Evidences are constantly multiplying that American history is a subject
which has not lost its interest to investigators or to readers. During
the past month four distinct works, namely, the fifth volume of Von
Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, the third of
Schouler's History of the United States, the second of McMaster's
History of the People of the United States, and also a new volume of
Hubert Howe Bancroft's History of the Pacific States, have been
published, and are destined, no doubt, to take their places as
"standards." This diligence on the part of their respective writers, and
the interest in them manifested by the great public is commendable, and
in a measure dispels the oft-repeated saying that Americans are a nation
of novel-readers.
It is gratifying, also, to record another fact. During the third week in
July the Old South lectures for young people, illustrative of "The War
for the Union," were inaugurated in Boston. The ancient "meeting-house"
was crowded with earnest students to hear the first lecture on slavery,
delivered by William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. The speaker gave a vivid sketch
of the chief events of the anti-slavery movement, and of the part taken
by George Thompson, Garrison, Phillips, Whittier, and Harriet Martineau.
* * * * *
Students of the anti-slavery struggle should not forget, however, how
much the success of that struggle was due to Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman,
whose death occurred at Weymouth, Mass., on July 12. She was not only a
_magna pars_ of the struggle, but one of the most remarkable women
of our time. Mrs. Maria Child used to relate how Mrs. Chapman, clad in
the height of fashion of that day, came into the first anti-slavery
fair, an entire stranger to every one present. "She looked around over
the few tables, scantily supplied, and stopped by some faded artificial
flowers. The poor commodity only indicated the utter poverty of means to
carry on the work. We thought her a spy, or maybe she was a
slave-holder." From that time she entered heartily into the work. She
became the life of the Female Anti-slavery Society in Boston, she spoke
often in public; her pen was never idle when it could advance the cause
of equal rights and freedom.
Mr. Lowell, in his rhymed letter, descriptive of an anti-slavery bazaar
at Faneuil Hall, and the celebrities of the cause there assembled, drew
the portrait of this gifted woman with his usual felicitous touch:--
"There was Maria Chapman, too,
With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue,
The coiled up mainspring of the Fair,
Originating everywhere
The expansive force, without a sound,
That whirls a hundred wheels around;
Herself meanwhile as calm and still
As the bare crown of Prospect Hill;
A noble woman, brave and apt,
Cumæa's sybil not more rapt,
Who might, with those fair tresses shorn,
'The Maid of Orlean' casque have worn;
Herself the Joan of our Arc,
For every shaft a shining mark."
* * * * *
It is one thing to be a good ship-builder for the government, and quite
another thing to be in favor with the Secretary of the Navy, at
Washington. This is the lesson, and the only lesson, which can be
deduced from the two dispatches which have been transmitted over the
country, namely: that the "Dolphin" has been rejected, and that John
Roach, her builder, has failed.
The case has its value as a warning to American ship-builders. They are
given to understand that the closest compliance with the requisitions of
the department in the process of constructing a vessel, and that under
the direction of experts, perfectly competent to determine what is good
work and what is bad, will avail them nothing unless they are in favor
with the Secretary when the vessel is offered for acceptance. And they
are warned that the Department of Justice holds it perfectly legal for
the Navy Department to lay upon them such conditions as to construction
as must determine the capacity of the vessel for speed, and yet reject
the vessel as not fast enough. They may be fined heavily for not having
used their discretion, and yet may have been denied discretion as to the
plans used.
It will be remembered by all who have watched the case, that the
"Dolphin" was found satisfactory and in full accordance with the terms
of the contract by one naval board, and that it was then condemned by
another board of no greater weight or capacity. If this fact be
remembered, it should be weighed with the full understanding that naval
officers, chosen by Mr. Whitney for this service, are just as much
dependents of the new Secretary as their predecessors were of Mr.
Chandler. The last set of officials, as experts, were not superior to
those which constituted the first; and yet Mr. Whitney bases his refusal
to accept the vessel upon the contradiction of the first report to the
second. If the first report was worthless, why not the second, in the
light of all the facts?
What is needed to-day is a board of examiners fully competent to
pronounce on the merits, of not only the "Dolphin" but of any and
every other ship that shall be built, and fully sundered from, and
independent of, political and official relations with the Navy
Department. The nearest approach to this is the report of the body of
experts--ship-builders, and ship-captains, experts in ship's materials,
and the like--whom Mr. Roach invited to examine the "Dolphin." The
report of these gentlemen flatly contradicts Mr. Whitney's board on
points which are matters of fact, and not of opinion, and therefore
throws the burden of proof upon Mr. Whitney himself. Until some equally
unpolitical and unofficial body refutes it, the treatment Mr. Roach has
received will be set down to other motives than the best.
