Section 143. All other state officers shall be elected at the

same time and in the same manner as provided for election of

governor.

The legislature is prohibited from electing officers to a very great

extent by the following section of the constitution:

Section 99. The legislature shall not elect any other than its

own officers, state librarian and United States Senators; but

this section shall not prohibit the legislature from appointing

presidential electors.

All the judges of the state, except justices of the peace, are

appointed by the Governor by and with the advice and consent of the

senate. Mississippi was, it may be mentioned parenthetically, the

first state to provide for an elective judiciary; this was done in

her constitution of 1832; but she is now as far away from that mode

of selection as she can well be, her present constitution providing

for their appointment and her people generally, it is believed, are

thoroughly satisfied with the present status of the matter. There are

two instances in which the electors vote directly upon the subject of

the enforcement of laws; and without an affirmative vote in their

favor the statutes are not enforced. These are, first the Local Option

law, by which the qualified electors of a county, if a majority vote

against the sale, may prohibit the licensing of dram-shops in the

county, and under which a large majority of the counties of the state

have secured absolute statutory prohibition of the liquor traffic; and,

second, the fence and stock law, by which is determined the question

of whether the owners of live stock shall keep them confined, and thus

allow of the production of crops on unenclosed lands. This resolves

itself into a question of "fences" or "no fences," and it is left to

a vote in the counties, or parts of counties can vote upon it. This

question is left to "the resident freeholders and leaseholders for a

term of three years or more" of the territory so voting. It will be

noticed that neither sex nor age is mentioned, and in truth women and

infants do actually vote in the state, on this interesting and to those

involved, most serious question.

The Supreme Court of the state has settled beyond cavil that the

statute is constitutional and valid. This "fence" or "no fence"

election is possibly an exception to the general rule of the state that

a plurality vote elects or carries. I say, possibly is an exception,

because of ambiguity in the statute, construed as I think it may be

seen by some minds, it will require two thirds of the vote cast to put

the "no fence" law in force.

All elections in Mississippi since 1821 have been by ballot, and this

is now the constitutional rule; we have here the Australian or secret

ballot system very much as it is found in a number of states of the

Union, and it accomplishes in its practical operation the primary

objects of the system; first, the absolute prevention of bribery, for

no man will bribe a voter if the only evidence of the delivery of the

contracted-for vote be the word of the bribe taker, and, second, the

prevention of intimidation of voters, which is practically impossible.

The absence from the voting place since the introduction of the system

of the ticket broker and professional bummer is notable.

It was the intention of the writer when this article was begun to

present his views on many of the questions suggested and germain to

the general subject, but this paper has now grown so long that he will

have to be content with a presentation of a mere historical narrative

of matters pertaining to suffrage in this state. He consoles himself

with the reflection that perhaps such a contribution may be more

valuable to the true and earnest student of the subject than would be

any discourse that he might write which in its nature was sought to

be made philosophical, or which was merely speculative. If the facts

are presented, if the history be made accessible, the student who is

interested enough to read will draw the proper conclusions.

SPANISH POLICY IN MISSISSIPPI AFTER THE TREATY OF SAN LORENZO.

BY FRANKLIN L. RILEY, PH. D.

October 16, 1795,[1] Thomas Pinckney, in behalf of the United States

and the Prince of Peace, representing His Catholic Majesty, signed at

San Lorenzo el Real, a treaty which contained among other things, the

following stipulations:

"The southern boundary of the United States, which divides

their territory from the Spanish colonies of East and West

Florida, shall be designated by a line beginning on the River

Mississippi at the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree

of latitude north of the equator, which from thence shall be

drawn due east to the River Apalachicola," etc.

"If there should be any troops, garrisons or settlements of

either party in the territory of the other according to the

above-mentioned boundaries, they shall be withdrawn from

the said territory within the term of six months after the

ratification of this treaty, or sooner if possible."

"One Commissioner and one Surveyor shall be appointed by each

of the contracting parties, who shall meet at the Natchez on

the left side of the River Mississippi before the expiration of

six months from the ratification of this convention and they

shall proceed to run and mark this boundary according to the

stipulations."

"The navigation of the said (Mississippi) River, in its whole

breadth from its source to the ocean shall be free only to his

(Catholic Majesty) subjects and the citizens of the United

States, unless he should extend this privilege to the subjects

of other Powers by special convention."

"The two high contracting parties shall____maintain peace

and harmony among the several Indian nations who inhabit the

country adjacent to____the boundaries of the two Floridas." "No

treaty of alliance or other whatever (except treaties of peace)

shall be made by either party with the Indians living within

the boundary of the other."

These terms, so favorable to the United States and so destructive

of Spanish interests, had long been the rock upon which all plans

for an adjustment of the differences between the two powers had

been stranded.[2] Nor were they finally extorted from Spain until a

concurrence of unfavorable events had precipitated a diplomatic crisis.

Even then his Catholic Majesty seemed to consider such stipulations

as only a temporary expedient, the fulfillment of which he hoped

eventually to be able to evade. The Prince of Peace himself admits

that political circumstances forced Spain to consent to the treaty and

intimates further that he would have made even greater concessions

if they had been demanded by the United States. In writing of these

negotiations, he says:

"I had taken to heart the treaty (Jay's), which unknown to us

the English cabinet had negotiated with the United States of

America; this treaty afforded great latitude to evil designs;

it was possible to injure Spain in an indirect manner and

without risk, in her distant possessions.

"I endeavored to conclude another treaty with the same states,

and had the satisfaction to succeed in my object; _I obtained

unexpected advantages_, and met with sympathy, loyalty, and

generous sentiments in that nation of Republicans."

Subsequent events proved, however, that Godoy had overestimated the

probabilities of a consolidation of interests between the United

States and Great Britain, and that Spain had also failed to gain

that ascendency over the affairs of this "nation of republicans,"

which she hoped to do through this treaty.[3] She was therefore no

longer interested in fulfilling its stipulations. These facts are

substantiated by a letter which Stoddard[4] claims was written by

Governor Gayoso in June, 1796, to a confidential friend, and which came

to light several years afterward. In this communication Gayoso claims

that:

"The object of Great Britain in her treaty with the United

States about this period, was to attach them to her interests,

and even render them dependent on her, and, therefore, the

Spanish treaty of limits was made to counterbalance it; but as

Great Britain had totally failed in her object it was not the

policy of Spain to regard her stipulations."[5]

In order to evade the treaty, she now returned to a line of policy

which she had adopted several years previous[6] and which had also been

tried by more than one foreign power[7] since the combined efforts

of England, France and Spain to "coop up" the United States between

the Alleghanies and the Atlantic, at the close of the Revolutionary

War.[8] This was nothing less than a dismemberment of the United

States. But the accomplishment of this bold project required time. She,

therefore, resorted to her historic policy of procrastination, hoping

ultimately to evade the treaty and thus regain what had been wrested

from her in diplomacy. She was fully aware of the dissatisfaction

the western states had expressed over the tardiness and at times the

apparent indifference of the United States to the navigation of the

Mississippi[9] and she also realized that the publication of the treaty

"would bring her project of dismemberment to a crisis and in a manner

to compel the western people to make a decided election to adhere to

the Atlantic states or to embrace the splendid advantages held out

to them on the Mississippi."[10] Hence, upon the announcement of the

treaty in New Orleans, a Spanish emissary was immediately dispatched

from that place to Tennessee and Kentucky, with authority to engage

the services of the principal inhabitants in a scheme to disaffect the

people towards the United States by the free use of money and promises

of independence and free trade.[11] In Gayoso's letter of June, 1796,

referred to above, the assertion was made that,

"It was expected that several states would separate from the

union, which would absolve Spain from her engagements;

because, as her contract was made with the union, it would

be no longer obligatory than while the union lasted. That

Spain, contrary to her expectations, was not likely to derive

any advantages from the treaty, and that her views and

policy would be changed, particularly if an alteration took

place in the political existence of the United States. He

therefore concluded, that all things considered, nothing more

would result from the treaty than the free navigation of the

Mississippi."[12]

A second line of policy for evading the treaty was then opened up.

