The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol V, No III, by Various Authors.

It is generally believed, even when the American rebellion should be suppressed, that there would be a great loss of wealth and resources on the part of the United States. As an economical question the great truth is not disputed by me, that, as a general rule, wars by a waste of property, by large expenditures, and by the withdrawal of so much labor from the pursuits of industry, impair the material interests of the nation. The influence of such considerations in the United States is not denied; but there are in the cause of this contest, as well as in its effects and consequences, results which will more than compensate for such losses. Slavery was the sole cause of this rebellion, and the result will be the reconstruction of the Union, with slavery everywhere extinguished. On this assumption, the question is, whether the substitution of free for slave labor throughout every State and Territory of the Union will not, as a question of augmented wealth and invigorated industry, far more than compensate for the losses incurred in the contest. Reasoning inductively, it might well be supposed that the willing labor of educated and energetic freemen would be far more productive than the forced labor of ignorant, unwilling, and uneducated slaves. In the realm of science, as well as in the direction of labor, knowledge is power, education is wealth and progress; and that this is applicable to the masses who compose a community, and especially to the working classes, is demonstrated by our American official Census. In proof of this position, I will proceed by a reference to the official tables of our Census of 1860, to show not only in particular Slave States, as compared with other Free States, whether old or new, Eastern or Western, or making the comparison of the aggregate of all the Slave with the Free States, the annual product of the latter per capita is more than double that of the Slave States. I begin with Maryland as compared with Massachusetts, because Maryland, in proportion to her area, has greater natural advantages than any one of the Slave or Free States; and if the comparison with the Free States is most unfavorable to her, it will be more so as to any other Southern State; as the Census [Pg 250] shows that, from 1790 to 1860, as well as from 1850 to 1860, Maryland increased in population per square mile more rapidly than any other slaveholding State.

We must consider the area, soil, climate, mines, hydraulic power, location, shore line, bays, sounds, and rivers, and such other causes as affect the advance of wealth and population.

The relative progress of Maryland has been slow indeed. The population of the Union, by the Census of 1790, was 3,929,827, of which Maryland, containing then 319,728, constituted a twelfth part (12.29). In 1860, the Union numbered 31,445,080, and Maryland 687,034, constituting a forty-fifth part (45.76). In 1790, the Free States numbered 1,968,455, Maryland's population then being equal to one sixth (6.12); but, in 1860, the population of the Free States was 18,920,078, Maryland's number then being equal to one twenty-seventh part (27.52). But, if Maryland had increased as rapidly from 1790 to 1860 as the whole Union, her proportion, one twelfth part, would have made her numbers in 1860, 2,620,315; and if her proportional increase had equalled that of the Free States, her ratio, one sixth, would have made her population in 1860, 3,153,392.

I take the areas from the report (November 29, 1860) of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, where they are for the first time accurately given, 'excluding the water surface.' The population is taken from the Census Tables. I compare first Massachusetts and Maryland, because they are maritime and old States, and both in 1790 had nearly the same population, but, as will be shown hereafter, with vastly superior natural advantages in favor of Maryland.

Area of Maryland, 11,124 square miles; shore lines, by tables of United States Coast Survey, viz.: main shore, including bays, sounds, etc., 503 miles, islands 298, rivers to head of tide water 535; total, 1,336 miles.

Area of Massachusetts, 7,800 square miles; shore lines, by tables of United States Coast Survey, viz.: main shore, including bays, sounds, etc., 435 miles, islands 259, rivers to head of tide water 70; total, 764 miles. When we mark the Potomac and its tributaries, the lower Susquehanna, the deep and numerous streams of the Chesapeake, the commercial advantages of Maryland over Massachusetts are vast indeed. Looking at the ocean shore of Maryland, and also at the Chesapeake Bay, the largest and finest estuary in the world, indented with numerous sounds and navigable inlets, three fourths of its length for both shores being within Maryland, and comparing this deep and tranquil and protected basin, almost one continuous harbor, with the rockbound coast of Massachusetts, lashed by the stormy Atlantic, the superiority of Maryland is striking.

Mortality in Maryland, by the late Census, viz., deaths from 1st June, 1859, to 31st May, 1860, 7,370 persons. Same time in Massachusetts, 21,303; making the ratio of deaths to the number living in Maryland, one to every 92, and in Massachusetts one to every 57; and the percentage of deaths in Maryland 1.09, and in Massachusetts 1.76. This rate of mortality for Massachusetts is confirmed by the late official report of their Secretary of State to the Legislature.

As to area, then, Maryland exceeds Massachusetts 43 per cent.; as to the shore line, that of Maryland is nearly double that of Massachusetts. As to climate, that of Maryland, we have seen, is far the most salubrious. This is a vast advantage, not only in augmented wealth and numbers, from fewer deaths, but also as attracting capital and immigration. This milder and more salubrious climate gives to Maryland longer periods for sowing, working, and harvesting crops, a more genial sun, larger products, and better and longer crop seasons, great advantages for stock, especially in winter, decreased consumption of fuel, a greater period for [Pg 251] the use of hydraulic power, and of canals and navigable streams. The area of Maryland fit for profitable culture is more than double that of Massachusetts, the soil much more fertile, its mines of coal and iron, with the fluxes all adjacent, rich and inexhaustible; whereas Massachusetts has no coal, and no valuable mines of iron or fluxes. When we reflect that coal and iron are the great elements of modern progress, and build up mighty empires, this advantage of Maryland over Massachusetts is almost incalculable. The hydraulic power of Maryland also greatly exceeds that of Massachusetts. Such are the vast natural advantages of Maryland over Massachusetts. Now let us observe the results. Population of Maryland in 1790, 319,728; in 1860, 687,034; increase, 367,300. Population of Massachusetts in 1790, 378,717; in 1860, 1,231,065; increase, 852,348; difference of increase in favor of Massachusetts, 485,048; excess of Massachusetts over Maryland in 1790, 58,989, and in 1860, 544,031. This result is amazing, when we regard the far greater area of Maryland and her other vast natural advantages. The population of Maryland in 1790 was 28 to the square mile (28.74), and in 1860, 61 to the square mile (61.76); whereas Massachusetts had 48 to the square mile in 1790 (48.55), and 157 to the square mile in 1860 (157.82). Thus Massachusetts had only 20 more to the square mile in 1790, and 96 more to the square mile in 1860. But if the area of Maryland and Massachusetts had been reversed, Massachusetts with the area of Maryland, and the population of Massachusetts of 1860 to the square mile, would have numbered then 1,755,661, and Maryland with the area of Massachusetts, and the population of Maryland of 1860 to the square mile, would have had then a population of only 481,728 upon that basis, leaving Massachusetts in 1860, 1,273,393 more people than Maryland.

By the census of 1790, Massachusetts was the fourth in population of all the States, and Maryland the sixth; but in 1860, Massachusetts was the seventh, and Maryland the nineteenth; and if each of the thirty-four States increases in the same ratio from 1860 to 1870 as from 1850 to 1860, Maryland will be only the twenty-fifth State.

These facts all conclusively attest the terrible effects of slavery on Maryland, and this is only one of the dreadful sacrifices she has made in retaining the institution. As to wealth, power, and intellectual development, the loss cannot be overstated.

Nor can manufactures account for the difference, as shown by the still greater increase of the agricultural Northwest. Besides, Maryland (omitting slavery) had far greater natural advantages for manufactures than Massachusetts. She had a more fertile soil, thus furnishing cheaper food to the working classes, a larger and more accessible coast, and nearly eight times the length of navigable rivers, greater hydraulic power, vast superiority in mines of coal and iron, a far more salubrious climate, cotton, the great staple of modern industry, much nearer to Maryland, her location far more central for trade with the whole Union, and Baltimore, her chief city, nearer than Boston to the great West, viz.: to the Ohio at Pittsburg and Cincinnati, the Mississippi at St. Louis, and the lakes at Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago, by several hundred miles. Indeed, but for slavery, Maryland must have been a far greater manufacturing as well as commercial State than Massachusetts—and as to agriculture; there could be no comparison.

But Massachusetts did not become a manufacturing State until after the tariff of 1824. That measure, as well as the whole protective policy, Massachusetts earnestly opposed in 1820 and 1824, and Daniel Webster, as her representative, denounced it as unconstitutional. From 1790 to 1820, Massachusetts was commercial, not manufactur [Pg 252] ing, and yet, from 1790 to 1820, Massachusetts increased in numbers 144,442, and Maryland in the same time only 87,622. Yet, from 1790 to 1820, Massachusetts, the most commercial State, was far more injured by the embargo and the late war with England than any other State.

It is clear, then, that the accusation of the secession leaders that the North was built up at the expense of the South, by the tariff, can have no application to the progress of Massachusetts and Maryland, because the advance of the former over the latter preceded by more than thirty years the adoption of the protective policy, and a comparison of the relative advance of the Free and Slave States, during the same period, exhibits the same results.

There is one invariable law , whether we compare all the Slave States with all the Free States, small States with small, large with large, old with old, new with new, retarding the progress of the slaveholding States, ever operating, and differing in degree only.

The area of the nine Free States enumerated in 1790, is 169,668 square miles, and of the eight slaveholding States, 300,580 square miles, while the population of the former in 1790 was 1,968,455, and of the latter, 1,961,372; but, in 1860, these nine Free States had a population of 10,594,168, and those eight Slave States only 7,414,684, making the difference in favor of these Free States in 1860 over those Slave States, 3,179,844, instead of 7,083 in 1790, or a positive gain to those Free States over those Slave States of 3,172,761. These Free States enumerated in 1790 and 1860, were the six New England States, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and the Slave States were Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky: yet we have seen that the area of those Slave States was nearly double that of those Free States, the soil much more fertile, the climate more salubrious, as shown by the Census, that the shore line, including main shore, bays and sounds, islands and rivers, to head of tide water, was, for those Free States, 4,480 miles, and for those Slave States, 6,560 miles. Thus it is clear that the increase of population of these Slave States should have far exceeded that of those Free States. The population of these Slave States per square mile in 1790 was 6 (6.52), and in 1860, 24 (24.66), and of those Free States in 1790, was 11 per square mile (11.60), and in 1860, 62 per square mile (62.44). Thus, while the increase of those Slave States from 1790 to 1860 was only 18 per square mile, that of those Free States was nearly 51 per square mile (50.84), or in very nearly a triple ratio, while in wealth and education the proportionate progress was much greater.

