THE DUTY
OF
AMERICAN WOMEN
TO THEIR
COUNTRY.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST.
1845.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New-York.
THE DUTY OF AMERICAN WOMEN TO THEIR COUNTRY.
My countrywomen, you often hear it said that _intelligence and virtue_
are indispensable to the safety of a democratic government like ours,
where _the people_ hold all the power. You hear it said, too, that our
country is in great peril from the want of this intelligence and virtue.
But these words make a faint impression, and it is the object of what
follows to convey these truths more vividly to your minds.
This will be attempted, by presenting some recent events, in a country
where a government similar to our own was undertaken, by a people
destitute of that intelligence and virtue so indispensable; and then it
will be shown that similar dangers are impending over our own country.
The grand point to be illustrated is, that a people without education
have not intelligence enough to know what measures will secure safety and
prosperity, nor virtue enough to pursue even what they know to be right,
so that, when possessed of power, they will adopt ruinous measures, be
excited by base passions, and be governed by wicked and cruel men.
Look, then, at France during that awful period called _the Reign of
Terror_. First, observe the process by which the power passed into the
hands of the people. An extravagant king, a selfish aristocracy, an
exacting priesthood, had absorbed all the wealth, honour, and power,
until the people were ground to the dust. All offices of trust and
emolument were in the hands of the privileged few, all laws made for
their benefit, all monopolies held for their profit, while the common
people were condemned to heavy toils, with returns not sufficient to
supply the necessities of life, so that, in some districts, famine began
to stalk through the land.
Speedily the press began to unfold these wrongs, and at the same time,
Lafayette and his brave associates returned from our shores, and spread
all over the nation enthusiastic accounts of happy America, where the
people govern themselves, unoppressed by monopoly, or king, or noble, or
priest. The press teems with exciting pages, and orators inflame the
public mind to a tempest of enthusiasm. The court and the aristocratic
party cower before the storm; and ere long, the eleven hundred
representatives of the people are seen marching, in solemn pomp, through
the streets of the capital, while the whole land rings with acclamations
of joy. They take their seats, on an equality with nobles and king, and
proceed to form a constitution, securing the rights of the people. It is
adopted, and sworn to, by the whole nation, with transports and songs,
while they vainly imagine that all their troubles are at an end. But
the representatives, chosen by the people, had not the wisdom requisite
for such arduous duties as were committed to them, nor had the people
themselves the intelligence and virtue indispensable for such a change.
Men of integrity and ability were not selected for the new offices
created. Fraud, peculation, rapine, and profusion abounded. Everything
went wrong, and soon the country was more distressed than ever. “What is
the cause of this?” the people demand of their representatives. “It is
the _aristocrats_,” is the reply; “it is the king; it is the nobles; it
is the clergy. They oppose and thwart all our measures; they will not
allow our new Constitution to work, and therefore it is that you suffer.”
And so the people are filled with rage at those whom they suppose to
be the cause of their disappointment and sufferings. The clergy first
met the storm. “These bishops and priests, with their vast estates, and
splendid mansions, and rich incomes--they beggar the people, that they
may riot on the spoil.” And so the populace rage and thunder around the
national Hall of Legislation till they carry their point, and laws are
passed confiscating the property of the clergy, and driving them to
exile or death. Their vast estates pass into the control of the National
Legislature, and for a time, abundance and profusion reign. The people
have bread, and the office-seekers gain immense spoils. But no wisdom
or honesty is found to administer these millions for the good of the
people. In a short time, all is gone; distress again lashes the people to
madness, and again they demand why they do not gain the promised plenty
and prosperity. “_It is the aristocrats_,” is the reply; “it is the king;
it is the nobles; it is the rich men. They oppose all our measures,
therefore nothing succeeds, and the people are distressed.”
Next, the nobles meet the storm. “They are traitors; they are enemies of
the people; they are plotting against our liberties; they are living in
palaces, and rolling in splendid carriages from the hard earnings of the
poor.” The populace rage against them all over the land. They besiege the
House of Representatives; they beseech--they threaten. At last they carry
their point; the estates of the nobles are seized; they are declared
traitors, and doomed to banishment or death. Again millions are placed
at the control of the people’s agents. It is calculated that by this and
former confiscations, more than _a thousand millions_ of dollars were
seized for the use of the people. Again fraud, peculation, profusion, and
mismanagement abound, till all this incomprehensible treasure vanishes
away.
Meantime, all the laws have been altered; all the property has passed
from its wonted owners to new hands; the wealthy, educated, and noble
are down; the poor, the ignorant, the base hold the offices, wealth, and
power. Everything is mismanaged. Everything goes wrong. The people grow
distracted with their sufferings, and again demand the cause. “It is the
king; it is his extravagant Austrian queen, who rules him and his court.
They thwart all our measures. They are sending to brother kings for
soldiers to crush our liberties. They are gathering armies on our borders
to overwhelm us.”
