BACK TO BOSTON.
From Louisville we returned to Cincinnati, in making which journey
we were taken to a place called Seymour in Indiana, at which spot we
were to "make connection" with the train running on the Mississippi
and Ohio line from St. Louis to Cincinnati. We did make the
connection, but were called upon to remain four hours at Seymour
in consequence of some accident on the line. In the same way, when
going eastwards from Cincinnati to Baltimore a few days later, I was
detained another four hours at a place called Crossline, in Ohio. On
both occasions I spent my time in realizing, as far as that might
be possible, the sort of life which men lead who settle themselves
at such localities. Both these towns,--for they call themselves
towns,--had been created by the railways. Indeed this has been the
case with almost every place at which a few hundred inhabitants have
been drawn together in the western States. With the exception of such
cities as Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, settlers can hardly
be said to have chosen their own localities. These have been chosen
for them by the originators of the different lines of railway. And
there is nothing in Europe in any way like to these western railway
settlements. In the first place the line of the rails runs through
the main street of the town, and forms not unfrequently the only
road. At Seymour I could find no way of getting away from the rails
unless I went into the fields. At Crossline, which is a larger place,
I did find a street in which there was no railroad, but it was
deserted, and manifestly out of favour with the inhabitants. As there
were railway junctions at both these posts, there were of course
cross-streets, and the houses extended themselves from the centre
thus made along the lines, houses being added to houses at short
intervals as new comers settled themselves down. The panting and
groaning, and whistling of engines is continual; for at such places
freight trains are always kept waiting for passenger trains, and the
slower freight trains for those which are called fast. This is the
life of the town; and indeed as the whole place is dependent on the
railway, so is the railway held in favour and beloved. The noise
of the engines is not disliked, nor are its puffings and groanings
held to be unmusical. With us a locomotive steam-engine is still,
as it were, a beast of prey, against which one has to be on one's
guard,--in respect to which one specially warns the children. But
there, in the western States, it has been taken to the bosoms of them
all as a domestic animal; no one fears it, and the little children
run about almost among its wheels. It is petted and made much of on
all sides,--and, as far as I know, it seldom bites or tears. I have
not heard of children being destroyed wholesale in the streets, or of
drunken men becoming frequent sacrifices. But had I been consulted
beforehand as to the natural effects of such an arrangement, I should
have said that no child could have been reared in such a town, and
that any continuance of population under such circumstances must have
been impracticable.
Such places, however, do thrive and prosper with a prosperity
especially their own, and the boys and girls increase and multiply in
spite of all dangers. With us in England, it is difficult to realize
the importance which is attached to a railway in the States, and
the results which a railway creates. We have roads everywhere, and
our country had been cultivated throughout, with more or less care,
before our system of railways had been commenced; but in America,
especially in the North, the railways have been the precursors of
cultivation. They have been carried hither and thither, through
primeval forests and over prairies, with small hope of other traffic
than that which they themselves would make by their own influences.
The people settling on their edges have had the very best of all
roads at their service; but they have had no other roads. The face of
the country between one settlement and another is still in many cases
utterly unknown; but there is the connecting road by which produce
is carried away, and new comers are brought in. The town that is
distant a hundred miles by the rail is so near that its inhabitants
are neighbours; but a settlement twenty miles distant across the
uncleared country is unknown, unvisited, and probably unheard of
by the women and children. Under such circumstances the railway is
everything. It is the first necessity of life, and gives the only
hope of wealth. It is the backbone of existence from whence spring,
and by which are protected, all the vital organs and functions of
the community. It is the right arm of civilization for the people,
and the discoverer of the fertility of the land. It is all in all
to those people, and to those regions. It has supplied the wants of
frontier life with all the substantial comfort of the cities, and
carried education, progress, and social habits into the wilderness.
To the eye of the stranger such places as Seymour and Crossline are
desolate and dreary. There is nothing of beauty in them, given either
by nature or by art. The railway itself is ugly, and its numerous
sidings and branches form a mass of iron road which is bewildering
and, according to my ideas, in itself disagreeable. The wooden houses
open down upon the line, and have no gardens to relieve them. A
foreigner, when first surveying such a spot, will certainly record
within himself a verdict against it; but in doing so he probably
commits the error of judging it by a wrong standard. He should
compare it with the new settlements which men have opened up in spots
where no railway has assisted them, and not with old towns in which
wealth has long been congregated. The traveller may see what is the
place with the railway; then let him consider how it might have
thriven without the railway.
I confess that I became tired of my sojourn at both the places I
have named. At each I think that I saw every house in the place,
although my visit to Seymour was made in the night; and at both I
was lamentably at a loss for something to do. At Crossline I was all
alone, and began to feel that the hours which I knew must pass before
the missing train could come, would never make away with themselves.
