CHAPTER III.

While the mutiny was brewing, one La Roche Ferrière had been sent out as

an agent or emissary among the more distant tribes. Sagacious, bold, and

restless, he pushed his way from town to town, and pretended to have

reached the mysterious mountains of Appalachee. He sent to the fort

mantles woven with feathers, quivers covered with choice furs, arrows

tipped with gold, wedges of a green stone like beryl or emerald, and

other trophies of his wanderings. A gentleman named Grotaut took up the

quest, and penetrated to the dominions of Hostaqua, who could muster

three or four thousand warriors, and who promised with the aid of a

hundred arquebusiers to conquer all the kings of the adjacent mountains,

and subject them and their gold-mines to the rule of the French. A

humbler adventurer was Peter Gamble, a robust and daring youth, who had

been brought up in the household of Coligny, and was now a soldier under

Laudonnière. The latter gave him leave to trade with the Indians, a

privilege which he used so well that he grew rich with his traffic,

became prime favorite with the chief of Edelano, married his daughter,

and, in his absence, reigned in his stead. But, as his sway verged

towards despotism, his subjects took offence, and beat out his brains

with a hatchet.

During the winter, Indians from the neighborhood of Cape Canaveral

brought to the fort two Spaniards, wrecked fifteen years before on the

southwestern extremity of the peninsula. They were clothed like the

Indians,--in other words, were not clothed at all,--and their uncut hair

streamed wildly down their backs. They brought strange tales of those

among whom they had dwelt. They told of the King of Calos, on whose

domains they had suffered wreck, a chief mighty in stature and in power.

In one of his villages was a pit, six feet deep and as wide as a

hogshead, filled with treasure gathered from Spanish wrecks on adjacent

reefs and keys. The monarch was a priest, too, and a magician, with

power over the elements. Each year he withdrew from the public gaze to

hold converse in secret with supernal or infernal powers; and each year

he sacrificed to his gods one of the Spaniards whom the fortune of the

sea had cast upon his shores. The name of the tribe is preserved in that

of the River Caloosa. In close league with him was the mighty Oathcaqua,

dwelling near Cape Canaveral, who gave his daughter, a maiden of

wondrous beauty, in marriage to his great ally. But, as the bride, with

her bridesmaids, was journeying towards Calos, escorted by a chosen

band, they were assailed by a wild and warlike race, inhabitants of an

island called Sarrope, in the midst of a great lake, who put the

warriors to flight, bore the maidens captive to their watery fastness,

espoused them all, and, as we are assured, "loved them above all

measure."

Outina, taught by Arlac the efficacy of the French fire-arms, begged for

ten arquebusiers to aid him on a new raid among the villages of Potanou,

again alluring his greedy allies by the assurance, that, thus

reinforced, he would conquer for them a free access to the phantom

gold-mines of Appalachec. Ottigny set forth on this fool's-errand with

thrice the force demanded. Three hundred Thimagoa and thirty Frenchmen

took up their march through the pine-barrens. Outina's conjurer was of

the number, and had well-nigh ruined the enterprise. Kneeling on

Ottigny's shield, that he might not touch the earth, with hideous

grimaces, howlings, and contortions, he wrought himself into a prophetic

frenzy, and proclaimed to the astounded warriors that to advance farther

would be destruction. Outina was for instant retreat, but Ottigny's

sarcasms shamed him into a show of courage. Again they moved forward,

and soon encountered Potanou with all his host. Le Moyne drew a picture

of the fight. In the foreground Ottigny is engaged in single combat with

a gigantic savage, who, with club upheaved, aims a deadly stroke at the

plumed helmet of his foe; but the latter, with target raised to guard

his head, darts under the arms of the naked Goliath, and transfixes him

with his sword. The arquebuse did its work: panic, slaughter, and a

plentiful harvest of scalps. But no persuasion could induce Outina to

follow up his victory. He went home to dance around his trophies, and

the French returned disgusted to Fort Caroline.

And now, in ample measure, the French began to reap the harvest of their

folly. Conquest, gold, military occupation,--such had been their aims.

Not a rood of ground had been stirred with the spade. Their stores were

consumed; the expected supplies had not come. The Indians, too, were

hostile. Satouriona hated them as allies of his enemies; and his

tribesmen, robbed and maltreated by the lawless soldiers, exulted in

their miseries. Yet in these, their dark and subtle neighbors, was their

only hope.

May-day came, the third anniversary of the day when Ribaut and his

companions, full of delighted anticipations, had explored the flowery

borders of the St. John's. Dire was the contrast; for, within the

homesick precinct of Fort Caroline, a squalid band, dejected and worn,

dragged their shrunken limbs about the sun-scorched area, or lay

stretched in listless wretchedness under the shade of the barracks. Some

were digging roots in the forest, or gathering a kind of sorrel upon the

meadows. One collected refuse fish-bones and pounded them into meal.

Yet, giddy with weakness, their skin clinging to their bones, they

dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining

their eyes across the sea to descry the anxiously expected sail.

Had Coligny left them to perish? or had some new tempest of calamity,

let loose upon France, drowned the memory of their exile? In vain the

watchman on the hill surveyed the solitude of waters. A deep dejection

fell upon them, a dejection that would have sunk to despair, could their

eyes have pierced the future.

The Indians had left the neighborhood, but, from time to time, brought

in meagre supplies of fish, which they sold to the famished soldiers at

exorbitant prices. Lest they should pay the penalty of their extortion,

they would not enter the fort, but lay in their canoes in the river,

beyond gunshot, waiting for their customers to come out to them.

"Oftentimes," says Laudonnière, "our poor soldiers were constrained to

give away the very shirts from their backs to get one fish. If at any

time they shewed unto the savages the excessive price which they tooke,

these villaines would answere them roughly and churlishly: If thou make

so great account of thy marchandise, eat it, and we will eat our fish:

then fell they out a laughing and mocked us with open throat."

The spring wore away, and no relief appeared. One thought now engrossed

the colonists, the thought of return to France. Vasseur's ship, the

Breton, still remained in the river, and they had also the Spanish

brigantine brought by the mutineers. But these vessels were

insufficient, and they prepared to build a new one. The energy of

reviving hope lent new life to their exhausted frames. Some gathered

pitch in the pine forests; some made charcoal; some cut and sawed the

timber. The maize began to ripen, and this brought some relief; but the

Indians, exasperated and greedy, sold it with reluctance, and murdered

two half-famished Frenchmen who gathered a handful in the fields.

The colonists applied to Outina, who owed them two victories. The result

was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn, coupled with an

invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, the plunder of whose

villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was accepted. Ottigny

and Vasseur set forth, but were grossly deceived, led against a

different enemy, and sent back empty-handed and half-starved.

Pale with famine and with rage, a crowd of soldiers beset Laudonnière,

and fiercely demanded to be led against Outina to take him prisoner and

extort from his fears the supplies which could not be looked for from

his gratitude. The commandant was forced to comply. Those who could bear

the weight of their armor put it on, embarked, to the number of fifty,

in two barges, and sailed up the river under the commandant himself.

Outina's landing reached, they marched inland, entered his village,

surrounded his mud-plastered palace, seized him amid the yells and

howlings of his subjects, and led him prisoner to their boats. Here,

anchored in mid-stream, they demanded a supply of corn and beans as the

price of his ransom.

The alarm spread. Excited warriors, bedaubed with red, came thronging

from all his villages. The forest along the shore was full of them; and

troops of women gathered at the water's edge with moans, outcries, and

gestures of despair. Yet no ransom was offered, since, reasoning from

their own instincts, they never doubted, that, the price paid, the

captive would be put to death.

Laudonnière waited two days, then descended the river. In a rude chamber

of Fort Caroline, pike in hand, the sentinel stood his guard, while

before him crouched the captive chief, mute, impassive, brooding on his

woes. His old enemy, Satouriona, keen as a hound on the scent of prey,

tried, by great offers, to bribe Laudonnière to give the prisoner into

his hands. Outina, however, was kindly treated, and assured of immediate

freedom on payment of the ransom.

Meanwhile his captivity was entailing dire affliction on his realm; for,

despairing of his return, his subjects mustered to the election of a new

chief. Party-strife ran high. Some were for a boy, his son, and some for

an ambitious kinsman who coveted the vacant throne. Outina chafed in his

prison, learning these dissensions, and, eager to convince his

over-hasty subjects that their king still lived, he was so profuse of

promises, that he was again embarked and carried up the river.

At no great distance below Lake George, a small affluent of the St.

John's gave access by water to a point within eighteen miles of Outina's

principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers, and bearing also

the royal captive, rowed up this little stream. Indians awaited them at

the landing, with gifts of bread, beans, and fish, and piteous prayers

for their chief, upon whose liberation they promised an ample supply of

corn. As they were deaf to all other terms, Laudonnière yielded,

released the chief, and received in his place two hostages, who were

fast bound in the boats. Ottigny and Arlac, with a strong detachment of

arquebusiers, set forth to receive the promised supplies, for which,

from the first, full payment in merchandise had been offered. Arrived at

the village, they filed into the great central lodge, within whose dusky

precincts were gathered the magnates of the tribe. Council-chamber,

forum, banquet-hall, dancing-hall, palace, all in one, the royal

dwelling could hold half the population in its capacious confines. Here

the French made their abode. Their armor buckled, their

arquebuse-matches lighted, they stood, or sat, or reclined on the

earthen floor, with anxious eyes watching the strange, dim scene, half

lighted by the daylight that streamed down through the hole at the apex

of the roof. Tall, dark forms stalked to and fro, quivers at their

backs, bows and arrows in their hands, while groups, crouched in the

shadow beyond, eyed the hated guests with inscrutable visages, and

malignant, sidelong eyes. Corn came in slowly, but warriors were

mustering fast. The village without was full of them. The French

officers grew anxious, and urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in

collecting the promised ransom. The answer boded no good, "Our women are

afraid, when they see the matches of your guns burning. Put them out,

and they will bring the corn faster."

Outina was nowhere to be seen. At length they learned that he was in one

of the small huts adjacent. Several of the officers went to him,

complaining of the slow payment of his ransom. The kindness of his

captors at Fort Caroline seemed to have won his heart. He replied, that

such was the rage of his subjects that he could no longer control

them,--that the French were in danger,--and that he had seen arrows

stuck in the ground by the side of the path, in token that war was

declared. Their peril was thickening hourly, and Ottigny resolved to

regain the boats while there was yet time.

On the twenty-seventh of July, at nine in the morning, he set his men in

order. Each shouldering a sack of corn, they marched through the rows of

squalid huts that surrounded the great lodge, and out betwixt the

interfolding extremities of the palisade that encircled the town. Before

them stretched a wide avenue, three or four hundred paces long, flanked

by a natural growth of trees,--one of those curious monuments of native

industry to which allusion has been already made. Here Ottigny halted

and formed his line of march. Arlac with eight matchlockmen was sent in

advance, and flanking parties thrown into the woods on either side.

Ottigny told his soldiers, that, if the Indians meant to attack them,

they were probably in ambush at the other end of the avenue. He was

right. As Arlac's party reached the spot, the whole pack gave tongue at

once. The war-whoop quavered through the startled air, and a tempest of

stone-headed arrows clattered against the breastplates of the French, or

tore, scorching like fire, through their unprotected limbs. They stood

firm, and sent back their shot so steadily that several of the

assailants were laid dead, and the rest, two or three hundred in number,

gave way as Ottigny came up with his men.

They moved on for a quarter of a mile through a country, as it seems,

comparatively open; when again the war-cry pealed in front, and three

hundred savages came bounding to the assault. Their whoops were echoed

from the rear. It was the party whom Arlac had just repulsed, who,

leaping and showering their arrows, were rushing on with a ferocity

restrained only by their lack of courage. There was no panic. The men

threw down their corn-bags, and took to their weapons. They blew their

matches, and, under two excellent officers, stood well to their work.

