CHAPTER I.

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THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. III.--FEBRUARY, 1863.--No. II.

OUR NATIONAL FINANCES.

Our national finances are involved in extreme peril. Our public debt

exceeds $720,000,000, and is estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury,

on the 1st of July next, at $1,122,297,403, and on the 1st of July,

1864, at $1,744,685,586. When we reflect that this is nearly one half

the debt of England, and bearing almost double the rate of interest, it

is clear that we are approaching a fatal catastrophe. Nor is this the

most alarming symptom. Gold now commands a premium of thirty-two per

cent., as compared with legal tender treasury notes, and, with largely

augmented issues, must rise much higher, with a correspondent increase

of our debt and expenditures. Indeed, should the war continue, and there

be no other alternative than additional treasury notes, they will,

before the close of the next fiscal year, fail to command forty cents on

the dollar in gold, and our debt exceed several billions of dollars.

This would result from an immense redundancy and depreciation of

currency, and from the alarm created here and in Europe, as to the

maintenance of the Union, and the ultimate solvency of the Government.

Indeed, our enemies, at home and abroad, the rebels, and their allies in

the North and in Europe, already announce impending national bankruptcy

and repudiation, and there are many devoted patriots who fear such a

catastrophe.

That the danger is imminent, is a truth which must not be disguised.

Here lies the great peril of the Government. It is not the rebel armies

that can ever overthrow the Union. It is the alarming increase of the

public debt and expenditures, and the still more appalling depreciation

of the national currency, that most imperil the great Republic.

And is the Union indeed to fall? Are we to be divided into separate

States or many confederacies, each warring against the other, the sport

of foreign oligarchs, the scorn of humanity, the betrayers of the

liberty of our country and of mankind? Can we yet save the Republic?

This is a fearful and momentous question, but it must be answered, and

answered NOW. Inaction is syncope. Delay is death. The life of the

Republic is ebbing fast, and the approaching Ides of March may toll the

funeral words, _It is too late_!

What then must be done to avert the dread catastrophe? Action, immediate

and energetic action, in the field and in Congress. Winter is the best

season for a campaign in the South. On--on--on with the banner of the

Republic, by land and sea, and with all the reinforcements, from the

Ohio and Potomac to the Gulf. On, also, with the necessary measures in

Congress to save our finances from ruin, arrest the depreciation of our

national currency, and restore the public credit. We are upon the verge

of ruin. We are hanging over the gulf of an irredeemable paper system,

and its spectral shade, repudiation, is seen dimly in the dark abyss.

The present Congress may save us; but what of the next? Would they, if

they could? Who can answer? Can they, if they would? No! no! It will

then be _too late_. Never did any representative assembly encounter so

fearful a responsibility as the present Congress. Each member must vote

as if the fate of the Union and of humanity depended upon his action. He

must rise above the passing clouds of passion and prejudice, of State,

local, or selfish interests, into the serene and holy atmosphere,

illumined by the light of truth, and warmed by the love of his country

and of mankind. His only inquiry must be, What will save the nation? The

allegiance to the Union is paramount, its maintenance 'the supreme law,'

the _lex legum_, of highest obligation, and he who, abandoning this

principle, follows in preference any real or supposed State policy, is a

secessionist in action, and a traitor to his country and mankind. Should

the catastrophe happen, no such paltry motives will save him from

disgrace and infamy; and, if he be snatched from oblivion, his only

epitaph will be: Here lies a destroyer of the American Union. He did not

destroy it by bullets, but by votes. He did not march against it with

armed battalions; but, a sentinel, he slept on the post of duty,

and--his country fell.

What, then, can Congress do? They can consider _at once_ this great

financial question, uninterrupted by any other measure, until there

shall have been action complete and decisive. But two months more remain

of the session. Not another day nor hour must be lost. All admit that

something must be done, and done quickly.

What then is the remedy for our depreciated and depreciating national

currency? The Secretary of the Treasury anticipated the disaster, and

proposed a remedy in 1861. I gave his bank plan then my earnest and

immediate support. Well would it have been for our country if it had

then been adopted, and gold would not now command a premium of

thirty-two per cent. After a year's experience and deliberation, the

Secretary reiterates his former recommendation, with words of solemn

import, and arguments of great force. His is the chief responsibility.

To him is mainly intrusted the custody of the public credit. His is now

the duty of saving us from national bankruptcy. At such a time, I would

differ from him on such a question, only on the clearest convictions,

and then only upon the condition that I had a better plan as a

substitute, and that mine could become a law now, and be carried now

into practical execution. If all this could not be done, I would support

the plan of the Secretary, as all admit that delay or inaction is death.

If my words be too bold or earnest, let them be attributed to my

profound conviction that the American Union is in extreme peril, and

that its downfall involves the final catastrophe of our country and of

our race. Let no man talk of a separation of the Union in any

contingency. Let none speak now of peace or compromise with armed

treason. Let none think of constructing separate nationalities out of

the broken and bleeding fragments of a dismembered Union. No; far better

that our wrecked and blasted earth should swing from its orbit,

disintegrate into its original atoms, and its place remain forever

vacant in the universe, than that we should survive, with such memories

of departed glory, and such a burning sense of unutterable infamy and

degradation. Fallen--fallen--fallen! from the highest pinnacle to the

lowest depth, to rise no more forever! What American would wish to live,

and encounter such a destiny? And why fallen? From a cause more damning

than our fate. Fallen, let the truth be told, as history would record,

because faction was stronger than patriotism, and the degenerate sons of

noble sires extinguished the world's last hope, by basely surrendering

the American Union to the foul coalition of slavery and treason. This

rebellion is the most stupendous crime in the annals of our race, and

its projectors and coadjutors, at home or abroad, individual or

dynastic, are doomed to immortal infamy. With its demoniac passions, its

satanic ambition, desecrating the remains of the slain, making goblets

of their skulls, and trinkets of their bones, this revolt is a

heliograph of Dahomey, and Devildom daguerreotyped more vividly than by

Dante or Milton.

The plan of the Secretary is clear, simple, comprehensive, practical,

and effective. It is the plan of an uniform circulation, furnished by

the Federal Government to banking associations organized by Congress,

securing prompt redemption by the deposit of the same amount of U.S. six

per cent stock in the Federal custody, the principal and interest of

this stock being payable in gold. This plan, with me, is a necessity,

and not a choice. It is the plan of the Secretary, and not mine, and is

therefore supported by me from no vanity of authorship. Nay, more, it

required me to overcome strong prejudices against any bank circulation,

and especially any connected in any way with the Government. It is,

however, a strong recommendation of the plan of the Secretary, that the

proposed connection of the banks with the Government is not political,

and attended with none of the formidable objections to the late Bank of

the United States. Ever since the bank suspension of 1837, I have been a

bullionist, and sustained that doctrine in the Senate of the United

States, and as Secretary of the Treasury. The act establishing the

independent treasury in 1846, was drawn by me, avowedly as a 'specie

receiving and _specie circulating_' institution, and to restrain

excessive issues by the banks; but it is impossible now to carry that

system into practical execution. The suspension of specie payment by the

banks and the Government, has been forced by the enormous expenditures

of the war, and the sub-treasury, which never was designed for the

custody or disbursement of paper, has been so far virtually superseded.

In acceding now, as in December, 1861, to the Secretary's plan of a bank

circulation, I must be understood as having changed my views in no

respect as to banks, but that I yield to the great emergency, which

renders the support of the war and of the Union paramount to any

question of coin or currency.

The national disbursements for the present and succeeding fiscal year,

as stated by the Secretary, together with his remarks on that subject,

supersede the necessity of any further argument in proof of the absolute

impossibility of specie payments now by the Government. We are compelled

to resort to paper, and the only question is as to the character and

extent of the issue. It is my opinion that we should limit this paper

currency, as far as practicable, that it may be as little depreciated

now as possible; so that when the rebellion is crushed, the banks and

the Government may resume specie payments at the earliest moment. I

favor the plan of the Secretary mainly because, by arresting

depreciation, it would furnish a currency approaching specie now more

nearly than can be accomplished in any other way, and because, when the

war is over, it provides the best means for a return, in the shortest

possible period, to specie payments. An irredeemable paper currency

dissolves contracts, violates good faith, and its history here and in

Europe is a record of financial ruin, bankruptcy, and repudiation, of

frauds, crimes, and demoralization, which no friend of his country or

race can desire to witness. The issue of treasury notes as a legal

tender was favored by me as a _necessity_ super-induced by the

rebellion, and as a substitute for the present bank issues. Such notes

would be depreciated much less when made a legal tender, and, to that

extent, our expenditures would be diminished, and specie payments could,

therefore, be resumed eventually at a much earlier period. Why, then, it

is asked, not continue and extend that system, rather than adopt the

plan recommended by the Secretary? Because, Congress refusing to

prohibit a bank circulation, such increased issues of treasury notes

would cause a further great depreciation of such notes, to that extent

augment our expenditures, and postpone, perhaps indefinitely, the

resumption of specie payments. Gold now commands a premium of thirty-two

per cent., payable in treasury notes; but, if such issues be increased

one half, they would fall to fifty per cent., and, if doubled, to at

least sixty per cent. below specie. At the last rate, if our yearly

expenditures, paid in paper, reached $700,000,000, this would command

but $280,000,000 in gold, thus subjecting the Government to a loss of

$420,000,000 per annum, and at thirty-two per cent. discount,

$224,000,000 per annum. These notes, it is true, bear no interest, which

at six per cent. on $280,000,000, would save $16,800,000 a year. But as

under the Secretary's plan (hereafter developed) the Government would

only pay an annual interest of four per cent. on this loan, the saving

would only be $11,200,000. Deduct this interest thus saved from the

$420,000,000 of increased annual expenditures, arising from such

depreciation of treasury notes, and the result is a net loss of

$408,800,000 per annum to the Government, from the use of such redundant

and depreciated currency. Surely, such a system would soon terminate in

bankruptcy and repudiation, repeating the history of French assignats

and Continental money.

Nor is it the Government only that suffers from such a disaster, but the

ruin extends to the people. There is no law more clearly established

than this: that the currency of a country bears a certain fixed

proportion to its wealth and business. If we expand the currency beyond

this proportion, we violate this law, and will surely suffer the

terrible penalties of this disobedience. This law is so certain and

invariable, that, if the expansion beyond this proportion should be even

in specie, the result would still be disastrous.

This was illustrated during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, when

Spain, having opened the virgin mines of America, brought the precious

metals in countless millions within her limits, and restricted their

exportation by the most stringent penalties. And what was the

consequence? Mr. Prescott, of Boston, tells us in his great history,

that 'the streams of wealth, which flowed in from the silver quarries of

Zacatecas and Potosi were jealously locked up within the limits of the

Peninsula.' 'The golden tide, which, permitted a free vent, would have

fertilized the region through which it poured, now buried the land under

a deluge, which blighted every green and living thing. _Agriculture_,

_commerce_, MANUFACTURES, every branch of national industry and

improvement, languished and fell to decay; and the nation, like the

Phrygian monarch who turned all that he touched into gold, cursed by the

very consummation of its wishes, was poor in the midst of its

treasures.' Such was the effect of violating the law which regulates the

ratio of money to wealth; such the consequence of a superabundant

currency, even in specie. The result was that Spain, which had been the

most prosperous nation of Europe, and whose products and manufactures

had supplied the markets of the world, lost nearly all her exports, and

was forced to resort to the prohibitory system. The cost of living, of

working farms, of manufacturing goods, of making and sailing ships,

became so high in Spain, from her superabundant currency, that she was

unable to compete with any other nation, was reduced to poverty, and

never began to recover until 'Spain changed her system, encouraged the

exportation of the precious metals, and thus brought down her

superabundant currency and inflated prices, and thus enabled Spanish

industry to supply the markets of the Peninsula and of the world.'

_Then_, the distinguished historian tells us, 'the precious metals,

instead of flowing in so abundantly as to palsy the arm of industry,

only served to stimulate it, the foreign intercourse of the country was

every day more widely extended;' 'the flourishing condition of the

nation was seen in the wealth and population of its cities,' etc. It is

a redundant currency, even if gold or convertible into gold, that

produces these evils, although depreciation adds to the disaster.

What is the effect here of a redundant currency, is ascertained by

reference to our exports. By Treasury Tables 20 and 21, our foreign

imports consumed here in 1836-'7 rose to $168,233,675, being largely

more than double what they were in 1832 ($76,989,793), and nearly double

the consumption, _per capita_, which was $5.61 in 1832, and $10.93 in

1836. This was our great year of a redundant, although still a

convertible currency, when our imports consumed exceeded our exports of

domestic produce, $61,662,733; and so enhanced was the cost of living

and production here, that we actually imported breadstuffs that year of

the value of $5,271,576. (Table 1, Com. and Nav.) Our bank currency that

year was as follows: Circulation, $149,185,890; deposits, $127,397,185;

circulation and deposits, $276,583,075; loans, $525,115,702. (Treasury

Report, 1838, Doc. 79, tables K. K.) The legitimate result of this

expansion of loans and currency was the great bank suspension of May,

1837, and general bankruptcy throughout the country.

Now our bank circulation in 1860 was $207,102,477; deposits,

$253,802,129; circulation and deposits, $460,904,606; loans,

$691,495,580. (Table 34, Census of 1860.) Yet our population in 1860 was

more than double that of 1837, and our wealth (the true barometer,

marking the proper rise and fall of our currency) had much more than

quadrupled. (Census Table 35.) The proportion of the currency to wealth

in 1837 was more than double the ratio of 1860. It was not the tariff

that produced the suspension of 1837, for it was _much lower_ in 1860,

than at the date of the bank suspension of 1837.

By Treasury Table 24, our total exports abroad of domestic produce,

exclusive of specie, from the 30th of September, 1821, to 30th June,

1861, were $5,060,929,667; and, in the year ending the 30th June, 1860,

were $316,242,423. At the same rate of increase from 1860 to 1870, as

from 1850 to 1860, our domestic exports exclusive of specie in the

decade ending the 30th June, 1870, would have exceeded five billions of

dollars, had peace continued and the currency been no more redundant in

proportion to our wealth than in 1860. But with a redundant and

depreciated currency our exports must have been reduced at least one

fourth. What would be the effect on every branch of our industry, may be

learned by looking at Treasury Table 40, showing our domestic exports

for the year ending 30th June, 1861. These exports were, of the products

of our fisheries, $4,451,515; of the forest, $10,260,809; of

agriculture, exclusive of cotton, rice, and tobacco, $100,273,655, and

of our manufactures, $35,786,804. This was mainly from the loyal States.

Now if the foreign markets for our products are reduced only one fourth

by the effect of a redundant currency, inflating here the cost of

production and of living, the result would be most disastrous to our

industry. The reduction would be equal, as we have seen, to $125,000,000

per annum, and $1,250,000,000 in the decade. Our imports would be

reduced in the same proportion, and our revenue from customs in a

corresponding ratio. Supposing the average rate of duties of the present

tariff to be equal to 40 per cent. ad valorem, this would make a

difference in our revenue from customs of $500,000,000 in the decade,

and, including interest not compounded, $635,000,000. And here I deem it

a duty to say to the financial portion of our peace party, especially in

New York, that our redundant and depreciated currency, with our failure

to crush the rebellion, and a consequent dissolution of the Union, would

make repudiation inevitable. We are forced, then, by a due regard to our

material interests, as well as by the higher obligations of honor and

duty, to subdue the revolt and restore the supremacy of the Government

in every State. This we can and must do. It is due to our country and to

the world. It is due to the wounded and mutilated survivors of the

bloody conflict, and to our martyred dead, murdered by the foulest

treason, and in the accursed cause of slavery. No! all this blood and

treasure must not have been poured out in vain. It is a question mainly

of money and persistence. Our armies can and will conquer the rebellion,

if we can and will supply the sinews of war. Our success is much more a

financial than a military question. As regards the result, the Secretary

of the Treasury holds now the most important post in this contest: he is

the generalissimo; and as he is right on this question, and the fate of

the Union is involved, I deem it my duty to give him my earnest and

zealous support.