There were many others stationed there as I was, but to them had been
given a capability for loafing which niggardly Nature has denied
to me. An American has the power of seating himself in the close
vicinity of a hot stove and feeding in silence on his own thoughts
by the hour together. It may be that he will smoke; but after a
while his cigar will come to an end. He sits on, however, certainly
patient, and apparently contented. It may be that he chews, but if
so, he does it with motionless jaws, and so slow a mastication of
the pabulum on which he feeds, that his employment in this respect
only disturbs the absolute quiet of the circle when, at certain long,
distant intervals, he deposits the secretion of his tobacco in an
ornamental utensil which may probably be placed in the furthest
corner of the hall. But during all this time he is happy. It does not
fret him to sit there and think and do nothing. He is by no means an
idle man,--probably one much given to commercial enterprise. Idle men
out there in the West we may say there are none. How should any idle
man live in such a country? All who were sitting hour after hour in
that circle round the stove of the Crossline Hotel hall,--sitting
there hour after hour in silence, as I could not sit,--were men
who earned their bread by labour. They were farmers, mechanics,
storekeepers; there was a lawyer or two, and one clergyman.
Sufficient conversation took place at first to indicate the
professions of many of them. One may conclude that there could not be
place there for an idle man. But they all of them had a capacity for
a prolonged state of doing nothing, which is to me unintelligible,
and which is very much to be envied. They are patient as cows, which
from hour to hour lie on the grass chewing their cud. An Englishman,
if he be kept waiting by a train in some forlorn station in which
he can find no employment, curses his fate and all that has led to
his present misfortune with an energy which tells the story of his
deep and thorough misery. Such, I confess, is my state of existence
under such circumstances. But a western American gives himself up
to "loafing," and is quite happy. He balances himself on the back
legs of an arm-chair, and remains so, without speaking, drinking, or
smoking for an hour at a stretch; and while he is doing so he looks
as though he had all that he desired. I believe that he is happy, and
that he has all that he wants for such an occasion;--an arm-chair in
which to sit, and a stove on which he can put his feet, and by which
he can make himself warm.
Such was not the phase of character which I had expected to find
among the people of the West. Of all virtues, patience would have
been the last which I should have thought of attributing to them. I
should have expected to see them angry when robbed of their time, and
irritable under the stress of such grievances as railway delays; but
they are never irritable under such circumstances as I have attempted
to describe, nor, indeed, are they a people prone to irritation under
any grievances. Even in political matters they are long-enduring, and
do not form themselves into mobs for the expression of hot opinion.
We in England thought that masses of the people would rise in anger
if Mr. Lincoln's government should consent to give up Slidell and
Mason; but the people bore it without any rising. The habeas corpus
has been suspended, the liberty of the press has been destroyed for a
time, the telegraph wires have been taken up by the government into
their own hands; but nevertheless the people have said nothing. There
has been no rising of a mob, and not even an expression of an adverse
opinion. The people require to be allowed to vote periodically, and
having acquired that privilege permit other matters to go by the
board. In this respect we have, I think, in some degree misunderstood
their character. They have all been taught to reverence the nature
of that form of government under which they live, but they are not
specially addicted to hot political fermentation. They have learned
to understand that democratic institutions have given them liberty,
and on that subject they entertain a strong conviction which is
universal. But they have not habitually interested themselves deeply
in the doings of their legislators or of their government. On the
subject of slavery there have been and are different opinions, held
with great tenacity and maintained occasionally with violence; but on
other subjects of daily policy the American people have not, I think,
been eager politicians. Leading men in public life have been much
less trammelled by popular will than among us. Indeed with us the
most conspicuous of our statesmen and legislators do not lead, but
are led. In the States the noted politicians of the day have been
the leaders, and not unfrequently the coercers of opinion. Seeing
this, I claim for England a broader freedom in political matters than
the States have as yet achieved. In speaking of the American form of
government, I will endeavour to explain more clearly the ideas which
I have come to hold on this matter.
I survived my delay at Seymour, after which I passed again through
Cincinnati, and then survived my subsequent delay at Crossline. As
to Cincinnati, I must put on record the result of a country walk
which I took there,--or rather on which I was taken by my friend. He
professed to know the beauties of the neighbourhood, and to be well
acquainted with all that was attractive in its vicinity. Cincinnati
is built on the Ohio, and is closely surrounded by picturesque hills
which overhang the suburbs of the city. Over these I was taken,
ploughing my way through a depth of mud which cannot be understood
by any ordinary Englishman. But the depth of mud was not the only
impediment, nor the worst which we encountered. As we began to
ascend from the level of the outskirts of the town we were greeted
by a rising flavour in the air, which soon grew into a strong
odour, and at last developed itself into a stench that surpassed in
offensiveness anything that my nose had ever hitherto suffered. When
we were at the worst we hardly knew whether to descend or to proceed.