This was to postpone an execution of its stipulations awaiting the

development of certain international complications which seemed to be

inevitable. There had been a rupture in the diplomatic relation of the

United States and France and hostilities between these two countries

seemed to be near at hand. Mr. Pickering, who was Secretary of State

from 1795 to 1800, considered this the real cause for delay on the part

of Spain, after contending that the other reasons given by the Spanish

authorities were "merely ostensible," he says:

"The true reason is doubtless developed by the Baron (de

Corondelet)[13] in his proclamation of the 31st of May (1797).

_The expectation of an immediate rupture between France, the

intimate ally of Spain, and the United States._"[14]

By making common cause with France, in case of such a rupture, Spain

evidently thought that she could recover some of the concessions she

had made in the treaty, if compliance with its stipulations should not

be too far effected.

In order to find time for the operation of these schemes, the Spanish

officials produced, from time to time, such excuses as either the

treaty or the circumstances rendered plausible. After months of

fruitless delay, they determined to rest their final action upon

the results of another effort to detach the western states from the

Union. An emissary was again sent to Tennessee and Kentucky to confer

with certain men who were former correspondents of the governors of

Louisiana. He found, however, that the people were less disposed

towards a change than they were ten years previous, especially since

they were likely to secure the navigation of the Mississippi,--the

real cause of their former disaffection--without resorting to a

hazardous enterprise. After an eventful sojourn in this region, he

returned to New Orleans in January, 1798, bearing the unwelcome report

which convinced the Governor General that Spain had lost all hope

of political prestige in the territory north of the 31st degree and

east of the Mississippi.[15] Arrangements were then perfected for the

execution of the treaty.

In the light of the Spanish policy as presented above, local events

may be easily interpreted. As time was an indispensable condition upon

which the success of this policy depended, it was gained by various

pretexts. Don Yrujo, the Spanish minister, intrigued at Philadelphia,

and his efforts were ably seconded by Carondelet, Gayoso[16] and a host

of subordinate officials on the Mississippi.

In accordance with a stipulation of the treaty, President Washington

appointed the Honorable Andrew Ellicott[17] as Commissioner to run the

boundary line in behalf of the United States. He left Philadelphia for

Natchez by way of the Ohio and the Mississippi, September 16, 1796. But

his descent of the Mississippi had been anticipated by the Spaniards,

who had prepared obstructive measures in advance of his coming. So

that whenever he came in contact with Spanish officials they evinced

a disposition to hinder his descent of the river, if not prevent it

altogether.[18] Some of them affected ignorance of the treaty, others

appeared embarrassed at the presence of the Americans, while none of

them had made or were making, so far as the Commissioner could observe,

any preparations to evacuate the posts according to the terms of the

treaty.

Before reaching his destination, Ellicott received a communication

from Governor Gayoso, expressing his gratification at the arrival of

the Commissioner in those waters and requesting that the military

escort accompanying him should be left at the mouth of the Bayou

Pierre, sixty miles above Natchez, in order to prevent an "unforeseen

misunderstanding" between the troops of the two nations. Since the

treaty had provided for such an escort, this request was deemed

improper by Ellicott. He yielded the point, however, for the time

being, out of deference to the wishes of the Governor.[19]

Upon his arrival at Natchez, February 24, 1797, ten months after

the ratification of the treaty, he found no one ready to co-operate

with him in the performance of the duty assigned. To the contrary,

he learned through private sources that the Baron de Carondelet, the

Governor General of Louisiana, had declared that the treaty was never

intended to be carried into effect, that as Commissioner on the part

of Spain, he would evade or delay from one pretense or another, the

running of the boundary line until the treaty would become "a dead

letter," and that Louisiana either had been, or would soon be ceded to

France.[20]

About this time a suggestive and characteristic event occurred which

gives an insight into the temper of both the Spanish Governor and the

American Commissioner. About two hours after the flag of the United

States had been hoisted over the Commissioner's camp, Gayoso requested

that it be lowered. This request met with a flat refusal, and though

there were rumors of parties being formed to cut it down, "the flag

wore out upon the staff."[21] Gayoso explained, a fortnight later,

that his objection to the flag was not prompted by a desire to show a

discourtesy to the United States, but to prevent any unbecoming conduct

on the part of the Indians.[22] This explanation, however, seems to

have been an after-thought. Suffice it to say, when it was offered the

Indians had become so troublesome that Ellicott had determined to send

for his escort. The Governor, after declaring that he would construe

their descent as an insult to his master,[23] and then suggesting that

they might with propriety join the Commissioner at Loftus Cliffs,

near Clarksville, finally consented that they go into camp at Bacon's

Landing, a few miles below town.[24] This put an end to the efforts of

the Spaniards to draw Ellicott away from Natchez, the place designated

by the treaty for the meeting of the commissioners.[25]

After the lapse of a fortnight from the time of his arrival,

Ellicott was informed that the Spanish Commissioner, the Baron de

Carondelet, was detained in New Orleans in the discharge of duties

incident to the war then waging between Spain and Great Britain, and

that in his absence the business of the survey would devolve upon

Governor Gayoso.[26] March 19, had been settled upon as the time when

the commissioners would begin operation, but with this change of

commissioner, Gayoso gave notice that it would be impossible to proceed

at the time appointed. He promised, however, to be ready at an early

day. But, before these preparations were perfected, Spanish finesse had

discovered a new reason for delay. This in turn was followed by others

until May 11, when Ellicott was finally informed that the business upon

which he had come was postponed indefinitely, awaiting further orders

from the ministers of the two powers concerned.[27] These pretexts

having varied from time to time, it would be well to present them in

one view.[28]

I. NECESSITY OF AWAITING THE RESULT OF NEGOTIATIONS FOR SECURING THE

INHABITANTS IN THE POSSESSION OF THEIR LANDS.

This reason was first given in a proclamation issued by Governor Gayoso

on the 28th of March, 1797, but bearing the Gate of the day following.

It was reiterated in a second proclamation of the same date. Yet, when

the Secretary of State, two and a half months later, received from

Commissioner Ellicott a notice of this reason for delay, he declared

that no such negotiation had existed and that it was the first time

these objections to the evacuation of the posts had been heard of.[29]

Two months later still he observed that,

"As____the great body of the inhabitants (of the territory)

appear not to desire the patronage of the Spanish Government

to secure it (their real estate); as the Government of the

United States must be at least as anxious as that of Spain to

protect the inhabitants in their rights when (they) become

citizens of the United States ... there can be no difficulty in

deciding whether this is a reason or a pretense. Besides, the

negotiation ... has never existed; nor even been proposed or

hinted either to or by the Government of the United States."[30]

Orders were promptly issued, however, by the President and the

Secretary of War to assure Governor Gayoso that no person would be

"disturbed in his possession or property, till an opportunity had been

afforded to apply to Congress," and that they might "rely upon their

claims being adjusted upon the most equitable principles."[31]

II, DESIRE OF FIRST ESTABLISHING FRIENDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN THE INDIANS

AND THE INHABITANTS OF THE TERRITORY TO BE CEDED[32].