The Indians, on their part, showed a good discipline, after their

fashion, and were perfectly under the control of their chiefs. With

cries that imitated the yell of owls, the scream of cougars, and the

howl of wolves, they ran up in successive bands, let fly their arrows,

and instantly fell back, giving place to others. At the sight of the

levelled arquebuse, they dropped flat on the earth. Whenever, sword in

hand, the French charged upon them, they fled like foxes through the

woods; and whenever the march was resumed, the arrows were showering

again upon the flanks and rear of the retiring band. The soldiers coolly

picked them up and broke them as they fell. Thus, beset with swarming

savages, the handful of Frenchmen pushed their march till nightfall,

fighting as they went.

The Indians gradually drew off, and the forest was silent again. Two of

the French had been killed and twenty-two wounded, several so severely

that they were supported to the boats with the utmost difficulty. Of the

corn, two bags only had been brought off.

Famine and desperation now reigned at Fort Caroline. The Indians had

killed two of the carpenters; hence long delay in the finishing of the

new ship. They would not wait, but resolved to put to sea in the Breton

and the brigantine. The problem was to find food for the voyage; for

now, in their extremity, they roasted and ate snakes, a delicacy in

which the neighborhood abounded.

On the third of August, Laudonnière, perturbed and oppressed, was

walking on the hill, when, looking seaward, he saw a sight that shot a

thrill through his exhausted frame. A great ship was standing towards

the river's mouth. Then another came in sight, and another, and another.

He called the tidings to the fort below. Then languid forms rose and

danced for joy, and voices, shrill with weakness, joined in wild

laughter and acclamation.

A doubt soon mingled with their joy. Who were the strangers? Were they

the succors so long hoped in vain? or were they Spaniards bringing steel

and fire? They were neither. The foremost was a stately ship, of seven

hundred tons, a mighty burden at that day. She was named the Jesus; and

with her were three smaller vessels, the Solomon, the Tiger, and the

Swallow. Their commander was "a right worshipful and valiant

knight,"--for so the record styles him,--a pious man and a prudent, to

judge him by the orders he gave his crew, when, ten months before, he

sailed out of Plymouth:--"Serve God daily, love one another, preserve

your victuals, beware of fire, and keepe good companie." Nor were the

crew unworthy the graces of their chief; for the devout chronicler of

the voyage ascribes their deliverance from the perils of the seas to

"the Almightie God, who never suffereth his Elect to perish."

Who, then, were they, this chosen band, serenely conscious of a special

Providential care? Apostles of the cross, bearing the word of peace to

benighted heathendom? They were the pioneers of that detested traffic

destined to inoculate with its black infection nations yet unborn,

parent of discord and death, with the furies in their train, filling

half a continent with the tramp of armies and the clash of fratricidal

swords. Their chief was Sir John Hawkins, father of the English

slave-trade.

He had been to the coast of Guinea, where he bought and kidnapped a

cargo of slaves. These he had sold to the jealous Spaniards of

Hispaniola, forcing them, with sword, matchlock, and culverin, to grant

him free trade, and then to sign testimonials that he had borne himself

as became a peaceful merchant. Prospering greatly by this summary

commerce, but distressed by the want of water, he had put into the River

of May to obtain a supply.

Among the rugged heroes of the British marine, Sir John stood in the

front rank, and along with Drake, his relative, is extolled as "a man

borne for the honour of the English name.... Neither did the West of

England yeeld such an Indian Neptunian paire as were these two Ocean

peeres, Hawkins and Drake." So writes the old chronicler, Purchas, and

all England was of his thinking. A hardy seaman, a bold fighter,

overbearing towards equals, but kind, in his bluff way, to those beneath

him, rude in speech, somewhat crafty withal, and avaricious, he buffeted

his way to riches and fame, and died at last full of years and honor. As

for the abject humanity stowed between the reeking decks of the ship

Jesus, they were merely in his eyes so many black cattle tethered for

the market. Queen Elizabeth had an interest in the venture, and received

her share of the sugar, pearls, ginger, and hides which the vigorous

measures of Sir John gained from his Spanish customers.

Hawkins came up the river in a pinnace, and landed at Fort Caroline,

"accompanied," says Laudonnière, "with gentlemen honorably apparelled,

yet unarmed." Between the Huguenots and the English there was a double

tie of sympathy. Both hated priests, and both hated Spaniards. Wakening

from their apathetic misery, the starveling garrison hailed him as a

deliverer. Yet Hawkins secretly rejoiced, when he learned their purpose

to abandon Florida; for, though, not to tempt his cupidity, they hid

from him the secret of their Appalachian gold-mine, he coveted for his

royal mistress the possession of this rich domain. He shook his head,

however, when he saw the vessels in which they proposed to embark, and

offered them all a free passage to France in his own ships. This, from

obvious motives of honor and prudence, Laudonnière declined, upon which

Hawkins offered to lend or sell to him one of his smaller vessels.

Hereupon arose a great clamor. A mob of soldiers and artisans beset

Laudonnière's chamber, threatening loudly to desert him, and take

passage with Hawkins, unless the offer of the latter were accepted. The

commandant accordingly resolved to buy the vessel. The generous slaver,

whose reputed avarice nowise appears in the transaction, desired him to

set his own price; and, in place of money, took the cannon of the fort,

with other articles now useless to their late owners. He sent them, too,

a gift of wine and biscuit, and supplied them with provision for the

voyage, receiving in payment Laudonnière's note,--"for which," adds the

latter, "I am until this present indebted to him." With a friendly

leave-taking he returned to his ships and stood out to sea, leaving

golden opinions among the grateful inmates of Fort Caroline.

Before the English top-sails had sunk beneath the horizon, the colonists

bestirred themselves to depart. In a few days their preparations were

made. They waited only for a fair wind. It was long in coming, and

meanwhile their troubled fortunes assumed a new phase.

On the twenty-eighth of August, the two captains, Vasseur and Verdier,

came in with tidings of an approaching squadron. Again the fort was wild

with excitement. Friends or foes, French or Spaniards, succor or death:

betwixt these were their hopes and fears divided. With the following

morning, they saw seven barges rowing up the river, bristling with

weapons and crowded with men in armor. The sentries on the bluff

challenged, and received no answer. One of them fired at the advancing

boats. Still no response. Laudonnière was almost defenceless. He had

given his heavier cannon to Hawkins, and only two field-pieces were

left. They were levelled at the foremost boats, and the word was about

to be given, when a voice from among the strangers called that they were

French, commanded by John Ribaut.

At the eleventh hour, the long-looked-for succors were come. Ribaut had

been commissioned to sail with seven ships for Florida. A disorderly

concourse of disbanded soldiers, mixed with artisans and their families,

and young nobles weary of a two-years' peace, were mustered at the port

of Dieppe, and embarked, to the number of three hundred men, bearing

with them all things thought necessary to a prosperous colony.

No longer in dread of the Spaniards, the colonists saluted the

new-comers with the cannon by which a moment before they had hoped to

blow them out of the water. Laudonnière issued from his stronghold to

welcome them, and regaled them with what cheer he might. Ribaut was

present, conspicuous by his long beard, the astonishment of the Indians;

and here, too, were officers, old friends of Laudonnière. Why, then, had

they approached in the attitude of enemies? The mystery was soon

explained; for they expressed to the commandant their pleasure at

finding that the charges made against him had proved false. He begged to

know more, on which Ribaut, taking him aside, told him that the

returning ships had brought home letters filled with accusations of

arrogance, tyranny, cruelty, and a purpose of establishing an

independent command: accusations which he now saw to be unfounded, but

which had been the occasion of his unusual and startling precaution. He

gave him, too, a letter from the Admiral Coligny. In brief, but

courteous terms, it required him to resign his command, and invited his

return to France to clear his name from the imputations cast upon it.

Ribaut warmly urged him to remain; but Laudonnière declined his friendly

proposals.

Worn in body and mind, mortified and wounded, he soon fell ill again. A

peasant-woman attended him, brought over, he says, to nurse the sick and

take charge of the poultry, and of whom Le Moyne also speaks as a

servant, but who had been made the occasion of additional charges

against him, most offensive to the austere Admiral.

Stores were landed, tents were pitched, women and children were sent on

shore, feathered Indians mingled in the throng, and the sunny borders of

the River of May swarmed with busy life. "But, lo, how oftentimes

misfortune doth search and pursue us, even then when we thinke to be at

rest!" exclaims the unhappy Laudonnière. Behind the light and cheer of

renovated hope, a cloud of blackest omen was gathering in the east.

At half-past eleven on the night of Tuesday, the fourth of September,

the crew of Ribaut's flag-ship, anchored on the still sea outside the

bar, saw a huge hulk, grim with the throats of cannon, drifting towards

them through the gloom; and from its stern rolled on the sluggish air

the portentous banner of Spain.

Here opens a wilder act of this eventful drama. At another day we shall

lift the curtain on its fierce and bloody scenes.

* * * * *

SEAWARD.

TO ----.

How long it seems since that mild April night,

When, leaning from the window, you and I

Heard, clearly ringing from the shadowy bight,

The loon's unearthly cry!

Southwest the wind blew; million little waves

Ran rippling round the point in mellow tune;

But mournful, like the voice of one who raves,

That laughter of the loon.

We called to him, while blindly through the haze

Upclimbed the meagre moon behind us, slow,

So dim, the fleet of boats we scarce could trace,

Moored lightly, just below.

We called, and, lo, he answered! Half in fear,

I sent the note back. Echoing rock and bay

Made melancholy music far and near;

Slowly it died away.

That schooner, you remember? Flying ghost!

Her canvas catching every wandering beam,

Aërial, noiseless, past the glimmering coast

She glided like a dream.

Would we were leaning from your window now,

Together calling to the eerie loon,

The fresh wind blowing care from either brow,

This sumptuous night of June!

So many sighs load this sweet inland air,

'T is hard to breathe, nor can we find relief;

However lightly touched, we all must share

The nobleness of grief.

But sighs are spent before they reach your ear,

Vaguely they mingle with the water's rune;

No sadder sound salutes you than the clear,

Wild laughter of the loon.

* * * * *

SIDE-GLANCES AT HARVARD CLASS-DAY.

It happened to me once to "assist" at the celebration of Class-Day at

Harvard University. Class-Day is the peculiar institution of the Senior

Class, and marks its completion of college study and release from

college rules. It is also an institution peculiar, I believe, to

Harvard, and I was somewhat curious to observe its ceremonials, besides

feeling a not entirely _unawful_ interest in being introduced for the

first time to the _arcana_ of that renowned Alma Mater.

She has set up her Lares and Penates in a fine old grove, or a fine old

grove and green have sprouted up around her, as the case may be. At all

events, there is sufficient groundwork for any quantity of euphuism

about "classic shades," "groves of Academe," _et cetera_. Trollope had

his fling at the square brick buildings; but it was a fling that they

richly deserved, for they are in very deed as ugly as it is possible to

conceive,--angular, formal, stiff, windowy, bricky,--and the farther in

you go, the worse it grows. Why, I pray to know, as the first inquiry

suggested by Class-Day, is it necessary for boys' schools to be placed

without the pale of civilization? Do boys take so naturally to the

amenities of life that they can safely dispense with the conditions of

amenity? When I entered those brick boxes, I felt as if I were going

into a stable. Wood-work dingy, unpainted, gashed, scratched; windows

dingy and dim; walls dingy and gray and smoked; everything unhomelike,

unattractive, narrow, and rickety. Think, now, of taking a boy away from

his home, from his mother and sisters, from carpets and curtains and all

the softening influences of cultivated taste, and turning him loose with

dozens of other boys into a congeries of pens like this! Who wonders

that he comes out a boor? I felt a sinking at the heart in climbing up

those narrow, uncouth staircases. We talk about education. We boast of

having the finest system in the world. Harvard is, if not the most

distinguished, certainly among the first institutions in the country;

but, in my opinion, formed in the entry of the first Harvard house I

entered, Harvard has not begun to hit the nail on the head. Education!

