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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE WAYS OF THE HOUR.
[Illustration:
The Theft
_The Ways of the Hour_
]
[Illustration:
“This bears some resemblance, Mr. Wilmeter, to an interview
in a convent. I am the novice, you the excluded friend, who is
compelled to pay his visit through a grate.”
_Ways of the Hour. Page 115._
]
THE
WAYS OF THE HOUR.
_A TALE._
BY
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
‘Is this the way
I must return to native dust?’
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1892.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, In the year 1861, by
W. A. TOWNSEND AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
New York.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
-----------------------
The object of this book is to draw the attention of the reader to some
of the social evils that beset us; more particularly in connection with
the administration of criminal justice. So long a time has intervened
since the thought occurred, and so many interruptions have delayed the
progress of the work, that it is felt the subject has been very
imperfectly treated; but it is hoped that enough has been done to cause
a few to reflect on a matter of vital importance; one that to them may
possess the interest of novelty.
A strange indifference exists as to the composition of the juries. In
our view, the institution itself, so admirable in a monarchy, is totally
unsuited to a democracy. The very principle that renders it so safe
where there is a great central power to resist, renders it unsafe in a
state of society in which few have sufficient resolution to attempt even
to resist popular impulses.
A hundred instances might be given in which the juries of this country
are an evil; one or two of which we will point out. In trials between
railroad companies and those who dwell along their lines, prejudice is
usually so strong against the former, that justice for them is nearly
hopeless. In certain parts of the country, the juries are made the
instruments of defeating the claims of creditors who dwell at a
distance, and are believed to have interests opposed to the particular
community where the debtor resides. This is a most crying evil, and has
been the source of many and grievous wrongs. Whenever there is a motive
for creating a simulated public opinion, by the united action of several
journals, justice is next to hopeless; such combinations rarely, if
ever, occurring in its behalf. In cases that are connected with the
workings of political schemes, and not unfrequently in those in which
political men are parties to the suits, it is often found that the
general prejudices or partialities of the out-door factions enter the
jury-box. This is a most serious evil too; for, even when the feeling
does not produce a direct and flagrant wrong, it is very apt so far to
temper the right as to deprive it of much of its virtue. In a country
like this, in which party penetrates to the very bottom of society, the
extent of this evil can be known only to those who are brought into
close contact with the ordinary workings of the institution.
In a democracy, proper selections in the material that are necessary to
render juries safe, become nearly impossible. Then, the tendency is to
the accumulation of power in bodies of men; and in a state of society
like our own, the juries get to be much too independent of the opinion
of the court. It is precisely in that condition of things in which the
influence and authority of the judge guide the juror, and the
investigation and substantial power of the juror react on the
proceedings of the court, that the greatest benefits have been found to
accrue from this institution. The reverse of this state of things will
be very likely to produce the greatest amount of evil.
It is certain that the juries are falling into disrepute throughout the
length and breadth of the land. The difficulty is to find a substitute.
As they are bodies holding the lives, property and character of every
member of the community, more or less, in their power, it is not to be
supposed that the masses will surrender this important means of
exercising their authority voluntarily, or with good will. Time alone
can bring reform through the extent of the abuses.
The writer has not the vanity to suppose that any thing contained in
this book will produce a very serious impression on the popularity of
the jury. Such is not its design. All that is anticipated is to cause a
portion of his readers to reflect on the subject; persons who probably
have never yet given it a moment of thought.
There is a tendency, at the present time, to court change for its own
sake. This is erroneously termed a love of reform. Something very like a
revolution is going on in our midst, while there is much reason to
apprehend that few real grievances are abated; the spurious too
exclusively occupying the popular mind, to render easy a just
distinction between them. When an American prates about aristocracy, it
is pretty safe to set him down as knavish or ignorant. It is purely
cant; and the declaimers would be puzzled to point to a single element
of the little understood and much decried institution, the country being
absolutely without any, unless the enjoyment of the ordinary rights of
property can be so considered. But the demagogue must have his war-cry
as well as the Indian; and it is probable he will continue to whoop as
long as the country contains minds weak enough to furnish him with
dupes.
COOPERSTOWN, _March 12, 1850_.