No cause except slavery can be assigned to this wonderful difference, for the colonists of Maryland were distinguished for education, intelligence, and gentle culture. Lord Baltimore was a statesman and philanthropist, and his colony was a free representative government, which was the first to repudiate the doctrine of taxation without representation, and the first to introduce religious toleration. While Maryland has produced many of the most eminent soldiers, statesmen, and jurists, her relative decline in power, wealth, and population has been deplorable, and is attributable exclusively to the paralyzing effect of slavery.

While the advance of Massachusetts, with her limited area and sterile soil, especially in view of the thousands of her native sons who have emigrated to other States, is one of the wonders of the world, yet the relative increase of the population of New Jersey from 1790 to 1860, compared with that of Maryland, is still greater than that of Massachusetts. The law is inflexible wherever slavery disappears. Population of New Jersey in 1790, 184,139, in 1860, 672,035, being an increase of 264 per cent. (264.96) for New Jersey, of [Pg 253] 225 per cent. (225.06) for Massachusetts, and for Maryland 114 percent. (114.88). The ratio of increase per square mile from 1790 to 1860 was: Massachusetts, 48.55 in 1790, and 157.82 in 1860; Maryland, 28.74 in 1790, and 61.76 in 1860; and New Jersey, 22.01 in 1790, and 80.70 in 1860. Thus, while Maryland from 1790 to 1860, little more than doubled her ratio of increase per square mile (28.74 to 61.76), and Massachusetts little more than tripled her ratio (48.55 to 157.82), New Jersey very nearly quadrupled hers (22.01 to 80.70). It must be conceded, however, that the natural advantages of New Jersey are far greater than those of Massachusetts, whose material and intellectual progress, in defiance of such serious obstacles, now is, and most probably forever will be, without a parallel . Now the area of New Jersey is but 8,320 square miles; the soil of Maryland is far more fertile, the hydraulic power much greater, the shoreline much more than double, viz.: 531 for New Jersey, to 1,336 for Maryland; while New Jersey, with rich iron mines, has no coal, and one third of her area is south of the celebrated Mason and Dixon's line, the northern boundary of Maryland. While the Free States have accomplished these miracles of progress, they have peopled eleven vast Territories (soon by subdivision to become many more States), immigration to which has been almost exclusively from the North as compared with the South.

The Slave State which has increased most rapidly to the square mile of all of them from 1790 to 1860, has had a smaller augmentation per square mile than that Free State which has increased most slowly per square mile during the same time of all the Free States, and the result is the same as to wealth and education also. Under the best circumstances for the Slave States, and the worst for the Free States, this result proves the uniformity of the rule (like the great law of gravitation), knowing no exception to the effect of slavery in depressing the progress of States in population, wealth, and education.

The isothermals of the great Humboldt (differing so widely from parallels), which trace the lines of temperature on the earth's surface, prove, as to heat, the climate of the South (running a line from Charleston to Vicksburg) to be substantially the same as that of Greece and Italy-each, in its turn, the mistress of the world.

The Census of 1860 exhibits our increase of population from 1790 to 1860 at 35.59 per cent., and of our wealth 126.45. Now, if we would increase the wealth of the country only one tenth in the next ten years, by the gradual disappearance of slavery (far below the results of the Census), then our wealth being now $16,159,616,068, the effect of such increase would be to make our wealth in 1870, instead of $36,593,450,585, more than sixteen hundred millions greater, and in 1880, instead of $82,865,868,849, over three billions six hundred millions, or more than three times our present debt.

Before the close of this letter, it will be shown that the difference, per capita , of the annual products of Massachusetts and Maryland exceeds $150. As to the other Southern States, the excess is much greater. Now, if the annual products of the South were increased $150 each per capita (still far below Massachusetts) by the exclusion of slavery, then multiplying the total population of the South, 12,229,727, by 150, the result would be an addition to the annual value of the products of the South of $1,834,456,050, and in the decade, $18,344,580,500. This change would not be immediate, but there can be no doubt that with the vastly greater natural advantages of the South, the superiority of free to slave labor, the immense immigration, especially from Europe to the South, aided by the Homestead Bill, and the conversion of large plantations into small farms, an addition of at least one billion of dollars would be made in a decade, by the [Pg 254] exclusion of slavery, to the value of the products of the South.

Having considered the relative progress in population of Massachusetts and Maryland, I will now examine their advance in wealth.

By Tables 33 and 36, Census of 1860, the value of the products of Massachusetts that year was $287,000,000; and of Maryland, $66,000,000. Table 33 included domestic manufactories, mines, and fisheries (p. 59); and Table 36, agricultural products. Dividing these several aggregates by the total population of each State, the value of that year's product of Massachusetts was $235 per capita , and of Maryland, $96, making the average annual value of the labor of each person in the former greatly more than double that of the latter, and the gross product more than quadruple. This is an amazing result, but it is far below the reality. The earnings of commerce and navigation are omitted in the Census, which includes only the products of agriculture, manufactures, the mines, and fisheries. This was a most unfortunate omission, attributable to the secession leaders, who wished to confine the Census to a mere enumeration of population, and thus obliterate all the other great decennial monuments which mark the nation's progress in the pathway of empire.

First, as to Railroads. —The number of miles in Massachusetts in 1860 (including city roads) was 1,340, and the cost of construction $61,857,203. (Table 38, pp. 230, 231.) The value of the freight of these roads in 1860 was $500,524,201. (P. 105.) The number of miles of railroad in Maryland at the same time was 380, the cost of construction $21,387,157, and the value of the freight (at the same average rate) $141,111,348, and the difference in favor of Massachusetts $359,412,883. The difference must have been much greater, because a much larger portion of the freight in Massachusetts consisted of domestic manufactures, worth $250 per ton, which is $100 a ton above the average value.

The passengers' account, not given, would vastly swell the difference in favor of Massachusetts.

The tonnage of vessels built in Massachusetts in 1860 was 34,460 tons, and in Maryland, 7,798 tons. (P. 107).

The number of banks in Massachusetts in 1860 was 174; capital, $64,619,200; loans, $107,417,323. In Maryland the number was 31; capital, $12,568,962; loans, $20,898,762. (Table 34, p. 193.)

The number of insurance companies in Massachusetts, 117; risks, $450,886,263. No statement given for Maryland, but comparatively very small, as the risks in Massachusetts were nearly one sixth of all in the Union.

Our exports abroad, from Massachusetts, for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, were of the value of $17,003,277, and the foreign imports $41,187,539; total of imports and exports, $58,190,816; the clearances, 746,909 tons, the entries, 849,449; total entered and cleared, 1,596,458 tons. In Maryland, exports, $9,001,600, foreign imports, $9,784,773; total imports and exports, $18,786,323; clearances, 174,000 tons; entries, 186,417; total of entries and clearances, 360,417. (Table 14, Register of Treasury.) Thus, the foreign imports and exports abroad, of Massachusetts, were much more than triple those of Maryland, and the entries and clearances very largely more than quadruple. The coastwise and internal trade are not given, as recommended by me when Secretary of the Treasury, but the tables of the railroad traffic indicate in part the immense superiority of Massachusetts.

These statistics, however, prove that, if the earnings of commerce and navigation were added, the annual value of the products of Massachusetts per capita would be at least $300, and three times that of Maryland. In estimating [Pg 255] values per capita , we must find the earnings of commerce very large, as a single merchant, in his counting house, engaged in an immense trade, and employing only a few clerks, may earn as much as a great manufacturing corporation, employing hundreds of hands. Including commerce, the value, per capita , of the products and earnings of Massachusetts exceeds not only those of any State in our Union , but of the world ; and would, at the same rate, make the value of its annual products three hundred billions of dollars; and of our own country, upward of nine billions of dollars per annum. Such, under great natural disadvantages, is the grand result achieved in Massachusetts, by education, science, industry, free schools, free soil, free speech, free labor , free press, and free government. The facts prove that freedom is progress, that 'knowledge is power,' and that the best way to appreciate the value of property and augment wealth most rapidly, is to invest a large portion of it in schools, high schools, academies, colleges, universities, books, libraries, and the press, so as to make labor more productive, because more skilled, educated, and better directed. Massachusetts has achieved much in this respect; but when she shall have made high schools as free and universal as common schools, and the attendance on both compulsory, so as to qualify every voter for governing a State or nation, she will have made a still grander step in material and intellectual progress, and the results would be still more astounding.

By Table 35 of the Census, p. 195, the whole value of all the property, real and personal, of Massachusetts, in 1860, was $815,237,433, and that of Maryland, $376,919,944. We have seen that the value of the products that year in Massachusetts was $287,000,000 (exclusive of commerce), and of Maryland, $66,000,000. As a question, then, of profit on capital, that of Massachusetts was 35 per cent., and of Maryland 17 per cent. Such is the progressive advance (more than two to one) of free as compared with slave labor. The same law obtains in comparing all the Free with all the Slave States. But the proof is still more complete. Thus, Delaware and Missouri (alone of all the Slave States) were ahead of Maryland in this rate of profit, because both had comparatively fewer slaves; and all the other Slave States, whose servile population was relatively larger than that of Maryland, were below her in the rate of profit. The law extends to counties , those having comparatively fewest slaves increasing far more rapidly in wealth and population. This, then, is the formula as to the rate of profit on capital. First, the Free States; next, the States and counties of the same State having the fewest relative number of slaves. The Census, then, is an evangel against slavery, and its tables are revelations proclaiming laws as divine as those written by the finger of God at Mount Sinai on the tables of stone.

For seventy years we have had these Census Tables, announcing these great truths more and more clearly at each decade. They are the records of the nation's movement and condition, the decennial monuments marking her steps in the path of empire, the oracles of her destiny. They are prophecies, for each decade fulfils the predictions of its predecessor. They announce laws, not made by man, but the irrevocable ordinances of the Almighty. We cannot, with impunity, refuse to obey these laws. For every violation, they enforce their own penalties. From these there is no escape in the present or the past, nor for the future, except in conformity to their demands. These laws condemn slavery; and the punishment for disobedience is recorded in the result of every Census, and finally culminated in the rebellion. Slavery and freedom are antagonistic and discordant elements: the conflict between them is upon us; it admits of no neu [Pg 256] trality or compromise, and one or the other system must perish.

We have seen that slavery is hostile to the progress of wealth and population: let us now ascertain its influence on moral and intellectual development.