On this subject Gayoso asserted that it was "impossible for His

Catholic Majesty to leave unprotected so many of his faithful

subjects and expose other settlements to the revengeful disposition

of discontented Indians." He therefore felt justified in retaining

possession of the country until he might be sure the savages would be

pacific.[33] The Secretary of State contended that such a reason would

warrant the assertion, that "the Governor meant, for an indefinite

period to avoid an evacuation of the posts: for, while a tribe of

Indians existed in that quarter, the Governor could not be _sure_ that

they would be pacific."[34] He observed further, that,

/# "Upon a view of the whole correspondence ... submitted to

the President, it appears that there is but too much reason to

believe ... that an undue influence has been exercised over

the Indians by the officers of His Catholic Majesty to prepare

them for a rupture with the United States, those suspicions

corresponding with other intelligence recently received by the

Secretary of War and by me."[35]

Instructions were issued by the Secretary of War to assure the Spanish

Commandant that effort would be made "to preserve a continuance of

the pacific dispositions of the Indians within our limits, towards

the subjects of His Catholic Majesty or his Indians; and to prevent

their commencing hostilities (of which there is no appearance) against

either."[36]

III. NECESSITY OF CONSULTING THE KING CONCERNING THE CONDITION IN WHICH

THE FORTS WERE TO BE SURRENDERED.[37]

The treaty failed to specify whether the posts should be surrendered

with the buildings and fortifications intact, or whether they

should first be dismantled. Gayoso declared that a treaty with the

Indians required a demolition of the post at Walnut Hill and that

orders had been issued to that effect, but that owing to their

unsettled dispositions he had received counter orders to prevent the

fortifications from being injured.[38] General Wayne took the position

that the posts should be left standing.[39] President Adams, however,

left the matter entirely to the discretion of the Spanish officials,

and thus at once brought an end to the validity of this excuse.[40] On

this sub-Secretary Pickering maintained:

"It is probably the first time that to 'withdraw,' or retire

from a place, has been imagined to intend its destruction. If,

at the formation of the treaty, the demolition of the posts had

been intended, it would assuredly have been expressed."[41]

When the Spaniards had really decided to surrender the district, no

further mention was made of this subject, showing that, notwithstanding

their treaty with the Indians, they considered the demolition of the

forts of no consequence whatever.

IV. EXPECTATION OF AN ATTACK UPON LOUISIANA BY A BRITISH FORCE FROM

CANADA.

Suspicion to this effect, though based upon reports more or less vague,

had been expressed by the Spanish Minister as early as the February

preceding; and had been reiterated by him from time to time,[42] until

at the expiration of three months, it had developed into a pretext for

delaying the execution of the treaty. In fact, the Baron de Carondelet

asserted in a proclamation of May 24, that further delay in surveying

the boundary line and in evacuating the forts was then occasioned only

by the imperious necessity of securing Lower Louisiana, in case the

British should become masters of the Illinois country[43] and that such

apprehensions had caused him to put the post at Walnut Hills "in a

respectable but provisional state of defence."[44] Secretary Pickering

not only considered these suspicions groundless, but contended further

that,

"If the posts of the Natchez and Walnut Hills 'are the

only bulwarks of Lower Louisiana, to stop the course of the

British,' as the Baron alerts and if, therefore, Spain is

justifiable in holding them, she may retain them, without any

limitation of time, for her security in any future war, as well

as in that which now exists."[45]

Before the appearance of the Baron's proclamation containing this

reason for delay, the Spanish Minister had been informed that the

Secretary of State saw no reasons for such suspicions and the British

Minister had been notified that the Government of the United States

would suffer neither British nor Spanish troops to march through its

territory for the purpose of hostility of one against the other.[46]

The Spanish Minister replied[47], however, that he knew to a certainty

that the English had made a proposition to General Clarke of Georgia

in order to secure his influence in that State in a proposed attack

against Florida. At the request of Mr. Pickering, this report was

investigated by the District Attorney of Georgia. He replied that

he could not find any one who knew of the matter or who entertained

a belief of the report; and that from General Clark's known violent

antipathies to the English and other circumstances, he doubted the

truthfulness of it altogether.[48]

When the attention of Mr. Liston, the British Minister, was directed

to the subject, he pointedly denied that his government either had

intended or was then intending to invade Louisiana.[49] A few days

later, however, he admitted that a plan for attacking the Floridas

and other Spanish possessions adjoining the United States had been

submitted to him by other persons, whom he declined to name, but

stated it was discountenanced by him because its success depended upon

a violation of the neutrality of the United States and an enlistment

of the Indians. According to this plan, the expedition was to be

undertaken by a British sea force, which would be joined by such

volunteers of the United States as would join the king's standard when

raised on Spanish soil.[50]

The noted conspiracy of Senator Blount of Tennessee then came to

light[51] and precipitated a spirited discussion between the Spanish

Minister and Mr. Pickering. The former contended that the plot had been

revealed and that no one any longer doubted that the expedition was to

have taken place,[52] while the latter maintained that there could have

been no connection between Blount's scheme and either the expedition

from Canada,[53] or the project attributed to General Clarke.[54] The

Secretary argued in support of his position that Blount's expedition

was to have been formed in one of the states south of the River Ohio;

that it was destined against the Floridas, and perhaps Lower Louisiana;

that Blount himself expected to be at the head of it; that it was

not to be undertaken but in conjunction with a British force; and

that "on the proposal of the expedition to the British Government, it

was totally rejected."[55] He maintained further that the suspicion

of a British invasion from Canada was groundless for the following

reasons:--(1) Preparations for such an expedition would have attracted

attention and rendered satisfactory proofs attainable; (2) the troops

of the United States, stationed along the Canadian border, were in

position to protect the frontier, as well as to get information of any

warlike preparations and communicate the same to the Secretary of War,

yet no such communications had been made; (3) the British did not have

on the lakes a force adequate to such an enterprise; (4) the routes

suggested for such a campaign would have interposed great difficulties

for the transportation of troops, equipage, provisions, etc., even

if they could have been taken without violating the territory of the

United States; and (5) the British Minister, after inquiring of the

Governor General of Canada and of "the British Secretary of State,"

denied that his Government either had intended or was then intending

such an expedition.[56]

V. FEAR OF AN ATTACK FROM THE UNITED STATES.

In the Spring of 1797, certain American troops were sent from the Ohio

into Tennessee for the purpose of preventing a forced settlement upon

the Cherokee lands. Orders were also given the Cumberland militia to

hold itself in readiness to prevent similar encroachments.[57] These

facts were seized upon by Carondelet, who asserted in a proclamation

of May 31, that since the United States was at peace with all the

savages, these movements must concern the Spanish provinces. To make

this pretext more plausible, the proclamation also made mention of

"the anterior menaces" of the representatives of the United States at

Natchez;[58] of the expected rupture between that Power and France, the

intimate ally of Spain; and of the recognition by the United States

of the right of England to navigate the Mississippi, which, the Baron

adds, "appears to annul" the treaty with His Catholic Majesty, by which

the United States acknowledged that "no other nation can navigate upon

the Mississippi without the consent of Spain."[59]

Secretary Pickering regarded the expectation of a rupture between the

United States and France as the real cause of the delay in running the

boundary and in evacuating the posts.[60] With reference to any hostile

intentions on the part of the United States, he wrote,

"Never, perhaps, was conceived a more absurd idea, than that

of marching troops from the Ohio to the State of Tennessee,

and thence to the Natchez, in the whole a tedious, difficult

and expensive route of many hundred miles, chiefly through a

wilderness; when, if the United States had any hostile views,

they had only to collect their troops to the Ohio, and suffer

them to be floated down that river and the Mississippi, almost

without labor, with great expedition, and at small expense, to

the county to be attacked."[61]

These pretexts were usually accompanied by a profusion of promises and

explanations which rendered them more or less plausible. Besides this,

the Spaniards on more than one occasion made appearances of beginning

the evacuation.[62] Although declaring that nothing could prevent

the religious fulfilment of the treaty, they were, at the same time,

strengthening their fortifications and augmenting their forces on the

river. Under such circumstances, the presence of American soldiers and

officers was not desired. This fact explains the efforts of Governor

Gayoso to prevent Ellicott's escort from reaching Natchez and the

attempts to entice the Commissioner himself away from that place.[63]

He had scarcely failed in these schemes, however, when he heard of

the descent of Lieutenant Pope with a small detachment of American

troops to take charge of the posts upon their evacuation. He then sent

Ellicott an open letter directed to Pope, in which it was stated that

"for sundry reasons it would be proper and conduce to the harmony of

the two nations" for these troops to remain at a distance until the

posts were evacuated, which would be completed in a few days. But

instead of complying with the Governor's request to second this effort

at harmony, Ellicott wrote to Pope that there was evidence to show

that an evacuation was not really intended in any reasonable time and

that in his opinion the sooner the American troops reached Natchez

the better.[64] Upon receiving the Governor's letter Pope stopped his

detachment at the Walnut Hills. April 17, Ellicott wrote a second

letter stating that a rupture with the Spanish authorities at Natchez

was near at hand and that in his opinion the Lieutenant could better

serve his country at Natchez than at any other point on the river.[65]

In response to this letter, Pope and his command resumed their descent,

the Governor finally consenting, and reached Natchez April 24, 1797.[66]

Such are the general outlines of the contest that was waged between

the representatives of the two powers over the dilatory policy of

Spain. Subsequent diplomatic discussion centered on the navigation

of the Mississippi and the affairs at Natchez assumed the form of a

popular outbreak against the established government in the district.