It had so increased in virulence, that at one time I felt sure that
it arose from some matter buried in the ground beneath my feet. But
my friend, who declared himself to be quite at home in Cincinnati
matters, and to understand the details of the great Cincinnati
trade, declared against this opinion of mine. Hogs, he said, were
at the bottom of it. It was the odour of hogs going up to the Ohio
heavens;--of hogs in a state of transit from hoggish nature to
clothes-brushes, saddles, sausages, and lard. He spoke with an
authority that constrained belief; but I can never forgive him in
that he took me over those hills, knowing all that he professed to
know. Let the visitors to Cincinnati keep themselves within the city,
and not wander forth among the mountains. It is well that the odour
of hogs should ascend to heaven and not hang heavy over the streets;
but it is not well to intercept that odour in its ascent. My friend
became ill with fever, and had to betake himself to the care of
nursing friends; so that I parted company with him at Cincinnati. I
did not tell him that his illness was deserved as well as natural,
but such was my feeling on the matter. I myself happily escaped the
evil consequences which his imprudence might have entailed on me.
I passed again through Pittsburg, and over the Alleghany mountains by
Altoona, and down to Baltimore,--back into civilization, secession,
conversation, and gastronomy. I never had secessionist sympathies
and never expressed them. I always believed in the North as a
people,--discrediting, however, to the utmost the existing northern
Government, or, as I should more properly say, the existing northern
Cabinet; but nevertheless, with such feelings and such belief, I
found myself very happy at Baltimore. Putting aside Boston, which
must, I think, be generally preferred by Englishmen to any other
city in the States, I should choose Baltimore as my residence if I
were called upon to live in America. I am not led to this opinion,
if I know myself, solely by the canvas-back ducks; and as to the
terrapins, I throw them to the winds. The madeira, which is still
kept there with a reverence which I should call superstitious were
it not that its free circulation among outside worshippers prohibits
the just use of such a word, may have something to do with it; as may
also the beauty of the women,--to some small extent. Trifles do bear
upon our happiness in a manner that we do not ourselves understand,
and of which we are unconscious. But there was an English look about
the streets and houses which I think had as much to do with it as
either the wine, the women, or the ducks; and it seemed to me as
though the manners of the people of Maryland were more English than
those of other Americans. I do not say that they were on this account
better. My English hat is, I am well aware, less graceful, and I
believe less comfortable, than a Turkish fez and turban; nevertheless
I prefer my English hat. New York I regard as the most thoroughly
American of all American cities. It is by no means the one in which I
should find myself the happiest, but I do not on that account condemn
it.
I have said that in returning to Baltimore I found myself among
secessionists. In so saying, I intend to speak of a certain set
whose influence depends perhaps more on their wealth, position, and
education than on their numbers. I do not think that the population
of the city was then in favour of secession, even if it had ever been
so. I believe that the mob of Baltimore is probably the roughest mob
in the States,--is more akin to a Paris mob, and I may, perhaps, also
say to a Manchester mob, than that of any other American city. There
are more roughs in Baltimore than elsewhere, and the roughs there are
rougher. In those early days of secession, when the troops were being
first hurried down from New England for the protection of Washington,
this mob was vehemently opposed to its progress. Men had been taught
to think that the rights of the State of Maryland were being invaded
by the passage of the soldiers; and they also were undoubtedly imbued
with a strong prepossession for the southern cause. The two ideas
had then gone together. But the mob of Baltimore had ceased to
be secessionists within twelve months of their first exploit. In
April, 1861, they had refused to allow Massachusetts soldiers to
pass through the town on their way to Washington; and in February,
1862, they were nailing Union flags on the door-posts of those who
refused to display such banners as signs of triumph at the northern
victories!
That Maryland can ever go with the South, even in the event of the
South succeeding in secession, no Marylander can believe. It is
not pretended that there is any struggle now going on with such
an object. No such result has been expected, certainly since the
possession of Washington was secured to the North by the army of the
Potomac. By few, I believe, was such a result expected even when
Washington was insecure. And yet the feeling for secession among a
certain class in Baltimore is as strong now as ever it was. And it is
equally strong in certain districts of the State,--in those districts
which are most akin to Virginia in their habits, modes of thought,
and ties of friendship. These men, and these women also, pray for
the South if they be pious, give their money to the South if they be
generous, work for the South if they be industrious, fight for the
South if they be young, and talk for the South morning, noon, and
night in spite of General Dix and his columbiads on Federal Hill. It
is in vain to say that such men and women have no strong feeling on
the matter, and that they are praying, working, fighting, and talking
under dictation. Their hearts are in it. And judging from them, even
though there were no other evidence from which to judge, I have no
doubt that a similar feeling is strong through all the seceding
States. On this subject the North, I think, deceives itself in
supposing that the southern rebellion has been carried on without any
strong feeling on the part of the southern people. Whether the mob
of Charleston be like the mob of Baltimore I cannot tell; but I have
no doubt as to the gentry of Charleston and the gentry of Baltimore
being in accord on the subject.