By Table 15 of the Census of 1860, the result for that year was as follows: In Massachusetts, value of books printed, $397,500; jobs, $529,347; newspapers, $1,979,069; total, $2,905,916. Same year in Maryland, books printed, $58,000; jobs, $122,000; newspapers, $169,000; total, $350,155. By Table 37, Census of 1860, Massachusetts had 222 newspapers and periodicals, of which 112 were political, 31 religious, 51 literary, miscellaneous 28. Maryland had only 57, all political. The whole number of copies issued in Massachusetts in 1860 was 102,000,760, and in Maryland, 20,721,472. Of periodicals, Massachusetts has monthly, 1 political, 10 religious, 18 literary, 7 miscellaneous; quarterly, religious 3, literary 2, miscellaneous 1, and 1 annual. Maryland had none . Not a religious, literary, scientific, or miscellaneous periodical or journal in the State! What terrible truths are unfolded in these statistics! None but a political party press in Maryland, all devoted, in 1860, to the maintenance, extension, and perpetuity of slavery, which had 57 advocates, and not one for science, religion, or literature.

We have seen that the circulation in 1860 of the press in Massachusetts exceeded that of Maryland by more than eighty-one millions of copies. These facts all prove that slavery is hostile to knowledge and its diffusion, to science, literature, and religion, to the press, and to free government.

For schools, colleges, libraries, and churches, I must take the Tables of the Census of 1850, those of 1860 not being yet published. There were in 1850 in Massachusetts, 3,679 public schools, 4,443 teachers, 176,475 pupils; native adults who cannot read or write, 1,861. In Maryland, 907 public schools, 1,005 teachers, 33,254 pupils; native adults who cannot read or write, 38,426, excluding slaves, to teach whom is criminal.

Thus, then, slavery is hostile to schools, withholding instruction from the children of the poor.

The number of public libraries in Massachusetts was 1,462, volumes 684,015. In Maryland, 124, and 125,042 volumes. Value of churches in Massachusetts, $10,206,000. In Maryland, $3,947,884, of which $2,541,240 is in Baltimore (which has very few slaves), and the remainder is mainly in the seven counties (from which slavery has nearly disappeared) adjoining Pennsylvania.

As to schools, colleges, books, libraries, churches, newspapers, and periodicals, it thus appears that Massachusetts is greatly in advance of Maryland.

Now, then, let us contrast loyal Maryland with rebel South Carolina, the author of secession, and assuming for many years to instruct the nation. By the Census of 1860, she had a population of 703,708, of whom 402,406 were slaves; and Maryland, numbering 687,049, had 87,189 slaves. Now, by the Census of 1860, South Carolina had 45 journals and periodicals, and her annual circulation was 3,654,840 copies. The circulation therefore of Massachusetts exceeded that of South Carolina more than ninety-eight millions of copies, while Maryland exceeded South Carolina more than seventeen millions of copies. So much for South Carolina as a great political teacher. As to schools in 1850: South Carolina had 724 public schools, 739 teachers, 17,838 pupils. Massachusetts, then, had 158,637 more pupils at public schools than South Carolina, and Maryland 15,416 more pupils at public schools than South Carolina.

The press of Massachusetts, we have seen, circulated in 1860 upward of one hundred and two millions of copies, equal to 279,454 per day, including [Pg 257] journals and periodicals, each read, on an average, by at least two persons. This is independent of books and pamphlets, and of the very large circulation of papers from other States and from Europe. What a flood of light is thus shed daily and hourly upon the people of Massachusetts! This intellectual effulgence radiates by day and night. It is the sun in its meridian splendor, and the stars in an ever-unclouded firmament. It has a centre and a circumference, but no darkness. Ignorance vanishes before it; wealth follows in its train; labor rejoices in its association, and finds its products more than doubled; freedom hails its presence, and religion gives it a cordial welcome; churches, schools, academies, colleges, and universities acknowledge its mighty influence. Science penetrates the secrets of nature, and unfolds each new discovery for the benefit of man. Coal, the offspring of the sun, develops its latent energy, and water contributes its untiring hydraulic power. Machinery takes more and more the place of nerves and muscles, cheapens clothing and subsistence and all the necessaries of life, and opens new fields of industry, and more profitable employment for labor. Steam and lightning become the slaves of man. He performs the journey of a day in an hour, and converses in minutes around the globe. The strength of man may not have been much increased, but his power is augmented a thousand fold.

His life may not have been materially lengthened, but, in the march of knowledge, a year now is as a century, compared with man's progress in the darkness of the middle ages. The eternal advance toward omniscience goes on, but is like that of the infinite approach of the asymptote, which never reaches the hyperbolic curve. The onward of science is in a geometrical ratio, so that in time, the intellectual progress of a day in the future, must exceed that of a century in the past. Knowledge is enthroned as king, and grand truths and new ideas are his ministers. Science takes the diameter of the earth's orbit as a base line and unit of measurement, and with it spans immensity, and triangulates the nebulous systems amid the shadowy verges of receding space. Its researches are cosmical upon the earth and the heavens, and all the elements minister to its progress. Sink to the lowest mine, or fathom the ocean's depth, or climb the loftiest mountains, or career through the heavens on silken wings, and it is there also. On—on—on; nearer—nearer—still nearer it moves forever and forever, with accelerated speed, toward the infinite eternal. Such are the triumphs of knowledge; and he who diffuses it among our race, or discovers and disseminates new truths, advances man nearer to his Creator; he exalts the whole race; he elevates it in the scale of being, and raises it into higher and still higher spheres.

It is science that marks the speed of sound and light and lightning, calculates the eclipses, catalogues the stars, maps the heavens, and follows, for centuries of the past and the future, the comet's course. It explores the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. With geology, it notes the earthquake upheaval of mountains, and, with mineralogy, the laws of crystallization. With chemistry, it analyzes, decomposes, and compounds the elements. If, like Canute, it cannot arrest the tidal wave, it is subjecting it to laws and formulas. Taking the sunbeam for its pencil, it heliographs man's own image, and the scenery of the earth and the heavens. Has science any limits or horizon? Can it ever penetrate the soul of man, and reveal the mystery of his existence and destiny? It is certainly exploring the facts of sociology, arranging and generalizing them, and deducing laws.

Man, elevated by knowledge in the scale of being, controls the forces of nature with greater power and grander [Pg 258] results, and accumulates wealth more rapidly. The educated free labor of Massachusetts, we have seen, doubles the products of toil, per capita , as compared with Maryland, and quadruples them (as the Census shows) compared with South Carolina. One day's labor of a man in Massachusetts is more than equal to two in Maryland, and four in South Carolina. So, if we take our savage tribes, with their huts and tents, their rude agriculture, their furs, their few and simple household manufactures, their hunting and fishing, the average product of their annual labor, at four cents a day each, would be $14.60 a year, or more than a fourth of that of South Carolina (56.91). So that Massachusetts, in material progress, is farther in advance of South Carolina than that State is of the savage Indians. Thus we have the successive steps and gradations of man: Massachusetts, with free labor and free schools, having reached the highest point of civilization: South Carolina, with slavery and ignorance (except the few), in a semi-barbarous stage; and the lowest savage condition, called barbarous, but nearer to South Carolina than that State to Massachusetts.

Slavery, then, the Census proves, is hostile to the progress of wealth and population, to science, literature, and education, to schools, colleges, and universities, to books and libraries, to churches and religion, to the press, and therefore to free government; hostile to the poor, keeping them in want and ignorance; hostile to labor, reducing it to servitude, and decreasing two thirds the value of its products; hostile to morals, repudiating among slaves the marital and parental condition, classifying them by law as chattels, darkening the immortal soul, and making it a crime to teach millions of human beings to read or write. And shall labor and education, literature and science, religion and the press, sustain an institution which is their deadly foe?

PALMER, THE AMERICAN SCULPTOR.

Sculpture as an art is probably anterior to painting. Form being a simpler quality than color, the means of imitation were found in a conformity of shape rather than hue. The origin of sculpture is somewhat obscured in the thickening mists of antiquity, but it was no doubt one of the earliest symbols of ideas made use of by man. In fact, in its primitive development, there is considerable evidence to show that it was the first essay at a recorded language. The Egyptian hieroglyphics, those mysterious etchings upon the rock, representing animals, men, and nondescript characters, were unquestionably rude attempts to hand down to posterity some account of the great events of those forgotten ages. The next remove in the history of this art is its employment in the production of the images of idolatrous worship; and, when confined to this purpose, it never attained any appreciable excellence. The purely heathen mind was incapable of conceiving those forms of ideal beauty which are born of the contemplation of a divine and spiritual beauty revealed in the word of God and the teachings of his immaculate Son.

The grotesque Egyptian images worshipped on the Nile before the building of the pyramids, are, judging from the [Pg 259] best preserved antiquities, not very much inferior to the gilded deities to be seen to-day in the thousand pagodas of heathen lands.

Take for example a Chinese idol of modern make: while it is less angular and more elaborately finished than the ancient monstrosities found in Egypt, still, so far as perfection of form or beauty of expression is concerned, there is little to choose between the two. Each is a fitting type of the degree of civilization and soul culture of the peoples that produced them. It must not be urged that the success of sculpture in Greece and Rome disproves the proposition that the art could not develop itself among a strictly idolatrous race.

The splendid mythologies of the Greeks and Romans must not be considered as the highest forms even of the worship of idols or inanimate things. The gods and goddesses of these mythological systems were principally the powers that were supposed to preside over the different forces and elements of nature, and were invested with the celestial attributes of a higher order of beings. Neptune ruled the sea, Pluto was director of ceremonies in the infernal regions, while Jupiter was emperor of the sky and king of all the lesser gods.

These deities were the invention of a cultivated intellect, a refined taste and polished civilization, and furnish a striking proof of man's longing after the Infinite, unguided by the star of revelation.

The imaginative Greeks did not worship the statues of the gods per se , but only admired them as the fitting representations of those mysterious forces that hold sway over earth, air, fire, and water, or reverenced them as the symbols of noble sentiments or sublime passions. The thing itself, the cunning but lifeless figure, was only incidental, while the idea thus typified was the real incentive to worship. This was also the age that produced hero worship, and the great man who won the praise and admiration of the people by his exalted qualities, or his prowess in arms, was considered as a demigod, or one in favor with the tenants of Olympus, and his statue was accordingly erected, to stand beside that, perhaps, of Mars, Apollo, or Mercury.