Do you call it education, to put a boy into a hole, and work out of him

a certain amount of mathematics, and work into him a certain number of

languages? Is a man dressed, because one arm has a spotless wristband,

unquestionable sleeve-buttons, a handsome sleeve, and a well-fitting

glove at the end, while the man is out at the other elbow, patched on

both knees, and down at the heels? Should we consider Nature a success,

if she concerned herself only with carrying nutriment to the stomach,

and left the heart and the lungs and the liver and the nerves to shift

for themselves? Yet so do we, educating boys in these dens called

colleges. We educate the mind, the memory, the intellectual faculties;

but the manners, the courtesies, the social tastes, the greater part of

what goes to make life happy and genial, not to say good, we leave out

of view. People talk about the "awkward age" of boys,--the age in which

their hands and feet trouble them, and in which they are a social burden

to themselves and their friends. But one age need be no more awkward

than another. I have seen boys that were gentlemen from the cradle to

the grave,--almost; certainly from the time they ceased to be babies

till they passed altogether out of my sight. Let boys have the

associations, the culture, the training, and the treatment of gentlemen,

and I do not believe there will be a single moment of their lives in

which they will be clowns.

And among the first necessities are the surroundings of a gentleman.

When a man is grown up, he can live in a sty and not be a pig; but turn

a horde of boys in, and when they come out they will root out. A man is

strong and stiff. His inward, inherent power, toughened by exposure and

fortified by knowledge, overmasters opposing circumstances. He can

neglect the prickles and assume the rose of his position. He stands

scornfully erect amid the grovelling influences that would pull him

down. It may perhaps be, also, that here and there a boy, with a strong

native predilection to refinement, shall be eclectic, and, with the

water-lily's instinct, select from coarse contiguities only that which

will nourish a delicate soul. But human nature in its infancy is usually

a very susceptible material. It grows as it is trained. It will be rude,

if it is left rude, and fine only as it is wrought finely. Educate a boy

to tumbled hair and grimy hands, and he will go tumbled and grimy to his

grave. Put a hundred boys together where they will have the

appurtenances of a clown, and I do not believe there will be ten out of

the hundred who will not become precisely to that degree clownish. I am

not battling for the luxuries of life, but I am for its decencies. I

would not turn boys into Sybarites, but neither would I let them riot

into Satyrs. The effeminacy of a false aristocracy is no nearer the

heights of true manhood than the clumsiness of the clod, but I think it

is just as near. I would have college rooms, college entrances, and all

college domains cleanly and attractive. I would, in the first place,

have every rough board planed, and painted in soft and cheerful tints. I

would have the walls pleasantly colored, or covered with delicate, or

bright, or warm-hued paper. The floor should be either tiled, or hidden

under carpets, durable, if possible, at any rate, decent. Straw or rope

matting is better than brown, yawning boards. There you have things put

upon an entirely new basis. At no immoderate expense there is a new sky,

a new earth, a new horizon. If a boy is rich and can furnish his room

handsomely, the furnishings will not shame the room and its vicinity. If

he is poor and can provide but cheaply, he will still have a comely home

provided for him by the Mater who then will be Alma to some purpose.

Do you laugh at all this? So did Sarah laugh at the angels, but the

angels had the right of it for all that.

I am told that it would all be useless,--that the boys would deface and

destroy, till the last state of the buildings would be worse than the

first. I do not believe one word of it. It is inferred that they would

deface, because they deface now. But what is it that they deface?

Deformity. And who blames them? You see a rough board, and, by natural

instinct, you dive into it with your jackknife. A base bare wall is a

standing invitation to energetic and unruly pencils. Give the boys a

little elegance and the tutors a little tact, and I do not believe there

would be any trouble. If I had a thousand dollars,--as I did have once,

but it is gone: shall I ever look upon its like again?--I would not be

afraid to stake the whole of it upon the good behavior of college

students,--that is, if I could have the managing of them. I would make

them "a speech," when they came back at the end of one of their long

vacations, telling them what had been done, why it had been done, and

the objections that had been urged against doing it. Then I would put

the matter entirely into their hands. I would appeal solely to their

honor. I would repose in them so much confidence that they could by no

possibility betray it. We don't trust people half enough. We hedge

ourselves about with laws and locks and deeds and bonds, and neglect the

weightier matters of inherent right and justice that lie in every bosom.

It may be thought hardly polite to accept hospitality and then go away

and inveigh against the hospital; but my animadversions, you will do me

the justice to observe, are not aimed at my entertainers. I am marauding

for, not against them.

* * * * *

The Oration and Poem form the first public features of Class-Day, but,

arriving late, I could only eddy on the surge that swept around the

door. Strains of distant eloquence would occasionally float musically to

my ear; now and then a single word would steer clear of the thousands of

heads and come into my port unharmed. Frequent waves of laughter beat

and broke into the vestibule; but what is more "trying" to a frail

temper than laughter in which one cannot join? So we tarried long enough

to mark the fair faces and fine dresses, and then rambled under the old

trees till the hour for the "collation" came; and this is the second

point on which I purpose to dwell.

Each member of the Senior Class prepares a banquet,--sometimes

separately and sometimes in clubs, at an expense varying from fifty to

five hundred dollars,--to which he invites as many friends as he

chooses, or as are available. The banquet is quite as rich, varied, and

elegant as you find at ordinary evening parties, and the occasion is a

merry and pleasant one. But it occurred to me that there may be

unpleasant things connected with this custom. In a class of

seventy-five, in a country like America, it is quite probable that a

certain proportion are ill able to meet the expense which such a custom

necessitates. Some have fought their own way through college. Some must

have been fought through by their parents. To them I should think this

elaborate and considerable outlay must be a very sensible inconvenience.

The mere expense of books and board, tuition and clothing, cannot be met

without strict economy and much parental and family sacrifice. And at

the end of it all, when every nerve has been strained, and must be

strained harder still before the man can be considered fairly on his

feet and able to run his own race in life, comes this new call for

entirely uncollegiate disbursements. Of course it is only a custom.

There is no college by-law, I suppose, which prescribes a valedictory

_symposium_. Probably it grew up gradually from small ice-cream

beginnings to its present formidable proportions; but a custom is as

rigid as a chain. I wondered whether the moral character of the young

men was generally strong enough, by the time they were in their fourth

collegiate year, to enable them to go counter to the custom, if it

involved personal sacrifice at home,--whether there was generally

sufficient courtliness, not to say Christianity, in the class, whether

there was sufficient courtesy, chivalry, high-breeding, to make the

omission of this party-giving unnoticeable or not unpleasant. I by no

means say that the inability of a portion of the students to entertain

their friends sumptuously should prevent those who are able from doing

so. As the world is, some will be rich and some will be poor. This is a

fact which they have to face the moment they go out into the world; and

the sooner they grapple with it, and find out its real bearings and

worth or worthlessness, the better. Boys are usually old enough by the

time they are graduated to understand and take philosophically such a

distinction. Nor do I admit that poor people have any right to be sore

on the subject of their poverty. The one sensitiveness which I cannot

comprehend, with which I have no sympathy, for which I have no pity, and

of which I have no tolerance, is sensitiveness about poverty. I think it

is an essentially vulgar feeling. I cannot conceive how a man who has

any exaltation of life, any real elevation of character, any

self-respect, can for a moment experience so ignoble a shame. One may be

annoyed at the inconveniences and impatient of the restraints of

poverty; but to be ashamed to be called poor or to be thought poor, to

resort to shifts, not for the sake of being comfortable or elegant, but

of seeming to be above the necessity of shifts, is an indication of an

inferior mind, whether it dwell in prince or in peasant. The man who

does it shows that he has not in his own opinion character enough to

stand alone. He must be supported by adventitious circumstances, or he

must fall. Nobody, therefore, need ever expect to receive sympathy from

me in recounting the social pangs or slights of poverty. You never can

be slighted, if you do not slight yourself. People may attempt to do

it, but their shafts have no barb. You turn it all into natural history.

It is a psychological phenomenon, a study, something to be analyzed,

classified, reasoned from, and bent to your own convenience, but not to

be taken to heart. It amuses you; it interests you; it adds to your

stock of facts; it makes life curious and valuable: but if you suffer

from it, it is because you have not basis, stamina; and probably you

deserve to be slighted. This, however, is true only when people have

become somewhat concentrated. Children know nothing of it. They live

chiefly from without, not from within. Only gradually as they approach

maturity do they cut loose from the scaffolding and depend upon their

own centre of gravity. Appearances are very strong in school. Money and

prodigality have great weight there, notwithstanding the democracy of

attainments and abilities. If I live a thousand years, I do not believe

I shall ever do a more virtuous deed than I did long ago in staying at

home for the sake of a quarter of a dollar when the rest of the school

went to see Tom Thumb, the late bewritten bridegroom. I call it

virtuous, because I had the quarter and could have gone, and could not

explain the reason why I did not go. And though a senior class in

Harvard College may reasonably be supposed to be beyond the eminent

domain of Tom Thumb and quarter-dollars, the principle is precisely the

same,--only the temptation, I suppose, is much stronger, as the stake is

larger. Have they self-poise enough to refrain from these festive

expenses without suffering mortification? Have they virtue enough to

refrain from them with the certainty of incurring such suffering? Have

they nobility and generosity and largeness of soul enough, while

abstaining themselves for conscience sake, to share in the plans and

sympathize without servility in the pleasures of their rich comrades? to

look on with friendly interest, without cynicism or concealed malice, at

the preparations in which they do not join? Or do they yield to

selfishness, and gratify their own vanity, weakness, self-indulgence,

and love of pleasure, at whatever cost to their parents? Or is there

such a state of public opinion and usage in college that this custom is

equally honored in the breach and in the observance?

* * * * *

When the feasting was over, the most picturesque part of the day began.

The college green put off suddenly its antique gravity, and became

"Embrouded ... as it were a mede

Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and rede,"--

"floures" which to their gay hues and graceful outlines added the rare

charm of fluttering in perpetual motion. It was a kaleidoscope without

angles. To me, niched in the embrasure of an old upper window, the

scene, it seemed, might have stepped out of the Oriental splendor of

Arabian Nights. I think I may safely say I never saw so many

well-dressed people together in my life before. That seems a rather tame

fact to buttress Arabian Nights withal, but it implies much. The

distance was a little too great for one to note personal and individual

beauty; but since I have heard that Boston is famous for its ugly women,

perhaps that was an advantage, as diminishing likewise individual

ugliness. If no one was strikingly handsome, no one was strikingly

plain. And though you could not mark the delicacies of faces, you could

have the full effect of costumes,--rich, majestic, floating, gossamery,

impalpable. Everything was fresh, spotless, and in tune. It scarcely

needed music to resolve all the incessant waver and shimmer into a

dance; but the music came, and, like sand-grains under the magnet, the

beautiful atoms swept into stately shapes and tremulous measured

activity,--

"A fine, sweet earthquake gently moved

By the soft wind of whispering silks."

Then it seemed like a German festival, and came back to me the

Fatherland, the lovely season of the Blossoming, the short, sweet

bliss-month among the Blumenthal Mountains.