In what way, then, when the question has been settled by the force of
arms, will these classes find themselves obliged to act? In Virginia
and Maryland they comprise, as a rule, the highest and best educated
of the people. As to parts of Kentucky the same thing may be said,
and probably as to the whole of Tennessee. It must be remembered that
this is not as though certain aristocratic families in a few English
counties should find themselves divided off from the politics and
national aspirations of their countrymen,--as was the case long since
with reference to the Roman Catholic adherents of the Stuarts, and
as has been the case since then in a lesser degree with the firmest
of the old Tories who had allowed themselves to be deceived by Sir
Robert Peel. In each of these cases the minority of dissentients was
so small that the nation suffered nothing, though individuals were
all but robbed of their nationality. But as regards America it must
be remembered that each State has in itself a governing power, and
is in fact a separate people. Each has its own legislature, and must
have its own line of politics.
The secessionists of Maryland and of Virginia may consent to live in
obscurity; but if this be so, who is to rule in those States? From
whence are to come the senators and the members of Congress; the
governors and attorney-generals? From whence is to come the national
spirit of the two States, and the salt that shall preserve their
political life? I have never believed that these States would succeed
in secession. I have always felt that they would be held within the
Union, whatever might be their own wishes. But I think that they
will be so held in a manner and after a fashion that will render any
political vitality almost impossible till a new generation shall
have sprung up. In the meantime life goes on pleasantly enough in
Baltimore, and ladies meet together, knitting stockings and sewing
shirts for the southern soldiers, while the gentlemen talk southern
politics and drink the health of the (southern) President in
ambiguous terms, as our Cavaliers used to drink the health of the
king.
During my second visit to Baltimore I went over to Washington for a
day or two, and found the capital still under the empire of King Mud.
How the elite of a nation--for the inhabitants of Washington consider
themselves to be the elite--can consent to live in such a state of
thraldom, a foreigner cannot understand. Were I to say that it was
intended to be typical of the condition of the government, I might
be considered cynical; but undoubtedly the sloughs of despond which
were deepest in their despondency were to be found in localities
which gave an appearance of truth to such a surmise. The Secretary
of State's office in which Mr. Seward was still reigning, though
with diminished glory, was divided from the Head-Quarters of the
Commander-in-Chief, which are immediately opposite to it, by an
opaque river which admitted of no transit. These buildings stand at
the corner of President Square, and it had been long understood that
any close intercourse between them had not been considered desirable
by the occupants of the military side of the causeway. But the
Secretary of State's office was altogether unapproachable without a
long circuit and begrimed legs. The Secretary-at-War's department
was, if possible, in a worse condition. This is situated on the other
side of the President's house, and the mud lay, if possible, thicker
in this quarter than it did round Mr. Seward's chambers. The passage
over Pennsylvania Avenue, immediately in front of the War Office, was
a thing not to be attempted in those days. Mr. Cameron, it is true,
had gone, and Mr. Stanton was installed; but the labour of cleansing
the interior of that establishment had hitherto allowed no time for a
glance at the exterior dirt, and Mr. Stanton should, perhaps, be held
as excused. That the Navy Office should be buried in mud, and quite
debarred from approach, was to be expected. The space immediately in
front of Mr. Lincoln's own residence was still kept fairly clean,
and I am happy to be able to give testimony to this effect. Long may
it remain so. I could not, however, but think that an energetic and
careful President would have seen to the removal of the dirt from
his own immediate neighbourhood. It was something that his own shoes
should remain unpolluted; but the foul mud always clinging to the
boots and leggings of those by whom he was daily surrounded must,
I should think, have been offensive to him. The entrance to the
Treasury was difficult to achieve by those who had not learned by
practice the ways of the place; but I must confess that a tolerably
clear passage was maintained on that side which led immediately
down to the halls of Congress. Up at the Capitol the mud was again
triumphant in the front of the building; this however was not of
great importance, as the legislative chambers of the States are
always reached by the back-door. I, on this occasion, attempted to
leave the building by the grand entrance, but I soon became entangled
among rivers of mud and mazes of shifting sand. With difficulty I
recovered my steps, and finding my way back to the building was
forced to content myself by an exit among the crowd of senators and
representatives who were thronging down the back-stairs.