[Illustration]
THE WAYS OF THE HOUR.
-----------------------
CHAPTER I.
_Mar._ My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?
_Aum._ Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
_King Richard II._
In one respect, there is a visible improvement in the goodly town of
Manhattan, and that is in its architecture. Of its growth, there has
never been any question, while many have disputed its pretension to
improvement. A vast expansion of mediocrity, though useful and imposing,
rarely satisfies either the judgment or the taste; those who possess
these qualities, requiring a nearer approach to what is excellent, than
can ever be found beneath the term just mentioned.
A town which is built of red bricks, that are faced with white marble,
the whole garnished with green blinds, can never have but one outward
sign—that of tawdry vulgarity. But this radical defect is slowly
disappearing from the streets of Manhattan; and those who build, are
getting to understand that architecture, like statuary, will not admit
of strong contrasts in colours. Horace Walpole tells us of a certain old
Lord Pembroke, who blackened the eyes of the gods and goddesses in the
celebrated gallery at Wilton, and prided himself on the achievement, as
if he had been another Phidias. There have been thousands of those who
have laboured in the spirit of this Earl of Pembroke in the streets of
all the American towns; but travelling, hints, books and example, are
slowly effecting a change; and whole squares may now be seen in which
the eye rests with satisfaction on blinds, facings and bricks, all
brought to the same pleasing, sober, architectural tint. We regard this
as the first step, in advance, that has been made in the right
direction, so far as the outward aspect of the town is concerned, and
look forward, with hope, to the day when Manhattan shall have banished
its rag-fair finery altogether, and the place will become as remarkable
for the chaste simplicity of its streets, as they have hitherto been for
their marked want of taste.
With this great town, mottled as it is, in people as well as in hues,
with its native population collected from all parts of this vast
republic, and its European representatives amounting to scores of
thousands, we shall have much to do in the succeeding pages. Our
researches, however, will be bestowed more on things moral than on
things physical; and we shall endeavour to carry the reader with us
through scenes that, we regret to say, are far more characteristic than
novel.
In one of the cross streets that communicate with Broadway, and below
Canal, stands a dwelling that is obnoxious to all the charges of bad
taste to which there has already been allusion, as well as to certain
others that have not yet been named, at all. A quarter of a century
since, or within the first twenty years of its own existence, the house
in question would have been regarded as decidedly patrician, though it
is now lost amid the thousands of similar abodes that have arisen since
its own construction. There it stands, with its red bricks periodically
painted redder; its marble facings, making a livery of red turned up
with white; its green blinds, its high stoop, its half-buried and low
basement, and all its neatness and comfort, notwithstanding its flagrant
architectural sins. Into this building we now propose to enter, at the
very early hour of eight in the morning.
The principal floor was divided, as usual, between a dining and a
drawing-room, with large communicating doors. This was the stereotyped
construction of all Manhattanese dwellings of any pretension, a quarter
of a century since; and that of Mr. Thomas Dunscomb, the owner and
occupant of the house in question, had been built in rigid conformity
with the fashion of its day. ’Squire Dunscomb, as this gentleman was
termed in all the adjacent country counties, where he was well known as
a reliable and sound legal adviser; Mr. Thomas Dunscomb, as he was
styled by various single ladies, who wondered he never married; or Tom
Dunscomb, as he was familiarly called by a herd of unyoked youths, all
of whom were turned of sixty, was a capital fellow in each of his many
characters. As a lawyer, he was as near the top of the bar as a man can
be, who never had any pretensions to be an orator, and whose longest
effort seldom exceeded half an hour. Should the plan of placing
eloquence in hobbles reach our own bar, his habit of condensing, his
trick of getting _multum in parvo_, may yet bring him to the very
summit; for he will have an immense advantage over those who, resembling
a country buck at a town ball, need the whole field to cut their
flourishes in. As a man of the world, he was well-bred, though a little
cynical, very agreeable, most especially with the ladies, and quite
familiar with all the better habits of the best-toned circles of the
place. As a boon companion, Tom Dunscomb was an immense favourite, being
particularly warm-hearted, and always ready for any extra eating or
drinking. In addition to these leading qualities, Dunscomb was known to
be rich, having inherited a very tolerable estate, as well as having
added much to his means, by a large and lucrative practice. If to these
circumstances we add that of a very prepossessing personal appearance,
in which age was very green, the reader has all that is necessary for an
introduction to one of our principal characters.
