regard it with a latent abhorrence, compared with which the
rhetorical and open invectives of Garrison and Phillips are
feeble and tame. Anybody who has read Olmsted's truthful
narrative of his experience in the slave States can not doubt
this fact. The hatred to slavery too often finds its expression
in an almost inhuman hatred of 'niggers,' whether slave or free,
but it is none the less significant of the feelings and opinions
of the white population.
As I write, every fresh thunder of war and crash of victory is followed
by murmurs of amazement at the enthusiastic receptions which the Union
forces meet in most unexpected strongholds of the enemy, in the very
heart of slavedom. Yet it was _known_ months ago, and prophesied, with
the illustration of undeniable facts, that this counter-revolutionary
element existed. One single truth was forgotten,--that these Southern
friends of the Union, even while avowing that slavery must be supported,
had no love of it in their hearts. Emancipation has been sedulously set
aside under pretence of conciliating them; but it was needless,--'old
custom' had made them cautious, and mindful of 'expediency;' but the
mass of them hate 'the institution.' It is for the traitorous Northern
_dough-faces_, and the paltry handful of secessionists, 'on a thin slip
of land on the Atlantic,' that slavery is, at present, cherished. The
great area of the South is free from it,--and ever will be.
It has frequently been insisted on that the mere _geographical_
obstacles to disunion are such as to render the cause of slavery
hopeless in the long run. Yet to this most powerful Southern aid to the
North, men seem to have been strangely blind during the days of doubt
which so long afflicted us. These obstacles are, briefly, the enormous
growing power of the West, and its inevitable outlet, the Mississippi
river. 'For it is the mighty and free _West_ which will always hang like
a lowering thunder-cloud over them.'[N] On this subject I quote at
length from an article, in the Danville (Ky.) _Review_, by the Rev. R.
J. Breckenridge, D.D.:--
Whoever will look at a map of the United States, will observe
that Louisiana lies on both sides of the Mississippi river, and
that the States of Arkansas and Mississippi lie on the right and
left banks of this great stream--eight hundred miles of whose
lower course is thus controlled by these three States, unitedly
inhabited by hardly as many white people as inhabit the city of
New York. Observe, then, the country drained by this river and
its affluents, commencing with Missouri on its west bank and
Kentucky on its east bank. There are nine or ten powerful
States, large portions of three or four others, several large
Territories--in all, a country as large as all Europe, as fine
as any under the sun, already holding many more people than all
the revolted States, and powerful regions of the earth. Does any
one suppose that these powerful States--this great and energetic
population--will ever make a peace that will put the lower
course of this single and mighty national outlet to the sea in
the hands of a foreign government far weaker than themselves? If
there is any such person he knows little of the past history of
mankind, and will perhaps excuse us for reminding him that the
people of Kentucky, before they were constituted a State, gave
formal notice to the federal government, when Gen. Washington
was President, that if the United States did not require
Louisiana they would themselves conquer it. The mouths of the
Mississippi belong, by the gift of God, to the inhabitants of
its great valley. Nothing but irresistible force can disinherit
them.
Try another territorial aspect of the case. There is a bed of
mountains abutting on the left bank of the Ohio, which covers
all Western Virginia, and all Eastern Kentucky, to the width,
from east to west, in those two States, of three or four hundred
miles. These mountains, stretching south-westwardly, pass
entirely through Tennessee, cover the back parts of North
Carolina and Georgia, heavily invade the northern part of
Alabama, and make a figure even in the back parts of South
Carolina and the eastern parts of Mississippi, having a course
of perhaps seven or eight hundred miles, and running far south
of the northern limit of profitable cotton culture. It is a
region of 300,000 square miles, trenching upon eight or nine
slave States, though nearly destitute of slaves itself;
trenching upon at least five cotton States, though raising no
cotton itself. The western part of Maryland and two-thirds of
Pennsylvania are embraced in the north-eastern continuation of
this remarkable region. Can anything that passes under the name
of statesmanship be more preposterous than the notion of
permanent peace on this continent, founded on the abnegation of
a common and paramount government, and the idea of the
supercilious domination of the cotton interest and the
slave-trade over such a mountain empire, so located and so
peopled?