Next, the helpless king and his family become the mark for popular
rage. Every indignity and insult was inflicted and borne with a patient
fortitude that extorted admiration, till finally the king is first led
forth to a bloody death; next the queen is sacrificed; next the virtuous
sister of the king; and, last, the little dauphin is barbarously murdered.
Still misery rules through the nation. The friends of the king and former
government, and all the peaceable citizens and supporters of order, are
called _aristocrats_, and every art devised to render them objects of
fear, suspicion, and hatred, especially such of them as hold property
to tempt the cupidity of the people. Through the whole land two parties
exist; one the distressed, bewildered, exasperated people, raging for
their rights, and driven to madness by the fancied opposition of
aristocrats; the other a trembling, cowering minority, suffering insult,
and fear, and robbery, and often a cruel death.
And now priests and nobles and king and queen are all gone, and yet
the people are more distressed than ever before. Amid these scenes of
violence, confusion, and misrule, confidence has ceased, commerce has
furled the sail, trade has closed the door, manufactures ceased their
din, and agriculture forsaken the plough.
There is no money, no credit, no confidence, no employment, no bread.
Famine, and pestilence, and grief, and rage, and despair brood over the
land. Again the people cry to their representatives, “Why do you not give
us the promised prosperity and plenty? We have nothing to eat, nothing to
wear; our business and trades are at an end. The nations around us are
gathering to devour us, and what is the cause of all these woes?”
“It is the Girondists,” is the reply; “it is this party among the
people’s representatives. They are traitors; they have been bribed; they
have joined with foreign aristocrats and kings. They interrupt all our
measures, and they are the cause of all your sufferings.”
And now the people turn their rage upon the most intelligent and
well-meaning portion of their representatives, who have been striving to
stem the worst excesses of those who yield entirely to the dictation of
the mob. After a period of storms and threats and violence, at length
a majority is gained against them, and a decree is passed condemning
a large portion of the National Legislature as traitors, while their
leaders are borne forth by the exulting mob to a bloody death. Still
the distress of the people is unrelieved, and again they clamour for
the cause. “It is the party opposed to us,” say the Jacobins, with
Robespierre at their head; “they are the traitors; they will not adopt
the measures which will save the people from these ills.”
“Cut them down!” cries the populace; and again another portion of the
people’s representatives are led forth to death.
And now Robespierre, the leader of the lowest mob of all, is supreme
dictator, and all power is lodged with this coldest-blooded ruffian that
ever doomed his fellow-beings to a violent death. This was _the Reign
of Terror_, when the mob had gained complete mastery, and this man, its
advocate and organ, administered its awful energies. Look, then, for a
moment, at the picture.
But the horrors of this period are so incredible, the atrocities so
monstrous, that the tale will be regarded with distrust, without some
previous indication of the causes which led to such results.
Let it be remembered, then, that this whole revolutionary movement was,
in fact, a war of the common people upon the classes above them. Let
it be remembered, too, that the French people, by the press, and by
emissaries all over Europe, had invoked the lower classes of all nations
to make common cause with them. “War to the palace, and peace to the
cottage,” was their watchword. Every throne began to shake, and every
person of rank, talents, and wealth felt his own safety involved in the
contest. It was thus that the revolutionary leaders felt that they were
contending for their lives, against the whole wealth, aristocracy, and
monarchical power of Europe.
In France itself, individual ambition, hate, envy, or vengeance added
fearful power to this war of contending classes. Not only every leader,
but every individual, found in the opposing party some rival to displace,
or some private grudge to revenge, while ten thousand aspirants for
office demanded sacrifices, in order to secure vacated places. At last
the struggle became so imbittered and desperate, that each man looked
out only for himself. Friend gave up friend to save his own life, or
to secure political advancement, till confidence between man and man
perished, and society became a mass of warring elements, excited by every
dreadful passion.
Few men are deliberately cruel from the mere love of cruelty. Thousands,
under the influence of fear, revenge, ambition, or hate, become selfish,
reckless, and cruel. When, too, in conflicts where men feel that by the
hands of opponents they have lost property, home, honour, and country;
when they have seen their dearest friends slaughtered or starved, then,
when the hour of retaliation arrives, pity and sympathy are dead, and
every baleful passion rages. Thus almost every man in the conflict had
suffered: if a democrat, from those above him; if an aristocrat, from
those below him.
Meantime, religion, that powerful principle in humanizing and restraining
bad passions, had well-nigh taken her flight. The war upon the clergy at
length turned to a war upon the religion they represented, till atheism
became the prevailing principle of the nation.
By a public act, the leaders of the people declared their determination
“to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the monarchs of the earth.”
For this end, the apostate clergy, put in the places of those exiled,
were induced to come before the bar of the National Legislature and
publicly abjure Christianity, and declare that “no other national
religion was now required but liberty, equality, and morality.”