TIME AND PLACE RELATIONS IN HISTORY, WITH SOME LOUISIANA AND

MISSISSIPPI APPLICATIONS

PROF. H. E. CHAMBERS.

A student or writer of history, imbued with the true and scientific

spirit of historical research and expression, would hesitate to accept

the task of compiling the narrative of a State or country if it were

required of him to confine himself strictly to local events. He would,

indeed, find it difficult to isolate the facts bearing upon the State

or country from their antecedents, distant in time and space, or from

their consequents when communicated to contemporaneous and succeeding

communities, or social organizations.

The great stream of human affairs is a tide of many currents. He who

would pilot by his pen the reading multitude must note the crossings

and the blendings, the counter-runnings and the parallelings. He cannot

take an arbitrary stand and say that this tide of affairs began in this

place and ended in that; or that this course of events began in such a

year and ended in such another. Back of every motion is an impelling

power. Back of every individual action lies the basic principles of

human conduct. Back of every manifestation of corporate activity may be

found a pulsive social force. Neither individual nor social movement

can be studied understandingly alone. Each forms a link in a chain

whose beginning and end may not be clearly seen, but whose continuity

may be inferred from upholding and depending contiguous links.

This continuity when once perceived enables us to bring into relation

widely associated ideas. For instance, the history of Oregon, through

the first English explorer of its shores, leads us to the point where

the intense vitality of the English nation was first directed to

securing the naval supremacy of the world. The history of any one of

our north-central States introduces us to the follies, fashions,

and ambitions of the French Court under several Louises; to a long

series of moves in one of the most complicated games ever played

upon the chess-board of European politics; and to the most critical

period in American affairs when Virginia by generously renouncing an

empire appeased discordant and jealous elements and made possible the

formation of the Federal Union. Patrick Henry's passionate plea for

liberty was but the echo of the clarion call which rang over Runnymede

centuries before, and this call was but the voicing of an idea which

dominated the most primitive of Teutonic peoples in the remotest past.

And so I might make innumerable citations to show that the present is

but the heir to the past; and that what is, stands in close relation to

what has been.

If time relations may be demonstrated by the association of remotely

associated ideas, or by tracing modern institutional fruitage to their

root points buried in the soil of the past, then may other correlations

be as easily established.

The idea of place as a background to historic treatment has, to a

certain extent, undergone change. The former conception has been that

of a region with artificial bounds established by accident, treaty,

or legislative enactment. The more modern conception is that of a

physiographic area whose limits nature herself has fixed and within

whose confines fundamental ethnic ideas crystalized into institutional,

social, political, and religious forms have reached or are reaching

complete or incomplete expression.

Every great civilization that has ever arisen is or has been a

composite civilization. Isolate an individual, a community, a people,

or a race and no matter how favorable may be the circumstances and

environment, the advance made will only be so far and no further, the

final point of which advance is characterized by rigidity of thought,

fixity of forms, and slavish repetition of actions. The greater

Chinese Wall of non-intercourse encircling the Mongolian nation for

centuries cast the civilization of the Flowery Kingdom into molds of

monotony whose stiffness has yielded only to the breaking of Occidental

hammers upon Chinese commercial portals.

The autocthonous civilization of Peru and Mexico hardly attained the

dignity of semi-barbarism. What might the Inca or Aztec have become

had the influx of European culture-impulses reached his mind before

its plasticity was lost, or had the gifts of acquired experience and

knowledge been brought to him by hands guiltless of his scourging and

innocent of his blood?

On the other hand, let an individual mingle with his fellows; a race

or community enters into political or commercial relation with its

neighbors, the divine sparks struck off by the attrition of mind with

mind kindle the fires which illumine the spiritual in man and sets

in motion the machinery of human progress. What student of history

fails to recognize the influence of Phoenician letters and Egyptian

thought upon Greek civilization; of Greek literature and ideals upon

Roman character and development; of Roman genius for organization and

talent for legal forms upon modern enlightened nations; of whatever

was best in the past upon whatever is best in the life and thought and

aspirations of the present.

Egypt began to advance when caravans first made their way to her over

heated outlying deserts, for these brought to her something more

than myrrh and incense, and precious fabrics. Greece developed with

phenomenal rapidity as soon as her galleys sprinkled the blue waters

of the Mediterranean, for with every incoming freight came a whisper

of rudimentary art or culture which she forthwith clothed in beautiful

form and language. England was provincial and primitive until her

commercial supremacy made her the bearer of civilization to every

corner of the globe. She has received more than she has given. Look

where we will, we see unmistakably the effects of action and reaction

in the intercourse of nations and communities.

In taking up the history of any one state of the Union, then, we find

it impossible to confine our observation to accidental or unrelated

happenings, however these happenings may find careful chroniclings

at the hands of local scribes and unphilosophic writers. We see

the States as a part of a physiographic area having in common with

other parts the determinative elements of soil and climate which by

prescribing industries, affect desires, ambitions, thought, and other

forms of human activity. We study community forces and estimate their

quality and intensity as they find expression in characteristic social

and political institutions. We consider the people in their racial

attitude, anticipate similar results from similar motives as conforming

to the spirit and experience of the ethnic type to which the majority

of the people stand related. We regard the State as an organic whole,

a corporate being related to other similarly constituted beings. Take

what position we will, there come into our line of vision ideas,

origins, effects, reactions, and relations which show us that a State's

history extends indefinitely into the past and in the present ramifies

to every part of the larger, body-politic of which it is a constituent

member.

Apart from general principles there is a singular correlation between

the history of this your State and the history of the one I so

inadequately represent upon this occasion (First Annual Mid-Winter

Meeting of the Mississippi State Historical Society). Both States were

originally a part of that great continental heart of North America,

that wilderness of empire-like extent, contended for by mighty

nations in epoch-making struggles. Both owe their initial territorial

organization to the commercial needs of the American people of a

hundred years ago. Up to a certain point the history of the one is

but the history of the other. The first settlement, paradoxical as it

may seem, in Louisiana was made in Mississippi. De Soto crossed your

State and died in ours. The same people who founded our city of New

Orleans established your city of Natchez. The narratives of Bienville

and Iberville are as closely associated with your history as they

are with ours. The two principal Indian wars waged by the Louisiana

colony were fought upon Mississippi soil. The first appointed governor

of the Mississippi Territory was the first appointed governor of the

Louisiana Territory. When under Spanish rule that portion of our domain

known as the Florida parishes revolted, it was Reuben Kemper from your

territory that rallied to the support of the revolutionists and struck

such terror in the Spaniard's breast that Governor Folch of Mobile

piteously appealed to the United States Government for protection.

When the West Florida revolution was crowned with success and an

addition of new territory to the United States resulted, Mississippi

received her portion as well as Louisiana. When in the days of the

American Revolution the notorious Willing came down from Philadelphia,

ostensibly to protect but really to rob, our district of Baton Rouge

felt his vulture clutch as keenly as did your district of Natchez. In

later times, when our Zachary Taylor found himself upon the border

lands of Mexico, an overwhelming foe in his front and war hardly yet

declared, your riflemen under Jefferson Davis joined our Louisianian

in rushing to his assistance, long before the general government moved

to protect its own. We followed you out of the Union. Disaster to you

was calamity to us. The cause of the Confederacy we shared in common.

Our dead are sleeping together upon the old battlefields in every

part of our Southland. We are common sharers of the heritage of brave

deeds and undying memories. Your peerless citizen, the first and only

president of the Confederate States, died in our arms and we gave him

such sepulture that the continent trembled under the all-powerful force

of sentiment. We have faced your dangers, felt your needs as only a

people can whose interests are one with yours. The spirit that framed

your present constitution is pulsing in our veins. And so, did the time

limits of this paper permit, might I continue to enumerate indefinitely

the instances in which History wipes out the boundary line by which

maps unblushingly infer that we are two peoples, having separate

interests and lines of thoughts. True history is broadening; never

narrowing. It is because so much of Louisiana history is Mississippi

history, and so much of Mississippi history is in the chronicles of

Louisiana that the narrative of either State calls for so broad and

liberal and inspiring a treatment at the hands of the historian.