Of dirt of all kinds it behoves Washington and those concerned in
Washington to make themselves free. It is the Augean stables through
which some American Hercules must turn a purifying river before
the American people can justly boast either of their capital or of
their government. As to the material mud, enough has been said. The
presence of the army perhaps caused it, and the excessive quantity
of rain which had fallen may also be taken as a fair plea. But what
excuse shall we find for that other dirt? It also had been caused by
the presence of the army, and by that long-continued down-pouring of
contracts which had fallen like Danaë's golden shower into the laps
of those who understood how to avail themselves of such heavenly
waters. The leaders of the rebellion are hated in the North. The
names of Jefferson Davis, of Cobb, Tombes, and Floyd are mentioned
with execration by the very children. This has sprung from a true
and noble feeling; from a patriotic love of national greatness and a
hatred of those who, for small party purposes, have been willing to
lessen the name of the United States. I have reverenced the feeling
even when I have not shared it. But, in addition to this, the names
of those also should be execrated who have robbed their country when
pretending to serve it; who have taken its wages in the days of its
great struggle, and at the same time have filched from its coffers;
who have undertaken the task of steering the ship through the storm
in order that their hands might be deep in the meal-tub and the
bread-basket, and that they might stuff their own sacks with the
ship's provisions. These are the men who must be loathed by the
nation,--whose fate must be held up as a warning to others before
good can come! Northern men and women talk of hanging Davis and his
accomplices. I myself trust that there will be no hanging when the
war is over. I believe there will be none, for the Americans are not
a blood-thirsty people. But if punishment of any kind be meted out,
the men of the North should understand that they have worse offenders
among them than Davis and Floyd.
At the period of which I am now speaking, there had come a change
over the spirit of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet. Mr. Seward was still his
Secretary of State, but he was, as far as outside observers could
judge, no longer his Prime Minister. In the early days of the war,
and up to the departure of Mr. Cameron from out of the cabinet, Mr.
Seward had been the Minister of the nation. In his despatches he
talks ever of We or of I. In every word of his official writings, of
which a large volume has been published, he shows plainly that he
intends to be considered as the man of the day,--as the hero who is
to bring the States through their difficulties. Mr. Lincoln may be
King, but Mr. Seward is Mayor of the Palace and carries the King in
his pocket. From the depth of his own wisdom he undertakes to teach
his ministers in all parts of the world, not only their duties, but
their proper aspiration. He is equally kind to foreign statesmen,
and sends to them messages as though from an altitude which no
European politician had ever reached. At home he has affected the
Prime Minister in everything, dropping the We and using the I in a
manner that has hardly made up by its audacity for its deficiency
in discretion. It is of course known everywhere that he had run Mr.
Lincoln very hard for the position of republican candidate for the
Presidency. Mr. Lincoln beat him, and Mr. Seward is well aware that
in the States a man has never a second chance for the Presidential
chair. Hence has arisen his ambition to make for himself a new place
in the annals of American politics. Hitherto there has been no Prime
Minister known in the Government of the United States. Mr. Seward has
attempted a revolution in that matter, and has essayed to fill the
situation. For awhile it almost seemed that he was successful. He
interfered with the army, and his interferences were endured. He took
upon himself the business of the police, and arrested men at his own
will and pleasure. The habeas corpus was in his hand, and his name
was current through the States as a covering authority for every
outrage on the old laws. Sufficient craft, or perhaps cleverness,
he possessed to organize a position which should give him a power
greater than the power of the President; but he had not the genius
which would enable him to hold it. He made foolish prophecies about
the war, and talked of the triumphs which he would win. He wrote
state papers on matters which he did not understand, and gave himself
the airs of diplomatic learning while he showed himself to be sadly
ignorant of the very rudiments of diplomacy. He tried to joke as Lord
Palmerston jokes, and nobody liked his joking. He was greedy after
the little appanages of power, taking from others who loved them as
well as he did, privileges with which he might have dispensed. And
then, lastly, he was successful in nothing. He had given himself
out as the commander of the Commander-in-Chief; but then under his
command nothing got itself done. For a month or two some men had
really believed in Mr. Seward. The policemen of the country had
come to have an absolute trust in him, and the underlings of the
public offices were beginning to think that he might be a great man.
But then, as is ever the case with such men, there came suddenly a
downfall. Mr. Cameron went from the cabinet, and everybody knew that
Mr. Seward would be no longer commander of the Commander-in-Chief.
His prime ministership was gone from him, and he sank down into the
comparatively humble position of Minister for Foreign Affairs. His
lettres de cachet no longer ran. His passport system was repealed.
His prisoners were released. And though it is too much to say that
writs of habeas corpus were no longer suspended, the effect and very
meaning of the suspension were at once altered. When I first left
Washington Mr. Seward was the only minister of the cabinet whose name
was ever mentioned with reference to any great political measure.