Thus we trace the history of sculpture in its steady progress from its use as a chronicler of events to its employment in the production of the objects of idolatry, and thence to the mythological period, when it became the medium of æsthetic expression, attaining its highest perfection in the palmy days of Greece.

In no people of which the records of the past give any account, can we find such an active sense of the beautiful as that which permeated the minds of the polished Greeks. The admiration of physical beauty became an almost absorbing passion, and its attainment was sought after in every process which human ingenuity could devise.

The Lacedemonian women were accustomed to place the statues of beautiful gods or goddesses in their rooms, to the end that the children they should give birth to, would, by nature's mysterious methods, assimilate the artistic graces of these celestial models. Perfection of form and manly strength were the pride of the wisest and most learned men of the nation, denoting that physical excellence was considered the necessary concomitant of moral or intellectual worth. Authentic annals tell us that Plato and Pythagoras appeared as wrestlers at the public games; and who shall say that these philosophical gymnasts did not derive much of their mental vigor from this exciting exercise? In this age it is easy to see that sculpture must have received every incentive to full development. In the people about him the artist saw the most excellent models for his chisel, while the national taste was educated to the highest degree in the [Pg 260] beauties of form and the harmonies of proportion.

But the grand conceptions of Phidias, full of majesty and of grandeur as they are—the matchless finish of the works of Apelles and Praxiteles, ravishing the senses with their carnal beauty, still lacked one element, without which art can never reveal itself in the full perfection of its latent capabilities.

Mere physical beauty, which contains no spiritual element, no drawing of the immortal soul, no suggestion of purer and nobler sentiments struggling for expression in the cunning marble, can never satisfy the requirements of the Christianized taste of modern times.

The Venus de Medici was undoubtedly the ideal type of womanly perfection in the age which produced it, but now the sex would hardly feel themselves flattered by so poor an interpretation. The form is all that could be desired, but the head and features are positively insipid, and a phrenologist would tell you by the development of the cranium that female education was not a part of the Grecian policy. There is in this statue a certain air of wantonness, a perceptible consciousness of being valued and admired solely for physical beauty, which just as plainly tells the estimate placed upon woman in those times as we can read the fact in history.

Thus we perceive sculpture as a representative art has become a chronicler of the world's advancement, so that those who accept the theory of human progression would naturally look for purer and more spiritual conceptions in the artist's soul, with a corresponding nobility in the creations of his genius. The æsthetic principle in its higher manifestations is not the product of pagan mind, because ideal beauty and the rules governing its expression can only be conceived by him to whom Faith has opened the glorious possibilities of our existence beyond the grave. In no classic picture or statue is there anything akin to that divine affinity that is apparent in the Madonnas of the Italian masters of the sixteenth century, investing them with a charm that lingers like an autumn sunset In the recollection of long-departed years. Compare the loveliest of the Madonnas of Correggio and Raphael with the Venus of Cos, and we perceive the inferiority of mere physical perfection to that spiritual beauty that exalts the soul of the beholder, and awakens the slumber of his immortal longings.

Faultless finish, harmonious outlines, and voluptuous proportions are only the result of mechanical skill, that a good imitator or copyist can for the most part achieve by the aid of his master's model. But the sentiment, emotion, passion, the character , so to speak, of the statue, is the creation of the artist, the offspring of his quickened brain.

It is to express the æsthetic idea struggling in the soul of genius, that the marble takes its form, the canvas its color, sweet sounds combine in melody, and language weaves itself into the wreath of song. The same divine impulse, the same grasping after a higher excellence inspires the sculptor, the painter, the composer, and the poet, but some chance bent of nature has decided them to choose different mediums of expression.

Some critic has written, had Coles' 'Voyage of Life' been executed in verse, instead of a series of pictures, it would have ranked as one of the grandest poems of the age. High art, then, whatever its kind, is the language of the æsthetic feeling in man—it symbolizes the god-like element in his nature. Cumulative and progressive, it keeps even pace with an improving civilization, and should therefore furnish fairer products to-day than in any period of the past. It assimilates the spirit of the times in which it is exercised; for as Ralph Waldo Emerson remarks in his subtle, essay: 'No man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which [Pg 261] the education, the religion, the politics, usages, and arts of his times shall have no share.'

So we see from the very necessity of this truism, that if our painters and sculptors would not be mere imitators of the exponents of another age, there would be soon established a national school of art. We do not mean by this a mere conventional type in finish and mode of treatment, but certain marked, characteristic excellences and features that would identify it with the history of our country and the peculiarities of our people. There are a few native artists who have struggled to achieve this consummation, and preëminent among these is Erastus D. Palmer, the American sculptor.

The history of his career, his origin, his process of study, his choice of subjects in all his great works, his rise and triumph as an artist, all entitle him to this distinctive appellation. He commenced life as a carpenter and joiner, but, while practising his trade in Utica, N. Y., his eye accidentally fell on a cameo likeness, and as the dropping of an apple suggested to Newton the laws of gravitation, so the sight of this little trifle was the talisman that revealed to Palmer the artistic capabilities of his genius. Being thus led to attempt the portrait of his wife upon a shell, he executed his task—which was in a twofold sense a labor of love—with such fidelity to nature, such bold outline, and delicacy of finish, that connoisseurs detected in it the hand of a master. Thus encouraged, he for two years made cameo cutting his business, and followed it with remarkable success, till, his eyes becoming affected by the exercise of this talent, he was obliged to relinquish it, with the expectation of returning to his old trade. But happily he was induced to try his skill at modelling in clay, and then he discovered what was in him. Taking his little girl for a model, he produced a bust, styled the 'Infant Ceres,' which, when finished in marble, immediately took rank as one of the gems of art. The sweet naïvete of budding childhood, the timid eyes and dimpled cheek, all refined and sublimated by the ideal graces added by the magic wand of genius, combined to make this earliest bust of our sculptor one of the most felicitous products of his chisel.

Soon after this satisfactory experiment, Palmer removed to the city of Albany, where he has since remained and won his well-deserved fame. His two allegorical pieces, 'Resignation' and 'Spring,' we cannot forbear to describe, familiar as they are to the virtuoso of art, and well known even to the great public.

The latter is a female bust, her hair bound with a fillet of grass and half-developed grain, her face wearing an expression of modest coquetry, quite in keeping with the capricious, 'celestial maid;' while the gently swelling bosom suggests the latent forces of nature which only reach their fulness in the summer sun. And about the eyes there is a look of joy and freshness in which you fancy you can see

The 'Resignation' represents the refined voluptuousness of riper womanhood. The features are exquisitely cut, and represent a type of beauty fit for angelic spheres. The head, so finely proportioned, and crowned with luxuriant, waving hair, inclines gracefully to one side, as in submission to the chastenings of Providence. But in the downcast, sorrowful eyes, there is an expression of mingled hope and patient endurance such as Mary might have worn at the foot of the cross. The marble is eloquent of that Christian sentiment: 'He doeth all things well.' The religious feeling of the sixteenth century, which gave to art both its inspiration and theme, never found so fair a mould as in this bust of 'Resignation.' [Pg 262]

Both of these works are entirely free from all explanatory accessories, and interpret themselves to the most sluggish soul.

Another of Palmer's compositions, and one of the most purely ideal, is the 'Dream of the Spirit's Flight.' This is a large bas-relief, executed in medallion style. To give any idea by mere words of the spirit of this performance is impossible. It is the half figure of a peri-like girl, with tresses swaying in the higher air, with butterfly wings, arms and drapery gracefully disposed, and all the parts uniting to impress you with a sense of upward, soaring motion! There is a divine beauty about the face reflected from a brighter world. Sculptured in pure white marble, it seems a very soul just escaped from its prison house of clay, and, listening to those 'sounds seraphic,' bearing away to the great Beyond.

While gazing on this airy sprite, the beholder feels an exhilarating influence steal over him, and involuntarily there goes up from his heart, like incense, that yearning prayer:

'So grant me, God, from every care,
And stain of passion free,
Aloft through virtue's purer air
To hold my course to Thee!'

We cannot speak separately of his 'Morning and Evening,' 'Immortality,' 'Sleeping Peri,' his statue and bas-relief of 'Faith,' busts, and other works, which are grouped in odd companionship about his studio. But the 'Indian Girl' and 'White Captive,' the crowning achievements of Palmer's genius, and the ones that give a thoroughly American character to his reputation, demand an elaborate consideration—not to explain their merits, but to show what materials for art exist in our history, when appropriated by the master's hand.

Romance and poetry have not often been successful in treating of the character and customs of our aborigines, for the elements of true heroism in the savage nature are so exceptional and few, that the red man is a very poor subject for the higher manifestations of art. Cooper and Longfellow alone have come back from this field with the trophies of praise. But Palmer, with a striking originality and a subtle perception of spiritual influences, sees in the effect of Christianity on the 'untutored mind' of the Indian, a theme to inspire his plastic clay. So from this idea he evolves the 'Indian Girl,' standing in an attitude of perfect repose, holding in her right hand a crucifix, on which her eyes are bent pensively in a sweet, absorbing reverie, which shuts out the consciousness of the external world. In the other hand, which hangs listlessly by her side, she barely touches rather than holds a bunch of feathers, evidently gathered to adorn her person, and which she forgets in the contemplation of the story of the Cross. The artist supposes she has found this crucifix, which the early Catholic missionaries were wont to attach to the forest trees, and having heard from some of these zealous teachers an exposition of Christ's mission, the better life has already begun to dawn in her soul, and her whole aspect tells that this mysterious influence is upon her.

The features are Indian, fair and comely—we do not say beautiful, because this term expresses the highest excellence, and ought as a descriptive phrase to be more sparingly used. The face is idealized, as the rules of true art always require, but still preserves its fidelity to the natural type. The form is nude to the waist, the drapery arranged with unrivalled grace, the hair is clubbed so as to reveal the neck and shoulders, while the perfection of contour and the completeness of development satisfy the most critical eye for the study of detail. The 'Indian Girl' forms one of the landmarks in the history of American sculpture.

But Palmer's grand, characteristic work, in which his genius seems to have reached its noblest expression, is the [Pg 263] 'White Captive,' which we believe to be one of the most perfect creations of ancient or modern art. It is something more than the nude figure of a surpassingly beautiful woman, bound to the stake, and defying the gaze of her barbarous captors—it is not merely an exciting incident in pioneer life, but it has a grand symbolical meaning that reaches beyond a literal interpretation of the situation.