Though a bachelor, Mr. Dunscomb did not live alone. He had a nephew and
a niece in his family, the orphan children of a sister who had now been
dead many years. They bore the name of Wilmeter, which, in the family
parlance, was almost always pronounced Wilmington. It was Jack
Wilmington, and Sally Wilmington, at school, at home, and with all their
intimates; though Mr. John Wilmeter and Miss Sarah Wilmeter were often
spoken of in their little out-door world; it being rather an affectation
of the times to prove, in this manner, that one retains some knowledge
of the spelling-book. We shall write the name as it is written by the
parties themselves, forewarning the reader that if he desire to
pronounce it by the same family standard, he must take the unauthorized
spelling as a guide. We own ourselves to a strong predilection for old
familiar sounds, as well as old familiar faces.
At half-past 8, A. M., of a fine morning, late in May, when the roses
were beginning to show their tints amid the verdure of the leaves, in
Mr. Dunscomb’s yard, the three individuals just mentioned were at the
breakfast-table of what it is the fashion of New York to term a
dining-room. The windows were open, and a soft and fragrant air filled
the apartment. We have said that Mr. Dunscomb was affluent, and he chose
to enjoy his means, not à la Manhattan, in idle competition with the
_nouveaux riches_, but in a more quiet and rational way. His father had
occupied lots, ‘running through,’ as it is termed; building his house on
one street and his stables on the other; leaving himself a space in the
rear of the former, that was prodigious for a town so squeezed into
parallelograms of twenty-five feet by a hundred. This open space was of
the usual breadth, but it actually measured a hundred and fifty feet in
length, an area that would have almost justified its being termed a
‘park,’ in the nomenclature of the town. This yard Sarah had caused to
be well garnished with shrubbery, and, for its dimensions, it was really
a sort of oasis, in that wilderness of bricks.
The family was not alone that morning. A certain Michael Millington was
a guest of Jack’s, and seemingly quite at home in the little circle. The
business of eating and drinking was pretty well through with, though
each of the four cups had its remains of tea or coffee, and Sarah sat
stirring hers idly, while her soft eyes were turned with interest on the
countenances of the two young men. The last had a sheet of writing-paper
lying between them, and their heads were close together, as both studied
that which was written on it in pencil. As for Mr. Dunscomb, himself, he
was fairly surrounded by documents of one sort and another. Two or three
of the morning papers, glanced at but not read, lay opened on the floor;
on each side of his plate was a brief, or some lease or release; while a
copy of the new and much talked of code was in his hand. As we say in
our American English, Mr. Dunscomb was ‘emphatically’ a common-law
lawyer; and, as our transatlantic brethren would remark in their
sometime cockney dialect, he was not at all ‘agreeable’ to this great
innovation on ‘the perfection of human reason.’ He muttered occasionally
as he read, and now and then he laid down the book, and seemed to muse.
All this, however, was quite lost on Sarah, whose soft blue eyes still
rested on the interested countenances of the two young men. At length
Jack seized the paper, and wrote a line or two hurriedly, with his
pencil.
“There, Mike,” he said, in a tone of self-gratulation, “I think _that_
will do!”
“It has one merit of a good toast,” answered the friend, a little
doubtingly; “it is sententious.”
“As all toasts ought to be. If we are to have this dinner, and the
speeches, and all the usual publications afterwards, I choose that we
should appear with some little credit. Pray, sir,” raising his eyes to
his uncle, and his voice to correspond, “what do you think of it, now?”
“Just as I always have, Jack. It will never do at all. Justice would
halt miserably under such a system of practice. Some of the forms of
pleadings are infernal, if pleadings they can be called at all. I detest
even the names they give their proceedings—complaints and answers!”
“They are certainly not as formidable to the ear,” returned Jack, a
little saucily, “as rebutters and sur-rebutters. But I was not thinking
of the code, sir; I was asking your opinion of my new toast.”
“Even a fee could not extract an opinion, unless I heard it read.”