Ruinous as must be the effect of a redundant and depreciated currency

upon all industrial pursuits, the injustice to our gallant army and

navy, regulars and volunteers, would be attended with extreme peril.

Upon their courage and endurance we must rely for success. We have

pledged to our brave troops, who are wounded or dying by thousands that

the Union may live, such pay as to enable them while fighting our

battles to make allotments of portions of their money for the support of

their families during their absence. We have promised pensions also.

These are all solemn pledges on the part of our Government, and our

faith is violated if this pay or these pensions are reduced. But there

is no difference between a law directly reducing this pay and these

pensions, and the adoption by Congress of the policy of a redundant and

depreciated currency which will produce the same result. Every vote then

in Congress for such a policy, is a vote to reduce the pay and pensions

for our troops, and to annihilate the allotments made by them for the

support of their families. What effect such a policy must have on our

troops and the maintenance of the Union is but too palpable. It is

disbandment and dissolution. Every such vote is given also to reduce the

value of the wages of labor, and for increased taxation, to the extent,

as we have seen, of $408,800,000 per annum. It is a vote also to reduce

our exports and revenue from customs, to paralyze our industry; and

finally, in its ultimate results, it is a vote against the war, for

repudiation and disunion, and hence every disunionist will oppose the

plan of the Secretary.

To what extent this redundancy and depreciation will go, by enlarged

issues of legal tender treasury notes, we may learn from the fact that

the banks substitute them for coin for the redemption of their paper.

Now, just in proportion as the issue of treasury notes becomes redundant

and depreciated, will the bank circulation, redeemable in such notes,

augment and depreciate also. This is the law of bank circulation as now

forced upon us by Congress. It is the law of redundancy and

depreciation. If this policy is adopted by Congress, an enlarged issue

made of treasury notes, and the plan of the Secretary discarded, our

bank and treasury note circulation, with the war continued, will very

largely exceed one billion of dollars before the close of the next

fiscal year, and both will be depreciated much more than sixty per cent.

Thus, if we should enlarge our issues of legal demand treasury notes to

$500,000,000, and these be made the basis of bank issues, in the ratio

of three to one, our total paper circulation would be $2,000,000,000,

such treasury notes inflating the bank issues, and both depreciating

together. And yet this is the currency in which it is proposed to

conduct the war and the business of the country. The banks alone, by

excessive loans and issues, would grow rich apparently, on the ruin of

their country. But there would be a terrible retribution. The result

would be general insolvency and repudiation, _the debts due the banks

would become worthless_, and they be involved in the general ruin. It is

then the interest of the banks to sustain the Government and the

Secretary, and to transfer their capital to the new associations. This

is especially the case with the New York banks, which, under a provision

of their State constitution, HAVE NO LEGAL EXISTENCE. When repudiation

and bankruptcy become general, the cry, like that of a routed army in a

panic flight, would be raised, _Sauve qui peut_; we may have again an

old and a new court party, especially under our miserable system of an

elective judiciary; and the banks be crushed by wicked legal devices, as

they were in the West and Southwest in 1824 and 1838.

Referring to bank issues, the Secretary says, in his last report: 'It

was only when the United States notes, having been made a legal tender,

were diverted from their legitimate use as a currency, and made the

basis of bank circulation, that the great increase of the latter began.'

At the present depreciation of these treasury notes, it is better for

the banks, by one third, to redeem their circulation in these notes,

rather than in specie; and they need keep only one dollar of treasury

notes for three of bank circulation. This is the policy forced upon the

banks by Congress. But the more redundant and depreciated this currency

becomes, the easier will it be for the banks to provide the basis of

redemption, and expand their circulation in the ratio, like that of

specie, of three dollars of bank currency for each dollar of treasury

notes held by them. Thus it is that the enlarged issue of treasury notes

necessarily increases the bank circulation, in the ratio of three to

one, and thus also, that the circulation of bank and treasury notes

becomes redundant and depreciated. Under such a policy, every bank then,

however loyal its stockholders or officers, becomes a citadel, whose

artillery bears with more fearful effect upon the Government than all

the armies of the rebellion. This will soon become obvious, and the

odium will rest upon the banks, their officers and stockholders. But the

real responsibility will be with Congress, who, by such a system will

have arrayed the banks in necessary and inevitable hostility to the

Government. Such, we all know, is not the intention of Congress; but as

this result will necessarily flow from their measures, upon them, in the

end, will fall the terrible responsibility of the disaster. It is this

appalling condition of our finances that gives the rebellion its only

hope of success, and invites foreign intervention. But if Congress will

adopt the policy of the Secretary, they will render certain the triumph

of the Union, and the rebels, from despair and exhaustion, must soon

abandon the contest.

We have seen how dreadful is the disaster which the banks would bring on

the country by pursuing the present system, and how terrible the odium

to which they would be subjected. But now let us look at the result, if

the plan of the Secretary is adopted. The new banks would become fiscal

agents of the Government. Their circulation would be uniform, furnished

by the Government, and based on U. S. stocks, the principal and interest

of which would be payable in gold. The interest of labor and capital, of

the banks, the Government, and the people, would for the first time

become inseparably united and consolidated. This is a grand result, and

fraught with momentous consequences to the country. Every citizen,

whether a stockholder of the banks or not, would have a direct and

incalculable interest in their success and prosperity. They, the people,

would have this interest, not merely as holding the notes of the banks,

which would become our currency, but because the banks would hold the

stock of the Government, would have loaned it in this way the money to

suppress the rebellion, and thus have saved us from a redundant and

depreciated currency, from inevitable bankruptcy and repudiation, and

have prevented the overthrow of the Union. Each bank would then become a

citadel over which should float the flag of the Union, for each bank

would then become a powerful auxiliary for the support of the Government

and the overthrow of the rebellion.

The bill divorcing the banks and the Government was drawn by me, as

Secretary of the Treasury, in 1846, to enlarge the circulation of

specie, and restrain excessive issues of bank paper. I go for the

reunion now, as proposed by the Secretary, to enable the Government to

effect loans upon their stock, to prevent a redundant and depreciated

paper currency, with a correspondent increase of expenditures, and to

provide the means, when the war is over, to resume specie payment at the

earliest practicable period. I was for restraining excessive paper

issues then, and so am I now, as far as possible. I carried into full

effect then the divorce of the Government and the banks, against a

terrible opposition from them and the great Whig party. I made the

divorce complete, _a vinculo matrimonii_: so now I would make the union

complete, so far as proposed by the Secretary, for the interest of the

banks and the Government would be united, and just as you strengthened

the banks and increased their capital and profits, would you fund more

and more treasury notes, and save us from the ruin of a redundant and

depreciated currency.

The Secretary proposes to make these banks depositories of treasury

notes, received by the Government for all dues except customs. This is

well; for to use the sub-treasury to receive and circulate treasury

notes, is against the object for which it was created. Such deposits

should be secured by U. S. stocks with the Government, and thus largely

increase the demand for this stock. During nearly my first two years as

Secretary of the Treasury, the public moneys were deposited by me in the

State banks, secured by United States and State stocks, and there was no

loss. Nor, indeed, was there any loss or default by any officer, agent,

or employe of the Treasury Department during my entire term of four

years, notwithstanding the large loans and war expenditures.

Disbursing officers should also deposit with the banks, and pay as

formerly by checks on them, with the same guarantee by them of U. S.

stocks. How far, and to what extent, and under what special provisions

the gold received for customs might be deposited with these banks, may

be the subject of discussion hereafter.

If this system were adopted in its entirety, the process of absorbing

treasury notes would commence at once, and also a correspondent rise in

their market value. The system of loans and funding saved England from

bankruptcy during her long wars with France, and we must resort to

similar expedients. But as loans, in the usual way, except at ruinous

discounts, for any large amounts, are impracticable, we are left to the

alternative of the Secretary's system, or bankruptcy, repudiation, and

disunion.

I have another suggestion to make as regards these notes furnished by

the Government to the banks, secured by U. S. stocks. These notes are

guaranteed not only by the stock of the Government, but, in addition, by

the whole capital and property, real and personal, of the banks, and a

prior lien on the whole to the Government, to secure the payment of

these notes. These notes are receivable by the Government for all dues

except customs. These notes are a national currency, furnished by the

nation and secured by its stock.

These notes then, as in England, should be a legal tender in payment of

all debts, except by the banks. As the banks can redeem these issues in

legal tender treasury notes, these issues of the new banks ought to be a

legal tender also, except by the banks.

There is another reason why this currency should be made a legal tender.

Our two last suspensions of specie payments by the banks, viz., in 1857

and in 1860, were based upon _panics_, yet they had the same disastrous

effect, for the time, as if arising from short crops, overtrading, or a

currency greatly redundant. Such panic convulsions are caused mainly by

the call for the redemption of bank notes in specie, based on the fear

of suspension and depreciation. But if such notes, as in European

government banks, were a legal tender, except by the banks, such panics

would be far less frequent here, and less injurious. The present system,

as compared with that of Europe, discriminates most unjustly against our

country. As a general rule, the American creditor cannot demand gold

from the foreign debtor, but such foreign or domestic creditor could

always demand gold from the American debtor. This discrimination has

produced here the most disastrous consequences, and, independent of the

present condition of the country, our whole banking system requires

radical reform. We have had eight _general_ bank suspensions under our

present bank system, many of them continuing for years, and producing

ruin and desolation. Under our present system, to talk, as a general

rule, of well-regulated banks, is to talk of a well-regulated famine or

pestilence, or of a well-regulated earthquake or tornado. And even the

few banks that are claimed to be well managed, have no appreciable

effect on the system. It is the system that knows no uniformity or

security, and never can have, as now organized. That a system so

perilous and explosive, should have even partially succeeded is proof

only of the intelligence and integrity, generally, of the bank officers

and directors, but no recommendation of the system itself.

The want of uniformity as to commercial regulations, led to the adoption

of our Federal Constitution; and yet we have no uniformity as to money,

which represents commerce and effects its interchanges. In this respect,

we are still suffering all the evils of the old confederacy, and have

thereby so weakened the Government as to have invited this rebellion.

Indeed, the State banks in the revolted States were the main auxiliaries

of treason and secession, and supplied, to a vast extent, the sinews of

war. By Census Table 34, there were in 1860, 1,642 banks, incorporated

by thirty-four States, with no uniformity of organization, issues, or

security. Thus is it that the States have usurped the power to regulate

commerce and currency, and to emit bills of credit, in defiance of the

prohibition of the Federal Constitution. The Egyptians abandoned their

folly after seven plagues; but we have had eight bank convulsions, and

yet we adhere to the wretched system.

I believe it was slavery caused the rebellion, but, in the absence of

powerful aid from the Southern banks, the revolted States could never

have maintained so prolonged a contest. Organized as now proposed, these

new banks, and all who held their notes, must have sustained the

Government. Nations expend millions yearly in erecting forts and

maintaining, even in peace, large armies and navies to preserve the

Government. But necessary as these may be, they would not be more

important than the system now proposed as a security for the

preservation of the Government.

My last suggestion is, that as regards all such United States loans, as

during the war shall become the basis of this system, the time of

payment shall be made twenty years instead of five, so as, with the

modifications above proposed, to insure the cooperation of the banks,

and the success of the system. As this plan is deemed essential to save

our finances, to suppress the rebellion, and maintain the Union, why

incur any hazard on such a question as this? In all our wars, including

the present, we have issued bonds running twenty years to maturity, and

the bonds, redeemable in 1881, are scarcely at par. Why, then, issue a

stock of less value, which may fail to accomplish the great object, when

a better security would certainly succeed? I fully agree in the opinion

expressed by the Secretary, against 'a fixed interest of six per cent.

on a great debt, for twenty years,' if it can be avoided; but I also

concur in that portion of his report in which he says: 'No very early

day will probably witness the reduction of the public debt to the amount

required as a basis for secured circulation.' To that extent, then,

would I enlarge the time for the maturity of the bonds. Surely, if this

be necessary to secure the cooperation of the banks, and the capital of

the country, there should be no hesitation. Even if the system, based

only on the bonds of short date, should ultimately succeed, the loss, in

the interim, from a redundant and depreciated currency, would far exceed

any benefit derived from the substitution of five-twenties for twenty

year bonds. By Census Table 35, our wealth in 1850, was $7,135,780,228,

and in 1860, $16,159,616,068, the ratio of increase during the decade

being 126.45 per cent.; at which rate, our wealth in 1870 would be

$36,583,450,585, and in 1880, $82,843,222,849. Surely, then, at these

periods, it would be much easier to liquidate this debt than in 1867.

But, were it otherwise, the immediate gain from decreased expenditures,

arising from funding more rapidly our treasury notes, thus rendering our

currency less redundant and depreciated, with the revival of the public

credit, and its immediate happy influence, North and South, here and in

Europe, would far more than compensate for any contingent advantage

arising from short loans. Our twenty years' loan is now barely at par,

and the five-twenties below par. The difficulty of inducing bank and

other capital to invest hundreds of millions of dollars under the new

system is very great. Is it wise to commence the effort, confined to our

weakest securities, now below par? Besides, considering the old and new

debts, and constantly increasing responsibilities, is there any prospect

that we will have liquidated all these before the end of five years, and

the five-twenty loan also? Surely, upon a benefit so doubtful, and a

contingency so improbable, we ought not to risk the fate of a measure on

which depends the safety of the Union. But if we could pay off the

five-twenty loan held by the new banks, is it prudent to assume that so

many hundred millions of capital will be withdrawn from the present

banks and other business for investment in the new banks, which may

cease at the end of five years by payment of the bonds? The change from

the old to the new banks may involve some loss at first, but, if the

system may be arrested at the end of five years, just when profits might

be realizing, the plan could scarcely succeed. When the Secretary first

proposed this system in December, 1861, he probably would have succeeded

with the five-twenties, in the condition at that date of the public

credit. But the disastrous fall of our securities since that date, seems

now to require bonds of a higher value.

I would then provide a twenty years loan, for all that may be made the

basis of the new bank circulation. But it is not a six, but only a four

per cent. twenty years' loan that is proposed, by deducting one per

cent. semi-annually from the interest of the bonds made the basis of

this bank circulation. This deduction would only be a fair equivalent

for the expenses incurred by the Government in furnishing the

circulation, for the release of taxes, for the deposit of public moneys

with these banks, for making their notes a legal tender, and receiving

them for all dues except customs. The tax on all other bank circulation

should be one and a half per cent. semi-annually, secured by adequate

penalties.

If, under this system, during this stupendous rebellion, involving the

existence of the Government, with armies and expenditures unexampled in

history, the Secretary (as, with the aid of Congress and the banks, I

believe he can) should secure us a sound and uniform currency, and

negotiate vast loans, running twenty years, at par, the Government

paying only four per cent. interest per annum, he will have accomplished

a financial miracle, and deserved a fame nearest to that of the first

and greatest of his predecessors, the peerless Hamilton.

The bill organizing the new system, presented in Congress by Mr. Hooper

last summer, is drawn with great ability, and it is much to be deplored,

that (with some amendments) it had not then become a law, when it could

have been much more easily put in operation, and would have saved

hundreds of millions of dollars to the Government.

But the fifty-fifth section of that bill provides that all the banks

organized under it are to become 'depositaries of the public moneys,'

excepting those in 'the city of Washington.' Why this discrimination? If

there be any place where banks, organized under a national charter,

issuing a national currency, and receiving national deposits, should be

encouraged, it is here. With no discrimination against them, such banks

would be established here with considerable capital. And why not? It

cannot be intended to discourage the establishment of such banks here,

and thus defeat, to that extent, the success of the system. It is here,

if anywhere, that such banks should receive the public deposits, where

they could be constantly secured from day to day under the immediate

supervision of the Government. Besides, the only effect of such a

discrimination would be to drive such banks to Georgetown, Alexandria,

or some other speculative site outside the city or District. This city

has just been consecrated to freedom by Congress, and it is hoped that,

in commencing its new career, no discrimination will be made against it.