As a further proof of the utter impossibility of peace except
under a common government, and at once an illustration of the
import of what has just been stated, and the suggestion of a new
and insuperable difficulty, let it be remembered that this great
mountain region, throughout its general course, is more loyal to
the Union than any other portion of the slave States. It is the
mountain counties of Maryland that have held treason in check in
that State; it is forty mountain counties in Western Virginia
that have laid the foundation of a new and loyal commonwealth;
it is the mountain counties of Kentucky that first and most
eagerly took up arms for the Union; it is the mountain region of
Tennessee that alone, in that dishonored State, furnished
martyrs to the sacred cause of freedom; it is the mountain
people of Alabama that boldly stood out against the Confederate
government till their own leaders deserted and betrayed them.
It is not a strong point, but it is worth noting, that even in South
Carolina there is an Alleghanian area of 4,074 square miles, equal to
the State of Connecticut, in which the diminished proportion of slaves,
with other local causes, are sufficient to indicate the Union feeling
which indeed struggles there in secret. These counties are:--
FREE. SLAVE.
Spartanburgh, 18,311 8,039
Greenville, 13,370 6,691
Anderson, 13,867 7,514
Pickens, 13,105 3,679
Slavery is here large, as compared to the other counties of
'Alleghania,' but the great proportion of free inhabitants, as
contrasted with the districts near the Atlantic, makes it worth citing.
In accordance with a request, I give from Jas. W. Taylor's collection,
illustrating this subject, the table of population in East Tennessee:--
The following table, from the census of 1850, presents the slave
and cotton statistics of this district, in their relation to the
free population:
COUNTIES. FREE. SLAVE. COTTON,
400 lb. bales.
Johnson, 3,485 206 0
Carter, 5,911 353 0
Washington, 12,671 930 0
Sullivan, 10,603 1,004 153
Hancock, 5,447 202 2
Hawkins, 11,567 1,690 0
Greene, 16,526 1,093 0
Cocke, 7,501 719 3
Sevier, 6,450 403 0
Jefferson, 11,458 1,628 0
Granger, 11,170 1,035 1
Knox, 16,385 2,193 0
Union, new county,
Claiborne, 8,610 660 0
Anderson, 6,391 503 0
Campbell, 5,651 318 1
Scott, 1,808 37 0
Morgan, 3,301 101 9
Cumberland, new county,
Roane, 10,525 1,544 121
Blount, 11,213 1,084 6
Munroe, 10,623 1,188 0
McMinn, 12,286 1,568 2,821
Polk, 5,884 400 29
Bradley, 11,478 744 1,600
Meigs, 4,480 395 2
Hamilton, 9,216 672 0
Rhea, 3,951 436 0
Bledsoe, 5,036 827 0
Sequatche, new county,
Van Buren, 2,481 175 2
Grundy, 2,522 236 24
Marion, 5,718 551 24,413
Franklin, 10,085 3,623 637
Lincoln, 17,802 5,621 2,576
The geographical order of the foregoing list of counties is from
the extreme north-east--Johnson--south-west to Lincoln, on the
Alabama line. I have included a tier of counties the west, which
embrace the summits and western slopes of the Cumberland Hills,
regarding their physical and political features as more
identified with East than Middle Tennessee. Such are Lincoln,
Franklin, Grundy, Van Buren, Cumberland, Morgan and Scott
counties.
I estimate the area of this district as about 17,175 square
miles, an extent of territory exceeding the aggregate of the
following States:
Massachusetts, 7,800 square miles.
Connecticut, 4,674 square miles.
Rhode Island, l,306 square miles.
------
13,180 square miles.
Yet it is not many months since even this Tennessee region, it was
generally feared, would be false to the Union, on account of its
attachment to slavery.
The reader who has studied the facts which I have cited, indicating the
existence of a powerful Union party at the South (and the facts are few
and weak compared to the vast mass which exist, and which are known to
government), may judge for himself whether that party is Union _in spite
of pro-slavery principles_, as so many would have us believe. Let him
see where these Union men are found, where they have come forth with the
greatest enthusiasm, and _then_ say that he believes they are friends to
slavery. Let him bear in mind the hundreds of thousands of acres, the
vast tracts, equal in extent to whole Northern States, in the South,
which are unfitted for slave labor, and reflect whether the inhabitants
of these cool, temperate regions are not as conscious of their
inadaptability to slave labor as he is himself; and whether _they_ are
so much attached to the institution which fosters the Satanic pride,
panders to the passions, and corrupts the children of the planter of the
low country.