On this occasion, crowds of drunken artisans appeared before the bar of
the house, trampling under foot the cross, the sacramental vases, and
other emblems of religious faith. A vile woman, dressed as the Goddess of
Reason, was publicly embraced by the presiding officer of the National
Legislature, and conducted by him to a magnificent car, and followed
by immense crowds to the grand Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, where she was
seated on an altar, and there received the worship of the multitudes.
The Sabbath, by a national decree, was abolished; the Bible was burned
publicly by the executioner; and on the graveyards was inscribed, “Death
is an eternal sleep!”
At Lyons, a similar scene was enacted, where a fête in honour of Liberty
was celebrated. The churches were all closed, the Decade, or Sabbath
of Reason, proclaimed, and an image of a vile character was carried
in procession, followed by vast crowds, shouting, “Down with the
aristocrats! Long life to the guillotine!” After the image came an ass,
bearing the Cross, the Bible, and the communion service; and these were
led to an altar, where a fire was lighted, the Cross and Bible burned,
the communion bread trampled under foot, and the ass made to drink out of
the communion cup. Wherever democracy reigned, the services of religion
were interrupted, the burial service vanished, baptisms ceased, the sick
and dying were unconsoled by religion, while every species of vice,
obscenity, and licentiousness were practised without concealment or
control. The establishments for charity, the hospitals, and all humane
institutions were swept away, and their funds seized by the agents of
the people. Even the sepulchres of the dead were upturned. The noble,
the wise, and the ancient, the barons of feudal ages, the heroes of
the Crusades, the military chieftains, the ancient kings, resting in
long-hallowed tombs, the mightiest monarchs of the nation, the “chief
ones of the earth,” were moved from their rest, and rose to meet the
coming of this awful day, while the treasures of their tombs were rifled
by vulgar hands, and their very sculls kicked around as footballs for
sport.
Meantime the sovereigns of Europe were making preparations to meet this
flood of democratic lava, which threatened to overflow every surrounding
land. Vast armies began to gather on every side, and avenging navies
hovered along the shores. This added the fervour of patriotic devotion to
the mania of democracy.
“Ye sons of France! awake to glory!
Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
Behold their tears, and hear their cries!
Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding,
With hireling hosts, a ruffian band,
Affright and desolate our land,
While Peace and Liberty lie bleeding?
To arms! to arms! ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheath!
March on! march on! to victory or death!”
These inspiring sentiments, sung in the thrilling notes of the Marseilles
Hymn, were echoed from one end of the land to the other, awakening a
whirlwind of enthusiasm. The wants of thousands thrown out of employ,
joined with the excitement of patriotism, raised an army unparalleled
in numbers. It is calculated that, at one time, one million two hundred
thousand Frenchmen were thus enrolled, and at the command of the National
Legislature, while the millions of property, not otherwise squandered,
were employed to clothe, feed, and equip this incomprehensible multitude.
All France was bristling like an armed field; while every mandate of
government, backed as it was by such a military force, was utterly
resistless. Thus it was that the _Reign of Terror_ was so silent, awful,
and hopeless.
Behold, then, through the terror-stricken and miserable land, the
national troops employed in arresting every person suspected of
favouring aristocracy, or conspicuous as the holder of wealth, or
object of hate, envy, or suspicion to all in the possession of power.
Behold the prisons of the capital, of the provincial cities, and of the
country villages, crammed to overflowing with the rich, the noble, and
the learned. No regard was paid to station, age, or sex. Gray hairs
and blooming childhood, stern warriors and beautiful maidens, coarse
labourers and noble matrons, were huddled together into the damps, and
filth, and darkness of a common dungeon, while the _guillotine_ daily
toiled in its bloody work of death.
Whenever a fresh supply of funds was demanded for the national service,
a new alarm of _invasion_ or of _counter-revolution_ was spread, and
then followed new arrests of those suspected, or of those who held
any species of wealth. In disposing of captives to make room for new
supplies, some were poniarded in prison, some shot, and some guillotined.
At last, it was found needful to adopt a more summary method, and the
National Legislature decreed that the land must be cleared of traitors
and aristocrats, not by trial and single execution, but by a slaughter
of masses. A corps was formed of the most determined and bloodthirsty,
and sent all over the land to execute this mandate. In carrying out
this unparalleled system of cold-blooded murder, various modes were
adopted. One was called the _Republican Baptism_, by which men, women,
and children were placed in a vessel with a trap-door in the bottom,
and carried out into the midst of the waves; then the trap-door was
opened, and the crew, getting into a boat, left their victims to perish.
Another method was called the _Republican Marriage_. By this, two of the
opposite sex, generally an old person and a young one, were bereft of all
clothing, then tied together, and, after being tortured a while, thrown
into the waves. Another mode was called the _mitrillade_ or _fusillade_.