Indeed, I think it would be wise, in order to insure the success here of

the new system, to allow the district banks organized under this law to

receive the same rate of interest as is permitted in New York.

I have contended, during the last fourth of a century, that all State

bank currency is unconstitutional. This rebellion will demonstrate the

truth of that proposition, and the question ultimately be so decided by

the Supreme Court of the United States. This, it is true, might require

some of those Judges, if then living, to change their opinion on some

points; but this has been done before, and even on constitutional

questions; and State banks will fall before judicial action, as well as

nullification, State allegiance, secession, and the whole brood of

kindred heresies.

A republic which cannot regulate its currency, or which leaves that

power with thirty-four separate States, each legislating at its pleasure

and without uniformity, abandons an essential national authority, and

this abdication has furnished one of the main supports of the rebellion.

With nothing but a national currency, the revolted States never could

have successfully inaugurated this war, and we must deprive them in all

time to come of this terrible ally of treason. To permit the States to

provide the circulating medium, the money of the country, is to enable

them to furnish the sinews of war, and clothe them with a power to

overthrow the Government.

With only such a national currency as is now proposed, issued by the

Government to these banks, organized by Congress, and based on the

deposit in the Federal treasury of United States stock, the rebellion

would have been impossible. Our Government was so mild and benignant,

that we deemed it exempt from the assault of traitors; but this revolt

has dissipated this delusion, and warned us to provide all the

safeguards indicated by experience as necessary to maintain the Union.

Among the most important is the resumption by the Government of the

great sovereign function of regulating the currency and giving to it

uniformity and nationality. Such was clearly the intention of the

Constitution. The Government has, by the Constitution, the _exclusive_

power 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several

States.' But commerce is _regulated_ mainly by money, and by it all

interstate and international exchanges of products are made. If the

currency is redundant, prices rise, exports are diminished; and the

reverse follows with a contracted circulation. But banks inflate or

restrict the currency at their pleasure, and thus control prices,

commerce, exports, imports, and revenue. But they also destroy or

depreciate the money of the Government, and deprive it of a vital power.

Thus, the nation issues treasury notes, and makes them a legal tender:

the banks immediately make such notes the basis of bank issues, in the

ratio of three to one, and the whole currency necessarily becomes

redundant and depreciated; and thus this essential power of the

Government is controlled by the States, and, for all practical purposes,

annihilated.

Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the unanimous opinion of the

Supreme Court of the United States (4 Wheaton 193), said: 'Wherever the

terms in which a power is granted to Congress, or the nature of the

power require that it should be exercised exclusively by Congress, the

subject is as completely taken from the State Legislatures as if they

had been forbidden to act on it.' Now, it has been decided by the

Supreme Court of the United States (9 Wheaton 1) that, this power to

_regulate commerce_ extends to the _land_, as well as to the _water_,

that it includes _intercourse and navigation_, and vessels, as vehicles

of commerce, that it includes an _embargo_ which is prohibitory, that

this power is 'EXCLUSIVELY vested in Congress,' and '_no part of it can

be exercised by a State_.' Now, the question, whether the notes of a

State bank, issued on the authority of a State, and designed to

circulate as money, conflicts with _this clause_ of the Constitution,

has _never been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States_. This

is a new and momentous question, never yet adjudicated by the Supreme

Court; but how they would now decide that point, with the light thrown

upon it by this rebellion, I cannot doubt.

The Government also has the sole power to lay and collect _duties_,

which 'shall be uniform throughout the United States,' and the States

are prohibited from exercising this authority. But this power also is in

fact controlled by the banks, and the revenue from imports increased or

diminished, according to their action. Indeed, they can modify or repeal

tariffs at their pleasure, for, they have only to inflate the

circulation, and prices rise here to the extent of the duties, and the

tariff becomes inoperative. Of all the branches of our industry, the

manufacturing is injured most by a redundant currency, limiting our

fabrics to a partial supply at home, and driving them from the foreign

market. Give us a sound, stable, uniform currency, sufficient but not

redundant, and our skilled, educated, and intelligent labor will, in

time, defy all competition. But the banks, as now conducted, are the

great enemies of American industry.

The Government has also the _sole_ power 'to coin money, regulate the

value thereof,' etc. But the banks now regulate its value by controlling

prices, by substituting their money for coin, and by expelling it from

the country at their pleasure. Recollect, these powers over commerce and

money are _exclusive_, not concurrent, so adjudicated, and the

Constitution, in delegating them exclusively to the Government, withheld

them altogether from the States. The conceded fact that these powers are

_exclusive_, proves that the States cannot, by any instrumentality,

directly or indirectly, control their exercise. An exclusive authority

necessarily forbids any control or interference. But there are express

prohibitions in the Constitution as well as grants. That instrument

declares that 'no _State_ shall emit _bills of credit_.' The State

itself cannot emit circulating paper: how then can it authorize this to

be done by a State corporation, which is the mere creature of a State

law? The State cannot authorize its _Governor_ to issue such paper: how

then can it direct a _cashier_, deriving all his power only from a State

law, to do the same thing? _Qui facit per alium, facit per se_, and this

fundamental maxim of law and reason is violated when a State does

through any instrumentality, created by it, what the State cannot do

itself.

It is true that a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States, in

11 Peters 257, did decide that the Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky

did not violate that clause of the Constitution forbidding States to

'emit bills of credit,' but Justice Story, in his dissenting opinion,

said: 'When this cause was formerly argued before this court, a majority

of the judges who then heard it were decidedly of opinion that the act

of Kentucky establishing this bank was unconstitutional and void, as

amounting to an authority to emit bills of credit, for and on behalf of

the State, within the prohibition of the Constitution of the United

States. In principle, it was thought to be decided by the case of Craig

_v._ the State of Missouri (4 Peters 410). Among that majority was the

late Chief Justice Marshall.' This decision, then, in the case of the

Bank of Kentucky, is overthrown, _as an authority_, by the fact that it

was against the decision of the Supreme Court in a former case, and

against the opinion of a majority of the court in that very case before

the death of Chief Justice Marshall. In delivering the opinion of the

court in the Missouri case (4 Peters 410), Chief Justice Marshall

defined what is that _bill of credit_ which a _State cannot emit_. He

says: 'If the prohibition means anything, if the words are not empty

sounds, it must comprehend the emission of _any paper medium_ by a State

Government, for the purpose of _common circulation_.' And he also says:

'Bills of credit signify a _paper medium_, intended to _circulate_

between individuals, and between Government and individuals, for the

ordinary purposes of society.' That the notes of the Bank of Kentucky

came within this definition and decision, is clearly stated by Justice

Story. In that case also it was expressly decided, that if the issues be

unconstitutional, _the notes given for the loan of them_ ARE VOID. It is

said, however, that the bills are issued by a bank, not by the State;

but the bank is created by the State, and authorized by the State to

issue these notes, to circulate as money. In the language of Chief

Justice Marshall, in this case, 'And can this make any real difference?

Is the proposition to be maintained that the Constitution meant to

prohibit names and not things?' On this subject, Justice Story says:

'That a State may rightfully evade the prohibitions of the Constitution

by acting through the _instrumentality of agents_ in the evasion,

instead of acting in its _own direct name_, is a doctrine to which I can

never subscribe,' etc. I am conscious that Justice Story also said in

the same case, _arguendo_: 'the States may create banks as well as other

corporations, upon _private capital_; and, SO FAR AS THIS PROHIBITION IS

CONCERNED, may rightfully authorize them to issue bank bills or notes as

currency, subject always to the _control of Congress_, whose powers

extend to the _entire regulation of the currency of the country_.' It

will be observed, that Justice Story gives no opinion as to whether the

issues of such banks are constitutional, whether they conflict or not

with the power of Congress to regulate coin or commerce. He only says

(and the limitation is most significant), they do not violate the

prohibition as to bills of credit (from which I dissent); but he does

declare that to Congress belongs '_the entire regulation of the

currency_.' Now this power must rest on the authority of Congress to

regulate coin and commerce. But these powers, we have seen, were not

concurrent, but _exclusive_; and, in the language of Chief Justice

Marshall, in delivering the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in

the case before quoted from 4 Wheaton 193, as to any such power that

'should be exercised _exclusively_ by Congress, the subject is as

_completely_ taken from the State Legislature as if they had been

_forbidden to act on it_.' All then who agree that Congress has 'the

entire regulation of the currency,' must admit that all banks of issue

incorporated by States are unconstitutional, not because such issues are

bills of credit, but because they violate the exclusive authority of

Congress to regulate commerce, coin, and its value. I repeat, that while

this question has never been adjudicated by the Supreme Court, yet, if

their decision in fourth and ninth Wheaton is maintained, such bank

issues are clearly unconstitutional. It is clear, also, whatever may be

the case of bank issues, based only 'upon private capital,' or, in the

language of Judge Story, 'if the corporate stock, and that only by the

charter, is made liable for the debts of the bank,' yet, if the bank

issues are based on the 'funds' or 'credit' of the State, such issues do

violate the prohibition against bills of credit. Such bank issues, then,

as are furnished and countersigned by State officers, acting under State

laws, and are secured by the deposit with the State of its own stock,

are most clearly unconstitutional.

In No. 44 (by Hamilton) of the _Federalist_, the great contemporaneous

exposition of the Constitution (prepared by Hamilton, Madison, and Chief

Justice Jay of the Supreme Court of the United States), it is said: 'The

same reasons which show the necessity of denying to the States the power

of regulating coin, prove with equal force that they ought not to be at

liberty to substitute a paper medium instead of coin.' Such was the

opinion of the two great founders of the Constitution (Hamilton and

Madison), and its first judicial expositor, the eminent Chief Justice

Jay. Justice Story quotes and approves this remarkable passage, and says

'that the prohibition was aimed at a _paper medium_ which was intended

to _circulate as money_, and to that alone.'

In his message of December 3, 1816, President Madison, referring

expressly to a _bank_ and _paper_ medium, said: 'It is essential that

the nation should possess a currency of equal value, credit, and use,

wherever it may circulate. The Constitution has entrusted Congress

_exclusively_ with the power of _creating_ and _regulating_ a currency

of that description.'

This rebellion proves the awful danger of State violations of the

Federal Constitution. The rebellion is the child of State usurpation,

State supremacy, State allegiance, and State secession. And now the

Government is paralyzed financially, in its efforts to suppress the

rebellion, by a question as to State banks, depreciating the currency,

and State banks based on State stocks. The Government wishes a currency,

not redundant, and to borrow money to save the Union. But one State

says, we have placed all our surplus money in State banks, and another

State (as in the case of New York) says, we have based the circulation

of these banks, mainly on our own State bonds, and you must do nothing

which will injuriously affect their value. It is true the Union is in

danger, but are not the credit of State banks and State bonds of higher

value than the Union? The State first, the Union afterwards. Our

paramount duty is to our State, and that to the Union is subordinate.

Why, this is the very language of rebellion--the echo of South Carolina

treason. But it is not the language of the Constitution, which declares

that "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall

be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be

made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law

of the land: and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby,

anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary

notwithstanding."

The _supremacy_ then, is with the Federal Constitution and laws;

otherwise there could be no uniformity or nationality. And does New York

suppose that she can tear down the temple of the Union, and that the

principal pillar which supported the arch will stand firm and erect? No!

if the Union falls, New York will only be the most conspicuous among the

broken columns.

But New York knows that the path of interest is that of honor and of

duty. It is the Union only that has made her great. It is the

concentration by the Union of interstate and international commerce in

her great city, that was consummating its imperial destiny. Before the

Union of 1778 and 1787, New York city was the village of Manhattan:

destroy the Union, and she will again become little more than the

village of Manhattan. The trident of the ocean, the sceptre of the

world's commerce would fall from her grasp, and London be left without a

rival. Deprive the Government of the power to regulate commerce, and the

fall of New York will be as rapid as her rise. Each State then, as

before the Constitution, would control its own commerce, and the

railroads and canals of New York would cease to be the vehicles of the

trade of the nation and of the world. Each State, as under the old

Confederacy, would force commerce into her own ports by prohibitory or

discriminating statutes. No, when New York takes from the Union the

exclusive control of commerce, she commits suicide. One uniform

regulation of commerce, and one uniform currency, are more essential to

the prosperity of New York than to that of any other State. New York

represents interstate and international commerce. There are concentrated

our imports and exports, and there three fourths of our revenue is

collected. There, if the Union endures, must be the centre of the

commerce of the nation and of the world. If the rebellion succeeds, the

separation of the East and West is just as certain as that of the North

and South. Discord would reign supreme, and States and parts of States

become petty sovereignties, mere pawns, to be moved on the political

chess board by the kings and queens of Europe.

As New York has derived the greatest benefits from the Union, so would

she suffer most from its fall. It is New York to whom the Union

transferred the command of her own commerce, and ultimately that of the

world. It is New York to which England looks as the future successful

rival of London, and it is New York at whom England chiefly aims the

blow in desiring to overthrow the Union. The interest of New York in the

price of bank or State stock is insignificant compared with her still

greater stake in the success of the Union. Indeed, if the Union should

fall, State and bank stock and all property will be of little value, and

bank debts will generally become worthless.

But if the war continues, we have seen that a redundant and depreciated

currency would increase our expenditures $408,800,000 per annum. This

would require a like addition to our annual tax, of which the share of

New York would be over $50,000,000, and the share of every other State

in like proportion to its population.

By Treasury Table 35, the stocks, State and Federal, held by the New

York banks in 1860, was $29,605,318, the circulation $28,239,950, and

the capital $111,821,957. Thus it appears that the increased tax to be

paid _annually_ by New York, as the consequence of a redundant and

depreciated currency, would be nearly double her whole bank circulation,

and that thirteen months of this increased tax to be paid by the nation,

would largely exceed the whole capital of all the banks of the United

States in 1860. (Census Table 35.) These are the frightful results of an

irredeemable, redundant, and depreciated currency.

Such a course, on the part of a Government, which must make large

purchases, resembles that of an individual who wishes to buy largely on

his own credit and paper, but depreciates it so much as to compel him to

pay quadruple prices, the result being bankruptcy and repudiation.

There is great hope in the fact that New York takes no contracted view

of this great question. She knows that her imperial destiny is

identified with the fate of the Union. Realizing this great truth, she

has more troops in the field than any other State, she has expended more

money and more blood than any other State to suppress this rebellion,

and she will never array State stocks or State banks in hostility to the

safety of the Union.

And what of Pennsylvania, that glorious old Commonwealth, so many of

whose noble sons, cut off mostly in the morning of life, now fill graves

prepared by treason? Is she to become a border State, and her southern

boundary the line of blood, marked by frowning forts, by bristling

bayonets, by the tramp of contending armies, engaged in the carnival of

slaughter, and revelry of death? Is New England to be re-colonized, and

the British flag again to float over the chosen domain of freedom? What

of the small States, deprived of the secured equality and protective

guarantees of the Constitution, to be surely crushed by more powerful

communities? What of the West? Is it to be cut off from the seaboard,

and rendered tributary to the maritime power? What of the States of the

Pacific? Are they to lose the great imperial railways destined, under

the Union, to connect them with the valley of the Mississippi and the

Atlantic? But alas! why look at any of the bleeding and mutilated

fragments, when all will be involved in a common ruin?

May a gracious Providence give us all, the wisdom to discern what is

best for our beloved country, in this her day of fearful trial, and the

courage and patriotism to adopt whatever course is best calculated to

save us from impending ruin!

A TRIP TO ANTIETAM.