When I returned to Washington Mr. Stanton was Mr. Lincoln's leading
minister, and, as Secretary-at-War, had practically the management of
the army and of the internal police.
I have spoken here of Mr. Seward by name, and in my preceding
paragraphs I have alluded with some asperity to the dishonesty of
certain men who had obtained political power under Mr. Lincoln and
used it for their own dishonest purposes. I trust that I may not be
understood as bringing any such charges against Mr. Seward. That
such dishonesty has been frightfully prevalent all men know who knew
anything of Washington during the year 1861. In a former chapter I
have alluded to this more at length, stating circumstances and in
some cases giving the names of the persons charged with offences.
Whenever I have done so, I have based my statements on the Van Wyck
Report, and the evidence therein given. This is the published report
of a Committee appointed by the House of Representatives; and as it
has been before the world for some months without refutation, I think
that I have a right to presume it to be true.* On no less authority
than this would I consider myself justified in bringing any such
charge. Of Mr. Seward's incompetency I have heard very much among
American politicians; much also of his ambition. With worse offences
than these I have not heard him charged.
*I ought perhaps to state that General Fremont has published an
answer to the charges preferred against him. That answer refers
chiefly to matters of military capacity or incapacity, as to
which I have expressed no opinion. General Fremont does allude
to the accusations made against him regarding the building of
the forts;--but in doing so he seems to me rather to admit than
to deny the facts as stated by the Committee.
At the period of which I am writing, February, 1862, the long list of
military successes which attended the northern army through the late
winter and early spring had commenced. Fort Henry, on the Tennessee
river, had first been taken, and after that, Fort Donnelson on the
Cumberland river, also in the State of Tennessee. Price had been
driven out of Missouri into Arkansas by General Curtis, acting under
General Halleck's orders. The chief body of the Confederate army in
the West had abandoned the fortified position which they had long
held at Bowling Green, in the south-western district of Kentucky.
Roanoke Island, on the coast of North Carolina, had been taken by
General Burnside's expedition, and a belief had begun to manifest
itself in Washington that the army of the Potomac was really about
to advance. It is impossible to explain in what way the renewed
confidence of the northern party showed itself, or how one learned
that the hopes of the secessionists were waxing dim; but it was so;
and even a stranger became aware of the general feeling as clearly as
though it were a defined and established fact. In the early part of
the winter, when I reached Washington, the feeling ran all the other
way. Northern men did not say that they were despondent; they did not
with spoken words express diffidence as to their success; but their
looks betrayed diffidence, and the moderation of their self-assurance
almost amounted to despondency. In the capital the parties were
very much divided. The old inhabitants were either secessionists or
influenced by "secession proclivities," as the word went; but the men
of the government and of the two houses of Congress were, with a few
exceptions, of course northern. It should be understood that these
parties were at variance with each other on almost every point as to
which men can disagree. In our civil war it may be presumed that all
Englishmen were at any rate anxious for England. They desired and
fought for different modes of government; but each party was equally
English in its ambition. In the States there is the hatred of a
different nationality added to the rancour of different politics.
The Southerners desire to be a people of themselves,--to divide
themselves by every possible mark of division from New England; to
be as little akin to New York as they are to London,--or if possible
less so. Their habits, they say, are different; their education,
their beliefs, their propensities, their very virtues and vices
are not the education, or the beliefs, or the propensities, or the
virtues and vices of the North. The bond that ties them to the
North is to them a Mezentian marriage, and they hate their northern
spouses with a Mezentian hatred. They would be anything sooner than
citizens of the United States. They see to what Mexico has come,
and the republics of Central America; but the prospect of even that
degradation is less bitter to them than a share in the glory of the
stars and stripes. Better, with them, to reign in hell than serve in
heaven! It is not only in politics that they will be beaten, if they
be beaten,--as one party with us may be beaten by another; but they
will be beaten as we should be beaten if France annexed us, and
directed that we should live under French rule. Let an Englishman
digest and realize that idea, and he will comprehend the feelings
of a southern gentleman as he contemplates the probability that his
State will be brought back into the Union. And the northern feeling
is as strong. The northern man has founded his national ambition on
the territorial greatness of his nation. He has panted for new lands,
and for still extended boundaries. The western world has opened her
arms to him, and has seemed to welcome him as her only lord. British
America has tempted him towards the north, and Mexico has been as a
prey to him on the south. He has made maps of his empire, including
all the continent, and has preached the Monroe doctrine as though it
had been decreed by the gods. He has told the world of his increasing
millions, and has never yet known his store to diminish. He has pawed
in the valley, and rejoiced in his strength. He has said among the
trumpets, Ha, ha! He has boasted aloud in his pride, and called on
all men to look at his glory. And now shall he be divided and shorn?
Shall he be hemmed in from his ocean and shut off from his rivers?