Nothing can be more appropriate, more harmonious, than dancing on the

green. Youth and gayety and beauty--and in summer we are all young and

gay and beautiful--mingle well with the eternal youth of blue sky and

velvet sward and the light breezes toying in the tree-tops. Youth and

Nature kiss each other in the bright, clear purity of the happy

summer-tide. Whatever objections lie against dancing elsewhere must veil

their faces there.

Yet I must confess I wish men would not dance. It is the most unbecoming

exercise which they can adopt. In women you have the sweep and wave of

drapery, gentle undulations, summer-cloud floatings, soft, sinuous

movements, the fluency of pliant forms, the willowy bend and rebound of

lithe and lovely suppleness. It is grace generic,--the sublime, the

evanescent mysticism of motion, without use, without aim, except its own

overflowing and all-sufficing fascination. But when a man dances, it

reminds me of that amusing French book called "Le Diable Boiteux," which

has been or may be free-thinkingly translated, "The Devil on Two

Sticks." In saying this, I design to cast no slur on the moral character

of masculine dancers. It is unquestionably above reproach; but let an

angel put on the black coat and trousers which constitute the

"full-dress" of a modern gentleman, and therein antic through the

"Lancers," and he would simply be ridiculous,--which is all I allege

against Thomas, Richard, and Henry, Esq. A woman's dancing is gliding,

swaying, serpentine. A man's is jerks, hops, convulsions, and acute

angles. The woman is light, airy, indistinctly defined: airy movements

are in keeping. The man is sombre in hue, grave in tone, distinctly

outlined; and nothing is more incongruous, to my thinking, than this

dancing, well portrayed in the contraband melody of

"Old Joe," etc.

The feminine drapery conceals processes and gives results. The masculine

absence of drapery reveals processes and thereby destroys results.

Once upon a time, long before the Flood, the clergyman of a

country-village, possessed with such a zeal as Paul bore record of

concerning Israel, conceived it his duty to "make a note" of sundry

young members of his flock who had met for a drive and a supper, with a

dance fringed upon the outskirts. The fame thereof being noised abroad,

a sturdy old farmer, with a good deal of shrewd sense and mother-wit in

his brains, and a fine, indirect way of hitting the nail on the head

with a side-stroke, was questioned in a neighboring village as to the

facts of the case. "Yes," he said, surlily, "the young folks had a

party, and got up a dance, and the minister was mad,--and I don't blame

him,--he thinks nobody has any business to dance, unless he knows how

better than they did!" It was a rather different _casus belli_ from that

which the worthy clergyman would have preferred before a council; but it

"meets my views" precisely as to the validity of the objections urged

against dancing. I would have women dance, because it is the most

beautiful thing in the world. I would have men dance, if it is

necessary, in order to "set off" women, and to keep themselves out of

mischief; but in point of grace, or elegance, or attractiveness, I

should beg men to hold their peace--and their pumps.

From my window overlooking the green, I was led away into some one or

other of the several halls to see the "round dances"; and it was like

going from Paradise to Pandemonium. From the pure and healthy lawn, all

the purer for the pure and peaceful people pleasantly walking up and

down in the sunshine and shade, or grouped in the numerous windows, like

bouquets of rare tropical flowers,--from the green, rainbowed in vivid

splendor, and alive with soft, tranquil motion, fair forms, and the

flutter of beautiful and brilliant colors,--from the green, sanctified

already by the pale faces of sick and wounded and maimed soldiers who

had gone out from the shadows of those sheltering trees to draw the

sword for country, and returned white wraiths of their vigorous youth,

the sad vanguard of that great army of blessed martyrs who shall keep

forever in the mind of this generation how costly and precious a thing

is liberty, who shall lift our worldly age out of the plough of its

material prosperity into the sublimity of suffering and sacrifice,--from

suggestions and fancies and dreamy musing and "phantasms sweet," into

the hall, where, for flower-scented summer air were thick clouds of

fine, penetrating dust, and for lightly trooping fairies a jam of heated

human beings, so that you shall hardly come nigh the dancers for the

press; and when you have, with difficulty and many contortions and much

apologizing, threaded the solid mass, piercing through the forest of

fans,--what? An inclosure, but no more illusion.

Waltzing is a profane and vicious dance. Always. When it is prosecuted

in the centre of a great crowd, in a dusty hall, on a warm midsummer

day, it is also a disgusting dance. Night is its only appropriate time.

The blinding, dazzling gas-light throws a grateful glare over the

salient points of its indecency, and blends the whole into a wild whirl

that dizzies and dazes one; but the uncompromising afternoon, pouring in

through manifold windows, tears away every illusion, and reveals the

whole coarseness and commonness and all the repulsive details of this

most alien and unmaidenly revel. The very _pose_ of the dance is

profanity. Attitudes which are the instinctive expression of intimate

emotions, glowing rosy-red in the auroral time of tenderness, and

justified in unabashed freedom only by a long and faithful habitude of

unselfish devotion, are here openly, deliberately, and carelessly

assumed by people who have but a casual and partial

society-acquaintance. This I reckon profanity. This is levity the most

culpable. This is a guilty and wanton waste of delicacy.

That it is practised by good girls and tolerated by good mothers does

not prove that it is good. Custom blunts the edge of many perceptions. A

good thing soiled may be redeemed by good people; but waltz as many as

you may, spotless maidens, you will only smut yourselves, and not

cleanse the waltz. It is of itself unclean.

There were, besides, peculiar _désagréments_ on this occasion. How can

people,--I could not help saying to myself,--how can people endure such

proximity in such a sweltering heat? For, as I said, there was no

illusion,--not a particle. It was no Vale of Tempe, with Nymphs and

Apollos. The boys were boys, appallingly young, full of healthful

promise, but too much in the husk for exhibition, and not entirely at

ease in their situation,--indeed, very much _not_ at ease,--unmistakably

warm, nervous, and uncomfortable. The girls were pretty enough girls, I

dare say, under ordinary circumstances,--one was really lovely, with

soft cheeks, long eyelashes, eyes deep and liquid, and Tasso's gold in

her hair, though of a bad figure, ill set off by a bad dress,--but Venus

herself could not have been seen to advantage in such evil plight as

they, panting, perspiring, ruffled, frowsy,--puff-balls revolving

through an atmosphere of dust,--a maze of steaming, reeking human

couples, inhumanly heated and simmering together with a more than

Spartan fortitude.

It was remarkable, and at the same time amusing, to observe the

difference in the demeanor of the two sexes. The lions and the fawns

seemed to have changed hearts,--perhaps they had. It was the boys that

were nervous. The girls were unquailing. The boys were, however, heroic.

They tried bravely to hide the fox and his gnawings; but traces were

visible. They made desperate feint of being at the height of enjoyment

and unconscious of spectators; but they had much modesty, for all that.

The girls threw themselves into it _pugnis et calcibus_,--unshrinking,

indefatigable.

There is another thing which girls and their mothers do not seem to

consider. The present mode of dress renders waltzing almost as

objectionable in a large room as the boldest feats of a French

ballet-dancer. Not to put too fine a point on it, I mean that these

girls' gyrations in the centre of their gyrating and centrifugal hoops

make a most operatic drapery-display. I saw scores and scores of public

waltzing-girls last summer, and among them all I saw but one who

understood the art, or, at any rate, who practised the art, of avoiding

an indecent exposure. In the glare and glamour of gas-light it is only

flash and clouds and indistinctness. In the broad and honest daylight,

it is not. Do I shock ears polite? I trust so. If the saying of shocking

things might prevent the doing of shocking things, I should be well

content. And is it an unpardonable sin for me to sit alone in my own

room and write about what you go into a great hall, before hundreds of

strange men and women, and do?

I do not speak thus about waltzing because I like to say it; but ye have

compelled me. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. I

respect and revere woman, and I cannot see her destroying or debasing

the impalpable fragrance and delicacy of her nature without feeling the

shame and shudder in my own heart. Great is my boldness of speech

towards you, because great is my glorying of you. Though I speak as a

fool, yet as a fool receive me. My opinions may be rustic. They are at

least honest; and may it not be that the first fresh impressions of an

unprejudiced and uninfluenced observer are as likely to be natural and

correct views as those which are the result of many afterthoughts, long

use, and an experience of multifold fascinations, combined with the

original producing cause? My opinions may be wrong, but they will do no

harm; the penalty will rest alone on me: while, if they are right, they

may serve as a nail or two to be fastened by the masters of assemblies.

The funny part of Class-Day comes last,--not so very funny to tell, but

amazingly funny to see,--only a wreath of bouquets fastened around the

trunk of an old tree, perhaps eight or ten feet from the ground, and

then the four classes range themselves around it in four circles with

their hands fast locked together, the Freshman Class on the outside, the

Senior Class within, grotesquely tricked out in vile old coats and

"shocking bad hats." Then the two alternate classes go one way around

the tree and the two others the opposite, pell-mell, harum-scarum,

pushing and pulling, down and up again, only keeping fast hold of hands,

singing, shouting, cheering _ad libitum_, _ad throatum_, (theirs,) _ad

earsum_, (ours,) and going all the time in that din and yell and crowd

and crash dear to the hearts of boys. At a given signal there is a

pause, and the Senior Class make sudden charge upon the bouquets,

huddling and hustling and crowding and jumping at the foot of the old

tree; bubbling up on each other's shoulders into momentary prominence

and prospect of success, and immediately disappearing ignominiously;

making frantic grasps and clutches with a hundred long arms and eager

outstretched hands, and finally succeeding, by shoulders and fists, in

bringing the wreath away piecemeal; and then they give themselves up to

mutual embraces, groans, laments, and all the enginery of pathetic

affection in the last gasping throes of separation,--to the doleful

tearing of hair and the rending of their fantastic garments. It is the

personification of legalized rowdyism; and if young men would but

confine themselves to such rowdyism as may be looked at and laughed at

by their mothers and sisters, they would find life just as amusing and a

thousand times more pure and profitable.

* * * * *

It occurs to me here that there is one subject on which I desire to

"give my views," though it is quite unconnected with Class-Day. But it

is probable that in the whole course of my natural life it will never

again happen to me to be writing about colleges, so I desire to say in

this paper everything I have to say on the subject. I refer to the

practice of "hazing," which is an abomination. If we should find it

among hinds, a remnant of the barbarisms of the Dark Ages, blindly

handed down by such slow-growing people as go to mill with their meal on

one side of the saddle and a stone on the other to balance, as their

fathers did, because it never occurred to their loggerheads to divide

the meal into two parcels and make it balance itself, we should not be

surprised; but hazing occurs among boys who have been accustomed to the

circulation of ideas, boys old enough and intelligent enough to

understand the difference between brutality and frolic, old enough to

know what honor and courage mean, and therefore I cannot conceive how

they should countenance a practice which entirely ignores and defies

honor, and whose brutality has not a single redeeming feature. It has

neither wisdom nor wit, no spirit, no genius, no impulsiveness, scarcely

the mirth of boyish frolic. A narrow range of stale practical jokes,

lighted up by no gleam of originality, is transmitted from year to year

with as much fidelity as the Hebrew Bible, and not half the latitude

allowed to clergymen of the English Established Church. But besides its

platitude, its one overpowering and fatal characteristic is its intense

and essential cowardice. Cowardice is its head and front and bones and

blood. One boy does not single out another boy of his own weight, and

take his chances in a fair stand-up fight. But a party of Sophomores

club together in such numbers as to render opposition useless, and

pounce upon their victim unawares, as Brooks and his minions pounced

upon Sumner, and as the Southern chivalry is given to doing. For sweet

pity's sake, let this mode of warfare be monopolized by the Southern

chivalry.