We see in this statue the contact of civilization with savage instinct, and in the expression of the 'White Captive,' peering through maiden timidity, and rising triumphant above physical fear in a look of intellectual and religious strength, before which the swarthy warrior feels himself in the presence of a superior power—a ruler! As we gaze on in mute admiration, we behold the race of the red man receding westward before that same power pictured in this wonderful face: now the Indian tribes pass the Rocky mountains, they come within the roar of the Pacific, and, growing less and less, they at last vanish away into the uncertain mists of the ocean—a lost people, who have served the purpose for which they were created, and disappeared from our continent to make room for a nobler humanity. It is this melancholy fate, this glorious triumph, that Palmer has recorded in a language more forcible than history, more eloquent than song, more ravishing than the lyre! To define how the statue spreads before you this great vision, eludes the acutest analysis; but there it is, told just as plainly as the Falls of Niagara or the eternal stars tell the omnipotence of God.

The longer one studies this marvellous work, the more he sees to admire, to reflect upon. There is something in the general effect that makes the beholder forget the perfect nudity of the figure, which necessarily grows out of the circumstances of the case, and which is entirely unfelt by the captive in her terrible realization of the peril which surrounds her. Thus two great difficulties that embarrass the execution of undraped statuary are entirely overcome:

1. The nudity is only incidental to the general effect, and the subject seems entirely unconscious of the fact.

2. The nudity is accounted for by the situation—the captive is tied unclad to a tree, to be burned alive, according to Indian custom.

Thus a criticism that has been frequently made (and not unjustly) on the morale of certain works of art, has no application to this.

Of the details of this ideal creation—its matchless finish, the graceful undulations of the perfect form, the firmness expressed in the clenched fingers, the instinctive shudder gathered on the fair brow, the lofty defiance of the eyes and half-parted lips, the radiant beauty of the face—we can only say they live in our memory, but too deep for words. We believe the truth of the artist's conception, that the revengeful savages acknowledged the divinity of her beauty and Christian reliance, and the 'White Captive' went free—the spirit of civilization triumphed!

As a man's character is always more or less associated with his achievements, the reader may wish to learn something of Mr. Palmer as a man. In all kinds of soul-work, there is ever perceptible a certain flavor of the mind which produces it, and the things thus created usually suggest the qualities of the creator. So the works of the sculptor are to some degree the exponents of his character, the expressions of his inner life.

Therefore in Mr. Palmer we should expect moral and intellectual worth of a high order, added to the purest and most exalted motives. He is in spirit a reformer, taking an interest in every measure for the improvement of our race, and sympathizing with every struggle of our aspiring manhood.

The eccentricities, excuses, and conventional affectations of many real and [Pg 264] pretended geniuses he entirely eschews, feeling himself one of the people, and laboring for their elevation.

Neither does he deem it any part of genius to neglect his family, forget to pay his butcher's bill, and ignore the claim of his tailor. His ample house and neat atelier, at the north end of Eagle street, in the city of Albany, are the fruit of his patient and inspiring toil—his chisel has won him moderate fortune as well as world-wide fame.

Photographs of the 'Palmer Marbles' are seen in the show windows of Paris, London, and Berlin, while in this country they help to fill the portfolios of the virtuoso , adorning the walls of the parlor and the private gallery.

Though in youth Palmer did not receive an average common-school education, he converses like a man of liberal culture, showing that he belongs to the class of self-made men.

He has never visited the interminable art palaces of Europe, nor studied, in the sense in which that term is used, the 'old masters;' still he has appropriated all the valuable hints to be obtained from the classic models, without regarding them as the ne plus ultra of artistic execution, and therefore to be only imitated, to the exclusion of the higher ideals of an advanced civilization.

He has an intelligible and correct theory in regard to the fidelity of art to nature. For instance, he insists that he should represent , not imitate; and in making a bust of a man, the sculptor should express the higher moods of his subject, and show him with his better qualities brought to the surface. So the forms of nature should be idealized in the direction of their primitive tendency, and thus art help to express that ineffable longing of the soul, that reaching upward for a perfection that is approximated on earth, but never attained. This idealization is like the humor of Dickens, something more than nature in its grotesqueness, yet a stimulated growth of the natural quality. Palmer always takes nature for his model, and then assimilates it to that ideal beauty which dwells in his imagination and sheds a spiritual halo over the creation of his chisel.

Like every true disciple of genius, he feels that he has a mission to perform, and that he is responsible for the influence he exerts on the tastes and æsthetic culture of the people. As you chat with him in his studio, dressed in his blouse and cap, his dark eye glowing with enthusiasm for his art, or sparkling with playful humor, standing before you tall and vigorous, you see in him one of the earnest workers for the elevation of our humanity.

The utilities of the world will take care of themselves: let us foster the beautiful, because, like all divine attributes, man reaches it through striving, and is made better by its contemplation.

Palmer does not look older than forty, and has perhaps not yet attained the fulness of his powers, but has in him the elements of a healthy growth.

Work on, thou almoner of sweetest joys, thou pilgrim in that fairy realm whence come the high ideals of life; work on, striver for the perfect type of beauty and of truth, and in thy progress let the people trace our human nature rising to diviner heights—expanding to sublimer bounds! [Pg 265]

CLOUDS.

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO PROFESSOR GUYOT.

High and fathomless above us vaults the pure aerial sky,
Solemn bends its arch of Beauty round a world where all things die.

On the dome through which Earth's swinging, spun of palpitating air,
Angel artists fresco vapors into pictures passing fair.

No cold canvas of dead color has the Mighty Master given:
Trembles with His Infinity the azure vault of Heaven.

On and in the lucent background float the ever-changeful forms,
Sometimes glowing into glory, sometimes glooming into storms.

God's blest seal is on creation; signs and symbols throng the sky,
Though too dull to read their meaning droops the stolid human eye.

Over mountain, over valley throng the clouds to soothe the sight;
Through the dim walls of the city gleam they buoyant, fleeting, bright.

Gentle, dreadful, or fantastic—nearer, farther as we gaze;
Varied, spiritual, tender, forms and melts the surging haze.

'Heavenly secrets' breathe around us—lowly flowers on the sod,
Cloudland's curves and grading colors veil the Infinite of God.

The Infinite—we shudder! but wild longings through us steal
As we vainly strive to grasp It till our failing senses reel.

Ever longing, never grasping, though in tenderness It stoop
To shade the scented cups of flowers, to bend them as they droop.

For through infinite gradations pass the changeful hues of light,
That the infinite through color may send greetings to the sight.

Through ne'er-returning, endless curves, flowers, trees, clouds, mountains pass,
That man may see the Infinite through nature's magic glass.

Oh, tender stooping! soothing! Infinite Love must be
The cause, aim, end, the burning heart of everything we see.

Earth may cover deep her dying, parted hearts chant weary dirge,
But we feel death is but seeming in the Cloudland's evening surge.

CIRRUS.

Floating high above the mountains, in the fields of upper air,
Multitudinous throng the Cirri, ranged in order, heavenly fair.

Rank upon rank in glory lie the transverse, plumy bars;
[Pg 266] Tranquil beauty rules the union which disorder never mars.

Perfect symmetry, obedience, mark their finely chiselled lines—
In the highest sphere of being flexile grace with law combines.

Now they break in fleecy ripples as innumerably they press;
Shines the blue of Heaven between them as they fly the Wind's caress.

Millions fleck the face of Heaven, but no two alike are ever:
Restless mirror of the Infinite, form seems exhausted never.

Are they lambs 'mid Heaven's blue pastures? are they swans with downy breast
Floating through that azure ocean round the region of the Blest?

Are they snowy wings of Cherubs gathering round the Throne above,
As the vesper hymn of Heaven rises to the Eternal Love?

Gazing on their wavy ripples, they seem mingling with the sky,
Yet the heavenly little islets still innumerable lie.

How the fleecy cloudlets glitter as they sail so clear and high!
Is light curdling into snowflakes as it streams athwart the sky?

Freezing? No—warm and glowing, ambient, changeful, feathery, bright,
Rather seem the floating vapors melting into roseate light.

With the white flame in their bosoms, and the pure blue depths above,
When the sunset rays dart kisses, how they kindle into love!

See, with every shaft electric flash the bright hues deeper, higher,
Till the chaste and snowy cloudlets fleck the Blue of Heaven with fire.

How they flush and how they quiver! how the virgin drifts of snow
Drink the sunset's dying passion, catch his ardent parting glow!

Love weaves close in chords harmonic all the finely fretted dome,
Blue, white, purple, gold, and crimson, fringe, melt, ripple into foam.

Thus the angels drape God's footstool with soft vapor, wind, and sun:
Does His smile rest on the artists when their pleasant work is done?

Do they see Him bend the Heavens, riding swiftly on the clouds,
Heat His Heart, and Light the shadow which His inner Glory shrouds?

Seraphs, cherubs, thronging round Him, shall our hearts no raptures move?
Shall we prove dull links reluctant in the chain of endless love?

No. We feel the electric secret flashing through the Perfect Whole,
'Bliss eternal' telegraphing upon every faithful soul.

CUMULI.

Leave we now the upper regions
With their wonders pure and high,
Gone the barred and fleecy Cirri—
Mountain Cumuli storm the sky.
High the calmness floats above us,
Tears and rain lie far below,
As we sail the middle Cloudland,
[Pg 267] Where the vapors come and go.

Throbs a wilder pulse of passion,
Stronger individual life,
Rapid, energetic motion
Tells of elemental strife.
Nearer seem they to the human,
Rearing dizzy forms on high,
Than the order-loving Cirri
Barring the translucent sky.

Lovingly they crest our mountains,
Hovering o'er them all the day,
Copying all the soaring outlines
In artistic, skilful play;
Following close on the horizon,
Dip, break, gap, and lofty peak,
As to build Earth into Heaven
Would the haunting vapors seek.

Drifting swiftly through the azure,
Chase they shadows over Earth:
Flying footsteps, soft and silent,
Flit o'er grassy graves in mirth.
Shudder not—the bearded harvest
Quivers not, so light the tread:
Let it glide o'er moss and violet—
Would its touch could wake our dead!

Piling now, the tossing vapors,
With a wild exultant power,
Rise in turrets, towers, mountains,
Changing with the changing hour.
Glittering, gleaming, dazzling, snowy,
Heart-tossed shadows in them lie;
Broken, scattered, wind-torn, foamy,
Haunt they through Earth's panting sky.