THE STUDY AND TEACHING OF HISTORY.

BY HERBERT B. ADAMS, PH.D.

Professor of History in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

Among all the subjects of college study and college teaching, among

all the means of liberal education fitting young men for civic life

and public duty not one stands higher than the study and teaching of

History.

In my senior year at Amherst College, President Julius H. Seelye gave

my class a single lecture on the Philosophy of History. Among other

good things he said: "History is the grandest study in the world." That

remark made the profoundest impression upon my student imagination.

I said to myself, "If History is the grandest study in the world,

that is exactly the study I want." The good President proved his

statement to my satisfaction by showing the relation of Greek and Roman

civilizations to the spread of Christianity and the education of Europe.

In Germany I first learned the true method, and at the same time, the

most practicable ways and means of studying and teaching history. Amid

a pleasant variety of academic courses by brilliant lecturers like Kuno

Fischer, Zeller, Ernst Curtius, Grimm, Treitschke, Droysen, Du Bois

Raymond, Lepsius, and others, I somehow felt a lack of educational

unity and system. There was need of some backbone to unite the skeleton

of human deeds and historic experiences. This I found at last in the

teachings of my old master, Dr. J. C. Bluntschli, at Heidelberg. In his

lecture courses on the State, on the Constitutional Law, on Politics

and on the International Law of Modern Civilized States, I first began

to realize that government and law are the real forces which bind

society and the world together. I began to see that the true unity of

the world's life is to be found in the succession of States, Empires,

Federations, and in the International Relations, which are slowly

leading to such great aggregations as the United States of America

and the United States of Europe. In Germany I learned from a reading

of Bluntschli's various writing, including many noble articles in his

Staatsworterbuch, that there is such a thing as the World-State now in

process of evolution. From the published records of the Institute of

International Law, of which Dr. Bluntschli was the president, and from

a study of the subjects of Arbitration and International Tribunals, I

thought I could dimly discern the beginnings of that Parliament of Man,

the Federation of the World, of which the Poet Tennyson sings in his

Locksley Hall.

When I came to Baltimore three ideas of study and teaching were

uppermost in my mind: (1) the study of the origins of municipal life,

in order to find out whether it was Roman or Germanic; (2) the study

of the relations of Church and State, from their beginning down to the

present, for I had learned to believe in Germany that the separation of

civil from religious society is America's greatest contribution to the

world's progress; (3) the continued study of art history for its own

sake and as illustrating the history of civilization.

Out of the first of these ideas, developed by a reading of the works

of Sir Henry Maine, has grown my Historical Seminary and a long series

of University Studies in Historical and Political Science (chiefly on

Municipal, Economic and Institutional themes). Out of the second idea

evolved successive courses of lectures on Church and State, or Religion

and Government in the Ancient and Graeco-Roman World, together with my

whole system of graduate instruction upon the Early History of Society,

Greek and Roman Polities, Jewish and Church History, and certain modern

States like Prussia and France. The third idea never had a good chance

for development until recent years when I have fairly begun to realize

my original conception of illustrating in concrete, artistic ways the

progress of civilization.

Goldwin Smith, in his Lecture on History, says there can be no

philosophy of history until we realize the unity of the human race and

that history must be studied as a whole. Twenty years ago, at the Johns

Hopkins University, I began to teach Local History, as representative

of Universal History. I began with New England Village Communities,

with Plymouth Plantations, Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Towns,

those little republics which seemed to me the very protoplasm of State

life. The survival, continuity or revival of old Germanic forms of

village settlement, with common fields and town commons, impressed

my imagination and interested my students. They carried this kind of

study into this State of Maryland and original papers by Maryland boys

were published upon such subjects as Parishes, Manors, and other local

institutions. These lines of inquiry were extended down the Atlantic

seaboard to Virginia and the Carolinas. Gradually the field of interest

has been widened from towns, plantations, parishes, and counties until

now the constitutional, economic and educational history of entire

States is in review or contemplation.

While I still believe in Local History and in limited subjects of

student research, I now recognize more fully than I used to do, the

importance of General History, especially for college students and

college graduates in the early part of their course. After all, the

great fact in History, as well as in Geography, is that the world is

round. You must recognize all human experience on this globe as parts

of one great whole, just as you recognize that the continents and

outlying islands are but related parts of one vast geographical system.

In every properly arranged course of school and college instruction in

the domain of History, this doctrine of unity ought to be taken for

granted. It is like the doctrine of divine unity in theology or in

nature, like the sun in our heavens. It gives light and rationality to

any and every course of study.

I used to think that it was the first duty of a boy to know the

history of his own State and country; but I am now persuaded that he

should know the history of mankind and of the world. Nobody would study

geography or geology from a purely local point of view. You must have

a consciousness of the whole in order to appreciate the parts of any

subject. It is a mistake to imagine that a boy or girl cares most for

what is nearest and most familiar. Children are always gifted with

imagination. They rejoice in the thought of lands that are far off,

of men who lived in olden times. They take the greatest pleasure in

heroic tales of Cyrus and of Hannibal, of Horatius and of the great

twin brethren, Castor and Pollux. Mythology, minstrelsy, Bible stories,

and lives of great wariors, explorers, discoverers, inventors, these

are of supreme interest to boys and girls. American History should be

taught to American youth, but chiefly the heroic, the romantic, the

biographical, in short the more human sides of our colonel and national

life.

History begins and ends with Man. Biographical approaches to the

world's life are the oldest, and best beaten paths for youth to follow.

Carlyle and Froude are among the champions of the biographical method

of studying and teaching History. When Froude succeeded Freeman at

Oxford the biographical idea was at once brought to the front. Froude

quoted Carlyle as saying: "The history of mankind is the history of

its great men; to find out these, clean the dirt from them, and place

them on their proper pedestals, is the true function of the historian."

And Froude, the new professor, entered at once upon those splendid and

inspiring courses of lectures, in which the personal and biographical

elements entered so strongly.

Every American student should read Froude's lectures on "English Seamen

in the Sixteenth Century," that brilliant account of Sir Francis Drake,

Sir John Hawkins, and the great captains of England who gained a new

world for Elizabeth and defeated the Spanish Armada. You should also

read Froude's Lectures on the "Life and Letters of Erasmus" if you

would understand the relation of the great religious reform to the new

learning, which Erasmus represented.

Is it not wonderful that by reading a brief biography, which perhaps

occupies our leisure hours for a week, we can grasp and understand the

life-work of a great man? Think of it! A whole life in one book. A

whole history is in one of Plutarch's chapters. By turning to that new

series of biographies called "Heroes of the Nations," you can study

or teach the lessons derived from the lives and characters of such

great men as Pericles, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Julian the Philosopher,

Theodoric the Goth, Wyclif, the first of the English reformers, Prince

Henry the Navigator, Henry of Navarre, Sir Philip Sidney, Gustavus

Adolphus, Napoleon, Nelson, and Lincoln. Another excellent biographical

series is that called "English Men of Action," published by Macmillan,

and containing such noble lives as those of Wolfe, the conqueror of

Quebec; David Livingstone, the Explorer of Africa, Lord Lawrence and

Sir Henry Havelock, the saviors of India; General Gordon, the Hero of

Khartoum. If your taste runs toward literature, you should read select

biographies in the series called "English Men of Letters," embracing

such characters as Gibbon, Carlyle, Byron, Shelly, and Hume. There is

a corresponding American series, edited by Charles Dudley Warner, and

embracing such men as Washington Irving, J. Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar

Allan Poe. But among all biographies for boys and young men I know

nothing better than the Autobiography of Franklin. This has encouraged

and quickened many young Americans to a desire of knowledge and

self-culture.