The lame excuse is offered, that it does the Freshmen good,--takes the

conceit out of them. But if there is any class in college so divested of

conceit as to be justified in throwing stones, it is surely not the

Sophomore Class. Moreover, whatever good it may do the sufferers, it

does harm, and only harm, to the perpetrators; and neither the law nor

the gospel requires a man to improve other people's characters at the

expense of his own. Nobody can do a wrong without injuring himself; and

no young man can do a mean, cowardly wrong like this without suffering

severest injury. It is the very spirit of the slaveholder, a dastardly

and detestable, a tyrannical and cruel spirit. If young men are so

blinded by custom and habit that a meanness is not to them a meanness

because it has been practised for years, so much the worse for the young

men, and so much the worse for our country, whose sweat of blood attests

the bale and blast which this evil spirit has wrought. If uprightness,

if courage, if humanity and rectitude and the mind conscious to itself

of right, are anything more than a name. Let the young men who mean to

make time minister to life scorn and scotch and kill this debasing and

stupid practice.

And why is not some legitimate and wholesome safety-valve provided by

authority to let off superabundant vitality, that boys may not, by the

mere occasions of their own natures, be driven into wickedness?

Class-Day is very well, but it comes only once a year, and what is

needed is an opportunity for daily ebullition, so that each night may

square its own account and forestall explosion. Why should there not be,

for instance, a military department to every college, as well as a

mathematical department? Why might not every college be a military

normal school? The exuberance and riot of animal spirits, the young,

adventurous strength and joy in being, would not only be kept from

striking out as now in illegitimate, unworthy, and hurtful directions,

but it would become the very basis and groundwork of useful purposes.

Such exercise would be so promotive of health and discipline, it would

so train and harmonize and _limber_ the physical powers, that the

superior quality of study would, I doubt not, more than atone for

whatever deficiency in quantity might result. And even suppose a little

less attention should be given to Euclid and Homer, which is of the

greater importance nowadays, an ear that can detect a false quantity in

a Greek verse, or an eye that can sight a Rebel nine hundred yards off,

and a hand that can pull a trigger and shoot him? Knowledge is power;

but knowledge must sharpen its edges and polish its points, if it would

be greatliest available in days like these. The knowledge that can plant

batteries and plan campaigns, that is fertile in expedients and wise to

baffle the foe, is just now the strongest power. Diagrams and

first-aorists are good, and they who have fed on such meat have grown

great, and done the State service in their generation; but these times

demand new measures and new men. It is conceded that we shall probably

be for many years a military nation. At least a generation of vigilance

shall be the price of our liberty. And even of peace we can have no

stronger assurance than a wise and wieldy readiness for war. Now the

education of our unwarlike days is not adequate to the emergencies of

this martial hour. We must be seasoned with something stronger than

Attic salt, or we shall be cast out and trodden under foot of men. True,

all education is worthy. Everything that exercises the mind fits it for

its work; but professional education is indispensable to professional

men. And the profession, _par excellence_, of every man of this

generation is war. Country overrides all personal considerations.

Lawyer, minister, what not, a man's first duty is the salvation of his

country. When she calls, he must go; and before she calls, let him, if

possible, prepare himself to serve her in the best manner. As things are

now, college-boys are scarcely better than cow-boys for the army. Their

costly education runs greatly to waste. It gives them no direct

advantage over the clod who stumbles against a trisyllable. So far as it

makes them better men, of course they are better soldiers; but for all

of military education which their college gives them, they are fit only

for privates, whose sole duty is to obey. They know nothing of military

drill or tactics or strategy. The State cannot afford this waste. She

cannot afford to lose the fruits of mental toil and discipline. She

needs trained mind even more than trained muscle. It is harder to find

brains than to find hands. The average mental endowment may be no higher

in college than out; but granting it to be as high, the culture which it

receives gives it immense advantage. The fruits of that culture,

readiness, resources, comprehensiveness, should all be held in the

service of the State. Military knowledge and practice should be imparted

and enforced to utilize ability, and make it the instrument, not only of

personal, but of national welfare. That education which gives men the

advantage over others in the race of life should be so directed as to

convey that advantage to country, when she stands in need. Every college

might and should be made a nursery of athletes in mind and body,

clear-eyed, stout-hearted, strong-limbed, cool-brained,--a nursery of

soldiers, quick, self-possessed, brave and cautious and wary, ready in

invention, skilful to command men and evolve from a mob an army,--a

nursery of gentlemen, reminiscent of no lawless revels, midnight orgies,

brutal outrages, launching out already attainted into an attainting

world, but with many a memory of adventure, wild, it may be, and not

over-wise, yet pure as a breeze from the hills,--banded and sworn

"To serve as model for the mighty world,

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,

Not only to keep down the base in man,

But teach high thought, and amiable words.

And courtliness, and the desire of fame,

And love of truth, and all that makes a man."

* * * * *

LOVE'S CHALLENGE.

I picked this trifle from the floor,

Unknowing from whose tender hand

It fell,--but now would fain restore

A thing which hath my heart unmanned.

I say unmanned, for 't is not now

A manly mood to dream of Love,

When each bold champion knits his brow,

And for War's gauntlet doffs his glove.

But we're exempt, and have no heart

Of wreak within us for the fray;

And therefore teach our souls the art

With life and life's concerns to play.

Yet, lady, trust me, 't is not all

In play that I proclaim intent,

When next thou lett'st thy gauntlet fall,

To take it as a challenge meant.

REPLY.

SIR CARPET-KNIGHT, who canst not fight,

Thy gallantries are not for me;

The man whom I with love requite

Must sing in a more martial key.

I have two brothers on the field,

And one beneath it,--none knows where;

And I shall keep my spirit steeled

To any save a soldier's prayer.

If thou have music in thy soul,

Yet hast no sinew for the strife,

Go teach thyself the war-drum's roll,

And woo me better with a fife!

* * * * *

POLITICAL PROBLEMS, AND CONDITIONS OF PEACE.

The relations existing between the Federal Government and the several

States, and the reciprocal rights and powers of each, have never been

settled, except in part. Upon matters of taxation and commerce, and the

diversified questions that arise in times of peace, the decisions of the

Supreme Court have marked the boundary-lines of State and Federal power

with considerable clearness and precision. But all these questions are

superficial and trivial, when compared with those which are coming up

for decision out of the great struggle in which we are now engaged. The

Southern Rebellion, greater than any recorded in history since the world

began, must necessarily call for the exercise of all the powers with

which the Government is clothed. And we need not be surprised, if, in

resorting to the new measures which the great exigency of the new

condition seems to require, it shall be found, after the storm has

ceased and the clouds have rolled away, that in some things the

Government has transcended its legitimate powers, while in others it has

suffered, because fearing to use those which it really possesses. It is

dependent in many things upon the States; and yet it is supreme over

them all. There can be no Senate, as a branch either of the executive or

of the legislative department, without the action of the States; and yet

the Government emanates directly from the people. In defending itself

against an armed rebellion of nearly half the States themselves,

struggling for self-preservation, it may rightfully, as in other wars,

grasp all the means within its reach. War makes its own methods, for all

of which necessity is a sufficient plea. But when the defence shall have

been made, when the attack is repelled, and the Rebellion shall have

been fully suppressed, then will come the questions, What are the best

means of restoration? and, How shall a recurrence of the evil be

prevented?

Though the Federal Government is one of limited powers, _the people_

possess _all governmental powers_; and these are spoken of as powers

_delegated_ and powers _reserved_. So far as these are reserved to _the

people_, they may be exercised either through the _Federal Government_

or the _State_. And the Federal Government, though limited in its

powers, is restricted in _the subjects upon which it can act_, rather

than in the _quantum_ of power it can exercise over those matters within

its jurisdiction. Over those interests which are committed to its care

it has all the powers incident to any other government in the

world,--powers necessary by implication to accomplish the purpose

intended. The construction of the grant in the Constitution is not to be

critical and stringent, as if the people, by its adoption, were

_selling_ power to a _stranger_,--but liberal, considering that they

were enabling _their own agents_ to achieve a noble work for them.

We have been accustomed to extol the wisdom of our fathers, in framing

and establishing such a form of government; but our highest praises have

been too small. We have hitherto had but a partial conception of their

wisdom. We knew not the terrible test to which their work was to be

exposed. After the long discipline of the Revolutionary War, and the

experience of the weakness and impending anarchy of the Confederation,

they understood, far better than we, the dangers to which every

government is liable, from within and from without. And we are just now

beginning to see, that, in the Constitution they adopted, they not only

provided for the interests of peace, but for the dangers and emergencies

of war. Brief sentences, hardly noticed before, now throw open their

doors like a magazine of arms, ready for use in the hour of peril. And

while we shall come out of this struggle, and the political contest

that will follow it, without impairing any of the rights of the States,

the Federal Government _restored_ will stand before the world in a

majesty of strength of which we have before had no conception.

The questions evolved by the war are already attracting public

attention. It is well that they should do so. The peace and prosperity

of the country in future years depend upon their solution. They are so

interwoven that a mistake in regard to one may involve us in other

errors. The power of the Government so to remove the cause of the

present rebellion as to prevent its recurrence, if it have any such

power, is one which it is imperatively bound to exercise,--else all the

treasure and blood expended in quelling it will be wasted. Has it any

such power? Can Slavery be exterminated? And can the Rebel States be

held as conquests, and be restored only upon condition of being forever

free? It is proposed briefly to discuss these questions.

EMANCIPATION.

There are those who believe that the President's Proclamation will cease

to be of any force at the close of the war, and that no slaves will have

any right to their freedom by it except such as may be actually

liberated by the military authorities.

There are others, who hold that the Proclamation has the force of

law,--that by it every slave within the designated territory has now a

legal right to his liberty,--and that, if the military power does not

secure that right to him _during the war_, he may successfully appeal to

the civil power _afterwards_.

If the Proclamation is a law, it must be conceded, that, like all the

laws of war, it will cease to be in force when the war is closed. But

if, like a legislative act, it confers actual rights on the slaves,

whether they are able to secure them in fact or not, then those _rights_

are not lost, though the law cease to exist. On the other hand, if it

confers no actual rights on any who are beyond its reach,--if it is

merely an _offer_ of freedom to all who can come and receive it,--then

those only who do receive it while the offer continues will have any

rights by it when it has ceased to be in force.

The position of Mr. Adams on this subject seems to have been

misunderstood. When his remarks in Congress are carefully examined, it

will be found that he did not claim that the proclamation of a military

commander would operate, like a statute, to confer the right of freedom

upon all the slaves in an invaded country. But he asserted a general

principle of international law,--that the commander of an invading army

is not bound to recognize the municipal laws of the country,--that he

may treat all as freemen, though some are slaves. And he claimed, that,

in case of a servile war in this country, our army would have a right to

suppress the insurrection by giving freedom to the insurgents. In regard

to the effect of such a proclamation upon those not liberated by the

military power, he expressed no opinion.

The precedents usually cited are not any more satisfactory. In Hayti,

and in the South-American republics, emancipation became an established

fact by the action of the civil power. In each case a proclamation by

the military power was the initial step; but the consummation was

attained by the fact that the same power afterwards became dominant in

civil, as well as in military affairs.

Conceding, then, that the Proclamation is but a declaration of the

war-policy, designed and adapted to secure a still higher end,--the

preservation and perpetuity of our free institutions,--it is still

claimed that the Government has the right to pursue this policy until

Slavery is abolished, _and forever prohibited_, within all the Rebel

States.