The great battle of the Antietam had been fought, and a veteran army was

gathered around Harper's Ferry recruiting for fresh campaigns. Here was

a chance to see a battle field and warriors to be celebrated for all

time. From childhood up we have been taught history; and all history,

except some few dry constitutional treatises, has been accounts of great

commanders, of the marches and retreats of bronzed soldiers, of empires

won by the sword, of dynasties established by conquests. Our hymn book,

our clergymen, and our Bible have exhorted us to be soldiers of the

cross, to buckle on our armor, and to fight the good fight, even when

turning the other cheek when smitten on the one. Now this opportunity to

see actual history, a battle field, and veteran troops, and great

leaders whose names are to be household words, could not be resisted;

so, taking a couple of blankets apiece, and a few clothes, and money

wherewith to pay our way, we started by rail for Baltimore, and thence

for the army.

Around Baltimore were several regiments. Those that we visited were of

the recent levies, and were improving fast in discipline and drill. They

were placed in strong positions to prevent a rebel attack from the west,

and to command the city. The stars and stripes floated over houses in

all parts of the town. We met a little company of boys seven miles out

playing soldier, with the star-spangled banner, a cheering sign of the

loyalty of the place.

At Baltimore my friend and I took seats in the car for Harper's Ferry.

The train was crowded with a most miscellaneous set of passengers,

officers of all grades, from general with stars to second lieutenant

with plain bands, common soldiers, sutlers, Jews, and country people.

Some of the Jews, after a time, became the most noisy part of the crowd,

and belied their proverbial reputation for shrewdness by imbibing from

bottles, which they circulated very freely, becoming very talkative, and

most decidedly drunk. The most interesting companion we met was a member

of the Maryland House of Representatives, a very sensible man, and of

course a strong Unionist. He did not approve of the President's

emancipation proclamation; thought it would alienate Union men in the

Border States, and made other objections to it. He informed us that his

negroes were of no profit to him; that the proclamation had made them

believe they would all be free; that they did pretty much what they

chose; and that Maryland would have to accede to the President's advice

to the Union Border States to emancipate their slaves and receive

compensation for so doing.

The railroad, after leaving the Relay House, runs along the Patapsco

river, amid most beautiful scenery. We passed numerous trains with

Government stores--one of baggage cars fitted up with rough seats and

crowded inside and on the top with a regiment of Uncle Sam's bluecoats,

cheering and singing as new troops only do. There were no signs of the

devastations of war until we approached the Monocacy river. During their

campaign in Maryland, the rebels at one time made this river their line

of defence: it was supposed that they would make here a stand against

McClellan's advance from Washington. They had burnt the woodwork of the

bridge, twisted the long iron rods of the structure to one side,

destroyed all the railroad building, engines, and cars they could lay

hands on, and had done everything to retard our force. A new bridge had

now been recently built, over which we were obliged to pass slowly.

Immediately after leaving the river, the road branched, one track

leading to Frederick, then an immense hospital containing seven thousand

wounded soldiers, the other keeping on and striking the Potomac at the

Point of Rocks. We saw soldiers and sentries at several places, but were

surprised that we did not see more. The road keeps close to the river

for some miles to Harper's Ferry. On the other side the ground was

frequently occupied by the enemy's pickets; the difficulty of

approaching the river being the only impediment to the shelling of

trains on our side. The Potomac was unusually low; there had been a long

season of dry, beautiful weather, rendering it fordable in many places.

At the Point of Rocks we enter upon the mountains of the Blue Ridge, and

the railroad winds in the deep valley worn by the river, amid the most

picturesque and beautiful scenery. The canal is between the railroad and

river: its locks had been destroyed and the water drained out by the

rebel hordes; for it is a great artery of life to Washington, and

invaluable to an army encamped along its borders, furnishing

economically the transportation of the great supplies necessary for the

soldiers' subsistence. At this time it seemed of no use except as a

depository for the carcasses of dead horses.

With the exception of this dismal empty canal, there were very few signs

of the ravages of the armies which had lately swept through these

charming valleys. A few miles from Harper's Ferry, by the side of the

railroad, were great hayricks, and the barns were full to overflowing.

As we approached Sandy Hook, a village of a few houses on the north side

of the Potomac, about a mile from Harper's Ferry, we saw on the road,

which ran close to the railroad track, thousands of the blue-bodied,

white-topped army wagons. In the most crowded thoroughfare of London one

would not see so many teams. From this neighborhood the great army of

the Potomac drew the most of its supplies. The ninth army corps was

moving this day to its camp, two or three miles northward; and part of

its cannon, their brazen throats still tarnished by sulphurous smoke,

added to the throng. It is surprising how large a portion of the army is

composed of these baggage trains, and of the camp followers, teamsters,

servants, and sutlers. A regiment of infantry, under the little shelter

tents is crowded, into a small space; but the bulky baggage trains cover

much ground. We spent the best part of a day, in going to and returning

from the army, in the neighborhood of a small wayside tavern in this

little village of Sandy Hook, with no other amusement than watching the

moving of the teamsters, chatting with stray officers and soldiers, and

seeing what may be called the back-stair life of the army. And we wish

here to protest against the abuse which has been so abundantly heaped

upon the teamsters: we found them, as a class, a respectable body of

men, quite skilful in the management of their animals, comparing well

with those in the same occupation in our great cities: there was

certainly not so much swearing, and not so much abuse of their mules and

horses, as one sees in New York. I remember their kind attention to me,

some days afterward, when, in my impatience to get by a long train of

teams filling up a little country road, I had imprudently urged my horse

on to a ledge of rocks, where he, not being an old warhorse, hesitated,

slipped, and fell flat on his side, among the mules of one of the

wagons; and, as the horse, with my leg under him, was rolling to recover

himself, the anxiety of the teamsters as to whether I was hurt, and then

as to my horse, a fine animal, who had cut himself a little on the

rocks. Their proffered assistance was very different from the oaths I

should have met under similar circumstances in some Northern cities.

The army wagons are large, with great white cotton coverings, and

generally drawn by six mules: the driver, usually a colored man, rides

the first nigh mule, and has _one_ rein, called the 'jerky rein,'

running over the head of the mule before him, through a ring fastened to

his headstall, and dividing on the back of the leader, and fastening to

his bit. The mule is directed to one side or another by the driver

twitching the rein and shouting. There were some few wagons driven from

the box, but in all these cases that we noticed, the animals were

horses, four in number, and their drivers were white. The mules and

horses were generally in good condition, and quite a contrast to those

in the cavalry service, which, even in a crack regiment, like the sixth

regular, presented a most sorry appearance of overwork and terribly hard

usage. The baggage trains and camp followers are a necessary portion of

every army, and its efficiency depends in a great measure upon the

perfect organization of this essential part. In the French army this

organization is carried to a high degree of perfection. A small army of

ten or twenty thousand men can get along with a fewer proportional

number of followers, as it lives more upon the country, than a great

army of one hundred thousand.

Every regiment has its own baggage wagons to carry its tents, cooking

apparatus, officers' mess chests, and personal baggage. At the beginning

of the war, each of the Massachusetts regiments was fitted out with from

fifteen to twenty-four wagons. A recent United States regulation has

limited the number to six for one regiment. The personal baggage of the

regiments, however, forms a small part of the great transportation of an

army. The spare ammunition is no small matter; every cannon having a

supply of round shot, shell, canister, and grape: all these may be

needed by each piece in a battle, as the shot used depends upon the

distance of the foe. A full regiment of infantry may fire in one battle

sixty thousand rounds of ammunition, weighing nearly three tons. The

pontoon trains, the baggage of the staff, the forage for the horses of

the artillery and of the generals, field officers, and their staffs, the

food of the army, and the food and forage for this further army of camp

followers--all have to be transported. The cavalry are expected to

forage for their horses from off the country; all the rest have to be

provided for. To carry the subsistence of a regiment of nine hundred men

for one day, requires one of the six-mule teams: for a march of twenty

days there must be twenty wagons. One will see from this that, next to

the general, the quartermaster has the great post of responsibility. He

has to see that all the supplies are obtained and forwarded to the right

place. He commands all these countless wagons with their teamsters. It

is also his duty, when on the march, to pick out the camp, unless the

general may take it from out of his hands. The army, as a general thing,

will not fight well unless it is well fed and well cared for. To assist

him, the quartermaster has his necessary clerks, for he carries on a

large business, with Uncle Sam as his principal, and he must account to

him for every pound of coffee, bacon, flour, and hay, barrel of vinegar,

keg of nails, tent or tent pin that he receives, and finally return

them, or tell him satisfactorily where they have gone, and produce his

vouchers; or he and his bondsmen must pay their value. All this is done

by system and rule: there are mounted wagonmasters to look out for every

small string of wagons, and some sort of discipline prevails among these

non-enlisted men. A great army must be a moving city, capable of

subsisting itself in the uncultivated and desert regions through which

it often passes. Every cavalry soldier carries his spare horseshoes and

nails; and every cavalry regiment and every battery of artillery has its

own forge, tools, and materials for shoeing its horses and making

repairs: even the quartermaster's train must have its blacksmiths and

their supplies.

In travelling down the Rhone during the Crimean war, I was vainly trying

to make out the meaning of the letters on the military button of an

officer sitting before me; when one of his companions, who happened to

be at my side, a well-educated, intelligent man, good-naturedly informed

me that they indicated that the wearer belonged to the bureau of the

post. He and several others on the boat had been educated for this

branch of the service at a military school in Paris, and were en route

for the sole purpose of taking charge of this department. We have not

arrived at this perfection; for ours, after all, in many respects, is an

army of volunteers; but still a messenger had to go every day to

Washington for the letters of the army corps, and the telegraph and its

wires travel with the camp. The officers' servants alone, in an army of

a hundred and fifty thousand men, number more than the thirty-nine

hundred soldiers the city of Boston has to raise for her proportion of

the levy of nine-months men. The number of servants and horses of an

officer depends upon his rank; he draws subsistence for the number

allowed to him. A mere cavalry captain can draw for and usually has two

horses. His horses and trappings, his mess, must be cared for by others;

and hence the thousands of servants that must go with the thousands of

officers.

But let us pass from this, which is common to every army, and proceed on

our journey. The easily pulverized, light, clayey soil around Sandy Hook

was raised in huge clouds by the countless wagons and the hoofs of the

horses of the squads of cavalry officers, couriers, and wagonmasters.

The little tavern was once, the old woman who kept it assured us,

surrounded by a pretty fence, and a garden with grass and flowers: now

the fence was half gone, and to its pickets were tied the horses of

officers, quartermasters, baggagemasters, and orderlies, and the flowers

were trampled into light dust. The provisions in the house had been

eaten by hungry travellers, who were supplied with very scanty fare, and

were thankful to get that. The old woman, having dealt out to us the

little she had left, for which she demanded most abundant compensation,

amused us with her tales. Her house had been alternately the home of

Unionists and rebels. It was not many days since divisions of rebels had

gone by and encamped there, both before and after the surrender of

Harper's Ferry. The shells fired in that fight had passed over her

tavern. Her description of the hungry, tired troopers, arriving in the

evening, and surrounding the house, the men falling down asleep under

their horses' bellies, horses and men packed in together as thick as a

swarm of bees, was quite graphic. Her accounts of her conversations with

the great rebel leaders were interesting, but I feared were apocryphal,

as she ended by assuring us that General Lee had to sleep supperless on

her woodpile. If it were not for this last tale, kind reader, you would

have been entertained with the conversations of the great chiefs of

rebeldom, as related by a reliable witness. We did hear from her, and

from officers who saw the rebel soldiers at Harper's Ferry, of the

pitiable condition of some of the infantry, of their naked, bleeding

feet, and their gaunt looks. Our landlady affirmed that we could not

find a dog in the neighborhood; for they had gone before the rebel

hordes in the way that such flesh disappears before the Chinese and

Pacific Islanders. It is probably true that at times they were hard

pressed for food, and many badly off for shoes; but we were told by

officers who saw the dead at Antietam that, though not so well shod as

our men, they were shod, and they had provisions in their haversacks.

The rebels have flour dealt out to them as rations on the march, and

they have to cook it. Our troops have hard biscuit, called 'tack;' it is

made in squares, and some which was fresh was very good; but it often

comes to the regiments with maggots. This is not so much objected to;

but when, in addition, it is mouldy, the men grumble. By the side of the

fresh tack were some Sandy Hook veteran biscuit, that had been through

the Peninsular campaign, and had come last from Harrison's Landing; the

outside of the boxes was enough to condemn them, and the commissary was

saying that he must get Uncle Sam's inspector-general to examine and

pass upon them. When we saw this hard, mouldy old tack, we appreciated

the joke of the Western boys, who declared they found the date of the

baking on their biscuit in the letters 'B. C.,' 'Before Christ.' The

luxury of soft bread is prized by the troops. Near Baltimore, where the

38th Massachusetts were stationed for some weeks, nice ovens were built,

after the fashion of the French army, and fresh bread, meats, and the

Yankee Sunday beans cooked. With the army in the field this cannot be

done, but the ovens could have been built during the weeks our soldiers

were resting on the banks of the Potomac. Our troops at this time were

fed on the hard tack and fresh beef; and some of the men in a camp near

Sharpsburg complained of the want of salt provisions. This seemed

unreasonable, until we heard that they had no salt, the long distance it

had to be teamed being the excuse given for the unpardonable want of it.

This hard tack is doing one good thing: it is giving the men white

teeth; you can tell an old soldier by his polished ivory; his teeth

approach the appearance of the Italian and Swiss peasantry, who also

chew hard bread. Reader, did you ever try to work your way through the

hard loaf of the peasant's fare? The army regulations require tooth

brushes for the men; it is supposed that the proper use keeps off ague

and disease; still many regiments were without one to a company.

But to return to our old woman at the little tavern of Sandy Hook. She

had tales, too, of our officers. That morning she had seen our

handsomest and our most splendid-looking general--in appearance the

ideal of the brigand of the romance--Burnside, riding by, with his

black, tall, army felt hat, without plume or gilt eagle, brim turned

down, his dark blue blouse covered with dust. 'Why,' said she, 'he

looked, in his dusty blue shirt, with two old tin dippers strung by the

handle at his belt, like any farmer; but I suppose he had some better

clothes.' Her lament for the gallant fellows who had fallen by disease,

torn by the cannon shot, or struck by the deadly rifle ball; for the

sufferings of the poor, sick, lame, and mutilated soldiers; and her

solemn asseverations that there was something wrong in the hearts of the

leaders on both sides, to permit this suffering and loss of so many good

men, was truly touching. We could not reason it out with her; logic had

to give place to her pathetic lamentation. I do not, however, intend to

keep my readers so long a time at this little wayside inn as I was; and

will pass on to Harper's Ferry, a mile beyond.

But before we part, we certainly should not fail to notice a modern

addition to the camp follower that Napoleon did not have in his grand

armies--the newsboy--the omnipresent, the irrepressible gamin of the

press. New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, all had

contributed their quota, and what a glorious harvest they were reaping!

Baltimore _Americans_, at five cents each; New York _Heralds_,

_Tribunes_, and _Times_, at ten cents; and everything sold early. One

little fellow was strutting around with a pair of spurs on, and styled

himself 'colonel;' the others he introduced as his staff. The day's work

was over, and larking had begun. I found the spurs were for use. The

colonel had bought an old condemned brute, which his companions were

trying to buy at the advanced price of ten dollars. The camps were at a

distance, from two miles upward, and a mounted boy could bring his wares

to market first. And so the whole afternoon every rider of a

particularly bad horse was pestered by an offer of five or ten dollars,

from a throng of dirty, noisy, scampish ragamuffins. Later in the

evening, the guard went by with some three or four of the boys, for once

without a grin on their faces, under arrest. We asked the colonel, who

had the reputation of being an honest fellow, what was the matter with

his suite. He only replied that it was hard times for newsboys, if that

was the way things were going; and walked off, clanking his long spurs

over the stones.

The railroad and road from Sandy Hook to Harper's Ferry run under the

Maryland Heights, the rocks having been blasted away for a passage. The

railroad bridge had been rebuilt, not permanently, but so that trains

could again cross. Lower down the river were the remains of the pontoon

bridge destroyed by the rebels. Higher up on the other side of the

railroad was a new pontoon bridge, built on boats, painted with Uncle

Sam's light blue color. Farther up, the wagons were fording the stream.