Sixty, or more, captives were bound, and ranged in two files along a deep
ditch dug for the purpose. At the two extremities of each file, were
placed cannons loaded with grapeshot, and, at a given signal, these were
discharged on this mass of human beings. But a few were entirely killed
at the first discharge. Wounded and mutilated, they fell in heaps,
or crawled forth, and, with piercing shrieks, entreated the soldiers
to end their sufferings with death. Three successive discharges did
not accomplish the work, which was finally ended by the swords of the
soldiery. Next day, the same scene was renewed on a larger scale, more
than two hundred prisoners being thus destroyed. This was repeated day
after day; while, on one occasion, the commanding officer rose from a
carouse, and with thirty Jacobins and twenty courtesans, went out to
enjoy a view of the horrid scene.
At Toulon the mitrillades were repeated, till at least eight hundred were
thus slaughtered in a population of less than ten thousand. In Lyons,
during only five months, six thousand persons suffered death, and among
these were a great portion of the noblest and most virtuous citizens.
At Toulon, one of the victims was an old man of eighty-four, and his
only crime was the possession of eighty thousand pounds, of which he
offered all but a mere trifle to escape so shocking a death, but in vain.
Bonaparte, who saw these horrors, says, “When I beheld this poor old man
executed, I felt as if the end of the world was at hand.”
At Nantz, five hundred children, of both sexes, the oldest not fourteen,
were led out to be shot. Never before was beheld so piteous a sight! The
stature of the little ones was so low that the balls passed over their
heads, and, shrieking with terror, they burst their bonds, and, rushing
to their murderers, they implored for pity and life. But in vain; the
sabre finished the dreadful work, and these babes were slaughtered at
their feet.
At another time, a large body of women, most of them with young children,
were carried out into the Loire, and while the unconscious little ones
were smiling and caressing their distressed mothers, these mothers were
bereft of all clothing, and thrown with their infants into the waves.
At another time, three hundred young girls were drowned in one night at
Nantz, where, for some months, every night, hundreds of persons were
carried forth and thrown into the river, while their shrieks awoke the
inhabitants, and froze every heart with terror. In this city, in a single
month, either by hunger, the diseases of prison, or violence, fifteen
thousand persons perished, and more than double that number during the
Reign of Terror.
In the prisons not less dreadful sufferings were endured. In these foul
and gloomy abodes, the cells were dark, humid, and filthy; the straw,
their only beds, became so putrid that the stench was horrible, while
enormous rats and every species of vermin preyed on the wretched inmates.
In such dens as these were gathered the rank, the beauty, the talents,
and the wealth of Paris, and the chief cities of the land. Here, too,
degraded turn-keys, attended by fierce dogs, domineered over their
victims, while on one side were threats, oaths, obscenity, and insult,
and on the other were vain arguments, useless supplications, and bitter
tears.
Every night the wheels of the rolling car were heard, coming to carry
another band of victims to their doom. Then the bars of the windows and
wickets of the doors were crowded by anxious listeners, to learn whether
their own names were called, or to see their friends led out to death.
Those summoned bade a hasty farewell to their friends. The husband
left the arms of his frantic wife, the father was torn from his weeping
children, the brother and sister, the neighbour and friend, parted and
went forth to die, while survivers, picturing the last agonies of those
they loved, or waiting their own fate, suffered a living death, till
again the roll of the approaching car renewed the universal agony.
To such a degree did this protracted torture prey upon the mind, that
many became reckless of life, and many longed for death as a relief.
In many cases, women died of terror when their cell door was opened,
supposing their hour of doom was come.
The prison floors were often covered with infants, distressed by hunger,
or in the agonies of death. One evening, three hundred infants were in
one prison; the next morning all were drowned! When the citizens once
remonstrated at this useless cruelty, the reply was, “They are all young
aristocratic vipers--let them be stifled!”
Such accumulated horrors annihilated the sympathies and charities of
life. Calamity rendered every man suspicious. Those passing in the
streets feared to address their nearest friends. As wealth was a mark
for ruin, all put on coarse, or squalid raiment. Abroad, no symptom of
animation was seen, except when prisoners were led forth to slaughter,
and then the humane fled, and the hard-hearted rushed forward to look
upon the agonies of death. In the family circle, all was fear and
distrust. The sound of a footstep, a voice in the street, a knock at the
door, sent paleness to the cheek. Night brought little repose, and in the
morning all eyed each other distrustfully, as if traitors were lurking
there.
But there is a limit to the power of mental suffering; and one of the
saddest features of this awful period was the torpid apathy, which
settled on the public mind, so that, eventually, the theatres, which
had been forsaken, began to be thronged, and the multitude relieved
themselves by farces and jokes, unconcerned whether it was twenty, or a
hundred of their fellow-citizens, who were led forth to die.
Learning and talent were as fatal to their possessors as rank and wealth.
The son of Buffon the naturalist, the daughter of the eloquent Vernay,
Roucher the poet, and even the illustrious Lavoisier, in the midst of his
philosophical experiments, were cut down. A few more weeks of slaughter
would have swept off all the literary talent of France.
During the revolutionary period, it is calculated that not less than two
hundred thousand persons suffered imprisonment, besides those who were
put to death, of whom the following list is furnished by the Republicans
themselves:
Twelve hundred and seventy-eight nobles, seven hundred and fifty women of
rank, fourteen hundred of the clergy, and thirteen thousand persons not
noble, perished by the guillotine under decrees of the tribunals of the
people.