Since writing the above, the long-expected declaration of President
LINCOLN has appeared in favor of adopting a plan which may lead to the
gradual abolishment of slavery. He proposes that the United States shall
cooeperate with such slave States as may desire Emancipation, by giving
such pecuniary aid as may compensate for any losses incurred. No
interference with State rights or claims to rights in the question is
intended.
It is evident that this message is directed entirely to the
strengthening and building up of the Union party of the South, and has
been based quite as much on their demands and on a knowledge of their
needs, as on any Northern pressure. And it will have a sure effect. It
will bring to life, if realized, those seeds of counter-revolution which
so abundantly exist in the South. The growth may be slow, but it will be
certain. So long as the certainty exists that compensation _may_ be
obtained, there will be a party who will long for it; and where there is
a will there is a way. The executive has finally _officially_ recognized
the truth of the theory of Emancipation, and thereby entitled itself to
the honor of having taken the greatest forward step in the glorious path
of Freedom ever made even in our history.
* * * * *
THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.
NO. I.
In addressing you for the first time, you will perhaps expect me to give
some account of myself and my ancestry, as did the illustrious
_Spectator_.
My remote ancestors are Irish. From them I inherited enthusiasm, a
gun-powder temper, a propensity to blunder, and a name--Molly O'Molly.
The origin of this name I have in vain endeavored to trace in history,
perhaps because it belonged to a very old family, one of the
_prehistorics_. As such it might have been that of a demigod, or,
according to the development theory, of a _demi-man_. Or it might have
been that of an old Irish gentleman, _gentle_ in truth;--in the
formative stage of society it is the monster that leaves traces of
himself, as in an old geologic period the huge reptile left his tracks
in the plastic earth, which afterward hardened into rock.
Then, too, I have searched in vain for anything like it in ancient Irish
poetry, thinking that my progenitor's name might have been therein
embalmed. 'The stony science'--mind you--reveals to us the former
existence of the huge reptile, the fragmentary, mighty mastodon, and,
imperfect, the mail-clad fish. But, wonder of wonders, we find the whole
_insect_ preserved in that fossil gum amber. And even so in verse,
characters are preserved for all time, that could not make their mark in
history, and that had none of the elements of an earthly immortality.
Did I wish immortality I would choose a poet for my friend;--an _In
Memoriam_ is worth all the records of the dry chronicler.
But, it is not with the root of the family tree that you have to do, but
with the twig Myself.
As for my physique,--I am not like the scripture personage who beheld
his face in a glass, and straightway forgot what manner of man he was. I
have, on the contrary, a very distinct recollection of my face; suffice
it to say, that, had I Rafaelle's pencil, I would not, like him, employ
it on my own portrait.
And my life--the circumstances which have influenced, or rather created
its currents, have been trifling; not that it has had no powerful
currents; it is said that the equilibrium of the whole ocean could be
destroyed by a single mollusk or coralline,--but my life has been an
uneventful one. I never met with an adventure, never even had a
hair-breadth escape,--yes, I did, too, have one hair-breadth escape. I
once just grazed matrimony. The truth is, I fell in love, and was
sinking with Falstaff's 'alacrity,' when I was fished out; but somehow I
slipt off the hook--fortunately, however, was left on shore. By the way,
the best way to get out of love is to be drawn out by the matrimonial
hook. One of Holmes' characters wished to change a vowel of the verb _to
love_, and conjugate it--I have forgotten how far. Where two set out to
conjugate together the verb to love in the first person plural, it is
well if they do not, before the honey-moon is over, get to the
present-perfect, indicative. Alas! I have thus far, in the first person
singular, conjugated too many verbs, among them _to enjoy_. As for _to
be_, I have come to the balancing in my mind of the question that so
perplexed Hamlet--'To be, or not to be.' For, with all the natural
cheerfulness of my disposition, I can not help sometimes looking on the
dark side of life. But there is no use in setting down my gloomy
reflections,--all have them. We are all surrounded by an atmosphere of
misery, pressing on us fifteen pounds to the square inch, so evenly and
constantly that we know not its fearful weight. To change the figure.