As you crossed the pontoon bridge, you came directly to the little stone

engine house, with its belfry, where John Brown held the power of the

great State of Virginia at bay. All else of the Government buildings are

in ruins. The long lines of brick and stone walls blackened by fire, and

the picturesque broken arches of the engine-house windows, were a fit

greeting to one's entrance upon the ruined grandeur of the Old Dominion.

Through the clouds of dust and the noise and confusion of the village

upon the hill rising immediately above the river, we rode, noting the

signs of the recent contest, or looking down on the blue Potomac,

flowing peacefully below. One large brick house had a breach in the

basement story large enough for us to ride in, caused by some bursting

shell. Dead horses still lay in the road; the tailpiece of a broken

cannon was yet there. As we emerged out of the dust at the top of the

hill beyond, toward the afternoon sun, rose Bolivar Heights, and the

innumerable white tents of General Sumner's large army corps. The

soldiers were out for drill or dress parade. The distant sounds of the

bands and bugles and drums, sometimes succeeding each other, then

mingling together, fell softened but constantly on the ear, and

everywhere was the gleam of the declining sun on glistening sword or

bright musket barrel. Behind us to the east, and beyond the Shenandoah,

which flowed at the foot of the village, arose the high Loudon

Mountains; on the north, on the other side of the Potomac, were the

Maryland Heights, with the road to Sharpsburgh and Williamsport winding

along its wooded base. The tops of these mountains were lighted up and

wreathed with the smoke of the fires kindled to destroy the thick woods

that might afford shelter to approaching enemies. It was most charming

mountain scenery. We enjoyed the view long, but had to turn our backs at

last; and as we recrossed the pontoon bridge we wiped off from the soles

of our feet a large portion of the sacred soil of Virginia. Yes, the

sacred soil of Virginia, the mother of presidents, the home of

Washington, Patrick Henry, Jefferson, and Madison, and of how many

others famous in our history. O Virginia, what a contrast is there now!

the blood of thy boasted chivalry struggling manfully stains the ground;

thy soil is ground to powder under the heel of the hated mudsils of the

North; thy fertile plains and beautiful valleys are trodden down by

armed men; the fierce contest, and desolation and want have come to

every household; and the cry arises for thy sons that are not!

The headquarters of Gen. McClellan were two or three miles north of

Knoxville, a little village on the Potomac, about three miles below

Harper's Ferry. The day that we were there, the General was absent on

his way to meet Mrs. McClellan, and though the telegraph wires ran to

headquarters, nothing was there known of the foray Stuart had begun

early that morning from Hancock, in the rear of our forces; not till

evening, and until his arrival at Chambersburg did the news arrive. If

the telegraph wires had been laid, or the signal corps so stationed as

to have given warning of the inception of this movement, these bold

rebels could not have advanced so far, but would have been compelled to

retreat as they came. Between the General's headquarters and the river

were the famous sixth cavalry of regulars and some batteries of

artillery. He had no guard in the direction of Pennsylvania toward the

northeast, where Stuart's cavalry passed on their way to the Potomac.

The camp itself was not well placed, and was soon changed. In going from

it we rode through a most beautiful country by the side of an officer of

the sixth cavalry, and listened to his enthusiastic account of scouting

in front of our lines, in the footsteps of the retreating enemy, over

the very roads we were travelling safely and without concern; and yet we

were not many miles from the foe, and within reach of the marvellous

flight of the minie ball, which some lurking rifleman might aim from the

other side of the Potomac. These cavalry soldiers and horses have had a

terribly hard time of it. The horses of the sixth were more broken down

and thinner than in the artillery or baggage trains. Two squadrons had

lately been part of the force sent on a reconnoisance to Leesburg; and

upon the return of our troops it had been the duty of our companion,

then in command, to bring up the rear and drive in the infantry

stragglers. Some two hundred had fallen out of the ranks from mere

exhaustion. To leave any of these soldiers behind would be giving them

up as prisoners, and affording the enemy the opportunity of obtaining

information which it was of the utmost importance for the safety of the

expedition to keep back. The troopers had therefore to drive them on

with their swords--not a pleasant duty, when the poor fellows were faint

and used up by fatigue--still it must be done. This service creates

quite a dislike between the two arms. The infantry man hates the

horseman, and the cavalry man despises the foot soldier. At this time

straggling was quite prevalent: we saw on byroads many who had left the

ranks, almost invariably having thrown away their arms, and subsisting

on plunder. The cavalry were scouring the roads for them, and were

bringing them in as prisoners for punishment. This sixth cavalry, like

all the old regiments which had been through the Peninsular campaign and

the disastrous retreat under Pope, was frightfully reduced in numbers:

only three hundred and seventy were around the standards out of the

eleven hundred who first took the field. Many had fallen on picket or

been cut off singly, more by disease, but alike doing their duty,

unmentioned and unnoticed. A larger number were yet suffering from

overwork and sickness; and the regiment would in time recruit to seven

hundred, from men now disabled, if there should be no more casualties.

A few days in camp, in a good-sized tent--none of the two-feet-high

shelter affairs--in pleasant summer weather, is, on the whole, something

new and exhilarating. The ground, to be sure, is rather hard,

particularly when you have no straw; and a soldier's table is not always

the most luxurious in the world. Now that we are safe, dry, and warm, at

home, we can venture to declare that we were very unfortunate in losing

the sensation of going without food, of sleeping in the mud and in the

rain--our arms girded on--any moment to be aroused by the whistle of

the bullet or the roll of the drum calling us to the deadly strife.

To us, however, it was all _couleur de rose_. In the early morn, at

break of day, it was not the crow of the cock, or the jarring rattle of

the wheels of the city baker or milkman, but the reveille that waked us

from our martial dreams. The drum of the infantry, the bugles of the

cavalry and artillery would begin; some early riser would rouse up his

regiment; then another would take it up; until the call had gone through

every corps. The old staid rub-a-dub of the English drummer is giving

place to the stirring French rat-a-plan. And there was one band that

generally led off in a splendid style. They did beat their drums lively

and sharply. Not being obliged to be up with the sun and cook our own

breakfast, we generally contrived to get a little more sleep. After

breakfast, the bands were playing for guard-mounting; and we sat gazing

down into the valley from our tent upon the large army corps encamped

below. We were on the western slope of the Blue Ridge, through whose

gaps not many days before, a few miles farther north, Franklin had

successfully fought his way. Still farther up, Burnside, with Reno and

Hooker under him, had at South Mountain driven the enemy in--that battle

which came to us so welcome, the first victory after Pope's disasters,

and the retreat from the Peninsula. The valley below us was Pleasant

Valley. The opposite side to our tent was a short spur of the Blue

Ridge; the southern extremity of which is the Maryland Heights, so well

known in the history of the surrender of Harper's Ferry. The valley

between is fertile and highly cultivated, full of mountain springs and

brooks, emptying into one stream of sufficient size to turn the wheels

of a large mill; the water is delicious; the prevailing limestone does

not reach this valley. In the morning before the army moved there, the

little river was clear as crystal; at night it was changed into an

opaque white color, a stream of soapy water; a pleasing witness to the

cleanliness of our men. There were no clothes lines, however, but many

of the washers were so scantily off for clothing that they put their

garments on to dry. The farmhouses in the valley are mostly of stone. It

is a most charming and beautiful place, and appropriately called

'Pleasant Valley.' The farmers are prosperous; and the land so rich that

it sells for the high price of seventy and eighty dollars an acre. The

mountains rising on the sides of the valley are thickly wooded; and in

the cultivated fields between were crowded the tents of the ninth army

corps. With the exception of one or two new regiments who had wall

tents, the soldiers were under little shelter tents, of which each man

carries a piece. The infantry were encamped in divisions and brigades;

the cavalry generally picketed along a fence; the horses and men, except

the officers, without shelter. The encampments of the artillery and

cavalry with their horses, forges, and wagons, covered much ground; but

the infantry were thickly crowded together; and it was surprising to see

how many men a small encampment would turn out.

In the afternoon came drills, sometimes of regiments, sometimes of

brigades, and the unfailing dress parade. There were a few regiments of

new levies just arrived, a thousand strong; all provided with overcoats,

and looking finely in their new, clean clothes--quite a contrast to the

old soldiers. In one of the old regiments on brigade drill we saw an

officer, probably a sergeant, in a checked knit undervest, his neck and

part of his arms bare--commanding a company. A sentry on guard before

the quarters of the general in command, had great holes in both elbows

of his dirty jacket, and his shoes were untied. The brigades were

generally of five regiments, a new regiment being one, and composing

fully two fifths of the line. It is not wholly, however, by the

casualties of the battle or the greater losses from exposure, overwork,

and disease, that the regiments are diminished. If a good blacksmith is

found, he is detailed to the forge; others are detached as ambulance

drivers, or as hospital attendants or clerks. This thins the ranks of

the old regiments. It is surprising, however, to see how much better the

veterans will bear exposure than men coming fresh from home. The old

regiments were frightfully diminished by disease on the Peninsula; but I

saw very few that could not rally more men than the 35th Massachusetts,

that had been out of the State only a little over a month. They had but

three hundred men of the original thousand. They left Washington without

their knapsacks; and had marched without even the shelter tents,

officers and men alike bivouacking on the ground, wearing the same

clothes without a change. The long marches, the exposures, the

excitement of battle, and the unaccustomed food had disabled four

hundred men; some of them undoubtedly never strong enough to have

enlisted, and who should have been rejected by the examining surgeons.

The old regiments, who had gradually been hardened to this life, and who

had learned to thrive on the soldier's fare, lost comparatively few in

this way.

The brigade drills and the manoeuvres in line were not so well

executed as we expected. There was no practice in firing at a mark;

probably from a want of ammunition. From accounts of officers on the

field of battle, it certainly is the case in our army that some of the

fresh soldiers will fire in the air, and even close their eyes. The

Hythe system, as now taught in the English army, and among the rifle

clubs, makes excellent marksmen; and the greater part of the instruction

is without the use of powder. It is a pity it cannot be more extensively

introduced in our army.

One does not expect to find the same training before the enemy as in the

great French camps of instruction. It was my good fortune to visit the

camp of a portion of the great Crimean army. The privates, besides their

military drill, were exercised in running, leaping, fencing, and boxing;

and some sergeants were teaching dancing. I followed a regiment of the

chasseurs of Vincennes to their field of drill. For an hour or two they

went through different manoeuvres by the bugle, performing many of the

movements at the double quick. Then came a rest; as soon as that was

ordered, the fine band of the regiment came forward and struck up a

lively dance, to the tune of which several of the privates amused and

refreshed themselves by waltzing round the field.

Returning, however, to our picturesque camp in this charming valley.

There was no more striking scene than when darkness came on and the

thousand camp fires and lights in the tents were all in sight. The rail

fences, bought by the thoughtful quartermaster, and paid for as an army

supply, were used as fuel; a truly considerate act, for a quartermaster

can buy fuel for the army, but he cannot pay damages done to property.

This same ground, now covered by our troops, had been camped over by

Lee's army; who had also used the fences, not even paying for them in

the worthless Confederate scrip. Soon after dark, the bright lights of

the signal corps appeared on the mountain north of the Maryland Heights,

and messages were sent to McClellan's headquarters. Flags are used in

the day, and at night lanterns. The signal officer has two lights; they

are held one above the other, the lower one being stationary; moving the

upper light to the right means number one; moving the light to the left,

number two; moving first to the right and then to the left, number

three; by lowering the upper light in front of the under one, a fourth

signal is given; and so on. There are about five numbers; and by the

different combinations of these five numbers, there is made a great

number of signals, which can be read by the officers who have the key.

The mode is much the same as that used by our mercantile marine with

their signal flags. The signals are given very rapidly, and a few

minutes suffice for the sending of the messages.

Evening is the time for talk around the camp fires; and the conversation

often turns upon our rebellious brethren. Among our regular officers you

meet the classmates and old companions in arms of the rebels, and hear

of little traits and peculiarities that only intimate acquaintances can

relate. Civilians who had known General Lee at Washington, have spoken

of him as very formal, and rather pompous in his manner, giving the

impression that he was a man of more show and pretence than abilities.

We learned here, however, that, in Texas, or California, where he was

for a long time before he took his high position on Scott's staff, he

was famous for marching his men without the usual encumbrances of

baggage, on the most severe expeditions against the Indians, in the snow

and cold of the winter. Stonewall Jackson has always been famed for his

peculiarities. When a young man, he was possessed with the idea that he

was in danger of having his limbs paralyzed, and he would pump on his

arm for many minutes, counting the strokes, and annoyed beyond measure

by the interruptions of his companions breaking up his count. Our

officers, both regular and volunteer, who have been in actual battle,

have a great respect for the rebel leaders and soldiers; they speak very

highly of their drill, and believe that straggling exists to a less

extent among them, in battle, than with us. From the rebel newspapers I

should doubt whether this is the case. One thing we have not considered,

which has given the rebels a great advantage in this contest. It is the

large number of military colleges in the South; not like our few private

schools at the North, but well-endowed academies. In the summer of 1860,

immediately before the election of Lincoln, I visited the military

academy at Lexington, Virginia. It was supported at the expense of the

State, with two hundred and more pupils, coming from the different

counties in proportion to their population. They were practised in the

actual firing of cannon and mortars; and every afternoon were drilled as

infantry for about two hours, much of the time at the double quick. The

principal was a graduate of West Point; and he was assisted by a

respectable board of instructors. A good civil and military education,

after the mode of instruction at West Point, was afforded to the

students. This institution had been in existence for years; and one can

readily appreciate the advantage that Virginia has in this war from the

graduates of this school. Alabama and several other of the Southern

States have similar colleges; while we at the North have been obliged to

educate all our volunteer officers by actual service.

The morning Stuart with his cavalry left Chambersburg, we rode forth for

the battle field of the Antietam. We noticed the disappearance of some

of the camps of the infantry brigades. We knew of the patrolling of the

cavalry along the road we were pursuing, and found the picket guards

farther out, and passes and countersigns necessary where before we went

unchallenged. We were several hours in getting to the battle field, and

stopped to get some refreshments at a large brick farmhouse, where the

battle on the left began. The hospital flag was still flying over the

building, though no patients had been there for a day or two.

Twenty-seven died in that one farmhouse from wounds received in that

bloody fight. On the night of the battle, cows, sheep, poultry, and

fences disappeared before our cold and hungry troops. But since then,

though the house was in the neighborhood of several camps, the old lady

and her daughters, who alone were at home, had been undisturbed, except

by the small pilferings of stragglers.

The great battle has been so well described by the correspondents of the

newspaper press, and by those who were over the field before we were,

that I shall only mention a few incidents to which our attention was

called. The principal contest was on the right, west of the Antietam

river. Here Hooker with his army corps began the battle, and fought so

long and splendidly. Both armies crowded their forces to this part of

the field. Sumner, whose troops had been with their belts on since three

in the morning, brought up his large corps, drawn up in three columns,

forty paces apart, to reenforce Hooker's hard-pressed soldiers, who were

retreating before the fresh and overwhelming reenforcements of the

enemy. In less than an hour, the whole of Sumner's corps was swept back,

broken and entirely routed, and never appeared in the field again; the

column in the rear not being in position to fire a gun, but losing as

many men as those in front.

The manner in which General Sumner brought his troops into action has

been severely criticized, even by officers of his own corps; whether

justly or not, it is difficult to decide. No commander was more confided

in by his soldiers than Sumner. 'He has risen from the ranks, and been

through all the grades of the service,' 'He knows how to treat his men,'

were expressions constantly heard. General Hooker's reputation as a

fighting general was admitted everywhere; his _coup d'oeil_ of the

battle field was represented as most excellent.

It was also on the right that the desperate fighting in the woods and

the deadly struggle at close quarters in the cornfield with such fearful

loss of life took place. An officer who was on the battle fields of

Magenta and Solferino, says that the scene here was much more horrible.