Though we speak of the Rebellion as an "insurrection," it has assumed

such proportions that we are in a state of actual war. Nor does it make

any difference that it is a _civil_ war. It has just been decided by

the Supreme Court of the United States, _that we have the same rights

against the people and States in rebellion_, by the law of nations, that

we should have against _alien enemies_. The property of non-combatants

is liable to confiscation, as _enemies'_ property; and it makes no

difference that some of them are _personally_ loyal. All the inhabitants

of the Rebel States have the rights of _enemies_ only. The recent cases

of the Brilliant, Hiawatha, and Amy Warwick settle this beyond all

question. There was some difference of opinion among the judges, but

only on the question whether this condition _preceded_ the Act of

Congress of July, 1861,--a majority holding that it did, commencing with

the proclamation of the blockade. So that it cannot be denied that we

may treat the Rebel States as _enemies_, and adopt all measures against

them _which any belligerents engaged in a just war may adopt_.

And no principle of the law of nations is more universally admitted than

this,--that the party in the right, after the war is commenced, may

continue to carry it on until the enemy shall submit to such terms as

will be a sufficient indemnity for all the losses and expenses caused by

it, _and will prevent another war in the future_. And to this end he may

conquer and hold in subjection people and territory, until such terms

are submitted to. And until then, the state of war continues. The right

to impose such terms as will _secure peace in the future_ is one of the

fundamental principles of international law.

"Of the absolute international rights of States," says Mr. Wheaton, "one

of the most essential and important, and that which lies at the

foundation of all the rest, is _the right of self-preservation_. This

right necessarily involves all other incidental rights which are

essential as means to give effect to the principal end."

"The end of a just war," says Vattel, "is to avenge, _or prevent_,

injury."

"If _the safety of the State_ lies at stake, our precaution and

foresight cannot be extended too far. Must we delay to arrest our ruin

until it has become inevitable?"

"Where the end is lawful, he who has the right to pursue that end has,

of course, a right to employ all the means necessary for its

attainment."

"When the conqueror has totally subdued a nation, he undoubtedly may, in

the first place, do himself justice respecting the object which had

given rise to the war, and indemnify himself for the expenses and

damages sustained by it; he may, according to the exigency of the case,

subject the nation to punishment by way of example; and he may, _if

prudence require it, render her incapable of doing mischief with the

same ease in future_."

"Every nation," says Chancellor Kent, "has an undoubted right to provide

for its own safety, and to take due precaution against _distant_, as

well as impending danger."

Our rights _as belligerents_, therefore, are ample for our security in

time to come. The Rebel States will not cease to be enemies by being

defeated and exhausted and disabled from continuing active hostilities.

They have invoked the laws of war, and they must abide the decision of

the tribunal to which they have appealed. We may hold them _as enemies_

until they submit to such reasonable terms of peace as we may demand.

Whether we shall require any indemnity for the vast expenditures and

losses to which we have been subjected is a question of great magnitude;

but it is of little importance compared with that of guarding against a

recurrence of the Rebellion, by removing _the cause_ of it. It would be

worse than madness to restore them to all their former rights under the

government they have done their utmost to destroy, and at the same time

permit them to retain a system that would surely involve us or our

children in another struggle of the same kind.

Slavery and freedom cannot permanently coexist under the same

government. There is an inevitable, perpetual, irrepressible conflict

between them. The present rebellion is but the culmination of this

conflict, long existing,--transferred from social and political life to

the camp and the battle-field. _In the new arena, we have all the rights

of belligerents in an international war._ Slavery has taken the sword;

let it perish by the sword. If we spare it, its wickedness will be

exceeded by our folly. As victors, the world concedes our right to

demand, for our own future peace, as the only terms of restoration, not

only the abolition of Slavery in all the Rebel States, but its

prohibition in all coming time. It cannot be, that, with the terrible

lessons of these passing years, we shall be so utterly destitute of

wisdom and prudence as to leave our children exposed to the dangers of

another rebellion, after entailing upon them the vast burdens of this,

by our national debt.

It has been said, that, if Slavery should be abolished, the States could

afterwards reestablish it. This is claimed, on the ground that every

State may determine for itself the character of its own domestic

institutions. The right to do so has been conceded to some of the new

States.

But it should be remembered that this right has been, to establish

Slavery _by bringing in slaves from the old States_,--not by taking

_citizens of the United States_, and reducing _them_ to slavery. If one

such citizen can be enslaved, then can any other; and the very

foundations of the Federal Government can be overturned by a State. For

a government that cannot protect _its own citizens_ from loss of

citizenship by being chattellized is no government at all.

Citizenship is a reciprocal relation. The citizen owes allegiance; the

government owes protection. When a person is naturalized, he takes the

oath of allegiance. Does he got nothing in return? Can a State annul all

the rights which the Federal Government has conferred? Then, indeed,

would it be better for those who come to our shores to remain citizens

of the old nations; for _they_ could protect them, but _we_ cannot.

Then, to be a citizen of the United States--a privilege we had thought

greater than that of Roman citizenship when that empire was in its

glory--is a privilege which any State may annul at its pleasure!

The power and position of a nation depend upon the number, wealth,

intelligence, and power of its citizens. And the nation, in order to

employ and develop its resources, must have free scope for the use of

its powers. No State has a right to block the path of the United States,

or in any way to "retard, impede, or burden it, in the execution of its

powers." For this reason, if a citizen is wealthy enough to lend money

to the Federal Government, a State cannot _tax his scrip_ to the amount

of one cent. But, if the doctrine contended for by some is sound, then

it may take _the citizen himself_, confiscate the whole of his property,

blot out his citizenship, and make a chattel of him, and the Federal

Government can afford him no protection! Among all the doctrines that

Slavery has originated in this country, there is none more monstrous

than this.

But this is not a question of any practical importance at this time.

There is no danger that Slavery will ever be tolerated where it has been

once abolished. It may go into new fields; it seldom returns to those

from which it has been driven. The institutions of learning and religion

that follow in the path of freedom, if they find a congenial soil, are

not likely to be supplanted by the dark and noxious exotics of ignorance

and barbarism.

And besides, as we have already seen, it is our right, as one of the

conditions of restoration, to provide for the _perpetual prohibition_ of

Slavery within the Rebel States. This, like the Ordinance of 1787, will

stand as an insurmountable barrier in all time to come. And the security

it will afford will be even more certain. For, while there may be a

difference of opinion in regard to the effect of a law of Congress

relating to existing Territories, there is no doubt that conditions

imposed at the time upon the admission of new States, or the restoration

of the Rebel States, will be of perpetual obligation.

RIGHTS OF REBEL STATES.

On this subject there are two theories, each of which has advocates

among our most eminent statesmen.

By some it is claimed that the Rebels have lost all rights as citizens

of States, and are in the condition of the inhabitants of unorganized

territories belonging to the United States,--and that, having forfeited

their rights, they can never be restored to their former position,

except by the consent of the Federal Government. This consent may be

given by admitting them as new States, or restoring them as old,--the

Government having the right in either case to annex terms and

conditions.

There are others who contend that the Rebel States, though in rebellion,

have lost none of their rights as States,--that the moment they submit

they may choose members of Congress and Presidential electors, and

demand, and we must concede, the same position they formerly held. This

theory has been partially recognized by the present Administration, but

not to an extent that precludes the other from being adopted, if it is

right.

If the people of the States which have seceded, as soon as they submit,

have an absolute right to resume their former position in the

Government, with their present constitutions upholding Slavery, it

certainly will be a great, if not an insurmountable, obstacle to the

adoption of those measures which may be necessary to secure our peace in

the future. That they have no such right, it is believed may be made

perfectly clear.

If we triumph, we shall have all the rights which, by the laws of

nations, belong to conquerors in a just war. In a civil war, the rights

of conquest may not be of the same nature as in a war between different

nations; but that there are such rights in all wars has already been

stated on the highest authority. If a province, having definite

constitutional rights, revolts, and attempts to overthrow the power of

the central government, it would be a strange doctrine, to claim, that,

after being subdued, it had risked and lost nothing by the undertaking.

No authority can be found to sustain such a proposition. A rebellion

puts everything at risk. Any other doctrine would hold out encouragement

to all wicked and rebellious spirits. If they revolt, they know that

everything is staked upon the chances of success. Everything is lost by

defeat. By the laws of war, long established among the nations,--laws

which the Rebel States have themselves invoked,--if they fail, they will

have no right to be restored, except upon such terms as our Government

may prescribe. The right to make war, conferred by the Constitution,

carries with it all the rights and powers incident to a war, necessary

for its successful prosecution, and essential to prevent its recurrence.

But without resorting to the extraordinary powers incident to a state of

war, the same conclusion, in regard to the effect of a rebellion by a

State Government, results from the relations which the States sustain to

the Federal Government. Though they cannot escape its jurisdiction,

their position, _as States_, is one which may be forfeited and lost.

It has been objected that this doctrine is equivalent to a recognition

of the right of Secession, because it concedes the power of any one

State to withdraw from the Union. But the fallacy of this objection is

easily demonstrated.

The Federal Government does not emanate from the States, but directly

from the people. The relation between them is that _of protection_ on

the one hand and _allegiance_ on the other. This relation cannot be

dissolved by either party, unless by voluntary or compulsory

expatriation. It subsists alike in States and Territories, not being

dependent upon any local government. The Rebels claim the right to

dissolve this relation, and to become free from and independent of the

Federal Government, though retaining the same territory as before. We

deny any such right, and hold, that, though they may forfeit their

rights _as a State_, they are still bound by, and under the jurisdiction

of, the Federal Government. This jurisdiction, though absolute in all

places, is not the same in all.

In the District of Columbia, and in all unorganized territories, the

jurisdiction of the Federal Government is exclusive in its _extent_, as

well as in its _nature_. It must protect the inhabitants in _all_ their

rights,--for there is no other power to protect them. They owe

allegiance to it, and to no other.

The inhabitants of the _organized_ territories, though under the general

jurisdiction of the Federal Government, are, to some extent, under the

jurisdiction of the Territorial Governments. Each is bound to protect

them in certain things; they are bound to support and obey each in

certain things.

The people of a State are also under the absolute jurisdiction of the

Federal Government in all matters embraced in the Constitution. They owe

it unqualified allegiance and support in those things. But they are

also, in some matters, under the jurisdiction of the State Government,

and owe allegiance to that. There are many matters over which both have

jurisdiction, and in which the citizens have a right to look to each, or

both, for protection. The courts of each issue writs of _habeas corpus_,

and give the citizens their liberty, unless there is legal cause for

their custody or restraint.

Now, if a State Government forfeits all right to the allegiance and

support of its citizens, they are not thereby absolved from their

allegiance to the Federal Government. On the contrary, the jurisdiction

of the Federal Government is thereby enlarged; for it is then the only

Government which the citizens are bound to obey. Take, for illustration,

the State of Arkansas. By seceding, the State Government forfeited all

claim to the obedience of the citizens. The inhabitants no longer owe it

any allegiance. If loyal, they will not obey it, except as compelled by

force. But they still owe allegiance to the United States Government.

And there being no other Government which they are bound to obey, they

are in the same condition as before the State was admitted into the

Union, or any Territorial Government was organized.

The same is true of South Carolina. For, though it was an independent

State before the Constitution was adopted, its citizens voluntarily

yielded up that position, and became subject to the Federal Government,

claiming the privileges and assuming the liabilities of a higher

citizenship. And if, by reason of its rebellion, their State Government

has forfeited its claim upon them, and its right to rule over them, they

owe no allegiance to any except the Government of the United States.

But it is argued by some, that a State, once admitted into the Union,

cannot forfeit its rights as a State under the Constitution, because it

cannot, as such, be guilty of treason; that the inhabitants may all be

traitors, and the State Government secede, and engage in a war against

the Republic, and yet retain all its rights intact.

A State, in the meaning of public law, has been defined to be a body of

persons _united together_ in one community, for the defence of their

rights. They do not constitute a State until _organized_. If the

organization ceases to exist, they are no longer a State. If the State

organization becomes despotic, and the inhabitants overthrow it by a

revolution, it then ceases to exist. The people are remitted to their

original rights, and must organize a new State.