Have you ever thought how much misery one life _can_ hold in solution?
Each year, as it flows into it, adds to it a heaviness, a weight of woe,
as the rivers add salts to the ocean. I do not refer to the most
unhappy, but to all. Some one says,--
'If singing breath, if echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven.'
If breath to every hidden prayer were given, could it be _singing_
breath? Would it not be a wail monotonous as the dirge of the November
wind over the dead summer, a wail for lost hopes, lost joys, lost loves?
Or the monotony would be varied--as is the wind by fitful gusts--by
shrieks of despair, cries of agony. No, no, there is no use in trying to
modulate our woes,--'we're all wrong,--the _time_ in us is lost.'
'Henceforth I'll bear
Affliction, till it do cry out itself,
"Enough, enough," and die.'
But why talk thus? why mourn over dead hopes, dead joys, dead loves?
'Tis best to bury the dead out of our sight, and from them will spring
many humbler hopes, quieter joys, more lowly affections, which 'smell
sweet' though they 'blossom in the dust,' and they are the only
resurrection these dead ones can ever have. I have been reading, in
Maury's Geography of the Sea, how the sea's dead are preserved; how they
stand like enchanted warders of the treasures of the deep, unchanged,
except that the expression of life is exchanged for the ghastliness of
death. So, down beneath the surface currents do some deep souls preserve
their dead hopes, joys, loves. Oh, this is unwise; this is _not_ as God
intended; for, unlike the sea's dead, there will be for these no
resurrection.
Thus far I wrote, when the current of my thoughts was changed by a
lively tune struck up by a hand-organ across the street. I am not 'good'
at distinguishing tunes, but this one I had so often heard in childhood,
and had so wondered at its strange title, that I could but remember it.
It was 'The Devil's Dream.' Were I a poet, I would write the words to
it;--but then, too, I would need be a musician to compose a suitable new
tune to the words! The rattling, reckless notes should be varied by
those sad enough to make an unlost angel weep--an unlost angel, for, to
the hot eyes of the lost, no tears can come. 'The _Devil's_
Dream'--perhaps it is of Heaven. Doubtless, frescoed in heavenly colors
on the walls of his memory, are scenes from which fancy has but to brush
the smoke and grime of perdition to restore them to almost their
original beauty. I could even pity the 'Father of lies,' the 'Essence of
evil,' the 'Enemy of mankind,' when I think of the terrible awaking. But
does _he_ ever sleep? Has there since the fall been a pause in _his_
labors? Perhaps the reason this tune-time is so fast is because he is
dreaming in a hurry,--must soon be up and doing. But it is my opinion
that he has so wound up the world to wickedness, that he might sleep a
hundred years, and it would have scarcely begun to run down on his
awaking; when, from the familiar appearance of all things, he would
swear 'it was but an after-dinner nap.' Indeed he might die, might
to-day go out in utter nothingness like a falling star, and it would be
away in the year two thousand before he would be missed,--we have
learned to do our own devil-work so rarely. Meanwhile the well-wound
world--as a music-box plays over the same tunes--would go on sinning
over the same old sins. Satan is a great economist, but a paltry
deviser,--he has not invented a new sin since the flood. My thoughts
thus danced along to the music, when they were brought to a dead stop by
its cessation; and it was time, you will think....
But, permit me to remind you that my name is not _acquired_, but
_inherited_.
At your service,
MOLLY O'MOLLY.
NO. II.
I detest that man who bides his time to repay a wrong or fancied wrong,
who keeps alive in his hardened nature the vile thing hatred, and would
for centuries, did he live thus long,--as the toad is kept alive in the
solid rock. Hugh Miller says he is 'disposed to regard the poison bag of
the serpent as a mark of degradation;' this venomous spite is certainly
a mark of degradation, and it is only creeping, crawling souls that have
it, but the creeping and crawling are a part of the curse.