Luminous jets of boiling vapor
Topple into sudden rifts,
Open into yawning chasms,
Break in tortured whirling drifts,
Panting, surging, rocking, reeling,
Cradling in their hearts the storm,
Spirit, power, passion flashing,
Lightning bares each secret form.

Banding now in groups colossal,
Piling o'er the mountain crest,
Sweeping down his rocky summit,
[Pg 268] Crashing through his wooded breast,
Shattering fall his pines and larches,
Rain, hail, tumult onward swell,
Lightning scathes the shuddering forest,
Thunder frights the leafy dell.

Sunset fires the whirling vapors,
Now they sway and rock in light,
Toppling crests fling back the radiance,
Through the rifts it glitters bright,
Gloomy clouds are ruby kindling,
Rippling fringed with molten gold,
Rosy streams of color pouring,
Through the tempest's blackness rolled.

Surging weird in fitful beauty,
Every moment fraught with change,
Every break and mystic chasm
Opening up a Heaven-range:
Now the eastern peaks are kindling
Glow as though the Morning's heart
Throbbed against them, while the formless
Clouds to phantom being start.

Thus through storm-tost human bosoms
God oft sends His rays divine;
Passionate errors, when forgiven,
Lead us on to trust sublime.
God rays light through moral tempests,
Brings repentance out of crime;
'Much forgiven' ploughs the spirit,
Former faults as beacons shine.

Through our ruins Love is gleaming,
Rippling o'er in molten gold,
Rosy streams of life are pouring
Through our tempest's blackness rolled.
Glittering thus in growing beauty,
Every moment fraught with change,
Through each rift and shattered chasm
We may see the Heaven-range.

Thus the angels build the pictures
In the vext or tranquil skies,
Of our changeful human passions,
Stormful fall and heaven-won rise.
Thus they write in love and pity,
Radiant with their heaven-dyes,
Lessons for the lost, the erring,
Hope for weary, dying eyes.
[Pg 269]

RAIN CLOUDS.

High float the Cirri,
Passionless, pure;
Wild pile the Cumuli,
Never secure;
Low sweep the Rain Clouds
Over the sky,
Glooming the sunshine,
Slow trailing by.

Mystical region
Typifies Earth—
Light in the bosom
Of darkness has birth;
Magical mingling
Of beauty and gloom,
Calm follows tempest
As Heaven the tomb.

Shrouding the distance,
Legions of mist
Glide down the river
Joining the list
Of the shadowy army
Hurrying on
Over wide waters
To welcome the sun.

Catching his gleaming,
Faster they run,
Roseate surging,
Roll into one;
Filling the valley,
Luminous haze,
Heavenward soaring,
Rocks as we gaze;

Lifting strange columns
Of light in the air,
Weaves golden sunshine
Fitful and fair
Through the cloud pillars
Thrown to the sky,
Like the Dream-ladder
Jacob slept by.

Trailing o'er treetops,
Shadowing graves,
Gloomily weeping
While the wind raves,
Blurring the landscape
Rain clouds press on,
Lowering on nature
With leaden-hued frown.

Sulphurous, lurid,
Thunder is near;
Sobbings and mutterings
Fill us with fear.
Palls with wild fringes
Stream on behind—
Death may be riding
The wings of the wind.

Jagged clouds hanging
Formless and black,
Hurtle the whirlwind
Fast o'er their track;
Fiery flashes
Scathe the green plain;
Cataracts falling
In torrents of rain.

Thunder and lightning
Crash through the sky;
Whirlwinds are carding
The clouds as they fly!
Nature is reeling,
Sin at our heart,
Heaven is angered—
Well may we start!

God throws His shadow
Into the gloom;
The raindrops have caught it,
And break into bloom!
His light on Earth's teardrops
Gems Bliss on her clouds,
His rainbow of color
Paints Hope on her shrouds.

Tender and lovely,
Luminous, fair,
Infinite Beauty
Is bending through air,
Breathing through color,
Through Order, through Form,
That infinite Love
Rules the heart of the storm.

Caught in soft meshes,
Fractions the light,
Gold, green, or ruby,
Tremblingly bright.
Through the torn chasms
Smiles the lost blue—
The wilder the drifting,
[Pg 270] The deeper the hue.

Beauty above us,
Beauty around,
Clouds, stars gem the heavens,
Trees, flowers paint the ground.
Rapturous meaning
Illumines the whole:
God gives us Beauty,
For Love is His Soul!

High-floating Cirri,
Passionless, pure;
Wild-piling Cumuli,
Never secure;
Low-trailing Rain Clouds
With rainbow-lit pall—
Softly ye whisper
That Love ruleth all!

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

II.—THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.

Who, in ascending the Hudson River, has not watched for the first glimpse of the Catskills, and followed with delight their gradual development of peak and clove, until, near Hudson, they stood fully revealed, flooded with sunshine, flecked with shadows, or crowned by storm-laden clouds?

This region is noteworthy, not alone from its beauty and incalculable utility, but also from the associations clustering around it through the pen of poets and writers of romance, the brush of the artist, and the memories of thousands of tourists, who have found health and strength for both body and mind upon its craggy heights or beside its numberless wild and beautiful mountain torrents. It comprises the whole of Greene County, a portion of Delaware, and the neighboring borders of Ulster, Schoharie, and Albany. It truly deserves the appellation of 'many fountained,' giving rise to great rivers, such as the Delaware, and one of the main branches of the Susquehanna, and to manifold smaller watercourses, as the Schoharie, Catskill, and Esopus. Unlike the Highlands of Northern New Jersey and Southern New York, and the region of the Adirondacs, its lakes are few and very small. The best known are the twin lakes near the Mountain House, and Shue's Lake, not far from the summit of Overlook Mountain. These are all at a height, approximately, of two thousand feet above the river, and add greatly to the variety and interest of the landscape in their vicinity.

Names among these hills are a commodity so scarce that their paucity presents a serious obstacle to intelligible description. Round Tops and High Peaks are innumerable. We hope, when Professor Guyot completes his cursory survey of heights, made eighteen months ago, he will strive to do as in North Carolina, and supply the deficiency. Nomenclature is a difficult matter, and requires a poet, a poetic man of science, or the imaginative intuitions of a primitive people.

The main range of the Catskills finds its southerly corner in Overlook Mountain, not far from Woodstock, and about seven miles (more or less) west of the Hudson. One ridge extends northerly (a little east, parallel with the river) from twelve to fourteen miles, and then, at the North Mountain, making an obtuse angle, turns to the northwest, and passes through Windham into Schoharie County: the other ridge, starting from Overlook, runs in a westerly direction along the southern border of Greene County, and finally in Delaware sinks into broken hill ranges of [Pg 271] less elevation. The space intermediate between these two main ridges is at first narrow, but gradually widens as they diverge from the starting point; its interior (northwesterly) slope is drained by the Schoharie (a branch of the Mohawk) and its tributaries, the East, the West, and Batavia Kills. Singular gaps or cloves intersect the range, affording easy communication with the lowlands bordering its base. Each clove has its own stream, and in the main ones on the river front are found the countless and beautiful waterfalls which constitute the chief characteristic of Catskill scenery. The more primitive rocks of the Highlands, the Adirondacs, and the White Mountains do not offer such numerous and picturesque sheets of falling water as the red sandstone of the Catskills.

Starting from Overlook Mountain, whence the view is said to be magnificent, and proceeding northward, we first reach the Plattekill Clove, up whose steep and wooded cleft winds a wild road, chiefly used for quarrying purposes, and down whose abrupt declivity the Plattekill leaps from crag to crag in a series of fine falls and cascades. The quantity of water during the summer months, except after considerable rain, is small, but the rock formations are very interesting, reminding the traveller of wild passes in the Tyrol. This is perhaps the grandest of all the Catskill clefts, but human ingenuity has here afforded no aid to the sightseer, and strong heads and agile limbs are needed for the enjoyment of its hidden beauties.

The mountain to the north of the Plattekill Clove has two crests, known as High Peak and Round Top. It was long thought to be the loftiest summit of the Catskills, but must now yield to the Windham High Peak or Black Head, 3,926 feet high, and perhaps to other elevations in the same range. Professor Guyot gives its height at 3,684 feet, and that of the Mountain House as 2,245 feet. This mountain has frequently been ascended, although there is no regular path leading to the summit, but the thick growth of wood on the top greatly hinders the satisfactoriness of the view. Between Round Top and the nearest mountain to the north lies the Kauterskill Clove, known preëminently as The Clove , the home of artists and the theme of poets. Its springs are drained by the Kauterskill Creek, a branch of the Catskill, and it is one of the loveliest spots in America. The road through this clove is one of the main arteries to the back mountain country, and, from the summit of the clove, near Haines's sawmill, winds for about three miles to the base, by the side of streams offering fifteen fine falls and cascades in a distance of five miles, and between steep and wooded mountain slopes or rocky crags lifted high in air, now swelling out into the sunlight, and anon curving back into amphitheatres of shadow. The main Kauterskill flows from the twin lakes already mentioned, and just below the Laurel House falls over a precipice of 175 feet, which, with another dash of 80 feet, makes the entire depth of the stream's first grand plunge into the wild ravine 255 feet. A short distance below is the Bastion Fall, and, immediately following, the Terrace Cascade, the united height of the two being certainly not less than 100 feet. These four fine falls are found in an easy walk of three quarters of a mile leading down the ravine from the Laurel House to the Clove road.

The Little Kauterskill flows into the main stream at a short distance below the bridge where the Clove road first crosses that torrent. The ravine through which it flows is incomparably beautiful, with the grand plunge (Haines's Fall or Fawn's Leap) at the head, and the seven graceful cascades, all visible from one projecting table rock, soon after following. Below the above-mentioned bridge are the Dog Fall, the cascade at Moore's Bridge, and the Dog Hole, with its steep cliffs and foaming [Pg 272] rapids. At the mouth of the Clove is Palensville, a little manufacturing village, where town-wearied denizens find fresh air and pleasant walks and drives during the summer months. To our taste, however, the summer climate at the various sojourning places, about two thousand feet above the sea level, is far preferable to that at the base of the mountain.