A State, as such, may be guilty of treason. Crimes may be committed by

organized bodies of men. Corporations are often convicted, and punished

by fines, or by a forfeiture of all corporate rights. And though we have

no provision for putting a State on trial, it may, as a State, be

guilty. Treason is defined by the Constitution to be "levying war

against the United States." This is just what South Carolina, as a

State, is doing. Not only the people, but _the State Government_, has

revolted. The people owe it no allegiance. It is their duty, not to

support, but to _oppose_ it. The Federal Government owes it no

recognition. It has the right to destroy and exterminate it. A State

Government in rebellion has no rights under the Constitution. _It is

itself a rebellion_, and must necessarily cease to exist when the

rebellion is suppressed.

And when the State Government which has revolted shall be conquered and

overthrown, there will then be no South Carolina in existence. If there

were loyal people enough there, bond or free, to rise up and overthrow

it, they would be no more bound to revive the old Constitution, with its

tyrannical provisions, than were our fathers to return to the British

Government. Such a revolution is inaugurated in that State, by loyal

men, to overthrow the despotic power of the State Government. If the

State Government had remained loyal, it might have called on the Federal

Government. But by seceding it has justified the Federal Government in

aiding or organizing a revolution against it, for its utter overthrow

and extinction.

It is true, indeed, the idea prevails that there is still, somehow, a

State of South Carolina, besides that which is in rebellion. But the

State must exist _in fact_, or it has no existence. There is no such

thing as a merely theoretical State, separate and different from the

actual. The revolted States are the same States that were once loyal.

And when some loyal citizens in each of them, with the aid of the

Federal Government, have overthrown and destroyed them, the ground will

be cleared for the formation of new States, or the _reorganization_ of

the old; and they may be admitted or restored, upon such conditions as

may be deemed wise and prudent, to promote and secure the future peace

and welfare of the whole country.

There is no evidence that loyal persons in the Rebel States claim or

desire to uphold the existence of those States, under their present

constitutions, with the system of Slavery. But if there are any such

persons, their wishes are not to override the interests of the Republic.

It is their misfortune to reside in States that have revolted; and all

their losses, pecuniary and political, are chargeable to those States,

and not to the Federal Government. If they are so blind as to suppose

that their losses will be increased by emancipation, _that_, also, will

be chargeable to the rebellion of those States. _Their_ loyalty does not

save those States from being treated as enemies; it does not prevent

_their own_ condition from being determined by that of their States. As

it is well known, a portion of their property has been confiscated by an

Act of Congress, on the ground that they are, in part, responsible for

the rebellion of those States. The theory, therefore, that such loyal

men constitute loyal States, still existing, in distinction from the

States that have rebelled, is utterly groundless. On this point we

cannot do better than quote from the opinion of the Supreme Court of the

United States in a case already referred to, sustaining the belligerent

legislation of Congress.

"In organizing this rebellion, _they have acted as States_, claiming to

be sovereign over all persons and property within their respective

limits, and claiming the right to absolve their citizens from their

allegiance to the Federal Government. Several of these States have

combined to form a new Confederacy, claiming to be acknowledged by the

world as a sovereign State. Their right to do so is now being decided by

wager of battle. The ports and territory of each of these States are

held in hostility to the General Government. It is no loose, unorganized

insurrection, having no defined boundary or possession. It has a

boundary, marked by lines of bayonets, and which can be crossed only by

force. South of this line is enemy's territory, because it is claimed

and held in possession by an organized, hostile, and belligerent power.

All persons residing within this territory, whose property may be used

to increase the revenues of the hostile power, are in this contest

liable to be treated as enemies."

It is not to be presumed that Congress will do anything unnecessarily to

add to the misfortunes of loyal men in the South. On the contrary, all

that is being done is more directly for their benefit than for that of

any other class of men. The vast expenditure of treasure and blood in

this war is for the purpose of protecting them first of all, and

restoring to them the blessings of a good government. And if it shall be

found practicable to indemnify them for all losses, whether by

emancipation or otherwise, no one will object.

* * * * *

The object of this article is to prove that the Government possesses

ample power, according to the law of nations, to suppress the Rebellion,

and secure the country against the danger of another, by Emancipation,

through the military power; that, though Emancipation is a _policy_, and

not a _law_, the war may be prosecuted until this end is accomplished,

and Slavery in future forever prohibited; that, by secession and

rebellion, the revolted States have forfeited all right to the

allegiance of their citizens, who are thereby remitted to the condition

and rights of citizens solely of the United States; and that the Federal

Government, as well _under the Constitution_ as _by right of conquest_,

may impose such terms upon the reorganization and restoration of those

States as may be necessary to secure present safety, and avert danger in

time to come. These views are presented in as brief and simple terms as

possible, with the hope that they may be adopted by the people and by

the Government. It is confidently believed, that, if the President and

Congress will act in accordance with them, their acts will be fully

sustained by the Supreme Court,--and that, the element and source of

discord being at last entirely removed from the country, a career of

peace and prosperity will then begin which shall be the admiration of

the world.

At this time we present a humiliating spectacle to other nations: nearly

half of our national temple in ruins,--the work of blind folly and mad

ambition. The people of the North claimed no right to tear it down, or

even to repair it. But since the people of the South have risen in

rebellion, let us believe that there is now an opportunity, nay, an

imperative _necessity_, to remove from its foundations the rock of

Oppression, that was sure to crumble in the refining fires of a

Christian civilization, and establish in its place the stone of

LIBERTY,--unchanging and eternal as its Author. Let us rejoice in the

hope, already brightening into fruition, that out of these ruins our

temple shall rise again, in a fresher beauty, a firmer strength, a

brighter glory,--and above it again shall float the old flag, every star

restored, henceforth to all, of every color and every race, the flag of

the free.

* * * * *

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39._ By FRANCES

ANNE KEMBLE. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Those who remember the "Journal of a Residence in America," of Frances

Anne Kemble, or, as she was universally and kindly called, Fanny

Kemble,--a book long since out of print, and entirely out of the

knowledge of our younger readers,--will not cease to wonder, as they

close these thoughtful, tranquil, and tragical pages. The earlier

journal was the dashing, fragmentary diary of a brilliant girl, half

impatient of her own success in an art for which she was peculiarly

gifted, yet the details of which were sincerely repugnant to her. It

crackled and sparkled with _naïve_ arrogance. It criticized a new world

and fresh forms of civilization with the amusing petulance of a spoiled

daughter of John Bull. It was flimsy, flippant, laughable, rollicking,

vivid. It described scenes and persons, often with airy grace, often

with profound and pensive feeling. It was the slightest of diaries,

written in public for the public; but it was universally read, as its

author had been universally sought and admired in the sphere of her art;

and no one who knew anything of her truly, but knew what an incisive

eye, what a large heart, what a candid and vigorous mind, what real

humanity, generosity, and sympathy, characterized Miss Kemble.

The dazzling phantasmagoria which life had been to the young actress was

suddenly exchanged for the most practical acquaintance with its

realities. She was married, left the stage, and as a wife and mother

resided for a winter on the plantations of her husband upon the coast of

Georgia. And now, after twenty-five years, the journal of her residence

there is published. It has been wisely kept. For never could such a book

speak with such power as at this moment. The tumult of the war will be

forgotten, as you read, in the profound and appalled attention enforced

by this remarkable revelation of the interior life of Slavery. The

spirit, the character, and the purpose of the Rebellion are here laid

bare. Its inevitability is equally apparent. The book is a permanent and

most valuable chapter in our history; for it is the first ample, lucid,

faithful, detailed account, from the actual head-quarters of a

slave-plantation in this country, of the workings of the system,--its

persistent, hopeless, helpless crushing of humanity in the slave, and

the more fearful moral and mental dry-rot it generates in the master.

We have had plenty of literature upon the subject. First of all, in

spirit and comprehension, the masterly, careful, copious, and patient

works of Mr. Olmsted. But he, like Arthur Young in France, was only an

observer. He could be no more. "Uncle Tom," as its "Key" shows, and as

Mrs. Kemble declares, was no less a faithful than the most famous

witness against the system. But it was a novel. Then there was "American

Slavery as it is," a work of authenticated facts, issued by the American

Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, and the fearful mass of testimony

incessantly published by the distinctively Abolition papers,

periodicals, books, and orators, during the last quarter of a century.

But the world was deaf. "They have made it a business. They select all

the horrors. They accumulate exceptions." Such were the objections that

limited the power of this tremendous battery. Meanwhile, also, it was

answered. Foreign tourists were taken to "model plantations." They shed

tears over the patriarchal benignity of this venerable and beautiful

provision of Divine Providence for the spiritual training of our African

fellow-creatures. The affection of "Mammy" for "Massa and Missis" was

something unknown where hired labor prevailed. Graver voices took up the

burden of the song. There was no pauperism in a slave-country. There

were no prostitutes. It had its disadvantages, certainly; but what form

of society, what system of labor has not? Besides, here it was. It was

the interest of slaveholders to be kind. And what a blessing to bring

the poor heathen from benighted Africa and pagan servitude to the

ennobling influences of Slavery, as practised among Southwestern

Christians in America, and "professors" in South Carolina and Georgia!

See the Reverend Mr. Adams and Miss Murray _passim_. This was the

answer made to the statements of the actual facts of the system, when it

was found that the question had gone before public opinion, and would be

decided upon its merits by that tribunal, all the panders, bullies,

assassins, apologists, and chaplains of Slavery to the contrary

notwithstanding. In fact, when that was once clearly perceived, the

issue was no less visible; only whether it were to be reached by war or

peace was not so plain.

Yet in all this tremendous debate which resounds through the last thirty

years of our history, rising and swelling until every other sound was

lost in its imperious roar, one decisive voice was silent. It was

precisely that which is heard in this book. General statements,

harrowing details from those who had been slaveholders, and who had

renounced Slavery, were sometimes made public. Indeed, the most cruel

and necessary incidents, the hunting with blood-hounds, the branding,

the maiming, the roasting, the whipping of pregnant women, could not be

kept from knowledge. They blazed into print. But the public, hundreds of

miles away, while it sighed and shuddered a little, resolved that such

atrocities were exceptional. 'Twas a shocking pity, to be sure! Poor

things! Women, too! Tut, tut!

Now, at last, we have no general statement, no single, sickening

incident, but the diary of the mistress of plantations of seven hundred

slaves, living under the most favorable circumstances, upon the islands

at the mouth of the Altamaha River, in Georgia. It is a journal, kept

from day to day, of the actual ordinary life of the plantation, where

the slaves belonged to educated, intelligent, and what are called the

most respectable people,--not persons imbruted by exile among slaves

upon solitary islands, but who had lived in large Northern cities and

the most accomplished society, subject to all the influences of the

highest civilization. It is the journal of a hearty, generous,

clear-sighted woman, who went to the plantation, loving the master, and

believing, that, though Slavery might be sad, it might also be

mitigated, and the slave might be content. It is the record of ghastly

undeceiving,--of the details of a system so wantonly, brutally, damnably

unjust, inhuman, and degrading, that it blights the country, paralyzes

civilization, and vitiates human nature itself. The brilliant girl of

the earlier journal is the sobered and solemnized matron of this. The

very magnitude of the misery that surrounds her, the traces of which

everywhere sadden her eye and wring her heart, compel her to the

simplest narration. There is no writing for effect. There is not a

single "sensational" passage. The story is monotonous; for the wrong it

describes is perpetual and unrelieved. "There is not a single natural

right," she says, after some weeks' residence, "that is not taken away

from these unfortunate people; and the worst of all is, that their

condition does not appear to me, upon further observation of it, to be

susceptible of even partial alleviation, as long as the fundamental

evil, the Slavery itself, remains."