Many spoke of the scenes they saw with a shudder. They could not throw

off the impression made by the masses of wounded and dead; the wounded

often lying neglected and helpless under the dead, sometimes crushed to

death by the wheels of our own artillery.

Our left at Antietam was far off from the right: in these days of guns

of long range the line of battle is longer than it was formerly. At

Waterloo the English occupied a front of less than two miles. In this

battle ours was about four miles. In the battle of Solferino the

engagement extended for eighteen miles.

The contest on the left was fought by General Burnside with only one

army corps, the ninth. The battle at this place was a most gallant

affair, but has excited less attention than the bloody fight on the

right. In the dusty, tiresome march through Maryland, in the skirmishes

in and around Frederick, during the glorious hearty welcome our troops

received in that old town, the advance, consisting of both Hooker's and

Reno's army corps, had been commanded by Burnside. With them he had

fought the successful and brilliant battle of South Mountain, coming to

us so gratefully after the disastrous repulse and retreat of Pope. Reno

had unfortunately fallen, and General Burnside took command of his

corps: it was his old force from North Carolina, increased by General

Cox's Kanawha troops, and some new regiments, in all a little short of

twenty thousand men. On the morning of the battle, Burnside took his

station on the east side of the Antietam, in a field overlooking the

country on the other side of the river. The gathering of his staff to

their breakfast brought the shells of the enemy in their midst, and

compelled a change of position to the rear of some haystacks. On the

same hill was placed a formidable battery of rifled cannon, throwing

twenty-pound shot, commanded by Lieutenant Benjamin, of the regular

artillery. The guns are so heavy that they each have eight horses to

drag them, and the caissons have six. There was unfortunately a short

supply of ammunition, and the battery was fired slowly during the day.

The guns were well placed and served, and aimed with wonderful accuracy.

Shells were planted in two of the enemy's ammunition carts, blowing them

to pieces; and the fire of cannon was so hot that it compelled a rebel

battery two miles off, coming down a road to get into position, to wheel

round and gallop over the hill. Proud, indeed, were the Lieutenant's men

of their exploits on that day, and wonderful stories they told of their

famous battery.

The Antietam in front of Burnside was deep, not fordable, flowing in the

bottom of a charming valley, and overshadowed by trees. There was a

solid stone bridge over it, with three arches, rising picturesquely in

the centre, with stone parapets on the sides, the parapets spreading at

both ends of the structure. One would almost imagine that it was an old

Italian bridge transported to our wooden-building land. The side of the

valley held by the rebel troops rises sharply, not densely wooded, but

covered by large trees thickly placed, as in an old English park. Along

the top of this ridge ran a solid stone wall, thicker and of heavier

stones than any we saw in the neighborhood. Where the wall ended rifle

pits had been dug. Behind the massive trunks, and in the branches of the

old trees, behind this wall and in the pits, were crowded the

sharpshooters of the rebels. The ascent from the bridge out of the

valley on the enemy's side, was too steep for a straight road up the

ridge. If ever a bridge could be defended, that should have been; the

only disadvantage the rebels were under was that they could not sweep it

with artillery.

Our left had vainly attempted to cross the bridge; twice had they been

repulsed. On the right our troops were hard pressed; much of the ground

gained in the morning had been lost; Hooker was wounded, Sumner's corps

routed, Mansfield killed, and his corps beaten back. Then McClellan

ordered Burnside to take the bridge, and hold it at any cost. Burnside

sent some troops farther down the river, where it was fordable. He

called up one of his old brigades that had been with him in North

Carolina, saying, if any brigade could take the bridge, that one would.

It was composed of the 51st New York, 51st Pennsylvania, 21st

Massachusetts, and a Rhode Island regiment; on their colors were

inscribed, 'Roanoke,' 'Newbern,' two of our most glorious victories.

With these veteran troops was the 35th Massachusetts, a new regiment

that had left home only a month before, but who nobly did their part.

Down went the 51st Pennsylvania in column in the advance, at the run,

shouting and crowding and firing as they hurried across the bridge,

bringing down the rebels from the trees, suffering themselves, but never

halting. They crossed and deployed on the other side. Next came the 35th

Massachusetts, over the bridge, up the valley, then forming in line of

battle on the top of the small hill commanding the stream. The enemy

were drawn up before them, quite a distance off, on the top of the next

hill. Every inch of ground between was commanded by the rebel fire; but

our brave fellows charged on up this hill, driving the foe before them:

they did not halt there, for another still higher hill, which could now

for the first time be seen farther on, rose up before them. Nothing

daunted, they followed up their charge, and drove the enemy from this

hill, and took this most commanding position. There they halted, close

to Sharpsburg, almost in the rear of the rebels. Some of our troops even

penetrated to Sharpsburg itself, and were taken prisoners. A short

distance farther would have cut off the enemy's direct retreat to the

Potomac. Rebel troops were seen hurrying on the road to the river. Our

men were now fired upon by artillery, and attacked by fresh bodies of

infantry coming up, as the enemy say in their account, from Harper's

Ferry. Our brave fellows, however, stood their ground, waiting for

reenforcements, which Burnside called for. But McClellan, unfortunately,

dared not throw in his reserves; his object had probably been gained in

making a diversion from the hard contested field on our right. Our

gallant fellows had to stand there unsupported until their ammunition

gave out; they fired their sixty rounds of ammunition, collecting all

they could from their dead and wounded comrades, and then began to

retreat. Benjamin's battery of artillery was also short of ammunition,

and could not support them. Our brave boys only retreated to the next

hill, not to the hill above the Antietam, and then lay on their arms

during the night, and there they stayed during the next day, expecting

the order to advance.

Little mounds of earth, covering fallen heroes, point out the course of

our soldiers all the way from this side of the Antietam to the top of

the farthest hill. Here our men were so much more exposed than the

rebels that our loss was greater than theirs. On the right the rebel

loss was much the larger.

In the battle beyond the river, the Hawkins Zouaves, another of the

regiments distinguished in North Carolina, captured a rebel battery at

the point of the bayonet. In the rebel account we are told how the brave

General Toombs, with a whole brigade, retook the battery and defeated

this single regiment, which they magnify into an immense force.

General McClellan, with all his knowledge and great skill and success in

defensive warfare, as shown in his Peninsular campaign, after our defeat

at Gaines's Mill, is wanting in the rapidity of comprehension and

audacity which are necessary components of the highest military talent.

He waits for too many chances, and fears any risk.

In the battle of Antietam, he had fifteen thousand fresh men under Fitz

John Porter in the centre. The enemy had probably used their last

soldier, for the correspondent of the Charleston _Courier_, who has

given the best rebel account of the battle, impliedly states that they

had no reserves left. Ignorant of our unused troops, he laments the want

of a few more rebel men, and says, that if only five thousand of their

stragglers, who were on the way to Winchester, had been present, a most

decisive rebel victory would have been obtained. If McClellan had added

Fitz John Porter's reserve to Burnside's soldiers, he would have had

nearly thirty-five thousand men flanking the enemy, already beaten, and

threatening their retreat across the Potomac. Who knows what those fresh

men might not have done? Many think that the doubtful victory would have

ended in the most brilliant decided success, and the stone bridge of

Antietam would have stood in history by the side of Arcola and Lodi. But

let us be thankful for what we did achieve: never should the nation

forget how a retreating, discouraged, defeated, demoralized, and even

mutinous army, that had suffered terribly in killed and wounded, and

lost prisoners and large numbers of cannon and material, was again

reformed, and marched triumphantly against a victorious foe; achieved on

Sunday the brilliant victory of South Mountain, and on Wednesday fought

the bloody fight of Antietam. There we captured cannon, small arms, and

standards, and lost none. Many have forgotten that ever since spring the

rebels have boasted that the war was to be carried within our territory;

that they had begun this programme; and that General Lee in entering

Maryland had issued a boasting proclamation, promising to redeem it from

a hated tyranny. If he had succeeded, and defeated McClellan, as he had

beaten Pope between Manassas and Washington, we had no reinforcements or

forts to prevent his march to Philadelphia. McClellan's presence stirred

the common soldier as Napoleon's did, and it was this unbounded

enthusiasm which he excited, that saved the nation when he took command

at Washington. I know of nothing that made me more indignant than the

folly of some ladies who, among his soldiers on the Potomac, decried and

denounced him as an imbecile. What treachery can be worse than the

attempt to destroy the confidence of the soldiers in their leader, when

their lives depend upon his judgment and skill, and there can be only

dejection and despair when that judgment and skill are doubted.

Upon our return from the battle field to Pleasant Valley, we heard that

orders to McClellan to advance had come from Washington. The only

answers to inquiries when the advance would take place, were ominous

shakings of the head or shrugs of the shoulders, which were indicative

of anything but belief in a speedy movement. We also heard of the

appointment of General Burnside to the command of three army corps, the

precursor of a greater command yet to come. We have in our new

commander-in-chief a general who has an implicit belief that our cause

is just, and a trust in Providence that he will make the just cause

victorious. In General McClellan we had also a general who believed in

Providence, and who has always shown great reverence in his writings.

General McClellan is reticent. You can, however, tell somewhat of the

opinion of the head of the house from his children; and judging from the

tone of belief among the General's military family, from that long delay

after Antietam, it was pretty evident that in his opinion the South

cannot be subdued, and that the question between us was a matter of

boundary. With General Burnside we have no such belief. His faults, if

they are faults, are those of the bold general, not of the Fabian order.

At Newbern he brought at once into the fight every soldier he had, not

keeping one in reserve; and he gained the battle by his audacious

policy. And it is the wonder to this day of every one who has been over

the battle field, that the enemy should have been beaten. With all this

boldness, he is a modest man; twice before having refused the chief

command: once when it was offered to him at the time Pope was appointed;

again when McClellan took it before Washington. Of a commanding figure,

every inch a soldier, one cannot look upon him and his kindly eye

without instant admiration. His modest way of riding among the men,

alone or attended by a single orderly, will make him beloved by our

republican soldiers. He was so then, and 'Old Burn,' as they familiarly

called him, was everywhere heartily received. By the way, McClellan's

nickname on the Peninsula was 'George,' and not 'Little Mac,' as is

generally supposed.

General Burnside, we believe, is a good judge of men. The generals he

selected for his North Carolina expedition, though previously unknown,

and but captains in the service, have already distinguished themselves

and justified his choice. General Foster, now commanding the department

of North Carolina, has shown himself an able, active general. All who

have been connected with him, speak highly of him. Though not a

Massachusetts man, he has a peculiar penchant for Massachusetts troops:

he was first at Annapolis, and picked out for the first brigade the

Massachusetts soldiers. Recently, through the Governor, he has obtained

some eight or ten more regiments, and in some way or other he has the

crack ones.

General Reno, who was Burnside's second brigadier, has made a reputation

that will live forever in his country's history. At the battle of

Roanoke the little general, but a month before a captain of ordnance,

stood up fearlessly in the swamp amid his men, when they were lying down

by his direction, and coolly gave his orders and encouraged them,

entirely regardless of the balls flying round him on every side. In

Pope's retreat, and amid disaster and defeat, he acquired new reputation

by his skill, energy, and daring. A Virginian by birth, he was truly a

loyal man; and, unlike some generals of our army corps, obeyed orders,

and did all that could be done for the country and the general in

command. His testimony that Pope's dispositions were good, if he had

only been obeyed, should weigh much in that general's favor. After the

victory of South Mountain, he was reconnoitring the enemy, when he fell

by a random shot, which came, so those who were in the action say, from

some soldier of our force. Lyon, Kearny, Reno, gone! Have we three such

men left?

General Park, an accomplished soldier, who particularly distinguished

himself at the battle of Newbern, was General Burnside's third

brigadier. The country will feel renewed confidence from his remaining

with our new commander as chief of staff.

On the morning we left the camp, a squad from a new regiment just

arrived had been detailed for the guard at headquarters; one of the

sentries was smoking his pipe as he marched up and down; another, who

should have been patrolling his beat, was seated on the ground, cleaning

his musket with a piece of wash leather he pulled from his pocket. The

General was not near to stop these unsoldierly occupations. We came to

the opinion that the boys in that regiment had never been to a country

muster; but they were stout fellows and looked like fight.

At Sandy Hook, on the day of our return, we had to wait until nine in

the evening for the train to Baltimore. Stuart's cavalry had been over

the road in the morning, making their escape into Virginia. They dared

not stay to do mischief; our forces were at all the important points.

Considering the immense supplies in the rear of the army, Stuart did

very little harm; his eight hundred fresh horses were not worth the risk

he ran. If he could have seized our supplies at Monocacy Station, and

burnt the bridge there, he would have inflicted a serious loss upon the

army. The nature of his raid seemed well understood, and there was no

apprehension then of the enemy's holding the railroad; for the train

from Baltimore had passed over the restored rails a few hours after the

retreating troopers. At every important point we found soldiers, and

near Frederick we were glad to hear that seven of the sick troopers,

used up by their hard service, had fallen behind and been taken. We

learned that General Pleasanton with some of our cavalry was in pursuit,

and there were several stories about an engagement: the firing of cannon

had been heard. General Pleasanton at that time was held in very little

esteem, and seemed to have particularly disgusted those who had served

under him, and was often cited as an example of McClellan's lack of

judgment in men. He appears since to have acquired a newspaper

reputation for ability and energy. I only hope that it is deserved, and

that the opinions we heard so often were not well founded.

We arrived at the Baltimore depot at four in the morning amid a rain,

and found it occupied by some one or two thousand soldiers, standing and

sitting about in their blue overcoats with their arms stacked. Not a

carriage could be obtained, and so, shouldering our bag in military

fashion, we marched for the Eutaw House. At the door was stationed a

guard, marking it as the headquarters of Major-General Wool. We passed

by unchallenged; in our bag, however, we had rebel ammunition: a loaded

shell fired at our men as they were crossing the stone bridge at

Antietam. Fortunately the fuse had gone out, and it remained a trophy

for one of the despicable Down-East Yankees. We heard the old General

was still the centre of attraction to the pretty secesh ladies who had

friends or relatives in durance vile in Fort McHenry. The veteran hero,

though rich, wears a uniform that shows the marks of service. That,

however, does not prevent the constant presents of delicious fruit and

beautiful flowers, and invitations to drive to the fort, from those

bewitching belles of Baltimore: whereat some strong Union people grumble

loudly.

AMERICAN DESTINY.

II.

The law under consideration is exemplified in the social, industrial,

and political development of the United States. There is a manifest

difference, however, between the history of our civilization and that of

Europe, though not in the least affecting the integrity of the law. The

people of our nation were not derived directly from a rude and primitive

condition, as were those of the Old World. The history of our

civilization is, in its origin, coordinate with European civilization in

the seventeenth century, after modern intellect had been fairly aroused,

and the national organizations had been quite fully developed. The chaos

and barbarism which the history of European civilization presents, and

the play of antagonizing forces through the long period of centuries,

resulting in some degree of political order and unity, does not belong,

except as an introduction, to the history of American civilization. Ours

is a branch from the European, after it had been growing for several

hundred years.

During the period which intervened between the Declaration of American

Independence and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States,

there was no formal and permanent bond of union between the several

States; it was provisional,--they were held together by outside pressure

and a common interest in the cause of independence. The settlement of a

general government for all the States was a crisis, not only in the

affairs of this country, but of the whole civilized world, as we believe

the future will most fully reveal. To the responsible statesmen of that

day, this was a period of intense solicitude, such as we can realize

only by an effort of mind to place ourselves in their situation, and

bring before us the magnitude of the objects to be attained, and the

difficulties to be overcome. There was then, as now, a diversity of

interests to be harmonized; but there was one interest, which, in its

political relations, requires to be characterized by a stronger term

than that of 'diversity.' Between chattel slavery and free labor there

is 'irrepressible' antagonism, and there could be no real union--no

blending of the twain; but the gulf was bridged, under the pressure of

necessity, as the wisdom of the times could best devise. It was, indeed,

well done. Union was the great object to be accomplished--it was the

highest, the most comprehensive principle that could enter into the

motives of political action--it was even a necessity of the current

civilization, and must needs subordinate all minor principles and

interests; and we owe a debt of gratitude to those who so nobly wrought

this glorious Union out of colonial chaos and isolation.