Rising to the north of the Clove is the South Mountain, from whose beetling crags are obtained some of the finest views offered by the Catskills; then follows the Pine Orchard, where are the well-known Mountain House, the twin lakes, and the Laurel House at the head of the Kauterskill Falls; and finally, the North Mountain, which looks down upon a graceful spur to the east, Kiskatom Round Top, and then sweeps away to the northwest. Beyond the North Mountain is a considerable depression, down which passes an execrable road, leading from East Jewett, within the mountain range, to Cairo, at its foot. Finally, we reach Windham High Peak, [1] and the fine road crossing the mountains from Catskill to Delhi, and passing through Windham and Prattsville.

On the southern side of the range, west of Overlook, are two wild and beautiful clefts, the one known as the Stony Clove, and the other as West Kill or Bushnell Clove. The first begins as a narrow gorge with lofty hemlock and moss-clad mountain sides, and gradually opens out, at Phœnicia, upon the hills of Ulster and Esopus Creek. It is watered by a trout stream, and its few but cosey farm cottages offer shelter sufficient for amateur fishermen and artists, bewitched by its fairy recesses and fine forest growth. In the narrow portion of this clove are ice caves, where ice may be found at all seasons of the year, and whence issue cooling winds appreciable in the warmest summer days.

The West Kill, or Bushnell Clove, is said to be still finer and more alpine than the Stony Clove. The last-mentioned gap and that of the Plattekill join the main or Kauterskill Clove between Tannersville and Hunter, while the Bushnell Clove does not intersect the valley of the Schoharie until the West Kill flows into that stream near the charming village of Lexington, six miles south, a little west of Prattsville.

These geographical details may seem uninteresting, but if the writer had possessed them eight years ago, when first making the near acquaintance of the Catskills, many a mystification might have been avoided, and many a pleasant excursion, now only known to the fancy, have been found practicable. One great attraction of the Catskills is, that the greater number of the spots chiefly interesting are within walking or driving distance from the chief points of sojourn. Visitors in general confine themselves to the Mountain House and its immediate vicinity, and hence see but little of the beauties hidden among the cliffs and ravines of the inner peaks. The view from the Mountain House plateau is extensive, but tame and monotonous in character; the horizon is not interesting, and the cloud scenery is far more impressive than that of the land beneath. The views from the very easily ascended North or South Mountains, where, in addition to the river valley, the eye embraces the lakes, the opening of the Clove, and the distant mountains toward Lexington, are far superior. Clum's Hill, a terraced eminence, visible from many points among the Catskills, and the Parker Mountain, east of Tannersville, both offer peculiar and interesting prospects; but the king of views is that obtained from the cliffs of the South Mountain overhanging the Clove. This vista has furnished sketches for two remarkable pictures painted by that rare artist and genuine son of Helios, S. R. Gifford. Looking toward the west is the rolling plateau of the [Pg 273] Clove, with the far-away mountains beyond Hunter, the Parker and North Mountains, the openings to the Stony and Plattekill Cloves, Clum's Hill, and the silver thread of Haines's Fall. At the foot of the cliffs, more than a thousand feet below, lie Brockett's (classic ground for artists), the Clove road, Moore's Bridge, the Dog Fall, and the brawling Kauterskill. Directly opposite stands the wooded crest of Round Top. The entire mountain side is visible, and the cleft is so narrow that the trees can almost be counted as they rise one above another to a height of 2,500 feet above the roaring stream, which here receives two slender cascades that have threaded their way through the tangled forest. Toward the east, the river is visible, and the sloping mountain declivities frame a lovely picture of lowland country and far-away Connecticut or Massachusetts hills. The effects of light and shadow are such as we have never seen surpassed. This earth there seems made of gold or crimson lights, of gray seas of mist, or of every imaginable combination of beautiful hues.

These cliffs are reached by a charming walk through a beech wood, and are distant about a mile from the Laurel House. A longer and still somewhat rough path was opened thither last summer from the Mountain House. But we should never end were we to characterize all the beautiful spots, the entrancing walks and drives to be found amid these cool and healthful slopes and plateaus. A difference of at least ten degrees is felt between the mountain resorts and the villages on the river bank, and the air is inexpressibly fresh and invigorating.

These mountains have also a very interesting flora. The oak, beech, birch, chestnut, hickory, maple, ash, hemlock—pines, black, white, and yellow—spruces, fir, and balsam, are among the most widely spread trees; and of fruits, the blackberry, gooseberry, raspberry, whortleberry or blueberry, and strawberry, grow in profusion and of fine flavor. Violets, anemones, liverworts, the fairy bells of the Linnea Borealis, the fragrant stars of the Mitchella or partridge berry, the trailing arbutus, Houstonia, the laurel, honeysuckle, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, bottle gentian, white and blue, purple orchids, willow herb, golden rod, immortelles, asters in every variety, St. John's wort, wild turnip, Solomon's seals, wild lilies of the vale, fire lilies, Indian pipe, with other flowers, ground pines, and varieties of moss and ferns innumerable, border the winding woodpaths and secluded roads. There are many regions in America more grand than that of the Catskills, but none, we think, more easily and gratefully compensatory to a careful survey.

Within Gethsemane's Garden kneeling,
Bends the Lord His sacred head,
His soul, each human sorrow feeling,
Quivers with keen shafts, sin-sped,
Every human misery knows,
Bears the burden of our woes.

Perchance not men alone His sinking,
Bleeding heart to weep is fain,
But poor dumb creatures sees He drinking
Deep the bitter cup of pain,
Hears the wailing, anguished cry,
Hears but curse and blow reply!

THE ISSUES OF THE WAR.

The life of the soldier is one of constant anxiety and suspense. He never knows with any certainty to-day what he shall have to do to-morrow. Upon seemingly the greatest calm may suddenly burst the most terrific storm. There is little incentive to thought, except of that practical kind which directs the activities of the soldier's perilous life. Here we are, thousands of us, an acting mass rather than an assemblage of thinking individuals. Indeed, it is not strictly military to think; implicit and unquestioning obedience is the law. When the order was finally given on Monday night (September 21st) for the whole army to fell back on Chattanooga, the writer remarked:

'Well, if we shall not have to go any farther—if we can hold Chattanooga, we are not defeated;—it is even a victory, and we have won Chattanooga at the battle of Chickamauga.'

'We want none of your speculations,' retorted our Prussian commander; 'it is a soldier's business to obey, and not to think.'

But, it is hardly natural for an American soldier to execute a movement without inquiring the wherefore. And if we are marched over mountains, and down the Lookout at Alpine Pass, within a few miles of Rome; and then marched back again, up the perilous steep, and northward to Stevens's Gap, and down again;—why, even common soldiers, without the evidence of brains which there is, or ought to be, in shoulder straps, inquire of each other for the strategic value there may be in all this marching and countermarching, and find it hard to believe that it was all provided for in the original programme.

But in a still higher sense is the American soldier given to thinking. He is quite likely to have an opinion as to the origin and cause of the war—as to the issues involved therein, and the results which it is likely to bring about. There is, moreover, a multiplicity of views, and not the unanimity of dulness.

The causes, the issues, the results of the war—momentous themes! and likely to be thoroughly canvassed by those whom they so vitally concern—the American citizen and our citizen soldiery.

The causes, issues, and results of the war are so intimately related that we can scarcely think of one without also thinking of the others. The causes are more especially a thing of the past—they already belong to history: the results belong more particularly to the future; the issues pertain to the present. It is these with which we have more immediately to do, and which it behooves us, as intelligent actors in the great drama, to understand. We should not be indifferent to results, and we are not; but if there are real issues of right and wrong involved in the contest, and we are in the right, we may rest assured that the results of a successful prosecution of the war will be worthy of all our sacrifices, and honorable to us as a people and nation.

In the midst of a beleaguered camp, with no notes of former reading, or books of reference, it is a poor place for the elaboration of one's ideas;—the writer, nevertheless, proposes to make a brief inquiry into the issues involved in this terrible war.

The fact exists that there is a war between the North and South, brought about, as we believe, by unwarranted and aggressive acts of the Slave Power. This slave oligarchy of the South either had, or affected to have, a profound contempt for what they supposed was [Pg 275] the want of spirit in the Northern people. It was a current swagger that we should barely furnish them with an opportunity to show their superior military prowess. 'This war shall be waged on Northern soil,' they said. Events have shown that they miscalculated; but the raids of Jackson, Lee, Morgan & Co. show how great their will has been to carry out their threats of invasion. When the rebel guns opened upon Sumter, there was no alternative left us but fight now, or soon. Had we hesitated and compromised then, the arrogant spirit of the insurgents would have been still further flattered and puffed up, and their contempt for the submissive North made genuine, whatever it may have been before. A compromise then would have made no lasting peace; the South would soon have become tired of being merely 'let alone;' her exactions and aggressions would have become more and more insolent and intolerable, till warlike resistance or ignoble submission and slavery would have been our only alternative. This war is, therefore, on our part and in one sense, a war in self-defence; and this may be regarded as one of its issues.

Every loyal soldier is fighting for the security of our Northern homes; and the issue resolves itself into this: The resistance of invasion; the vindication of our manliness as a people; the protection of our own firesides—else be overrun, outraged, desolated, enslaved by the minions of a Southern oligarchy, which indulges the insane conceit that it is born to rule.

Unfortunately for our country, it embraces two distinct forms of society, of dissimilar, if not of antagonistic character. It is a heritage from our ancestors; but none the less an evil for its prestige from the sanctities of time; and we are now reaping its bitter fruits in the manifold and hideous forms of a great civil war. Taking human nature as it is, there appears to be no escape from this cruel ordeal. We of the North claim that we have transcended that type of society whose vital and informing element is chattel slavery. There is natural and irrepressible antagonism between the two forms of society; they cannot subsist in peace and good feeling by the side of each other, and still less under the same Government. Conflict was inevitable, and it came.

At this stage of the war and of elucidation respecting its cause and origin, this may be only commonplace, yet necessary to fulness of statement.

Slavery felt the necessity of efforts to save herself from impending ruin; she became taunting and aggressive in her manners and acts, and resorted at length to violence, reminding one of the oft-repeated proverb, 'Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.' History has no readings for the comfort of slavery. There is a progress in human affairs, and the tide of that progress is against her. Threatening attitudes and impetuous dashes do not appear to come with salvation; and the promise—of glory for freedom, and doom for her—now is that, as a turbulent and rebellious power, she will be completely overthrown; a sudden and deserved judgment, the legitimate consequence of her own violence and desperation.