But let no student or teacher believe for one moment that historical

biography is the full equivalent of History. Not all the biographies

that have ever been written could possibly contain the world's great

life. As the poet Tennyson truly says: "The individual withers, but

the world is more and more." There must be great men in Church and

State, to lead society forward, but there must be unnumbered thousands,

yea millions, of good men and true, and of faithful, devoted women,

in order to support good leadership and carry humanity forward from

generation to generation. It is often the biography of some plain man

or self-sacrificing woman that affords the greatest encouragement and

incentive to ordinary humanity. But we must remember that no man,

no woman is worthy of biographical or historical record, unless in

some way he or she has contributed to the welfare of society and the

progress of the world. Only those deeds which affect our fellow men

in some noteworthy manner are fit for commemoration. What you do as

a private individual, what you ate for breakfast, what you do in the

seclusion of your own room, is not necessarily historic; but whether

Napoleon was able to eat his breakfast on the morning of the Battle

of Waterloo, or whether an army has been properly fed, may have the

greatest historic significance.

Not man alone, but man in organized society, is the subject of History.

Man in his relation to his fellows, man as a military, political,

social, intellectual, and religious being may become historic. Dr.

Thomas Arnold sometimes defined History as the biography of nations.

This is a large and noble conception, although not the largest, and

it may be profitably emphasized, like human biography in the study

and teaching of History. It is the duty of every school and college

to lay great stress upon the history of England and of the United

States in addition to General History. We all need to know the lives

of our own people as well as the lives of great Englishmen like Pitt

and Gladstone, and great Americans like Washington and Lincoln. We

should teach and study the histories of those nations which are nearest

our mother country--Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy. As Germany

is now the great seat of culture and of university life for American

students who go abroad, so was Italy for wandering English students

in the days of the Renaissance. English literature from that time

onward is pervaded with Italian elements, with the influences of "all

Etruscan three," Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and also with the

ideas of Machiavelli and the Italian historians. We cannot understand

the literature of England or America without going back to its French

and Italian sources. It would be wise for college professors of history

to devote special attention to the Italian Renaissance or Revival of

Learning, without which an understanding of the German Reformation and

modern education is an impossibility.

In reading the biography of men or the biography of nations, teachers

and students should note carefully the most interesting and memorial

points. If you own the book which you are reading, use for note-taking

the fly leaves at the end. Otherwise, use reference cards, like those

employed in a library for a card catalogue, or else sheets of note

paper. When you have found a fact or illustration which you think

will prove useful at some future time, in connection with your work

as a teacher or a student, note it briefly on paper with the proper

reference to the book and page. Remember Captain Cuttle's advice: "When

found, make a note of!" Recall the saying of Lord Bacon: "Reading

maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory."

In the multitude of modern books and amid all the variety of our modern

reading, it is impossible to remember exact quotations and historical

details. We must have a good system of note-taking and index-making.

Every student and teacher can invent his own system. Mine is the use

of fly leaves in books and cards topically and alphabetically arranged

for miscellaneous data. I always carry a few of these reference cards

in my pocket and make all my notes under appropriate catch words, for

example, "Chautauqua" or "Johns Hopkins University," with the name of

the writer on this subject and the exact reference or quotation.

Begin to collect a library for yourselves. Students and teachers do not

always appreciate the opportunities they enjoy of acquiring good books

of History. I would strongly urge students to save their money instead

of spending it on poor theaters and variety shows. Buy standard books

of literature, art, and history; devote your leisure hours to good

reading, always with pen and pencil in hand, and with a dictionary and

an atlas beside you. _Seize the moment of excited curiosity_ and look

up every point on which you need exact information. One of my former

students, Dr. Albert Shaw, now editor of The Review of Reviews, said he

was more grateful to me for that advice than for any other one feature

of my instruction: _Seize the moment of excited curiosity_, or it will

be lost forever.

An English writer, Langford, in his _Praise of Books_, well says:

"In books the past is ours as well as the present. With them we live

yesterday over again. All the bygone ages are with us, and we look

on the face of the infancy of the world. We see the first dawning of

thought in man. We are present at the beginnings of cities, states,

and nations; and can trace the growth and development of governments,

policies, and laws. The marvelous story of humanity is enacted again

for our edification, instruction, and delight. We behold civilizations

begin, struggle, triumph, and decay, giving place to higher and nobler

as they pass away. Poet, lawgiver, and soldier sing their songs,

make their codes, and fight their battles again, while we follow the

never-dying effects of song, of law, and of battle. We sit down with

'princes, potentates, and powers,' watching them, as they think,

governing the world.... Shut up in a little room we can witness the

whole drama of man's history played on the vast stage of the world. All

that he has thought and done from the earliest dawn of recorded time

to our own day is enacted before us; and our hopes are strengthened,

our faith deepened, in the great destiny yet awaiting mankind; in the

higher, holier work yet to be done by those who have accomplished such

mighty things, achieved such noble victories. Books which record the

history of the past are the infallible and unerring prophets of the

future."

"History is the grandest study in the world." My College President, Dr.

Julius H. Seelye, was right. There is no art or science comparable to

it, for it embraces the whole experience of man in organized society.

History takes hold of all the past and points the way to all the

future. The French historian, Guizot, in his "History of My Time" (III.

162) says: "Religion opens the future and places us in the presence of

eternity. History brings back the past and adds to our own existence

the lives of our fathers." Pliny said of History: "Quanta potestas,

quanta dignitas, quanta majestes, quantum denique numen sit historiae."

Perhaps the highest conception of History comes from the Greek. The

etymology of the ward is an inspiration for both student and teacher.

History, from the Greek word historia, is a knowing or learning by

inquiry. To study History is to understand by means of research,

for History is a science; its very essence consists in knowledge.

Historical science is perhaps the most comprehensive and the noblest

of all sciences, for it is the self-knowledge of Humanity. The subject

of History is Humanity itself; it is the self-conscious development of

the human race. History, therefore, does not consist in dead facts, but

is itself a living fact; it is the self-knowledge of the present with

regard to its evolution from the past. Clio is a living muse, not a

dead, cold form. She stands upon that very threshold of the future and

glances backwards over the long vista Humanity has traversed. In the

plastic art of the Greeks you will notice that the muse of History is

represented in the attitude of reflection; the pen is uplifted, but the

word unwritten.

We sometimes speak of written history and of its standard works as

though the essence of that science consisted in books and not in

knowledge. "There are no standards of history," said Droysen, a German

professor to an American student who had asked his advice respecting

the choice of standard works for an historical library. In this caustic

saying there lies a profound truth. History is a living, self-developed

science, not a collection of fossils. Books like facts, are sometimes

dead to history, and historical standards, like historical facts, are

grander in their spiritual influence than in their material form. In

the onward march of historical science, historians are perhaps the

standard bearers of fact and their works may be called the battle-flags

of history which kindle the zeal of the ever-advancing present in men

and awaken a sense of unity with the great past, which has gone on

before us. But written history often becomes shot-riddled by criticism

and is set away, at last, like battle-flags, after many honorable

campaigns, in some museums of relics or some temple of fame. Unless

such trophies continue to awaken in the living present a sort of

enthusiasm and a sense of unity with the past experience of our race,

then are our historic standards but antiquarian rubbish, indeed, as

useless and unmeaning as the banners and symbols of heraldry.

The subject of History is the self-conscious development of the human

race, the Ego of Humanity. The realization of this Ego does not lie in

any fictitious personality, but in the universal consciousness that

man is one in all ages and that the individual human mind may mirror

to itself and to others the thought and experience of the race. As the

heavens are reflected in a single drop of dew, so in the thoughts of

the individual human mind we may sometimes behold a reflection of the

self-knowledge of Humanity. For the individual is sometimes the very

best expression of the whole with which it stands in connection. The

onward march of world-history seems to have concentrated itself in the

development of individual peoples like the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and

the Germanic peoples. As these nations best typify historic progress

and certain world-historic ideas, so the historic thought of manhood

may be most fully realized by individual minds. For example, a single

historian, like Thucydides, may reflect the self-consciousness of his

age, and a single mind, in our own day, may realize, in some measure,

at least through the works of history, the self-knowledge, the Ego of

Humanity. It should be the aim of every student of History thus to

realize in his own consciousness the historic thought of mankind. "The

life of each individual," says Dr. W. T. Harris, the American Hegel,

"presupposes the life of the race before him, and the individual

cannot comprehend himself without comprehending first the evolution of

his day and generation historically from the past."