The instrument of this Union has been characterized by well-meaning,

but one-idea minds, as a 'covenant with death, and an agreement with

hell,' simply because it effected the union of free with slave States.

This method of characterizing the Constitution of our country--as noble

a document for its time and place as the world has ever seen--can well

be excused, since it has no doubt been done in utter obliviousness of

the importance of the principle of political unitization. The original

consummation of this Union was a great step in political progress; it

was an achievement of the master principle of political movement; and

God wills that no part of the advantage then gained in the struggle of

Destiny shall ever be given up!

But while unity is thus exemplified in the history of our Government,

the phenomenon of differentiation is also manifest. The functions of

government have greatly multiplied since its first organization; the

'division of labor' process has been going on, and new departments and

bureaus have been established. While I write, the expediency of another

department, that of agriculture, is being agitated in Congress. The

Department of the Interior has been quite recently created, and new

bureaus in this department, and in others, are being created from time

to time, by act of Congress, to meet new wants in the administration of

our Government. And what is true in this respect of the General

Government is, also, true of the State Governments; for there, too, do

we find the development of new functions, and the creation of new

official organs to execute the same.

This growth of the country at large, from which these new demands on the

Government arise, is to be seen very distinctly in the industrial and

educational elements of society. While these interests increase in

magnitude and variety, and the people are becoming more concerned

therein, the Government assumes a responsibility in regard thereto,

which can only be discharged by the multiplication of the administrative

appliances. These new governmental activities arise from the popular

will, as moulded and expressed through the more intelligent and

enterprising of its actors. They choose to have it so. It is found

convenient, in the promotion of certain general interests, to appeal to

a power which is presumed to embody the elements of order and authority

in the execution of its will. In the construction of railroads and

telegraphs, capitalists must cooperate with the Government in relation

to questions of right, which, in many cases, can only be settled by a

regularly constituted tribunal. State agricultural societies appeal to

State Governments for cooperation, and when received, the industrial

interests of the country are advanced thereby. We all know what State

Governments have done for the cause of education. Sections of country

which would at this hour have been in a state of almost semi-barbarism

have--thanks to our educational policy--been redeemed from their

prejudices against intelligence and education, and been made to step

into line with the advancing columns of civilization. The same

civilizing influences, precisely, have been brought to bear, by the

active part which Government has taken in the improvement of all the

means of travel, trade, and the transmission of intelligence. The

intelligent and active few have thus advanced the interests of the many.

In districts of country which have been without the channels of commerce

except in a very rude condition, and where the enterprise of the people

was inadequate to their improvement, the Government has reached out its

strong arm and redeemed them from their primitive rudeness, thereby

promoting the physical condition, the enlightenment, and the culture of

the people. There are plenty of instances on record, in which

improvements of this kind--of roads, for example--have been made against

the will and in spite of the opposition of the people most to be

benefited thereby; and had they not been related under the same

government to communities more intelligent and enterprising than

themselves, they would have remained in an isolated and semi-barbarous

condition.

Now, while we readily discern the increase in the objects and in the

machinery of government, we cannot so readily discern the abatement of

governmental interference with the private affairs of the individual, as

in governments of longer standing. There has not been time for great

changes in this respect; and then, in the earliest legislation of our

country there was comparatively so little that was obnoxious to

individual freedom, that there has been less occasion for the change in

question. The Blue Laws of Connecticut are proverbial for their

intermeddling with private life. There has been no change in this

respect so marked since the organization of our Government as there was

before; but so far as there has been any, it is in favor of the

exemption of the individual, in ordinary times, from legal interference.

The entire atmosphere of American society is becoming more liberal as

general education advances; and this, in turn, acts upon the legislative

and executive functions of the Government, to make the laws and the

execution of the same more acceptable to a cultured people. The 'Maine

Law,' earnest and benevolent as it was in purpose, and to all seeming so

obviously founded in the right of society to protect itself, could not

be sustained against this tendency in government to let the individual

alone in the affairs of his private life.

We have observed that there is a concentration of different industrial

and commercial functions in different sections of the country, whereby

these sections become dependent upon each other, and the unity of the

whole, to a certain extent, made inevitable. Now, we insist that

political economy and the greatest well-being of all require that the

political jurisdiction should, as far as possible, be commensurate with

that commercial, industrial, and social dependence which works itself

out to a large degree of fulfilment in spite of the obstructions

interposed by the contractedness and isolation of political

organization.

As we have seen, this dependence of one industrial section upon another,

and of one commercial centre upon another, as the result of commercial

and industrial specialization, is becoming more and more marked as a

development of human progress. All this increases the need for more

extensive political organization, while at the same time it makes it

possible.

It will readily be perceived that since industrial and commercial

development is necessitating dependence and unity, it is equally true

that the natural varieties of soil and climate are, also, conditions of

like dependence and unity. When these diversities of soil in different

sections are fully developed, and the exchange of products readily made

through improved commercial facilities, and human wants multiplied by

means of civilized culture, agricultural specialization creates the

demand, not for political division and isolation, but for more extensive

organization. That New England manufactures is no reason that she should

separate her government from that of the other States, but just the

reverse. That the Middle States are more distinctively a mining region,

and the great West agricultural, is no reason that their general

government should be distinct, but precisely the reverse. That the South

produces cotton, rice, and sugar, is no reason for her seceding from the

Union, but exactly the reverse. These diversified interests, we repeat,

create interrelation and dependence, unitizing the commercial and

industrial polity; and the political organization should, as far as

possible, be coextensive therewith. There are physical necessities which

prevent the formation and maintenance of a comprehensive political

organization in the earlier stages of civilization, but these never have

obtained in the United States, and every hour's improvement carries us

farther beyond them.

All the results of a progressive civilization are constantly

complicating the dependence and interrelation of various sections of our

country. Roads, railroads, canals, and lines of telegraph, by their

connections and intersections, are so many bonds of union between the

various districts of our country--so many bonds of union between the

various States of the confederacy--and forbid its dissolution. Even

Nature conspires with civilization to the same end. The great valleys

and rivers running north and south are so many natural ties, which the

most incorrigible perverseness, on the part of man, could alone prevent

from performing the office to which they seem so happily adapted in the

play of the civilized elements.

As we have seen in our brief view of Europe, greater political

unitization has been the result of growth in civilization. In the United

States, all natural, commercial, and industrial bonds of union are

becoming more fully developed. This evinces the direction of progress.

What, in the light of this view, are we to think of the doctrine of

'secession'?--of secession, that political dogma of recent development,

which, if made practical, would destroy all political unity of greater

compass than a State--a State, the idol of Southern political worship.

It would break any confederacy into fragments, and prevent the

consummation of those great unities which an advancing civilization

demands. This doctrine of 'secession' would remand us back to the

condition of affairs in Europe during the twelfth century, before

commerce, the Crusades, and the waking up of intelligence had commenced

the movement of national organization. The Southern States have a

barbarian institution in their midst, but, not satisfied with that, they

would inaugurate the practical operation of a new political doctrine,

which must introduce still another element of barbarism, and interpose

an additional obstacle to the progress of civilization. Shall this be?

It is opposed to the political tendency of the times; and the common

sense of mankind should forbid the acceptance of a political solecism in

the organization of government, which virtually annuls the unity and

integrity of the government itself.

There are crises, however, in human development, when the movement is

rapidly set forward; and others, when it may be as suddenly arrested or

thrown back, requiring long periods to regain the lost ground,

preparatory to a new advance. Our Union, only a brief while since,

appeared to be upon the point of irreparable rupture; the division of

this great Union into minor geographical districts, like the European

monarchies, seemed to be imminent. The determination of the South to

secede; a large portion of the influential press at the North pleading

their cause; Buchanan favoring secession; many in the North, then, and

for a long time previous, in favor of a 'peaceable separation;'

but--thanks to the blind impetuosity of 'Southern chivalry'--with the

fall of Sumter, and the inauguration of the war, the only hope for this

Union revived! Wicked or foolish people have said that the bombardment

of Sumter was the death-knell of the Union;--we believe it was just the

reverse;--as the turning point of a great crisis, it signalled the birth

of a new era. It threw the trimming and temporizing politicians of the

North off their old tracks, and tore their platforms from under them;

their antipathies were suddenly neutralized; their prejudices vanished;

they were unexpectedly floating anew on the sea of public sentiment; the

opinions of influential men were subject to a new ordeal; and the views

of many an entire clique, faction, and party were revolutionized in a

day. Northern pride was wounded; Anglo-Saxon energy was aroused; there

was a demand for determination and 'pluck,' and the result is known to

all. Secession, in the Free States, was suddenly transformed; there was

a grand uprising for the vindication of a great principle of political

development; and nearly a million of armed men of all parties are now in

the field; and God grant that they may be able to overcome the abettors

of a barbarian policy!

But if the cause of patriotism and civilization should fail in this

struggle, what will be the consequences? Standing armies, stronger

governments, leagues, and ruptures, internecine wars, European

interference. Let this division of our once happy country be consummated

now, and there can be no reunion for ages. The Southern nation

recognized by European Governments, treaties and alliances formed, and

we are involved in European complications through which the separation

will be perpetuated. And this disunion made permanent, others will

develop themselves, and in time be consummated. It is the interest of

the reigning dynasties in Europe to see our nation dismembered: the

South would be our rival; and we should not have power to enforce union

hereafter. When a politico-geographical weakness is developed along the

Rocky Mountains, the Pacific States will not be without ambitious

demagogues to attempt the establishment of an independent organization

on the Pacific. Another fracture may be developed along the Alleghanies,

and the great agricultural West may set up for itself among the nations.

New England may be seized with a like madness, and unworthily aspire to

a separate national existence. With all these petty nations on this

continent, there must be standing armies, leagues, and complications, as

in Europe. Diplomacy, with its intrigues, and wars to maintain the

'balance of power,' will make up the great body of national history and

absorb those energies which should be employed in advancing the means of

human well-being.

But we will not speculate upon probabilities so remote. We will presume

the success of rebellion, and one nation south, another north. The evil

would still be very great. There must be armed thousands maintained by

the two Governments to be ready for war at any moment. Two such nations,

even if both were free, and still less with slavery in one of them,

could not exist by the side of each other without frequent broils and

collisions. Standing armies exhaust the resources of nations and retard

the progress of civilization by a double result. They withdraw

able-bodied men from the productive energies of the country, and are at

the same time a tax upon the industrial forces which remain. The

enormous daily expense of the present war must give us some idea of the

cost of maintaining a standing army of two or three hundred thousand men

even in times of peace. This has done a great deal to retard the

progress of Europe; and that we, as a nation, have heretofore been free

from this encumbrance, is doubtless one of the reasons why we have made

such rapid strides in so much that makes a nation great and happy. But

standing armies imply war, and the international wars of Europe have

done much to exhaust her resources and paralyze her prosperity. Guizot

says--and we may see it in history for ourselves--that 'for nearly three

centuries, foreign relations form the most important part of history.'

Foreign relations, wars, treaties, alliances, alone occupy the attention

and fill the page of history. Sad result of the political divisions of a

continent! Unhappy fruits of maintaining the balance of power among

neighboring nations! Let this continent be warned! And now is the

crisis when this warning needs most to be heeded. And even if this

critical juncture should be safely passed, we have need to guard against

others, and these truths should be universally recognized as elements of

our national preservation. We may profit by the shipwreck of others, to

avoid the rock on which they split. There are causes clearly discernible

in the history of Europe, for the divisions of that continent, which do

not now, and never have obtained here. Her political institutions were

developed out of the chaos of barbarism, and she had to unite smaller

jurisdictions into larger ones; and she did this as well as the status

of civilization would permit at the period when national organization

was effected.

The facilities of intercourse between a people, for the transmission of

intelligence, for travel and transportation--those accompaniments of

civilization which bring remote sections of country near each other and

bind them together; the resemblance or the difference of languages

spoken; the antipathies, prejudices, sympathies of the peoples--all

these are elements which go to determine the geographical extent of a

nation. Original difference of language, local prejudices, the want of

civilization, contributed to limit the European nationalities to the

small extent of territory which, for the most part, they occupy. These

causes have not operated against us. Local distinctions on account of

language do not even obtain here. There are no real causes to contract

the geographical boundaries of our Government; while, on the other hand,

the constant increase of facilities for the commercial and social

intercourse of one section with another, and the specializations of the

agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests, in the creation

of dependence between different sections of the country, demand, in the

name of science, common sense, justice, and the good of the people, that

this Government shall remain one and undivided.

We cannot, therefore, afford to allow the present or any other rupture

to become permanent, and entail upon ourselves and our children all the

disadvantages and calamities incident thereto. It would not be wise to

prepare the political stage of this country for the reenaction of the

tragedies of Europe. Better any sacrifice than this. Even if we should

lose great battles, or if European interference should threaten, it

would be better to rally the people anew even to the raising and

equipment of millions of men, and sustain the war at this enormous cost,

rather than entail division and its necessary calamities on the future

political life of this continent. This war is costing immensely in men

and property; but if, thereby, the integrity of the Union can be

maintained, it will be an economy both in men and means, if only a brief

period of the future be taken into the account. We are often reduced to

a choice of evils. War is a great evil, but it may prevent others still

greater. The indiscriminate arming of slaves and the spread of

incendiary fires would be great calamities, but nevertheless

justifiable, if the only means of selfdefence, or of preventing still

greater and more enduring calamities. But there need be no violation of

the ethics of war, no infringement of the rights of humanity. The North

is strong in its natural resources, strong in the justice of its cause:

it has risen to vindicate the cardinal law of civilization, and by this

shall it conquer. There appeared to Constantine a vision of the cross,

with the motto, 'By this conquer.' Science has descended in these last

days to dwell among mankind. In her hand is a scroll which she unfolds

before the nations, and they read, 'Unity, the consummation of social

and political destiny.' Thereupon, turning to our nation in the hour of

trial, she says: 'The time is approaching when the principle of

unitization must sweep a wider circle, and you are chosen to inaugurate

this new era in the destiny of nations. Thus far you have done well; be

true to the work so happily begun; carry it unflinchingly through this

ordeal, and you will be the greatest Power for good upon the earth.

There must be an extension of political organization--a widening of the

sphere of political unity; and through your example and influence will

the nations be gathered into a larger fold.' And pointing to the scroll,

she adds: 'Let 'Union' be eternally your motto; by this conquer!'

If we should apply no other than a superficial interpretation to

history, overlooking the great laws by which development proceeds, and

thence conclude that the world is to follow doggedly in the footsteps of

the past, we should anticipate a future far less beautiful in grand

results than Destiny has in store for the generations to come.

Are we to have the Empire of Rome or of Charlemagne over again? In the

Roman Empire there were no common interests; no representation; no

communication among the people; no intersection of the country by the

networks of roads--only great military roads leading from province to

province; no specialization of industrial and commercial interests; no

civilized dependence of one part on another; no natural ties as yet

developed to their real significance between the several countries of

the Roman Empire: it was held together by the strong and despotic arm of

Rome. The Empire of Charlemagne embraced the territory of Middle and

Western Europe, inhabited by barbarous peoples, isolated, warlike, and

speaking different languages; there were none of the civilized bonds of

union; only the genius of Charlemagne held them together; and upon his

death the huge fabric he had reared naturally fell to pieces. The

Spanish Empire is but another instance showing that geographical and

other elements of disconnection must not overbalance those which relate

remote sections to each other, and bind them together in a common

interest, else dissolution will be the result. In respect to the United

States, all these conditions are reversed. Every interest in the natural

course of development points to union--demands union, and, in the

triumph of justice, shall have union.