To this, add the victims at Nantz, which are arranged in this mournful
catalogue:
Children shot 500
Children drowned 1500
Women shot 264
Women drowned 500
Priests shot and drowned 760
Nobles drowned 1400
Artisans drowned 5300
The whole number destroyed at Nantz, of which the above is a portion
only, was thirty-two thousand.
To these add those slaughtered in the wars of La Vendée, viz., _nine
hundred thousand_ men, _fifteen thousand_ women, and _twenty-two
thousand_ children. To this add the victims at Lyons, numbering
thirty-one thousand. To this, add those who are recorded thus: “women who
died of grief, or premature childbirth, three thousand seven hundred;”
and we have a sum-total of _one million twenty-two thousand_ human
beings destroyed by violence. How many should be added, as those who
died of prison sufferings, or from the pangs and privations of exile, or
from famine and from pestilence consequent on this state of anarchy and
violence, who can enumerate?
At some periods, such was the awful slaughter, that the rivers were
discoloured with blood. In Paris, a vast aqueduct was dug to carry off
the gore to the Seine, and four men employed in conducting it to this
reservoir. In the river Loire, the corpses accumulated so that birds of
prey hovered all along its banks, the waters became infected, and the
fishes so poisonous that the magistrates of Nantz forbade the fishermen
to take them.
Thus, in the language of another, “France became a kind of suburb of
the world of perdition. Surrounding nations were lost in amazement as
they beheld the scene. It seemed a prelude to the funeral of this great
world, a stall of death, a den into which thousands daily entered and
none were seen to return. Between ninety and a hundred of the leaders in
this mighty work of death, fell by the hand of violence. Enemies to all
men, they were of course enemies to each other. Butchers of the human
race, they soon whetted the knife for each other’s throats; and the same
Almighty Being who rules the universe, whose existence they had denied by
a solemn act of legislation, whose perfections they had made the butt of
public scorn, whose Son they had crucified afresh, and whose Word they
had burned by the hands of a common hangman, swept them all, by the hand
of violence, into an untimely grave. The tale made every ear that heard
it tingle, and every heart chill with horror. It was, in the language of
Ossian, ‘the song of death.’ It was like the reign of the plague in a
populous city. Knell tolled upon knell, hearse followed hearse, coffin
rumbled after coffin, without a mourner to shed a tear, or a solitary
attendant to mark the place of the grave. ‘From one new moon to another,
and from one Sabbath to another, the world went forth and looked upon
the carcasses of the men who transgressed against God, and they were an
abhorring unto all flesh.’”
Such, my countrywomen, are the scenes which have been enacted in this
very age, in a land calling itself Christian, and boasting itself as at
the head of civilization and refinement. Do you say that such cruelty
and bloodthirsty rage can never appear among us; that our countrymen can
never be so deluded by falsehood and blinded by passion?
Look, then, at scenes which have already occurred in our land. Look at
Baltimore: it is night, and within one of its prisons are shut up some of
its most excellent and respected citizens. They dared to use the rights
of free-men, and express their opinions, and oppose the measures of the
majority; and for this, a fierce multitude is raging around those walls,
demanding their blood. They force the doors, and, with murderous weapons,
reach the room containing their victims. Some friendly hand extinguishes
the lights, and in the protecting darkness they seek to escape. Some
succeed; others are recognised, and seized, and stabbed, and trampled
on, and dragged around in murderous fury. One of the noblest of these
victims, apparently dead, is seized by some pitying neighbour, under the
pretence of cruelty, and thrown into the river and carried over a fall.
There he is drawn forth and restored to consciousness; and there, too, it
is discovered, that by Americans, by the hands of his fellow-citizens,
_his body has been stuck with scores of pins, deep plunged into his
flesh_!
Look, again, at the Southwest, and see gamblers swinging uncondemned from
a gallows, and among them a harmless man, whom the fury of the mob hung
up without time for judge or jury to detect his innocence.
See, on the banks of the Mississippi, fires blazing, and American
citizens _roasted alive_ by their fellow-citizens! See, even in
New-England, the boasted land of law and steady habits, a raging mob
besets a house filled with women and young children. They set fire to
it, and the helpless inmates are driven forth by the flames to the sole
protection of darkness and the pitiless ruffians. See, in Cincinnati,
the poor blacks driven from their homes, insulted, beaten, pillaged,
seeking refuge in prisons and private houses, and for days kept in
constant terror and peril.
See, in Philadelphia, one class of citizens arrayed in arms against
another, both excited to the highest pitch of rage, both thirsting for
each other’s blood, while the civil authority can prevent universal
pillage, misrule, and murder, only by volleys that shoot down neighbours,
brothers, and friends.