Let us then regard the study of History, not as something wholly

objective but as an unfolding panorama of the human self-consciousness,

for history is merely the reflecting spirit of mankind in which we

ourselves may have an immediate share, which we all may help to

perpetuate and in some way enlarge. Let us remember that History is

a constant knowing and learning, the self-knowledge and communion

of reflecting spirits in all ages and a perpetual "Know Thyself"

to advancing time. There is something indescribably solemn in the

historic pausing of Man before the temple of the unknown future and

seeking to realize in himself the _gnothi seauton_ or "Know Thyself" of

Humanity. He glances backward through the long vista he has traversed

and as far as the eye can see, his pathway is cumbered with ruins.

Crumbling monuments and fallen columns reveal the wreck of all material

greatness, while the distant pyramids but remind him of the more than

Egyptian darkness out of which Humanity has been mysteriously led unto

this mountain of light which we call the Present or that Living Age.

Man sees the immense distance he has come and he remembers the perils

and disasters he has encountered in his upward way; he is conscious too

of having brought a vast wealth of experience to this temple of the

Future before which he now stands, but that which fills and overwhelms

the historic consciousness of Man is the feeling that the place whereon

he stands is holy ground and that there is a mysterious power in his

own soul calling him to self-knowledge and to self-judgment before he

may lift the veil of the future. This is the supreme moment of History.

The facts of human experience become suddenly transfigured in the light

of a divine principle, namely the self-consciousness of reason, that

God-given spirit which recognizes the purpose of History to be the

increasing self-knowledge of Man.

"History is a divine drama, designed to educate man into

self-knowledge and the knowledge of God," (Henry James, Sr., on

"Carlyle," in Atlantic Monthly, May, 1881.) Tennyson recognized the

divine element in human history in that prophetic verse:

"And I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."

It is by this "increasing purpose" that God reveals himself in human

history. By the widened thought, Humanity is led forward, as it were by

a pillar of fire, unto a higher life, and unto a conscious unity with

Divine Reason, the Unseen One, who dwells in a temple not made with

hands.

SOME FACTS CONCERNING THE SETTLEMENT AND EARLY HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI.

By R. W. JONES, M. A., LL.D.

The "Miscellaneous Papers" as collected by Col. J. F. H. Claiborne

constitute a rich mine for the future historian. They also indicate

what can be done by others by well-direct inquiry, in the way of

gathering information from "old settlers" and by going to other sources

that may be accessible. The importance of this work can be scarcely

overstated, and the sooner it is begun the better. A volume could be

written composed of adventures and daring exploits that would be as

thrilling as highly wrought fiction and make us proud of our ancestors.

As an illustration of the large number of well known characters

introduced, within a limited space, and of most interesting and

instructive incidents I shall quote from a letter of

DR. A. R. KILPATRICK

to Col. Claiborne, written at Navasota, Grimes county, Texas, May 2,

1877:

* * "You ask for my contributions to De Bow's Review, but I am entirely

unable to furnish them. When I left Concordia, La., in September, 1863,

I moved none of my books, and the scoundrel in whose hands I left the

place proved to be a traitor joined the Yankees, and when Natchez

was occupied he went partners with some of the Federal officers, who

brought over several wagons, gutted my house and sold the furniture

and other property in Natchez. Out of a library of 2,000 volumes I

have none left. Among my books were (12) twelve volumes of De Bow's

Review bound." In these twelve volumes Dr. K. had written a great deal

that was interesting and instructing to those who inquire into the

settlement and colonial history of Mississippi. They contain accounts

of many of the best known families who lived at and near Natchez and

Woodville and in the counties wherein these towns are situated; also

similar writings concerning Concordia, La.

He says; "Before I wrote those accounts of Concordia Parish, I wrote

some Sketches of the early Baptist in Mississippi and Louisiana which

were printed in a Baptist newspaper of New Orleans under the management

of a Minister named Duncan: I think he was Rev. W. Duncan, D. D. Get

copies of those papers and make use of the historical facts, because

your work will be incomplete if you leave out the churches. These

papers were published about 1849-51.

"My Grandfather (Maternal), Robert Turner, was an early settler in

Miss., and a pioneer of the Baptist Church, though not a minister.

He moved a colony of nearly (100) one hundred, white and black from

Beaufort District, S. C., starting in 1804. He went up near Nickajack

on the Tennessee River, built boats, put on his horses, cows, hogs,

furniture and floated down to Natchez, reaching there early in 1805,

he found there no settlement to suit, went down to Fort Adams, landed,

and settled four miles S. W., of where Woodville now stands. There they

built old Bethel Church with whipsawed lumber and wrought iron nails,

each one furnishing his part of materials, or work. The Chaplain or

preacher of the colony was Rev. Moses Hadley. At that time, 1805, there

were only a few houses, temporary shanties, where Woodville is. Ole

Uncle Bob Lecky, who kept hotel so many years in Alexandria, La., and

old John S. Lewis of Woodville, were the first to put up houses. My

Grandfather, R. Turner was a Surveyor and was employed to measure and

lay off the streets, squares, etc., of the town in 1808. He was also

summoned and served in the arrest of Aaron Burr above Natchez about

1807; he said it was so cold in February that in handling oars of the

skiff the blood poured from the tips of his fingers. He represented

Aaron Burr as remarkably polite, genteel, urbane, good looking, though

small, and as having eyes whose glance was most penetrating and

fascinating.

"There was another party of pioneers from Georgia, preceding

Grandfathers; in this party were the Ogdens and Nolands."

"Captain John Ogden, near Woodville, (1796-1837) served as Captain

at the battle of New Orleans, 1814. Robert Tanner and several of his

colonists moved to Rapides Parish, La. There the old gentleman died

September, 1839, of yellow fever, aged 71 years. Wilkinson county

furnished one Governor (H. Johnson) to Louisiana and (4) four, I think,

to Mississippi.

"The old original editor of the Woodville Republican, W. Chisholm, had

all the volumes of that paper bound for over twenty years--from about

1820 to 1845. In it will be found much of Poindexter's history; also

much of Moses Waddell, of Abbeville, S. C., brother-in-law of John C.

Calhoun."

Rev. Wm. Winans, D. D., lived and died at Mount Pleasant, about sixteen

miles east southeast of Woodville. Major Butler, of Kentucky, lived

there; also General Van Dorn's father. Major Butler served in General

Wilkinson's command. The general was very strict in regard, not only to

his own dress, but also the dress, etc., of the officers and men under

him. It was the fashion then to wear the hair long and plait it into a

queue, or pig-tail behind. General Wilkinson had the misfortune to lose

his pig-tail and issued an order for all to cut off their pig-tails.

Major Butler refused; Wilkinson threatened court martial; Butler

resigned and retired to the farm of his sister, Mrs. Cook. In a few

months he died; before dying he left special injunctions with Mr. and

Mrs. Cook to have an auger-hole bored in his coffin, to have his hair

neatly dressed and the pig-tail tied with a blue ribbon and run through

that auger-hole, so that Wilkinson and his officers might see that he

was pluck to the last and distained his authority.

Dr. Franklin L. Riley, in a lecture, gives another version of this

incident, which is very amusing. Dr. Kilpatrick narrates many incidents

concerning Governor Poindexter, Mr. Percy, Audubon, Jeff Davis and

others.

The Audubon mentioned by him was the distinguished John James Audubon,

the Naturalist. Born 1781, in Louisiana, died 1851, on the Hudson;

Author of Birds of America, Quadrupeds of America, etc. Audubon was at

the house of Mr. Percy, spent several months with him; he furnished

Audubon with many specimens of birds for his sketches. One day Percy

says he brought home a "magnificent gobbler" which weighed about 28

pounds and Audubon _would have it_. He pinned it up beside the wall so

as get a good view of it and spent several days lazily sketching it.

Percy said: "The ---- fellow kept it pinned up there till it rotted and

stunk. I hated to lose so much good eating."