Shall he have a hook run into his nostrils, and a thorn driven into
his jaw? Shall men say that his day is over, when he has hardly yet
tasted the full cup of his success? Has his young life been a dream,
and not a truth? Shall he never reach that giant manhood which the
growth of his boyish years has promised him? If the South goes from
him, he will be divided, shorn, and hemmed in. The hook will have
pierced his nose, and the thorn will fester in his jaw. Men will
taunt him with his former boastings, and he will awake to find
himself but a mortal among mortals.
Such is the light in which the struggle is regarded by the two
parties, and such the hopes and feelings which have been engendered.
It may therefore be surmised with what amount of neighbourly love
secessionist and northern neighbours regarded each other in such
towns as Baltimore and Washington. Of course there was hatred of
the deepest dye; of course there were muttered curses, or curses
which sometimes were not simply muttered. Of course there were
wretchedness, heart-burnings, and fearful divisions in families.
That, perhaps, was the worst of all. The daughter's husband would be
in the northern ranks, while the son was fighting in the South; or
two sons would hold equal rank in the two armies, sometimes sending
to each other frightful threats of personal vengeance. Old friends
would meet each other in the street, passing without speaking; or,
worse still, would utter words of insult for which payment is to be
demanded when a southern gentleman may again be allowed to quarrel in
his own defence.
And yet society went on. Women still smiled, and men were happy to
whom such smiles were given. Cakes and ale were going and ginger
was still hot in the mouth. When many were together no words of
unhappiness were heard. It was at those small meetings of two or
three that women would weep instead of smiling, and that men would
run their hands through their hair and sit in silence, thinking of
their ruined hopes and divided children.
I have spoken of southern hopes and northern fears, and have
endeavoured to explain the feelings of each party. For myself I think
that the Southerners have been wrong in their hopes, and that those
of the North have been wrong in their fears. It is not better to rule
in hell than serve in heaven. Of course a southern gentleman will not
admit the premises which are here by me taken for granted. The hell
to which I allude is, the sad position of a low and debased nation.
Such, I think, will be the fate of the Gulf States, if they succeed
in obtaining secession,--of a low and debased nation, or, worse
still, of many low and debased nations. They will have lost their
cotton monopoly by the competition created during the period of the
war, and will have no material of greatness on which either to found
themselves or to flourish. That they had much to bear when linked
with the North, much to endure on account of that slavery from which
it was all but impossible that they should disentangle themselves,
may probably be true. But so have all political parties among all
free nations much to bear from political opponents, and yet other
free nations do not go to pieces. Had it been possible that the
slave-owners and slave properties should have been scattered in parts
through all the States and not congregated in the South, the slave
party would have maintained itself as other parties do; but in such
case, as a matter of course, it would not have thought of secession.
It has been the close vicinity of slave-owners to each other,
the fact that their lands have been coterminous, that theirs was
especially a cotton district, which has tempted them to secession.
They have been tempted to secession, and will, as I think, still
achieve it in those Gulf States,--much to their misfortune.
And the fears of the North are, I think, equally wrong. That they
will be deceived as to that Monroe doctrine is no doubt more than
probable. That ambition for an entire continent under one rule will
not, I should say, be gratified. But not on that account need the
nation be less great, or its civilization less extensive. That hook
in its nose and that thorn in its jaw will, after all, be but a hook
of the imagination and an ideal thorn. Do not all great men suffer
such ere their greatness be established and acknowledged? There is
scope enough for all that manhood can do between the Atlantic and the
Pacific, even though those hot, swampy cotton-fields be taken away;
even though the snows of the British provinces be denied to them. And
as for those rivers and that sea-board, the Americans of the North
will have lost much of their old energy and usual force of will, if
any southern Confederacy be allowed to deny their right of way or to
stop their commercial enterprises. I believe that the South will be
badly off without the North; but I feel certain that the North will
never miss the South when once the wounds to her pride have been
closed.
From Washington I journeyed back to Boston through the cities which
I had visited in coming thither, and stayed again on my route for a
few days at Baltimore, at Philadelphia, and at New York. At each town
there were those whom I now regarded almost as old friends, and as
the time of my departure drew near I felt a sorrow that I was not to
be allowed to stay longer. As the general result of my sojourn in the
country, I must declare that I was always happy and comfortable in
the eastern cities, and generally unhappy and uncomfortable in the
West. I had previously been inclined to think that I should like the
roughness of the West, and that in the East I should encounter an
arrogance which would have kept me always on the verge of hot water;
but in both these surmises I found myself to have been wrong. And I
think that most English travellers would come to the same conclusion.