Is there anything in the way of this union? Is there a morbid growth--a

cause of irritation and disease tending to dissolution? Then, it must be

removed. Is ambitious and reckless demagoguism to be apprehended? Then

educate the people and diffuse science. But is there not still a worse

devil to be cast out? Where slavery is, you cannot educate the people,

you cannot diffuse science; and without enlightenment there can be no

political justice, since unprincipled demagogues will sway all political

destiny. Slavery cannot always exist side by side with freedom; it is

the natural enemy of union, the enemy of civilization. Prominent

secession leaders have admitted that slavery is the cause of this war,

boasting at the same time that the confederate constitution is founded

on a scientific distinction of races. Without slavery there could be no

sufficient motive for the independent national existence of the South.

Had there been no slavery, there had been no civil war. This is, at the

present time, the political significance of the institution. There is no

safety but in its extinction--so far at least as the border Slave States

are concerned, in order to overthrow its power in the United States

Senate, to enlarge the sympathies of freedom, and weaken and

circumscribe the chances for revolutionary movements which slavery will

be ready at any critical moment to precipitate against the Union.

If we have not misinterpreted the law of development, slavery, as it

exists in this country, is a morbid political condition, a social

disease, which stands in the way of the natural course of social

evolution. In this law, therefore, is written the doom of slavery. The

enlightened world will not always permit it to blast the fair field of

civilization by its poisonous presence.

There is a law of human movement by which predominating conditions

extend and perpetuate themselves, overcoming those which are weaker and

on the wane. We observed this in our brief survey of the feudal system.

Freedom is now in the ascendant, and slavery must go down. And since

secession is the child of slavery, and both at war with the cardinal

principles of progressive civilization, it is meet that both should fall

together.

This war may not directly extinguish slavery, and it may; we do not see

the end. But if not directly, we believe the war is, nevertheless,

indirectly setting those forces into action which will eventually

extinguish the institution. If the 'confederacy' should be destroyed,

as, if not saved by foreign intervention, it certainly will be, slavery,

if not already dead, will be pent up, and, in that case, will soon die

by its own hands.

Immediate interests control us more than those which are remote;

interests which affect ourselves, more than those which affect our

descendants. Citizens of the Southern States, to save a petty individual

interest, are nursing in the bosom of society a malignant canker, which,

if let alone, must one day, in the inevitable course of destiny, eat

into its vitals. Heroic treatment will alone meet the demands of the

case. It must be a surgical operation that will penetrate to the very

roots of the invading tumor.

The salvation of the South itself, as well as of the Union, hangs upon

the extinction of slavery. Indeed, the South has far more interest than

the North in the restoration of political health as the condition of

political union; and she would see it so, if slavery had not made her

blind. The elimination of slavery would, in the end, be clear gain to

her, while she would reap equally with the North the advantages of

union, and escape the disadvantages and calamities which, as we have

seen, must inevitably follow in the wake of confirmed disunion.

The writer of this article bases his opposition to slavery solely upon

politico-scientific grounds; he urges the recognition of a great law of

human development, that its bearings on human destiny may be fairly

seen, and human endeavor more wisely directed to the achievement of the

end 'so devoutly to be wished.' The discussion of American Destiny in

all its ramifications would involve the discussion of the ultimate fate

of the negro race on this continent; but that is not within the range of

our present purpose. We have aimed only to indicate the law of

development from the simple to the complex, over which a necessary unity

at length prevails; to show that this law obtains in the political as in

all other realms; to insist that political unity should enlarge its area

as facilities for intercommunication permit, and the interrelation of

industrial, commercial, and social interests demand; that the

jurisdiction of the political unity should correspond to the extension

of general interests, so far as may be possible in the face of physical

necessities not yet overcome in the progress of civilization. We would

apply the doctrine more especially to the present crisis in American

affairs, to enable us to realize that all our sacrifices to maintain the

Union are fully warranted by the great principle of human development

which is involved in the contest.

If we have rightly interpreted history and the law, these sacrifices are

justified by a double consideration. The first, which is negative--to

avoid the entanglements, broils, and conflicts of neighboring nations,

and the consequent exhaustion of the resources of civilization, through

which its progress would necessarily be retarded; the second, which is

positive--to maintain a vast political organization on this continent in

accordance with the demands of a higher civilization, as the only sure

guarantee for the integrity of the 'Monroe doctrine,' and the

accomplishment of a great political mission, by reacting upon Europe,

and leading her isolated and fragmentary nationalities into a higher

unity, involving order, authority, and the economy of power.

It is the selfish interest of the crowned heads of the little nations of

Europe to maintain things as they are, with a principality and a palace

for each puppet of royalty. Hence their costly machinery for maintaining

the 'balance of power.' There may have been a use for this in the

ignorance of the masses, when the extension of sovereignty was often but

the increase of despotism; but there is no such need in the advanced

culture of the people and the progress of civilization. Formerly there

was no public sentiment; but, with the rise of civilized methods, it

became developed, and it has gradually enlarged its sphere, till, as a

writer on dynamical physiology remarks, 'we now hear of the public

opinion of Europe.' (Draper.) And we believe that, before this public

sentiment, thrones are doomed to topple, and sceptres and diadems to

fall, to make way for the more liberal and comprehensive political

organizations of an advancing and triumphant civilization. And herein

appears a glimpse of the political mission of the American Union,

destined itself to become still more comprehensive in the inevitable

fluctuation and change of the political elements. It is a hackneyed

theme that all the natural features of our country, its mountains,

rivers, valleys, lakes, are on a grand scale; it is, therefore, meet

that we should lead the civilized world in the movement of political

unity.

When Russia shall have more completely filled up the measure of her

civilization, and general intelligence shall have secured the liberty of

the subject, and laid forever the ghost of political absolutism, it may

become the mission of the younger nation to infuse new life into the

political system of Europe. With such a nation on the East, and a great

continental policy well advanced in the Western World, Middle and

Western Europe could hardly maintain its present divided, discordant,

and consequently feeble condition: there must be union then, if not

before. With Europe thus united, having outgrown the diplomatic

intrigues and exhausting wars of jealous and ambitious rulers, the dream

of 'universal peace' may realize the inauguration of its fulfilment, and

civilization come to have a meaning which, as yet, is folded up in the

bosom of prophecy--the clearer prophecy, we believe, of science and

history. We are confident that the prestige of the past and the earnest

of the future are for us and our cause; that our nation will not be torn

to pieces and sunk to the dead level of political imbecility, but will

victoriously avouch the integrity of American unity, and gradually gain

the advance in the grand march of civilization, and lead the nations for

hundreds of years to come!

We may well be proud that we are Americans, and that our lot is cast in

these times. Let us never abase our position by the least approach to

ignoble compromise; let us shrink from no responsibility; but acquit

ourselves as becomes an intelligent people conscious of a noble

destiny!

THE BIRTH OF THE LILY.

The Rose had bloomed in Eden. Odors new

Entranced the groves; and iridescent birds,

At this new birth of beauty, sudden rose

In richest chorus, bearing up the balm

Upon their beating wings. The bee had learned

The place of golden sweets, the butterfly

Loved well to dream within those crimson folds,

And Eve had made a garland delicate,

Of feathery sprays and leaves and drooping bells,

And placed the Rose, the queen of bloom, above

The centre of her brow. Thus she bound up

The golden ripples that fell down and broke

O'er her white breast, hiding the bosom buds,

That never yet had yielded up their sweets

To the warm pressure of an infant's lip.

And Eve had bent above the glassy lake,

Smiling upon her picture, pressing close

The soft cheek of the Rose upon her own,

And praising God for beauty and for life.

But now a morn had come more strangely dear

Than Eden yet had known. The sleeping wind

Woke not to stir the fringes of the lake,

Nor shook the odors from the scented plant.

A silver, misty wreath closed fondly down

Above the waveless tide. The insect world

Lay waiting in the leaves, as though a spell

Had hushed Creation; yet expectant thrills

Ran through the silence, for the loaded air

Grew lighter, purer, and the recent Rose

Drooped her proud head in meekness, and the face

Of heaven flushed with burning brilliancy,

Above some coming wonder.

One by one

The beasts and birds of Paradise came down,

With noiseless movement, to the water's edge,

And waited on the margin. Creatures huge,

With honest, liquid eyes, and those that stepped

With cushioned feet and feathered footfall, stole

About the brink, with all the tribe that gave

The forest life. The serpent reared its crest,

Not yet polluted with the valley's dust,

And stood like one with royal gems encrowned;

While beast, and bird, and serpent turned to gaze

Upon each other with inquiring eyes,

And half-bewildered glance.

Then last of all

Came Eve with Adam to the circling rim,

Her fingers grasping roses, and her lip

All beautiful with Love's own witchery.

She stood and noted with admiring look

The strength of Adam's form, the expansive chest,

The sloping muscle, and the sinew knit,

The firm athletic limb, and every grace

Combined and joined in that first, perfect man.

Then Eve, grown humble in her wondrous love

Of Adam's beauty, knelt upon the turf,

While her long hair fell down in shining waves,

And pressed her lip upon his dew-washed feet:

Then with her agitated fingers broke

The foxglove pitcher from the stem, and stooped

To fill it up for him; but quickly drew

Her pearl-white hand away from the still lake,

And held it o'er her heart, with such a look

Of awe and mystery, as if a spell

Was on the water, that she dared not break.

So all was hushed and waiting; when, behold!

A flash of gold shot from the silver East,

A gush of new perfume spread through the grove,

The Rose drooped lower, and the impatient birds,

Loosed from restraint, sang in a strain refined

Of dulcet clearness, such as those young bowers

Had never heard before. The beast crouched down

Upon the velvet turf, the serpent's crown

Flashed richer splendor, and the angel-guard

Whose fearful sword gleamed by the Tree of Life,

His very plumes were tremulous with joy.

Then Eve looked o'er the swelling wave, and, lo!

The lake was overspread with blooming stars,

Or snowy golden-centred cups, that rocked

And spilled the choicest incense. Adam cried,

'The Lily;' but the sweet voice at his side,

Grown tremulous and faint with overjoy,

Could only whisper, 'Purity.' Then quick,

With restless hands, she culled the floral star--

Queen of the wave--emblem of innocence,

And hung it in the lion's matted mane,

And twined it round the serpent's glittering neck;

Thus humoring her fancy in the play

Till half the morning hours had slipped and gone.

Then, startled by the voice she loved so well,

She left the sport, the creatures, and the flowers,

And hastened back with Adam to the trees

Where God was walking in the solemn shade.

O mother frail, thou hast not known a tear!

Thy spirit, clothed in simple innocence,

Wears the true garb of bliss. Not yet thy hour

Of sorrow and departure; nor the pangs

And mystery of motherhood are thine!

And yet, weak one! some day, because of thee,

God's love shall give a Saviour to the world!

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_

it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is

interesting.'--GOETHE.

'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or

intended.'--WEBSTER's _Dictionary._

_PART SECOND._

'I have been young and now I am old, and I bear my testimony that I

have never found thorough, pervading, enduring morality with any

but such as feared God--not in the modern sense, but in the old

child-like way. And only with such, too, have I found a rejoicing

in life--a hearty, victorious cheerfulness, of so distinguished a

kind that no other is to be compared with it.'--JACOBI.

CHAPTER I.

The first part of this narrative naturally closes with the termination

of our hero's career at Burnsville, and his establishing himself as a

resident of New York.

Up to this period, he has had no great difficulty in making his conduct

consistent with his religious professions. He certainly has striven with

a species of conscientiousness to do so, and we repeat, he has achieved

his object.

Now, however, he is embarking on a very different sea from the quiet,

placid waters of his village life. Here, Hiram Meeker, you will

encounter many and frequent temptations to _do_ wrong. For you are soon

to commence on your "own account," and then you must prepare for that

mortal struggle, in which none, without the grace of God to aid them,

can come off victors.

Hiram understands this: that is, he has been educated to believe it.

Surely he enjoys saving grace. Who more constant at church and evening

meetings; who prays longer and more vigorously than he?

Let me repeat that Hiram has a strong desire to enter the kingdom of

Heaven, and thinks that all the chances are in favor of his doing so.

But this desire is of the same nature as his wish to become rich. It is

founded on the determination to promote the fortunes of the individual

_me_, here and hereafter. It leads him to treat as a _principle_ the

statement of _fact_, that "honesty is the best policy;" and his policy

is--Self. He can practically master the theory of cause and effect as to

what is going on _here_. And since he believes he will secure a good

position in the world to come by strict observance of the "ordinances,"

he considers himself all right _there_.

It is with entire complacency, then, that Hiram Meeker sets sail in New

York. He is young, and, as the word goes, handsome; with good health,

strong nerves, an enduring frame, and excellent constitution. He is well

educated, and has a remarkable capacity for affairs, with sufficient

experience in business to qualify him for any mercantile career he

chooses to enter on. Moreover, in all the relations of life, he

professes to be governed by the highest possible principle--Christian

principle; and claims to be, indeed really is, at least theoretically, a

believer in the truths of our holy religion. Why is it, then, reader,

you have already taken such a prejudice against Hiram? For I know, as it

were instinctively, that you are prejudiced against him. Indeed, I

confess that in preparing his history for the press, I have

unconsciously permitted certain comments to creep in, indicating my own

feelings toward the young man. But, in fact, I could not help it,

especially when I came to narrate Hiram's course toward Sarah Burns.

But here in New York, I begin to feel a painful interest for young

Meeker. He is at the "parting of the ways." Up to now, there has been no

great strain on his moral sense, while he has not been altogether

insensible to humanizing influences. He has been thus far in the service

of others, and had wisdom enough to understand it was best for him to

serve with fidelity. Thus, his sense of duty did not conflict with his

interests, and he won golden opinions from all.

Probably, when he left Burnsville, but one person thoroughly knew

him--that person was Sarah Burns. For it is given to those whose hearts

are honestly _devoted_, in time to learn and fully comprehend the nature

of the hearts brought in contact with theirs.

The young ladies universally recalled their delightful flirtations with

Hiram with a sort of pleasurable regret, in which no angry feelings

toward him were mingled. Even Mary Jessup looked back with a sentimental

sigh, but not with any feeling of bitterness, to the period when she was

so happy with "young Meeker, boarding at their house." The Hawkins girls

still severally had their secret hopes in the future. [As to the widow

Hawkins, I cannot say.] But nobody understood the young man except Sarah

Burns. _He_ knew that, and when he drove away from her door, he felt he

was _found out_.

I am getting from my subject, which is Hiram's dangerous situation, now

that he has reached New York. One thing much to be regretted is that he

has resolved, at least for the present, to adjure society, in his entire

devotion to his main purpose. This is an alarming feature. For

notwithstanding, in his intercourse with the sex, he had sought entirely

his own pleasure, still it was not without its qualifying influences.

His mind was diverted from a perpetual thought of how he should get

rich, and nature (I mean the nature common to us all) was permitted to

have a certain sway.

When Hiram stepped foot in the metropolis, he cut off these diverting

elements. He decided, and he had long and carefully considered it, that

in the strife in which he was soon to enter, he should require all his

time, all his faculties. For this reason, he determined to accept Mr.

Eastman's offer of board and lodging at his house, albeit his wife was

shrewish and generally disagreeable. He no longer permitted the gay

throng in Broadway to move his nerves or excite his senses. And thus all

these secondary impulses and emotions and sentiments yielded to the one

main controlling purpose.

Yes, Hiram Meeker, I feel a painful interest in your situation. I see

that, once entered on your career, there will be no departure or

deviation or pause in it. As in metal poured into the mould, which,

while it remains in a fluid state, is capable of being converted into

other forms, but which, after a time, fixes and becomes

unchangeable,--so, in the life of every human being, there is a period

when the aims and purposes are fixed and the character is settled

forever. With some, this comes earlier, with others later; but it comes

inevitably to all of us.

It seems to me Hiram is fast approaching this epoch, and this is why my

interest in him becomes painful. For after this--but I will not

anticipate.