It is said that while Aububon was at or near Woodville, his money gave

out; he refused to accept gifts; but taught a dancing school, in order

to get funds sufficient to enable him to proceed with his researches in

Natural History. The people patronized him generously.

"Jeff. Davis spent part of his boyhood in Wilkinson county, Miss. There

was a boy on a place adjoining where Jeff. Davis lived named Bob Irion,

son of a Baptist preacher. The two boys went hunting one day, each

alone, and after some time they met behind a field. Jeff. Davis was

out of shot and Bob was out of powder, but had shot. Davis wanted some

shot and asked for some, but Bob was unaccommodating and saucy--jeered

at Davis, and finally told him he had a mind to shoot him any how, and

made some threatening demonstration which aroused Davis. Davis jerked

out a small pocket knife dropped it down his gun on the load of powder

and raised his gun and said: "Now, sir, I'm ready for you; I dare you

to shoot.' Bob told me this himself during the Mexican campaign, as

illustrating Davis' bravery and fertility of resources in emergencies.

Of course the boys stopped their foolishness and exchanged ammunition." * *

"I got on the Sultana at Fort Adams when S. S. Prentiss was aboard

on his bridal trip--married that morning at Natchez, and the whole

bridal troupe went down to New Orleans. It was my first sight and

acquaintance with Prentiss. I was charmed with his manners and

appearance. He had the most handsome head, and it sat better on his

neck and shoulders than any person I know. That was in 1843, when his

fame was world wide; yet, sir, he was as bashful, timid and quiet as a

boy of 16 in the presence of those ladies."

"At table he had nothing to say, but ate his meals quietly, almost

stealthily. But as soon as he came down in the social hall, he was

lively and chatted enough."

I could give other extracts of value and interest from this same

letter, but I will not worry you. I hope it will not be long before

this letter and other important historical manuscripts will be printed.

PRE-HISTORIC JASPER ORNAMENTS IN MISSISSIPPI

R. B. FULTON, M. A., LL. D.

In the annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1877, Dr.

Chas. Rau, under the title of "The Stock-in-Trade of an Aboriginal

Lapidary," emphasizes his conjecture "that among the aborigines certain

individuals who were by inclination or practice particularly qualified

for a distinct kind of manual labor, devoted themselves principally

or entirely to that labor." He referred to several instances where,

in certain localities, finds of a large number of similarly wrought

specimens of work in stone seemed to indicate that each set of

specimens came from the hands of a special lapidary.

One of the most remarkable of these deposits was found in Lawrence

County, Mississippi, in 1875, and was carefully described by Dr. Rau.

It consisted of 469 imperfectly finished objects made by chipping,

cutting and grinding out of reddish or orange-colored or brown jasper

pebbles, and was found accidentally about two and one-half feet below

the surface of the ground in the northern part of Lawrence County,[67]

The objects were evidently intended for ornaments, and when finished

all would have been polished and probably perforated. The majority

were cylindrical in shape, and varied from one-fourth to one inch in

diameter and from one-fourth to three inches in length. Others were

roughly fashioned into ornamental shapes. Several showed an attempt at

perforation, and one, not received at the National Museum, was said to

be completely perforated.

When the hardness of the material used--jasper--is considered, the

patience and skill needed to give their form and polish to these

objects command admiration. From the fact that only one specimen was

perforated completely, one might readily suppose that the workman found

the difficulties of this part of his undertaking too great, and buried

his unfinished work in despair.

Some time ago there came into my hands a set of similar articles found

in the county of Lincoln, Mississippi, about twenty-five miles west of

the spot where the above-mentioned find was made.

These last found objects were exhibited at the Cleveland meeting of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the hope of

learning whether similar specimens had been found, as they appeared to

me at that time to be entirely unique.

Following out suggestions made at that meeting by several gentlemen,

and afterward by two of the best informed Southern archaeologists, I

found that the above-mentioned region in Mississippi has yielded a

number of carved, polished and perforated objects of this hard red or

brown quartzite (or jasper), and nearly all such specimens of this

material which I have been able to learn about came from this region.

The collection of specimens of this style of workmanship described

by Dr. Rau probably contains the majority of pieces extant. A few

specimens of polished jasper ornaments from other States than

Mississippi are shown in the National Museum. There are two or three

specimens from Indiana, one from California, and one from Louisiana

(Claiborne Parish), which seem to be similarly made and from the same

material.

The late Dr. Joseph Jones of New Orleans had in his collection some

jasper ornaments, mostly from Mississippi, including a beautiful

ceremonial ax of reddish translucent jasper.

Besides those mentioned I have not been able to learn of other similar

objects. Probably there are a few scattered ones in other hands.

The collection of these objects in my possession includes thirty

pieces. They were found on a farm four miles west of Wesson, in Lincoln

County. And were plowed up on the summit of a hill where no earthworks

were noticed. A few other relics were found at the same time and were

not preserved. With them were two other beads, one of a gray stone and

the other of bone very truly shaped, as if in a lathe.

Among the jasper ornaments (all of which are perforated longitudinally

with holes from one-tenth to one-eighth of an inch in diameter) are

three cylinders between two and a half and three inches long and

about one-fourth of an inch in diameter; ten cylinders ranging from a

quarter to an inch and a quarter in length and less than one-quarter

in diameter; five nearly spherical beads; one accurately shaped short

cylinder three-quarters of an inch long and five-eighths in diameter,

with a well-drilled perforation three-eights of an inch in diameter;

and ten carved ornaments of various shapes. One of these, an inch

long, is a strikingly sculptured deer. Four are evidently intended for

birds, and four others resemble each other and in form are indistinctly

bird-like. A separate ring of the same material is firmly fixed on one

of the long beads.

All of the specimens have evidently seen service as personal ornaments.

They have a fine polish externally, and the interior of the borings is

worn smooth as by a string. An artistic color-perception is shown in

the beautiful variety of tints brought out in various pieces of jasper

used.

As to all these ornaments in red jasper mentioned in this paper,

comparison of the specimens forcibly suggests that they may be the work

of one skilled artist. In the western pebble belt of Mississippi, which

extends along the border of the Mississippi and Yazoo river bottoms

southward from near Memphis to Natchez, and thence eastward through the

counties in which these relics have been found, quartzite of almost

every variety occurs, and chipped implements of almost every variety

and color are common. The maker of these ornaments has passed by all

other tints save red and brown. In the cylindrical and other carved

forms that have been found there is a striking similarity both in

design and workmanship.

One will readily believe the perforation of these ornaments with small

and accurately made drillings to have been the most difficult part of

their manufacture. And yet in all the specimens seen the perforations

have been in the _longest_ direction through the ornament. The total

length of the borings in the set of thirty beads I have is twenty-eight

inches. A lapidary not remarkably expert in the art of drilling these

holes would probably have simplified his work by shorter borings,

arranging the ornaments as pendants.

Again, the rarity of any objects of carved or polished or perforated

quartzite suggests a very limited manufacture even in the region under

consideration.

As to the means used in making these perforations, drills of stone are

excluded from consideration on account of the smallness and length of

the borings.

There is one specimen in the collection of Dr. Joseph Jones of New

Orleans, in which a boring has been began, evidently with a hollow

tube as a drill, probably a joint of a reed fed with sand, as there

is a core in the centre of the boring; but hollow drills as small as

one-twelfth of an inch in diameter could scarcely have been used.

Some of the specimens described by Dr. Rau show the beginning of the

drilling process, apparently with a solid drill, fed with sand.

We are forced to the conclusion that the drilling implement used must

have been a needle of copper, or more probably of the hard outer wood

of the Southern cane tipped with quartz, or fed with sand. The borings

are about as true in direction and form as the best modern appliances

could make them.

It is worthy of note that these highly wrought jasper ornaments have

been found in that portion of Mississippi once occupied by the

Natchez, that these aboriginal people were more or less familiar

with Mexican or Aztec art and customs, and that carved and polished

workmanship in hard stones was not uncommon among the aborigines of

Mexico and Central America.[68]

SUGGESTIONS TO LOCAL HISTORIANS.

BY FRANKLIN L. RILEY, PH. D.