As the mistress of the plantation, she was brought into constant

intercourse with the slave-women; and no other account of this class is

so thorough and plainly stated. So pitiful a tale was seldom told. It

was a "model plantation"; but every day was darkened to the mistress by

the appeals of these women and her observation of their condition. The

heart of the reader sickens as hers despaired. To produce "little

niggers" for Massa and Missis was the enforced ambition of these poor

women. After the third week of confinement they were sent into the

fields to work. If they lingered or complained, they were whipped. For

beseeching the mistress to pray for some relief in their sad straits,

they were also whipped. If their tasks were unperformed, or the driver

lost his temper, they were whipped again. If they would not yield to the

embrace of the overseer, they were whipped once more. How are they

whipped? They are tied by the wrists to a beam or the branch of a tree,

their feet barely touching the ground, so that they are utterly

powerless to resist; their clothes are turned over their heads, and

their backs scarred with a leathern thong, either by the driver himself,

or by father, brother, husband, or lover, if the driver choose to order

it. What a blessing for these poor heathen that they are brought to a

Christian land! When a band of pregnant women came to their master to

implore relief from overwork, he seemed "positively degraded" to his

wife, as he stood urging them to do their allotted tasks. She began to

fear lest she should cease to respect the man she loved; "for the

details of slaveholding are so unmanly, letting alone every other

consideration, that I know not how any one with the spirit of a man can

condescend to them." The master gives a slave as a present to an

overseer whose administration of the estate was agreeable to him. The

slave is intelligent and capable, the husband of a wife and the father

of children, and they are all fondly attached to each other. He

passionately declares that he will kill himself rather than follow his

new master and leave wife and children behind. Roused by the storm of

grief, the wife opens the door of her room, and beholds her husband,

with his arms folded, advising his slave "not to make a fuss about what

there is no help for." The same master insists that there is no hardship

or injustice in whipping a woman who asks his wife to intercede for her,

but confesses that it is "disagreeable." At last he tells her that she

must no longer fatigue him with the "stuff" and "trash" which "the

niggers," who are "all d----d liars," make her believe, and

henceforward closes his ears to all complaint.

Yet this was a model plantation, and this was probably not a hard

master, as masters go. "These are the conditions which can only be known

to one who lives among them. Flagrant acts of cruelty may be rare, but

this ineffable state of utter degradation, this really _beastly_

existence, is the normal condition of these men and women; and of that

no one seems to take heed, nor had I ever heard it described so as to

form any adequate conception of it, till I found myself plunged into

it.... Industry, man's crown of honor elsewhere, is here his badge of

utter degradation; and so comes all by which I am here

surrounded,--pride, profligacy, idleness, cruelty, cowardice, ignorance,

squalor, dirt, and ineffable abasement."

And yet this is the system which we have been in the habit of calling

patriarchal, because the model masters said it was so, and trade was too

prosperous to allow any difference with them! And these are the model

masters, supported in luxury by all this unpaid labor and untold woe,

these women-whippers and breeders of babies for sale, who have figured

in our talk and imaginations as "the chivalry" and "gentlemen"! These

are they to whom American society has koo-too'd, and in whose presence

it has been ill-bred and uncourteous to say that every man has rights,

that every laborer is worthy of his hire, that injustice is unjust, and

uncleanness foul. No wonder that Russell, coming to New York, and

finding the rich men and the political confederates of the conspirators

declaring that the Government of the United States could not help

itself, and that they would allow no interference with their Southern

friends, sincerely believed what he wished to, and wrote to John Bull,

whose round face was red with eager desire to hear it, that the

Revolution was virtually accomplished. No wonder that the haughty

slaveholders, smeared with sycophantic slime, at Newport, at Saratoga,

in the "polite" and "conservative" Northern circles, believed what Mr.

Hunter of Virginia told a Massachusetts delegate to the Peace

Congress,--that there would be no serious trouble, and that the

Montgomery Constitution would be readily adopted by the "conservative"

sentiment of the North.

Mrs. Kemble's book shows what the miserable magic is that enchants these

Southern American citizens into people whose philosophy of society would

disgrace the Dark Ages, and whose social system is that of Dahomey.

The life that she describes upon the model plantation is the necessary

life of Slavery everywhere,--injustice, ignorance, superstition, terror,

degradation, brutality; and this is the system to which a great

political party--counting upon the enervation of prosperity, the

timidity of trade, the distance of the suffering, the legal quibbles,

the moral sophisms, the hatred of ignorance, the jealousy of race, and

the possession of power--has conspired to keep the nation blind and

deaf, trusting that its mind was utterly obscured and its conscience

wholly destroyed.

But the nation is young, and of course the effort has ended in civil

war. Slavery, industrially and politically, inevitably resists Christian

civilization. The natural progress and development of men into a

constantly higher manhood must cease, or this system, which strives to

convert men into things, must give way. Its haughty instinct knows it,

and therefore Slavery rebels. This Rebellion is simply the insurrection

of Barbarism against Civilization. It would overthrow the Government,

not for any wrong the Government has done, for that is not alleged. It

knows that the people are the Government,--that the spirit of the people

is progressive and intelligent,--and that there is no hope for permanent

and expansive injustice, so long as the people freely discuss and

decide. It would therefore establish a new Government, of which this

meanest and most beastly despotism shall be the chief corner-stone. In a

letter to C.G., in the appendix of her book, Mrs. Kemble sets this truth

in the clearest light. But whoever would comprehend the real social

scope of the Rebellion should ponder every page of the journal itself.

It will show him that Slavery and rebellion to this Government are

identical, not only in fact, but of necessity. It will teach him that

the fierce battle between Slavery and the Government, once engaged, can

end only in the destruction of one or the other.

This is not a book which a woman like Mrs. Kemble publishes without a

solemn sense of responsibility. A sadder book the human hand never

wrote, nor one more likely to arrest the thoughts of all those in the

world who watch our war and are yet not steeled to persuasion and

conviction. An Englishwoman, she publishes it in England, which hates

us, that a testimony which will not be doubted may be useful to the

country in which she has lived so long, and with which her sweetest and

saddest memories are forever associated. It is a noble service nobly

done. The enthusiasm, the admiration, the affection, which in our day of

seemingly cloudless prosperity greeted the brilliant girl, have been

bountifully repaid by the true and timely words now spoken in our

seeming adversity by the grave and thoughtful woman.

* * * * *

_An Historical Research respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the

Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, and as Soldiers._ Read

before the Massachusetts Historical Society, August 14, 1862. By GEORGE

LIVERMORE. Third Edition. Boston: A. Williams & Co.

This Historical Research is one of the most valuable works that have

been called out by the existing Rebellion. It is a thorough and candid

exposition of the opinions of the founders of the Republic on negroes as

slaves, as citizens, and as soldiers, and has done more, perhaps, than

any other single essay to form the public opinion of the present time in

respect to the position that the negro should rightfully hold in our

State and our army. It has, therefore, and will retain, a double

interest, as exhibiting and illustrating the opinions prevalent during

the two most important periods of our history. It was first printed,

several months since, for private distribution only. More than a

thousand copies were thus distributed by its public-spirited author. By

this means the attention of persons in positions of influence was more

readily secured than it could have been, had the essay been published in

the ordinary way. The manner in which the research was conducted, the

evidence afforded by every page of the author's conscientious labor,

impartial selection, and exhaustive investigation, won immediate

confidence in his statements, while his obvious candor, fairness of

judgment, and love of truth secured respect for his conclusions. The

interest excited by the work extended to a wider circle than could be

satisfied by any private issue, while its value became more and more

evident, so that, after its publication in the Proceedings of the

Massachusetts Historical Society, the permission of the author was

obtained by the New-England Loyal Publication Society to issue the work

in a form for general circulation.

We are glad to assist, by our hearty commendation, the extension of the

influence of this essay. It forms, as now issued, a handsome pamphlet of

two hundred pages, with a full Table of Contents and a copious Index,

and is for sale at a price which brings it within the means of every one

who may wish to obtain it. It is a book which should be in the

reading-room of every Loyal League throughout the country, and of every

military hospital. Editors of the loyal press should be provided with

it, as containing an arsenal of incontrovertible arguments with which to

meet the false assertions by which the maligners of the negro race and

the supporters of Slavery too often undertake to maintain their bad

cause.

Exhibiting, as Mr. Livermore's book does, the contrast between the

opinions of the founders of the Republic and those professed by the

would-be destroyers of the Republic, and showing, as it does, how far a

large portion even of the people of the North have fallen away from the

just and generous doctrine of the earlier time, it must lead every

thoughtful reader to a deep sense of the need of a regeneration of the

spirit of the nation, and to a confirmed conviction of the

incompatibility of Slavery with national greatness and virtue. The

Rebellion has taught us that the Republic is not safe while Slavery is

permitted to exercise any political power. It ought to teach us also,

that, as long as Slavery exists in any of the States, it will not cease

to exercise political power, and that the only means to make the nation

safe is utterly to abolish and destroy Slavery, wherever it is found

within its limits. Nor is this all; the lesson of the Rebellion is but

half learned, unless we resolve that henceforth there shall be no fatal

division between our consciences, our principles, our theories, and our

treatment of the black race, and unless we acknowledge their inalienable

right to that justice by which alone the most ancient heavens and the

most sacred institutions are fresh and strong.

There is no better textbook for enforcing these lessons than Mr.

Livermore's Research.

* * * * *

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

"Christopher North." A Memoir of John Wilson, late Professor of Moral

Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Compiled from Family-Papers

and other Sources. By his Daughter, Mrs. Gordon. With an Introduction by

R. Shelton Mackenzie, D.C.L., Editor of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," etc.

Complete in One Volume. New York. W.J. Widdleton. 8vo. pp. xii., 484.

$2.00.

Alphabetical Army-Register; giving the Names, Date of Present and

Original Commissions, Rank, Place of Nativity, and from whence

Appointed, of all the Officers of the United States Army, as shown by

the Official Army-Register, May, 1863. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo.

paper, pp. 64. 50 cts.

The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and

Lord High Chancellor of England. Collected and edited by James Spedding,

M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge; Robert Leslie Ellis, M.A., late

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Douglas Denon Heath,

Barrister-at-Law, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Vol. VI.

Boston. Taggard & Thompson. 12mo. pp. 450. $1.50.

Money. By Charles Moran. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 228.

$1.00.

The Crisis. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. paper, pp. 95. 50 cts.

Chemistry. By William Thomas Brande, D.C.L., F.R.S.L. and E., of Her

Majesty's Mint, Member of the Senate of the University of London, and

Honorary Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great

Britain; and Alfred Swaine Taylor, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal

College of Physicians of London, and Professor of Chemistry and Medical

Jurisprudence in Guy's Hospital. Philadelphia. Blanchard & Lea. 8vo. pp.

696. $3.50.

The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By his Nephew, Pierre M.

Irving. New York. G.P. Putnam. 12mo. pp. 403. $1.50.

Lectures on the Symbolic Character of the Sacred Scriptures. By Rev.

Abiel Silver, Minister of the New Jerusalem Church in New York. New

York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 286. $1.25.

Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. By Thomas H. Huxley, F.R.S.,

F.L.S., Professor of Natural History in the Jermyn-Street School of

Mines. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 184. $1.25.

United States Infantry Tactics, for the Instruction, Exercise, and

Manoeuvres of the Soldier, a Company, Line of Skirmishers, and

Battalion; for the Use of the Colored Troops of the United States

Infantry. Prepared under Direction of the War Department. New York. D.

Van Nostrand. 18mo. pp. 445. $1.50.