Yet I have a respect for honest indignation, righteous anger, such as
the O'Mollys have ever been capable of. And all the O'Molly blood in my
veins has been stirred by the contemptuous manner in which some men have
spoken of woman. 'Weak woman,--inconstant woman;' they have made the
wind a type of her fickleness. In this they are right; for it has been
proved that the seasons in their return, day and night, are not more
sure than the wind. Such fickleness as this is preferable to _man's_
greatest constancy. Woman weak! she's gentle as the summer breeze, I
grant;--but, like this same breeze, when she's roused--then beware! You
have doubtless heard of that gale that forced back the Gulf Stream, and
piled it up thirty feet at its source.
Take care how you sour woman's nature,--remember that, once soured, all
the honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as
making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of
vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process?
Grumbling--everlasting fault-finding--at breakfast, dinner, and supper,
the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he
is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the
head of the table is a very different-looking individual from the meek
woman he afterwards calls wife,--not a word can he say, though he
morning after morning, in his breakfast, recognizes, through its various
disguises, yesterday's dinner. By the way, this is after Dame Nature's
plan; she uses the greatest economy in feeding her immense family of
boarders; never wastes a refuse scrap, or even a drop of water. If one
of these boarders dies, it is true he is not, like 'the poor work-house
boy,' served up as one dish, but he becomes an ingredient in many 'a
dainty dish' fit to 'to set before a king.' But I am not, like 'Miss
Ophelia' in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' going to explore the good dame's
kitchen,--will rather eat what is set before me, asking no questions;
which last, what _man_ ever did, if he could help it?
For an insignificant man, originally but a cipher, who owes it to his
wife that he is even the fraction that he is, to talk about 'woman
knowing her place--he's head,' etc.! If he had given her the place that
belonged to her, their value, not as individual figures, but as one
number, would have been increased a thousand fold. I have made a
calculation, and this is literally true, or rather, you will say,
_figuratively_ true. Well, this kind of figures can not lie.
'The rose,' the Burmese say, 'imparts fragrance to the leaf in which it
is folded.' Many a man has had a sweetness imparted to his character by
the woman he has sheltered in his bosom--though some characters 'not all
the perfume of Arabia could sweeten;' and, strange as it seem, most
women would rather be folded in a _tobacco_ leaf than 'waste their
sweetness on desert air.' Though it is a long time since I have been a
man _lover_, I am not a man _hater_. I can not hate anything that has
been so hallowed by woman's love,--_its_ magnetism gives a sort of
attractive power to him.
Notwithstanding all that has been said about woman's weakness, it is
acknowledged that she has a pretty strong will of her own. Well, we need
a strong will,--it is the great _centrifugal force_ that God has given
to all. Only it must be subordinate to the _centripetal force_ of the
universe--the Divine will.
It is said that the centripetal force of our solar system is the Pleiad
Alcyon. I know not whether the other stars of that cluster feel this
attraction; if they do, what a centrifugal force the lost Pleiad must
have had, to break away from 'the sweet influences' which, through so
immense a distance, draw the sun with all his train. This is not without
a parallel--when 'the morning stars sang together' over the new-born
earth, one 'star of the morning' was not there to join in the chorus.
But Old Sol will probably never so strongly assert _his_ centrifugality
as to set such an example of _secession_ to his planets and comets.
Pardon this astronomical digression. I have just returned from hearing
an itinerant lecturer, and it will take a week to get the smoke of his
magic lantern out of my eyes. If there is any error in these
observations, blame the itinerant, not me.
I had been low-spirited all day, had tried reading, work,--all of no
avail. Dyspeptic views of life would present themselves to my mind. Some
natures, and mine is of them, like the pendulum, need a weight attached
to them to keep them from going too fast. But a wholesome sorrow is very
different from this moping melancholy, when the thoughts run in one
direction, till they almost wear a channel for themselves--when the
channel is worn, there is _insanity_.
Neither are my gloomy religious views to-day those that will regenerate
the world. Those lines of Dr. Watts,--'We should suspect some danger
nigh When we possess delight,'--it is said, were written after a
disappointment in love--it was 'sour grapes' that morning--with the
grave divine.
As a general rule, where we possess _continued_ delight, there is no
'danger nigh.' Where an enjoyment comes between us and our God, it casts
on us a shadow. When we have plucked a beautiful flower, if poisonous,
it has such a sickening odor that we fling it from us. We do not 'pay
too dear for our whistle,' unless it costs us a sin; then it soon
becomes a loathed and useless toy. Otherwise, the dearer we pay, the
sweeter its music.