See, too, how the rage of political strife has threatened the whole
nation with a civil war. South Carolina declares that she will not submit
to certain laws, which she claims are unconstitutional. Her own citizens
are divided into fierce parties, so exasperated that each is preparing
to shoot down the other. Even the women are contributing their ornaments
to meet the expenses of the murderous strife. From neighbouring states,
the troops are advancing, the ships of war are nearing their harbours.
One single act of resistance, and the state had been the battle-field of
that most bitter, most cruel, most awful of all conflicts, _a civil and a
servile war_.
And all these materials of combustion are now slumbering in our bosom,
pent up a while, but ready to burst forth, like imprisoned lava, and
deluge the land. How easy it would be to bring the nation into fierce
contest on the subject of slavery, that internal cancer which inflames
the whole body politic! How easy to array native citizens against foreign
immigrants, who at once oppose the prejudices and diminish the wages of
those around them! How easy to make one section believe that tariff, or
tax, is sacrificing the prosperity of one portion to gratify the envy, or
increase the luxuries of another!
How easy to make one class of humbler means, believe that bank, or
monopoly, is destroying the fruit of their toil, to increase the
overgrown wealth of a class above them!
And here is no standing army, such as is wielded by all other governments
in sustaining law. When our communities are divided by interest or
passion, the lawmakers, the judges, the jury, and the military are all
partisans in the strife.
Nor can one part of the Union suffer, and the other escape unharmed, as
might be supposed, amid this reckless talk about the dissolution of
the Union. An overt attempt to dissolve the Union is treason; and it
can never be carried out without fierce parties in every state, ready
to fight to the last gasp against such a suicidal act. Such a national
dislocation would send a groan of agony through every city, town, and
hamlet in our land; civil war would blow her trump, citizen would be
arrayed against citizen, and state against state, and the whole arch of
heaven would be inscribed with “mourning, and lamentation, and wo.”
What, then, has saved our country from those wide-sweeping horrors that
desolated France? Why is it that, in the excitements of embargoes, and
banks, and slavery, and abolition, and foreign immigration, the besom of
destruction has not swept over the land? It is because there has been
such a large body of _educated_ citizens, who have had intelligence
enough to understand how to administer the affairs of state, and a proper
sense of the necessity of sustaining law and order; who have had moral
principle enough to subdue their own passions, and to use their influence
to control the excited minds of others. Change our large body of moral,
intelligent, and religious people to the ignorant, impulsive, excitable
population of France, and in one month the horrors of the Reign of Terror
would be before our eyes. Nothing can preserve this nation from such
scenes but perpetuating this preponderance of intelligence and virtue.
This is our only safeguard.
What, then, are our prospects in this respect? Look at the monitions
recorded in our census. Let it be first conceded, that the fact that
a man cannot read and write is not, in itself, proof that he is not
intelligent and virtuous. Many, in our country, by intercourse with
men and things, by the discussions of religion and politics, and by
the care of their affairs, gain much reflection and mental discipline.
Still, a person who cannot read a word in a newspaper, nor a line in
his Bible, and who has so little value for knowledge as to remain thus
incapacitated, as a general fact, is in the lowest grade of stupidity
and mental darkness. So that the number who cannot read and write is,
perhaps, the surest exponent of the intellectual and moral state of
a community. For though this list may embrace many intelligent and
virtuous persons, on the other hand, there are probably as many, or more,
of those classed as being able to read and write, who never have used
this power, and who are among the most stupid and degraded of our race.
Look, then, at the indications in our census. In a population of fourteen
millions, we find _one million_ adults who cannot read and write, and
_two millions_ of children without schools. In a few years, then, if
these children come on to the stage with their present neglect, we shall
have _three millions_ of adults managing our state and national affairs,
who cannot even read the Constitution they swear to support, nor a word
in the Bible, or in any newspaper or book. Look at the West, where our
dangers from foreign immigration are the greatest, and which, by its
unparalleled increase, is soon to hold the sceptre of power. In Ohio,
more than one third of the children attend no school. In Indiana and
Illinois scarcely one half of the children have any schools. Missouri
and Iowa send a similar, or worse report. In Virginia, _one quarter_ of
the white adults cannot even write their names to their applications for
marriage license. In North Carolina, _more than half_ the adults cannot
read and write. The whole South, in addition to her hordes of ignorant
slaves, returns _more than half_ her white children as without schools.
My countrywomen, what is before us? What awful forebodings arise!
Intelligence and virtue our only safeguards, and yet all this mass of
ignorance among us, and hundreds of thousands of ignorant foreigners
being yearly added to augment our danger!