“Well, sir, here it is: ‘The constitution of the United States; the
palladium of our civil and religious liberties,’ Now, I do not think I
can much better that, uncle Tom!”
“I’m very sorry to hear you say so, Jack.”
“Why so, sir? I’m sure it is good American sentiment; and what is more,
it has a flavour of the old English principles that you so much admire,
about it, too. Why do you dislike it, sir?”
“For several reasons—it would be common-place, which a toast should
never be, were it true; but there happens not to be a word of truth in
your sentiment, sonorous as it may sound in your ears.”
“Not true! Does not the constitution guaranty to the citizen religious
liberty?”
“Not a bit of it.”
“You amaze me, sir! Why, here, just listen to its language, if you
please.”
Hereupon Jack opened a book, and read the clause on which he relied to
confute one of the ablest constitutional lawyers and clearest heads in
America. Not that Mr. Dunscomb was what is called an “expounder,” great
or small; but he never made a mistake on the subject in hand, and had
often caused the best of the “expounders” to retrace their steps. He was
an original thinker, but of the safest and most useful sort; one who
distinguished between the _institutions_ of England and America, while
he submitted to the fair application of minor principles that are so
common to both. As for his nephew, he knew no more of the great
instrument he held in his hand, than he had gleaned from ill-digested
newspaper remarks, vapid speeches in Congress, and the erroneous notions
that float about the country, coming from “nobody knows whom,” and
leading literally to nothing. The ignorance that prevails on such
subjects is really astounding, when one remembers the great number of
battles that are annually fought over this much-neglected compact.
“Ay, here is the clause—just please to hear it, sir,” continued
Jack.—“‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances.’ There, I think that will go far towards justifying the
whole toast, Mike.”
This was said a little triumphantly, and not a little confidently. The
only answer Mr. Dunscomb condescended to make, was an expressive “Umph!”
As for Michael Millington, he was a little timid about expressing an
opinion, and that for two reasons; he had often experienced Mr.
Dunscomb’s superior wisdom, and he knew that Sarah heard all that
passed.
“I wish your uncle would lay aside that code for a minute, Jack, and let
us know what he thinks of our authorities,” said Michael, in an under
tone.
“Come, Uncle Tom,” cried the more hardy nephew—“come out of your
reserve, and face the constitution of your country. Even Sarah can see
that, for once, _we_ are right, and that my toast is of proof.”
“It is a very good proof-_sheet_, Jack, not only of your own mind, but
of half the minds in the country. Ranker nonsense cannot be uttered,
however, than to say that the Constitution of the United States is the
palladium of anything in which civil or religious liberty is concerned.”
“You do not dispute the fidelity of my quotation, sir?”
“By no means. The clause you read is a very useless exhibition of
certain facts that existed just as distinctly before it was framed, as
they do to-day. Congress had no power to make an established religion,
or abridge the freedom of speech, or that of the press, or the right of
the people to petition, before that amendment was introduced, and
consequently the clause itself is supererogatory. You take nothing by
your motion, Jack.”
“I do not understand you, sir. To me, it seems that I have the best of
it.”
“Congress has no power but what has been conceded to it directly, or by
necessary connection. Now, there happens to be nothing said about
granting any such authority to Congress, and consequently the
prohibition is not necessary. But, admitting that Congress did really
possess the power to establish a religion previously to the adoption of
this amendment, the constitution would not prove a palladium to
religious liberty, unless it prohibited everybody else from meddling
with the opinions of the citizen. Any state of this Union that pleases,
may establish a religion, and compel its citizens to support it.”
“Why, sir, our own state constitution has a provision similar to this,
to prevent it.”
“Very true; but our own state constitution can be altered in this
behalf, without asking permission of any one but our own people. I think
that even Sarah will understand that the United States is no palladium
of religious liberty, if it cannot prevent a state from establishing
Mohamedanism, as soon as a few forms can be complied with.”
