio of increase, 228,138 more in
1930. Such has been and would be the effect of slavery in retarding the
increase of Delaware, as compared with Rhode Island. (Census Table,
1860, No. 1.)
The population of Rhode Island per square mile in 1790, was 52.15, and
in 1860, 133.71; that of Delaware, 27.87 in 1790, and 59.93 in 1860. The
absolute increase of population of Rhode Island, per square mile, from
1790 to 1860, was 80.79, and from 1850 to 1860, 20.74; that of Delaware,
from 1790 to 1860, was 25.05, and from 1850 to 1860, 9.76. (Ib.)
AREA.--The area of Rhode Island is 1,306 square miles, and of
Delaware, 2,120, being 38 per cent., or much more than one third larger
than Rhode Island. Retaining their respective ratios of increase, per
square mile, from 1790 to 1860, and reversing their areas, the
population of Rhode Island in 1860, would have been 283,465, and of
Delaware, 78,268.
In natural fertility of soil Delaware is far superior to Rhode Island,
the seasons much more favorable for crops and stock, and with more than
double the number of acres of arable land.
PROGRESS OF WEALTH.--By Census Tables 33 and 36 (omitting
commerce), it appears that the products of industry as given, viz., of
agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year, in
Rhode Island, of the value of $52,400,000, or $300 _per capita_, and in
Delaware, $16,100,000, or $143 _per capita_. That is, the average
annual value of the product of the labor of each person in Rhode Island
is greatly more than double that of the labor of each person in
Delaware, including slaves. This, we have seen, would make the value of
the products of labor in Rhode Island in 1930, $132,368,600, and in
Delaware, only $30,469,582, notwithstanding the far greater area and
superior natural advantages of Delaware as compared with Rhode Island.
As to the rate of increase: the value of the products of Delaware in
1850 was $7,804,992, in 1860, $16,100,000; and in Rhode Island, in 1850,
$24,288,088, and in 1860, $52,400,000. (Table 9, Treas. Rep., 1856),
exhibiting a large difference in the ratio in favor of Rhode Island.
By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the cash value of the farm lands of
Rhode Island in 1860 was $19,385,573, or $37.30 per acre (519,698
acres), and of Delaware, $31,426,357, or $31.39 per acre (1,004,295
acres). Thus, if the farm lands of Delaware were of the cash value of
those of Rhode Island per acre, it would increase the value of those of
Delaware $5,935,385, whereas the whole value of her slaves is but
$539,400.
But by Table 35, Census of 1860, the total value of the real and
personal property in Rhode Island in 1860, was $135,337,588, and of
Delaware, $46,242,181, making a difference in favor of Rhode Island,
$89,095,497, whereas, we have seen, in the absence of slavery, Delaware
must have far exceeded Rhode Island in wealth and population.
The earnings of commerce are not given by the Census, but, to how vast
an extent this would swell the difference in favor of Rhode Island, we
may learn from the Census, Bank Table No. 34. The number of the banks of
Rhode Island in 1860, was 91; capital, $20,865,569; loans, $26,719,877;
circulation, $3,558,295; deposits, $3,553,104. In Delaware, number of
banks, 12, capital, $1,640,675; loans, $3,150,215; circulation,
$1,135,772; deposits, $976,223.
Having shown how much slavery has retarded the material progress of
Delaware, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and intellectual
development.
NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.--The number of newspapers and
periodicals in Rhode Island in 1860, was 26, of which 18 were political,
6 literary, and 2 miscellaneous. (Census, Table No. 37.) The number in
Delaware was 14, of which 13 were political, and 1 literary. Of
periodicals, Delaware had none; Rhode Island 1. The number of copies of
newspapers and periodicals issued in Rhode Island in 1860 was 5,289,280,
and in Delaware only 1,010,776, or largely more than five to one in
favor of Rhode Island.
As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must
take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or
published. The number of public schools in Rhode Island in 1850 was 426,
teachers 518, pupils 23,130; attending school during the year, as
returned by families, whites, 28,359; native adults of the State who
cannot read or write, 1,248; public libraries, 96; volumes, 104,342;
value of churches, $1,293,600; percentage of native free adults who
cannot read or write, 149. Colleges and academies, pupils, 3,664. (Comp.
Census of 1850.) The number of public schools in Delaware in 1850, was
194, teachers, 214, pupils, 8,970; attending school during the year,
whites, as returned by families, 14,216; native free adults of the State
who cannot read or write, 9,777; public libraries, 17; volumes, 17,950;
value of churches, $340,345; percentage of native free adults who cannot
read or write, 23.03; colleges and academies, pupils, 764. (Comp.
Census, 1850.)
The subject will be continued in my next letter. R. J. WALKER.
WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?
_PART THE LAST._
'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_
it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is
interesting.'--GOETHE.
'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished
or intended.'--WEBSTER'S _Dictionary_.