The western people do not mean to be harsh or uncivil, but they do
not make themselves pleasant. In all the eastern cities,--I speak of
the eastern cities north of Washington,--a society may be found which
must be esteemed as agreeable by Englishmen who like clever genial
men, and who love clever pretty women.
I was forced to pass twice again over the road between New York and
Boston, as the packet by which I intended to leave America was fixed
to sail from the former port. I had promised myself, and had promised
others, that I would spend in Boston the last week of my sojourn in
the States, and this was a promise which I was by no means inclined
to break. If there be a gratification in this world which has
no alloy, it is that of going to an assured welcome. The belief
that men's arms and hearts are open to receive one,--and the arms
and hearts of women, too, as far as they allow themselves to
open them,--is the salt of the earth, the sole remedy against
sea-sickness, the only cure for the tedium of railways, the one
preservative amidst all the miseries and fatigue of travel. These
matters are private, and should hardly be told of in a book; but in
writing of the States, I should not do justice to my own convictions
of the country if I did not say how pleasantly social intercourse
there will ripen into friendship, and how full of love that
friendship may become. I became enamoured of Boston at last. Beacon
Street was very pleasant to me, and the view over Boston Common was
dear to my eyes. Even the State House, with its great yellow-painted
dome, became sightly; and the sunset over the western waters that
encompass the city beats all other sunsets that I have seen.
During my last week there the world of Boston was moving itself on
sleighs. There was not a wheel to be seen in the town. The omnibuses
and public carriages had been dismounted from their axles and put
themselves upon snow runners, and the private world had taken out its
winter carriages, and wrapped itself up in buffalo robes. Men now
spoke of the coming thaw as of a misfortune which must come, but
which a kind Providence might perhaps postpone,--as we all, in short,
speak of death. In the morning the snow would have been hardened by
the night's frost, and men would look happy and contented. By an hour
after noon the streets would be all wet, and the ground would be
slushy and men would look gloomy and speak of speedy dissolution.
There were those who would always prophesy that the next day would
see the snow converted into one dull, dingy river. Such I regarded as
seers of tribulation, and endeavoured with all my mind to disbelieve
their interpretations of the signs. That sleighing was excellent fun.
For myself I must own that I hardly saw the best of it at Boston, for
the coming of the end was already at hand when I arrived there, and
the fresh beauty of the hard snow was gone. Moreover when I essayed
to show my prowess with a pair of horses on the established course
for such equipages, the beasts ran away, knowing that I was not
practised in the use of snow chariots, and brought me to grief and
shame. There was a lady with me on the sleigh whom, for a while, I
felt that I was doomed to consign to a snowy grave,--whom I would
willingly have overturned into a drift of snow, so as to avoid worse
consequences, had I only known how to do so. But Providence, even
though without curbs and assisted only by simple snaffles, did at
last prevail; and I brought the sleigh, horses, and lady alive back
to Boston, whether with or without permanent injury I have never yet
ascertained.
At last the day of tribulation came, and the snow was picked up and
carted out of Boston. Gangs of men, standing shoulder to shoulder,
were at work along the chief streets, picking, shovelling, and
disposing of the dirty blocks. Even then the snow seemed to be nearly
a foot thick; but it was dirty, rough, half-melted in some places,
though hard as stone in others. The labour and cost of cleansing the
city in this way must be very great. The people were at it as I left,
and I felt that the day of tribulation had in truth come.
Farewell to thee, thou western Athens! When I have forgotten thee my
right hand shall have forgotten its cunning, and my heart forgotten
its pulses. Let us look at the list of names with which Boston has
honoured itself in our days, and then ask what other town of the same
size has done more. Prescott, Bancroft, Motley, Longfellow, Lowell,
Emerson, Dana, Agassiz, Holmes, Hawthorne! Who is there among us
in England who has not been the better for these men? Who does not
owe to some of them a debt of gratitude? In whose ears is not their
names familiar? It is a bright galaxy and far extended, for so small
a city. What city has done better than this? All these men, save
one, are now alive and in the full possession of their powers. What
other town of the same size has done as well in the same short space
of time? It may be that this is the Augustan æra of Boston,--its
Elizabethan time. If so, I am thankful that my steps have wandered
thither at such a period.
While I was at Boston I had the sad privilege of attending the
funeral of President Felton, the head of Harvard College. A few
months before I had seen him a strong man, apparently in perfect
health and in the pride of life. When I reached Boston, I heard of
his death. He also was an accomplished scholar, and as a Grecian
has left few behind him who were his equals. At his installation as
President, four ex-Presidents of Harvard College assisted. Whether
they were all present at his funeral I do not know, but I do know
that they were all still living. These are Mr. Quincy, who is now
over ninety; Mr. Sparks; Mr. Everett, the well-known orator; and Mr.
Walker. They all reside in Boston or its neighbourhood, and will
probably all assist at the installation of another President.