Sarah coloured, glanced timidly at Michael Millington, but made no
reply. She did not understand much of what she had just heard, though
rather an intelligent girl, but had hoped that Jack and his friend were
nearer right than was likely to turn out to be the case. Jack, himself,
being a young limb of the law comprehended what his uncle meant, and had
the grace to colour, too, at the manner in which he had manifested his
ignorance of the great national compact. With a view to relieve himself
from his dilemma, he cried, with a ready dexterity,—
“Well, since this won’t do, I must try the jury. ‘The trial by jury, the
palladium of our liberties.’ How do you like that, sir?”
“Worse than the other, boy. God protect the country that has no better
shield against wrong, than that which a jury can hold before it.”
Jack looked at Michael, and Michael looked at Jack; while Sarah looked
at both in turn.
“You surely will not deny, sir, that the trial by jury is one of the
most precious of the gifts received from our ancestors?” said the first,
a little categorically, Sarah brightening up at this question, as he
fancied that her brother had now got on solid ground.
“Your question cannot be answered in a breath, Jack,” returned the
uncle. “The trial by jury _was_ undoubtedly a most precious boon
bestowed on a people among whom there existed an hereditary ruling
power, on the abuses of which it was often a most salutary check.”
“Well, sir, is it not the same check here; assuring to the citizens
independent justice?”
“Who compose the ruling power in America, Jack?”
“The people, to be sure, sir.”
“And who the jurors?”
“The people, too, I suppose,” answered the nephew, hesitating a little
before he replied.
“Well, let us suppose a citizen has a conflict of rights with the
public, which is the government, who will compose the tribunal that is
to decide the question?”
“A jury, to be sure, sir. The trial by jury is guarantied by the
constitution, to us all.”
“Ay,” said Mr. Dunscomb, smiling, “much as are our religious and
political liberties. But according to your own admission, this is very
much like making one of the parties a judge in his own case. A. insists
that he has a right to certain lands, for instance, which the public
claims for itself. In such a case, part of the public compose the
tribunal.”
“But is it not true, Mr. Dunscomb,” put in Millington, “that the popular
prejudice is usually against government, in all cases with private
citizens?”
Sarah’s face looked brighter now than ever, for she felt sure that Mike,
as her brother familiarly called his friend, had asked a most apposite
question.
“Certainly; you are right as to particular sets of cases, but wrong as
to others. In a commercial town like this, the feeling is against
government in all cases connected with the collection of the revenue, I
admit; and you will see that the fact makes against the trial by jury in
another form, since a judge ought to be strictly impartial; above all
prejudice whatever.”
“But, uncle, a judge and a jury are surely very different things,” cried
Sarah, secretly impelled to come to Michael’s rescue, though she scarce
knew anything of the merits of the subject.
“Quite right, my dear,” the uncle answered, nodding his head kindly,
casting a glance at his niece that caused her to blush under the
consciousness of being fully understood in her motives, if not in her
remark. “Most profoundly right; a judge and a juror ought to be very
different things. What I most complain of is the fact that the jurors
are fast becoming judges. Nay, by George, they are getting to be
legislators, making the law as well as interpreting it. How often does
it happen, now-a-days, that the court tell the jury that such is the
law, and the jury comes in with a verdict which tells the court that
such is _not_ the law? This is an every-day occurrence, in the actual
state of public opinion.”
“But the court will order a new trial, if the verdict is against law and
evidence,” said Michael, determined that Sarah should be sustained.
“Ay, and another jury will be quite likely to sustain the old one.
No—no—the trial by jury is no more a palladium of our liberties, than
the Constitution of the United States.”
“Who, or what is, then, sir?” demanded Jack.
“God! Yes, the Deity, in his Divine Providence; if anything is to save
us. It may not be his pleasure to let us perish, for it would seem that
some great plan for the advancement of civilization is going on, and it
may be a part of it to make us important agents. All things regarded, I
am much inclined to believe such is the fact. But, did the result depend
on us, miserable instruments in the Almighty hands as we are, woeful
would be the end!”
“You do not look at things _couleur de rose_, Uncle Tom,” Sarah
smilingly observed.
“Because I am not a young lady of twenty, who is well satisfied with
herself and her advantages. There is but one character for which I have
a greater contempt than that of a senseless grumbler, who regards all
things _à tort et à travers_, and who cries, there is nothing good in
the world.”
“And what is the exception, sir?”