* * * * *
The republic at last bows its head in sorrow at the death of its
greatest citizen. In awe and admiration it honors the character which,
heroic to the last, has never been more conspicuously shown than during
the months of that depressing illness, the end of which must have been
to him a welcome entering into rest.
The same unquailing courage, and the same calm, grim fortitude which
shed their fadeless lustre upon his whole extraordinary career were
evinced by General Grant at the last moments of his life. For months the
nation has hung over his bedside, awaiting the silent foot-fall of the
unseen conqueror of all that is mortal.
The nation's loss is not measured by the vacant place. For nearly a
decade General Grant had been only a private citizen, wielding no
sceptre of authority, and exercising no sway in the public councils. And
yet his going is a loss; for he was everywhere felt, not merely by what
he had done, but by what he was,--one of the great reserve forces of our
national commonwealth.
"Great men," said Burke, "are the guideposts and landmarks of the
State." General Grant was the guidepost of a victorious war, and a
landmark of a magnanimous peace. A pillar of strength has fallen; and
yet a broken shaft is not the fit emblem of his life. It is a finished
and splendid column, crowned with its full glory.
The chieftain is dead. The American people themselves will now judge
him, after the calm evening and the serene repose of retirement, more
justly than in the stress and storm of struggle. The asperities of angry
contentions have passed; the flaws have faded, and the blemishes are
dimmed, while the splendor of General Grant's achievements and the
simple grandeur of his character have gained a brighter halo as the
years have rolled by. The clouds and the smoke of battle have long since
lifted; the fragments and the scenes are swallowed in the majestic
drama; and to-day we see the hero elevated on his true pedestal of fame
through the just perspective of history.
It is given to few men to bear suffering with the fortitude displayed by
the departed hero; it is given to fewer still to await in patience and
without complaint the certain issue of suffering in death. But it is
neither his fortitude, nor his patience, nor his touching solicitude,
nor his unselfish industry which distinguished him in an almost unique
degree. It was rather, in one word, his simplicity, his strong but
unpretentious character, and his firm but magnanimous nature.
Of such, plainly, is the kingdom of Heaven, and it is a national glory
that of such, too, in the instance of General Grant, the American people
was never neglectful.
* * * * *
If every person who is inclined to attribute to Socialism all the
discontent now prevalent among the laboring classes of this country,
would carefully read Mr. Laurence Gronlund's remarkable book, entitled,
_The Coöperative Commonwealth_,--an exposition of modern
Socialism,--he would perhaps awaken to a comprehension of the fact that
true Socialism is neither communism, nor lawlessness, nor anarchy. We
wish this book could be scattered, by millions, among the intelligent
people of this land, if for no other purpose than to root out many of
the false ideas which are current, as well as to inculcate a logical
explanation of much that is transpiring at the present moment.
We are told that at least 30,000 laborers are out of work in Cincinnati,
and that full as many are unemployed in Chicago. The same state of
affairs prevails in other large cities. These people, we are also told
by the newspapers, are "exposed to the designs of socialistic leaders,
and liable to embrace their dangerous schemes." Hence, it is to be
inferred, of course, that timely measures should be instituted to "guard
the unreflecting against socialistic theories and measures."
Despair sometimes calls for a desperate remedy. When men are in physical
or financial distress they _are_ apt to lose their heads, so to
speak, and to be subject to the wildest delusions and hallucinations. A
great many of the unfortunates now out of employment have been already
reduced to misery and want; but it is a mistake to suppose that the
philosophy of Socialism can afford them any relief or consolation, or
that it can incite them to mad deeds of violence. There are certain
demagogues in this country who, assuming to be Socialists, are ready to
stir up the popular mind, even to the shedding of blood; but such men
are few in numbers, and wield only a limited influence.
Now, Socialism holds that the impending reconstruction of society, which
Huxley predicts, will be brought about by the logic of events, and
teaches that the coming revolution, which every intelligent mind must
foresee, is strictly an evolution. Socialists of this school reason from
no assumed first principle, like the French, who start from "social
equality," or like Herbert Spencer, who lays it down as an axiom that
"every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes
not the like freedom of every other man;" but basing themselves squarely
on _experience_,--not individual but universal experience,--they
can, and do present clear-cut, definite solutions.
It is this true _German_ Socialism which Mr. Gronlund, in the work
previously alluded to, very clearly presents, and which should be more
generally understood than it is.
Apropos of the subject, it will not be amiss to recall a statement made
by Frederic Harrison, namely:--
"The working-class is the only class which is not a class. It is the
nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the
other classes only represent special organs. These organs, no doubt,
have great and indispensable functions, but for most purposes of
government the state consists of the vast laboring majority. Its welfare
depends on what their lives are like."