We are not even stationary. We are losing ground every day. Every hour
the clouds are gathering blacker around us. Already it is found, that
the number of _voters_ who cannot read and write, and who yet decide
every question of safety and interest, exceeds the great majority that
brought in Harrison. Already the number of criminals and felons, who, on
dismission from jails and penitentiaries, are allowed to vote, exceeds
the majority that brought in our chief magistrate in 1836![1]
Nor is the picture of our situation less mournful, when we examine into
the condition of young children in those states, which have done the most
for education. Take New-York, for example, where, for forty years, the
education of the people has been provided for by law, and where the very
best school system in the world has recently gone into operation. It is
the chief business of the Secretary of State, to take care of the common
schools of the state, while, in every county, a deputy-superintendent,
paid five hundred dollars each year for his services, devotes his
whole time to the care of common schools. Every year these county
superintendents report to the Secretary of State, in regard to the
situation of the schools in the county under their care. It is from
these reports of the superintendents of schools in New-York, that we are
enabled to draw a picture of the condition of young children in common
schools, that should send a chill of fear and alarm through our country.
For if this is the condition of young children in that state which has
excelled all others in a wise and liberal provision for the care of
schools, what must be the condition of things in other states, where
still less interest is felt in this great concern!
The Secretary of State, in presenting the reports of the county
superintendents to the Legislature of New-York, remarks thus: “The
nakedness and deformity of the _great majority_ of schools in this state,
the comfortless and dilapidated buildings, the unhung doors, broken
sashes, absent panes, stilted benches, gaping walls, yawning roofs, and
muddy and mouldering floors, are faithfully portrayed; and many of the
self-styled teachers, who lash and dogmatize in these miserable tenements
of humanity, are shown to be low, vulgar, obscene, intemperate, and
utterly incompetent to teach anything good. Thousands of the young are
repelled from improvement, and contract a durable horror for books, by
ignorant, injudicious, and cruel modes of instruction. When the piteous
moans and tears of the little pupils supplicate for exemption from the
cold drudgery, or more pungent suffering of the school, let the humane
parent be careful to ascertain the true cause of grief and lamentation.”
To exhibit, more fully, the sufferings of little children at school, the
following is abridged from these reports:
_Sufferings of Little Children from Bad Schoolhouses._
One of the county superintendents reports of the schoolhouses in his
district: “One house in K. is literally unfit for a stable; the sashes
of several windows are broken, twenty or thirty panes of glass are
out, the door is off, and used for a writing-table. Yet the district
is wealthy, but ‘they cannot get a vote to build a new schoolhouse.’”
“Another schoolhouse in W. is nearly as bad; the gable ends falling out,
the chimney down, and the windows nearly all boarded up.” Many of the
schoolhouses are situated in the highway, so that, at play, the children
are endangered by the passing horses and vehicles, and the traveller
is also endangered by the rushing of boisterous boys, frightening his
horses. Instances of this sort have repeatedly occurred.
Another writes, that in one of the largest landed districts, the worst
log schoolhouse in the district is still retained, offering no security
against winds and storms. One of the window sashes was “laid up overhead
because it would not stay in its place.” To keep the door shut against
the wind, one end of a bench was put against it, and a boy set to tend
it, as one and another went out.
Another writes, that he _often_ finds the schoolhouses situated on some
bleak knoll, exposed to the howling blasts of winter and the scorching
rays of the summer’s sun, or in some marsh or swamp, surrounded by
stagnant pools, rife with miasma, and charged with disease and death. It
is not uncommon, in such places, to find large schools almost entirely
broken up by sickness, and that, too, when no contagious diseases are
prevailing among children.
One of these superintendents says, “A trustee of one school, where the
schoolhouse was situated _in a goose-pond_, the water under the floor
being several inches deep, told me his children were almost invariably
obliged to leave school on account of sickness, and that the school was
often broken up from this cause. Parents pay ten times as much, for
physicians to cure diseases contracted at school, as it would cost to
build a comfortable schoolhouse and supply it with every accommodation.”
Another says of the schoolhouses in his county, that, in some cases, the
latches are broken, so that, however cold the day, the door cannot be
shut; sometimes the sills are so rotten that snakes and squirrels can
enter; while there are cracks in the floor, one or two inches wide, and
holes broken large enough for the children to fall through.
The wretched condition of these houses is not owing to poverty, but to
the _leaden apathy_ on the subject of education, and the belief among
farmers that their money can be better applied in building barns and
stables for their cattle. In one large village, where a great sum has
been expended for adorning public grounds, and where is much wealth and
style, the two schoolhouses are the meanest-looking buildings in the
place.
Another says of the schoolhouses in his county, that, in many cases, they
stand on the highway, no cooling shade to protect them from the burning
sun, exposed to the full fury of the wintry northwester, clapboards torn
off, door just ready to fall, and great caution needed in order to keep
from falling through the floor. In one case, an aperture in the roof was
of such a size, that the teacher could give quite a lesson on astronomy
by looking up at the heavens through the roof of the house. Frequently,
to the grief of the teacher, when the parent brings his child the first
day, such expressions as these are heard from the clinging and distressed
child, “Oh, pa, I don’t want to stay in this ugly, old house! Oh, pa, do
take me home!”
_Sufferings of Little Children from Want of Accommodations at School._
One superintendent says, “But few of the schoolhouses are furnished with
blinds or curtains to exclude the glare of the sun. Thus, children suffer
great uneasiness, headaches, and often serious affections of the eyes.