“The man who is puffed up with conceit, and fancies all around him
perfection, when so much of it is the reverse; who ever shouts
‘liberty,’ in the midst of the direst oppression.”
“But direst oppression is certainly no term to be applied to anything in
New York!”
“You think not? What would you say to a state of society in which the
law is available to one class of citizens only, in the way of
compulsion, and not at all, in the way of protection?”
“I do not understand you, sir; here, it is our boast that all are
protected, alike.”
“Ay, so far as _boasting_ goes, we are beyond reproach. But what are the
facts? Here is a man that owes money. The law is appealed to, to compel
payment. Verdict is rendered, and execution issued. The sheriff enters
his house, and sells his very furniture, to extort the amount of the
debt from him.”
“That is his misfortune, sir. Such things must happen to all debtors who
cannot, or will not, pay.”
“If this were true, I should have nothing to say. Imagine this very
debtor to be also a creditor; to have debts due to him, of many times
the sums that he owes, but which the law will _not_ aid him in
collecting. For him, the law is all oppression—no protection.”
“But, surely, Uncle Tom, nothing of the sort exists here!”
“Surely, Miss Sarah Wilmeter, such things _do_ exist here in practice,
whatever may be the theory on the subject; what is more, they exist
under the influence of facts that are directly connected with the
working of the institutions. My case is not supposititious, at all, but
real. Several landlords have quite recently felt all the rigours of the
law as debtors, when it was a dead letter to them, in their character of
creditors. This has actually happened, and that more than once; and it
might happen a hundred times, were the landlords more in debt. In the
latter case, it would be an every-day occurrence.”
‘What, sir,’ exclaimed Michael Millington; ‘the law enforce, when it
will not protect?’
“That it does, young man, in many interests that I could point out to
you. But here is as flagrant a case of unmitigated tyranny as can be
cited against any country in Christendom. A citizen is sold out of house
and home, under process of law, for debt; and when he asks for the use
of the same process of law to collect his undeniable dues, it is, in
effect, denied him. And this among the people who boast that their
independence is derived from a spirit that would not be taxed! A people
who are hourly shouting hosannas in honour of their justice!”
‘It cannot be, Uncle Tom, that this is done, in terms,’ cried the
astounded nephew.
“If, by terms, you mean professions of justice, and liberty, and equal
rights, they are fair enough; in all those particulars we are
irreproachable. As ‘_professors_’ no people can talk more volubly or
nearer to the point—I allude only to facts.”
“But these facts may be explained—qualified—are not as flagrant as they
seem under your statement?”
“In what manner?”
“Why, sir, this is but a _temporary_ evil, perhaps.”
“It has lasted, not days, nor weeks, nor months, but years. What is
more, it is an evil that has not occurred in a corner, where it might be
overlooked; but it exists within ten miles of your capital, in plain
sight of your legislators, and owes its impunity solely to their
profound deference to votes. In a word, it is a part of the political
system under which we live; and that far more so than any disposition to
tyranny that might happen to manifest itself in an individual king.”
“Do not the tenants who refuse to pay, fancy that their landlords have
no right to their estates, and does not the whole difficulty arise from
misapprehension?” asked Michael, a little timidly.
“What would that have to do with the service of process, if it were
true? When a sheriff’s officer comes among these men, they take his
authority from him, and send him away empty. Rights are to be determined
only by the law, since they are derived from the law; and he who meets
the law at the threshold, and denies it entrance, can never seriously
pretend that he resists because the other party has no claims. No, no,
young gentleman—this is all a fetch. The evil is of years’ standing; it
is of the character of the direst oppression, and of oppression of the
worst sort, that of many oppressing a few; cases in which the sufferer
is cut off from sympathy, as you can see by the apathy of the community,
which is singing hosannas to its own perfection, while this great wrong
is committed under its very nose. Had a landlord oppressed his tenants,
their clamour would have made itself heard throughout the land. The
worst feature in the case, is that which connects the whole thing so
very obviously with the ordinary working of the institutions. If it were
merely human covetousness struggling against the institutions, the last
might prove the strongest; but it is cupidity, of the basest and most
transparent nature, _using_ the institutions themselves to effect its
purpose.”