I have found _many cases_ of weakness of eyes, approaching almost to
blindness, caused by studying in such dazzling light.”
Another states, that in most schoolhouses the desks are so high, as to
compel the scholar to write in a half-standing, half-sitting attitude;
while the seats for the smallest children are often twice the proper
height, sometimes a hemlock slab with legs at one end, and a log at the
other. Many of the little ones have to be helped up on them, where they
are in peril of life and limb from a fall. Here they are obliged to
sit, day after day and week after week, between heaven and earth, “and
in a frame of mind unfit for either place,” without anything to support
either their backs or their feet. Those who would realize what distress
this occasions, let them try sitting only one half hour on a table or
sideboard, with back and feet unsupported, and see what suffering ensues.
Another writes thus: “Sitting with the legs hanging over the edge of the
seat presses the _veins_ (which lie near the surface, and carry the blood
to the heart), and thus retard its return, while the arteries, being
deeper, carry the blood with its full force from the heart. Thus the
veins become distended, numbness and pain follow, and sometimes permanent
weakness is the result. Where children sit a long time without any
support to their backs, the muscles that hold up the body become weary
and weak, for no muscle can be too long contracted without weakening it.
In schools thus badly furnished, it will be seen that the children prefer
the northern blasts out of doors to the sufferings they endure within,
and come in unwillingly, with chilled bodies and checked perspiration.
In some cases, parents provide comfortable chairs for their children,
and then it is seen, that such stay but a short time out of doors, while
those seated on such comfortless benches stay as long as they can.
This shows one predisposing cause of the curvature of the spine, and
distortion of the body and limbs. Is it any wonder that so many of our
youth have round shoulders, and a stooping of the body through life?”
What would be said of a farmer who made his boy hold a plough as high as
his head, or a joiner who made his apprentice plane a board on a bench
as high as his shoulders? And yet they expect teachers to make their
children study, read and write with just such improper accommodations.
_Sufferings of Little Children for Want of Pure Air._
To understand this subject properly, it must be borne in mind, that
the body is so constructed as to inhale at every breath about a pint of
air. The air is composed of 79 parts nitrogen and 21 parts oxygen. When
it is drawn into the lungs, the oxygen is absorbed by the blood, and
what we exhale is the nitrogen, mixed with the carbonic acid, formed in
the lungs by the union of the oxygen of the air with the carbon of the
blood. Now, neither carbonic acid, or nitrogen can support life. Take the
oxygen from the air, and then breathe it, and instant death ensues. So,
put any animal into carbonic acid alone, and it dies instantly. Thus,
every breath of every human being uses up the oxygen in one pint of air,
and returns it with only nitrogen and carbonic acid. Let a schoolroom,
containing 18,000 gallons of air and twenty scholars, be made perfectly
airtight, and in twenty minutes they would all be corpses. The horrible
sufferings produced by this process, were once witnessed in Calcutta,
where 146 men were driven into a room 18 feet square, with only one small
window, and kept there from eight at night till six next morning. Before
midnight they all became frantic with agony, fought for the window,
choaked each other to death, screamed to the soldiers to shoot them,
and thus end their misery; and in the morning only 26 were alive, and
these in a putrid fever! _Lessening_ the amount of oxygen in the air by
breathing, produces languor, sleepiness, nausea, headache, flushed face,
and sometimes palsy and apoplexy.
On this subject, the superintendents of the New-York schools make these
statements:
“Confinement in some of our schoolrooms is _manslaughter_. Our
children, shut up in these hot holes, made so by their own breaths,
by perspiration, and by a close, overheated stove, lay the foundation
for diseases which show no gain except to the physician, and which,
in after-life, no riding on horseback, or journeys by sea or land, or
southern residence can cure.”
Another states, that the uncomfortable condition of the schoolhouses, in
his county, is such as to cause much suffering, both mental and bodily,
to the children doomed to inhabit their gloomy walls and breathe the
tainted air.
Another writes of the schoolhouses in his district, that they are usually
low, and in cold weather so overheated as to be hotbeds of disease, the
close atmosphere being actually dangerous. One teacher, in one instance,
was struck with palsy from the effects of confinement in such a poisonous
atmosphere. At a public meeting, one citizen stated it as his conviction,
that one of his children died from disease engendered by breathing the
pestilential atmosphere of the schoolroom. Instances are numerous where
the children come home dull, listless, and with severe colds and coughs.
The teacher, in such situations, often loses ambition, energy, and
health, and closes school pale and emaciated, perhaps to sink to an early
grave, a victim of the poisonous air in which, for day after day, he has
been confined.
_Sufferings of Little Children from Cold, Heat, and Filth._
One superintendent says, “Could parents witness, as I have, the
sufferings of their children from cold, I am sure no other appeal would
be needed. Some of those buildings, I am confident, would be considered
by a systematic farmer, who regarded the comfort of his stock, as an
unfit shelter for his Berkshires.”