“I am surprised that something was not done by the last convention to
meet the evil!” said Jack, who was much struck with the enormity of the
wrong, placed before his eyes in its simplest form, as it had been by
his direct-minded and clear-headed kinsman.
“That is because you do not know what a convention has got to be. Its
object is to push principles into impracticable extremes, under the
silly pretension of progress, and not to abate evils. I made a
suggestion myself, to certain members of that convention, which, in my
poor judgment, would have effectually cured this disease; but no member
had the courage to propose it. Doubtless, it would have been useless had
it been otherwise.”
“It was worth the trial, if such were likely to be its result. What was
your plan, sir?”
“Simply to disfranchise any district in which the law could not be
enforced by means of combinations of its people. On application to the
highest court of the state, an order might be granted that no polls
should be held in one, or more, towns, or counties, in which
combinations existed of a force sufficient to prevent the laws from
being put in force. Nothing could be more just than to say that men who
will not obey the law shall not have a voice in making it, and to me it
really seems that some such provision would be the best possible
expedient to check this growing evil. It would be choking the enemy with
his own food.”
“Why was it not done, sir?”
“Simply because our sages were speculating on votes, and not on
principles. They will talk to you like so many books touching the vices
of all foreign systems, but are ready to die in defence of the
perfection of their own.”
“Why was it necessary to make a new constitution, the other day,” asked
Sarah, innocently, “if the old one was so very excellent?”
“Sure enough—the answer might puzzle wiser heads than yours, child.
Perfection requires a great deal of tinkering, in this country. We
scarcely adopt one plan that shall secure everybody’s rights and
liberties, than another is broached, to secure some newly-discovered
rights and liberties. With the dire example before them, of the manner
in which the elective franchise is abused, in this anti-rent movement,
the sages of the land have just given to the mass the election of
judges; as beautiful a scheme for making the bench coalesce with the
jury-box as human ingenuity could invent!”
As all present knew that Mr. Dunscomb was bitterly opposed to the new
constitution, no one was surprised at this last assertion. It did create
wonder, however, in the minds of all three of the ingenuous young
persons, when the fact—an undeniable and most crushing one it is, too,
so far as any high pretension to true liberty is concerned—was plainly
laid before them, that citizens were to be found in New York _against_
whom the law was rigidly enforced, while it was powerless in their
behalf. We have never known this aspect of the case presented to any
mind, that it did not evidently produce a deep impression, _for the
moment_; but, alas! “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,”
and few care for the violation of a principle when the wrong does not
affect themselves. These young folk were, like all around them,
unconscious even that they dwelt in a community in which so atrocious a
wrong was daily done, and, for the moment, were startled when the truth
was placed before their eyes. The young men, near friends, and, by
certain signs, likely to be even more closely united, were much addicted
to speculating on the course of events, as they conceived them to be
tending, in other countries. Michael Millington, in particular, was a
good deal of a general politician, having delivered several orations, in
which he had laid some stress on the greater happiness of the people of
this much favoured land, over those of all other countries, and
especially on the subject of equal rights. He was too young, yet, to
have learned the wholesome truth, that equality of rights, in practice,
exists nowhere; the ingenuity and selfishness of man finding the means
to pervert to narrow purposes, the most cautious laws that have ever
been adopted in furtherance of a principle that would seem to be so
just. Nor did he know that the Bible contains all the wisdom and
justice, transmitted as divine precepts, that are necessary to secure to
every man all that it is desirable to possess here below.
The conversation was terminated by the entrance of a fourth colloquist,
in the person of Edward McBrain, M. D., who was not only the family
physician, but the bosom friend of the lawyer. The two liked each other
on the principle of loving their opposites. One was a bachelor, the
other was about to marry his third wife; one was a little of a cynic,
the other much of a philanthropist; one distrustful of human nature, the
other too confiding; one cautious to excess, the other absolutely
impetuous, whenever anything strongly interested his feelings. They were
alike in being Manhattanese by birth, somewhat a novelty in a New
Yorker; in being equally graduates of Columbia, and classmates; in a
real love of their fellow-creatures; in goodness of heart, and in
integrity. Had either been wanting in these last great essentials, the
other could not have endured him.