This struggle between a progressive and triumphant civilization, on the one hand, and a crude, unprogressive, and waning one on the other—if civilization it can be called—is another of the issues of this war. It is but the ultimate, the closing catastrophe of the 'irrepressible conflict.'

Involved in this feature of the war, there is much beside the naked issue of freedom and slavery.

Slavery has no respect for the affections, as is evinced by the mercilessness with which she sunders every family tie. The refining culture of growth in civilization demands respect for the domestic loves, even of an inferior race. [Pg 276] Where chattel slavery exists, labor is not held in honor, and just in proportion to the depth to which one class sinks by industrial oppression, does the other sink through enervating indolence and exhausting indulgence. Where there is chattel slavery, there cannot be free speech: the utterance of truth may indeed be incendiary, and the rickety, combustible institution standing out of its time, must needs protect itself. There must not be free education or free inquiry. It would never do to teach the slaves; and it is likewise the interest of this form of society to retain the lower strata of the nominally free population in ignorance equally dense and impenetrable. A cringing servility must be generated and maintained on the one side, and a haughty and exacting superciliousness on the other.

All these may be regarded as constituting minor issues, which are dependent for their vitality on that which is greater; and when the fate of the issue between chattel slavery and its antagonist shall have been determined, there will be no further trouble with the collaterals. When the main trunk is torn up by the root, the branches will all die.

But while the issue between slavery and freedom thus comprehends within itself a class of issues which are subordinate, may there not be a still greater issue which dwarfs that of slavery and freedom into a secondary, and comprehends within itself this and other issues of equal magnitude and importance?

Our Government has never given out that its object in the prosecution of the war is the extinction of slavery. It claims to have adopted emancipation only as a war measure; the great purpose of the war being avowedly the recovery of Governmental possessions and the restoration of the Union. Many moralists, failing, as we believe, to see the real significance of the idea of political unity, have looked upon the proposed object of the Government as a low and unworthy one; but have, nevertheless, rejoiced that the hand of Providence is in the work, and overruling it to bring out of these meaner aims a great and noble result.

It may be well to recollect in this connection that it is not always when great moral ends are the real aim and purpose of a movement that the greatest good has been accomplished. The greatest moral results have often followed when the movement proposed no moral end whatever; while efforts having a direct moral aim have resulted in signal failure, and sometimes in disaster even to the very end proposed. Well-meant efforts to save the heathen in a spiritual way have sometimes resulted in their physical destruction, through the stealthy obtrusion of the pests of civilization.

It is by no means as yet a settled question that emancipation will enhance the happiness of our negro population, or that it may not be the beginning of a series of disasters to the race which will eventuate in its extinction on this continent. The settlement of the slave question may be the beginning of the negro question; and the end of one difficulty the beginning of another.

It may be that sympathy for the negro is seeking to put in train a series of changes which would terribly revulse those same sympathies, if the end could be seen from the beginning. Yet these sympathies, even if mistaken in their direct object, may be working to a great and desirable end, which they do not as yet recognize. The Crusaders aimed at what they considered a good, but, failing in that, accomplished a real good of which they had no conception. They did not make themselves permanent masters of the Holy Land, but through their intercourse with each other and with the more cultivated people of the East, they nourished the germs of a forthcoming civilization in the West.

In the natural history of the world [Pg 277] we discover that certain tribes of sentient beings prey upon certain other tribes; and this seems, on a cursory view, to be very shocking to the finer sensibilities of our nature; yet it is an arrangement which results in a larger amount of sentient enjoyment than could otherwise obtain among these lower denizens of our inexplicable world. The most vigorous—that which embodies within itself the greatest and the most various elements of vitality and power—the most vigorous, I say, prevails; and if the negro race of our continent should begin to wane and finally go as the 'poor Indian' has done—a fate which I do not here predict for him—the field thus vacated will not be lost, but occupied at once, and in time to its fullest extent, by a race of greater capabilities for culture, progress, and enjoyment. The physical world has attained to its present advanced geological condition through much of violence and pain; the same is true in a moral sense of mankind at large; and there may be still quite a great deal of this same career to run.

Sympathy of itself is blind, and may 'kill with kindness.' It has often done so. But it is a noble emotion: let it play its role, since, in the working out of destiny, 'the will may be taken for the deed,' and a good accomplished which was not intended or foreseen.

Governments may not be greatly at fault for not proposing 'high moral aims.' We need only recall the names of Watt, Fulton, Stevenson, Morse, and others of that class, to perceive that great moral changes are brought about when no moral purpose is intended. It is not affirmed that these benefactors of mankind never thought of the moral consequences which their purely physical labors would produce, but only that the moral consequences were not the incentive to the mechanical achievement. The genius of invention had to work out its legitimate results through the innate force of its own peculiar constitution. The impetus was that of essential genius, not of moral calculation.

The same thing is true of the cultivation of science for its own sake. The stargazer with his telescope, the chemist with crucible and retort, the physiologist with his chemical and optical aids, the purely scientific thinker—all who prosecute science for the love of it—have wrought out results which are breaking as light of the clear morning sun upon the history of nations, thus enabling us to avail ourselves of the past in order to comprehend the status of the present and the possibilities of the future.

Great social and political results have thus been attained without consciously intending them, or seeing how they were to be brought about. Our Government, without professing great moral purposes, may yet accomplish more in that direction, and this, too, by the relentless and bloody hand of war, than has ever been the result of purely moral design by the most approved moral means, on the part of any combination of mankind. It may be a crisis in history, and the ushering in of a new era.

Our Government proposes to recover lost possessions, and restore the integrity of the Union. Wherefore? Ours is the most beneficent Government upon the earth, blessing the most human beings, and it should be sustained. The whole nation has contributed to the acquisition of Southern territory, and it is not meet that the Northern people should surrender their interest in the same. The Mississippi River belongs as naturally to the great West as to the South, and it should be under the control of the same sovereign power, to be used for the good of one great people. There is no natural division line between the North and South, and it would be fatal to the future peace and prosperity of this continent to attempt to make one.

These are some of the reasons ordinarily given for the prosecution of this war—for our great effort to reëstablish [Pg 278] the Union. They are practical, readily comprehended, and to urge them is well—enough, really, for present practical purposes; but may there not be in the idea of political unity a meaning—a philosophical significance, if you please, which these practical and obvious considerations do not reveal?

It is the confirmed conviction of the Northern people, with certain unnatural exceptions, that it is our true policy to maintain the integrity of the Union at any cost, however great; the people of the South evidently take a different view of it; the political thinkers of Europe appear to be divided in their sympathies between the North and South.

An article appears in a British quarterly to prove that it is the fate of great empires to fall to pieces; and that China, Turkey, Russia, and the United States show signs of approaching dissolution. It is observed that French writers of authority in the Government have issued pamphlets to prove that the peace and stability of nations require the dismemberment of the United States. The 'fire eaters' of the South are not the only people who would like to see the United States in fragments. We have such even in the North; and in Europe, especially near the thrones, 'their name is legion.'

The thinking world has not yet settled into the conviction that a great continental policy, preserving internal peace, and enduring for an indefinite period into the far-off future, is a possible thing. The fate of nations and empires, as revealed in history, is apparently against such an idea. Many empires have already appeared, risen to power, fallen into decay, and become dismembered, having run their course and disappeared. May it not be so with our own great confederacy of States? The authority against a great, practical, enduring political unity is respectable. May we not be fighting for an illusion? What guarantee have we in history, science, and common sense, that our Federal Union will not crumble as the empires of the past have done, and as the political prophets of Europe, casting the horoscope of nations in the shadows of their own political fragmentarism, have predicted for us? Even should the rebels South be chastised, and the Union restored for the present, have we solid reasons for believing in the permanency of our institutions? What is the warrant for our faith that American destiny comprehends the principle of American unity?

People contract habits of thought in a great measure from the nature of the institutions which surround them. Europe could think nothing but feudalism at one time; she had no conception of religion outside the Church of Rome. The Turk thinks by the standard of political absolutism and the Moslem faith. The reflections of every people are cast in the national mould; it is so the world over, and has been so in all times. Europe, or at least a very influential portion thereof, thinks that the 'balance of power' system will yet be inaugurated among the family of nations yet to spring up on this continent. Her people think balance of power, and the London Times and like organs of the existing polity write balance of power for our edification, and for the future of America. They cannot conceive that there is any other way to get along for any considerable length of time. In like manner is it concluded—keeping up the old trains of thought—that if nations once fell into fragments when shaken, they will do just so again.

Now, perhaps we have contracted habits of thought from the character of our country and her institutions, and are deceiving ourselves with hopes which have no real foundation. These, we believe, are considerations which have engaged the attention of every reflecting man; and it behooves us, as intelligent Americans and members of a young nation of hitherto unexampled [Pg 279] prosperity and promise, to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us.

There are changes and crises in the course and destiny of political systems. The conditions of one period of time are different from the conditions of another period. Different conditions necessitate different political systems. Feudalism did not last always; European diplomacy is only three hundred years old. If Europe, out of her peculiar situation, originated the doctrine of balance of power, thus innovating upon the past, may not we, owing to the novelty of our situation, originate a continental system which will endure to the remotest periods of time, or so long as political systems shall have place on the earth?

One empire may fall into fragments to-day; while another may not only not suffer dissolution, but really grow stronger, and appropriate, in a most legitimate manner, parts of the dismembered empire.

We must allow, not only for the difference of conditions with reference to time, but, also, for the different situations at the same time of different political structures. To assume, because nations have been ground to atoms, or have fallen to pieces of their own weight, that therefore Russia and the United States are about to go in the same way, is a species of reasoning which is hardly warranted by scientific methods. It may be that the empire of Great Britain is itself doomed to dissolution at no very distant day; but it does not follow that the United States are, therefore, liable to the same fate, now or ever. So far from this, it is possible, if not highly probable, that as the remote provinces of the British empire shall fall away, the central political system of this continent may very naturally absorb at least one of the fragments, and thereby become stronger as a Government, and more potent for good to the people of an entire world.

There are laws of dissolution, and laws of segregation and combination in the political as in the natural world. Great Britain may fall into fragments because her geographical and political conditions render her amenable to the laws of dissolution; while the United States may go on enlarging their boundaries and becoming more stable and powerful from the fact that their political status and local surroundings render them the legitimate subject of the laws of political growth and geographical enlargement. The British possessions are geographically too remote; they may not be united together by the necessary bonds of political union. The weakness of Great Britain may now be what the weakness of the Spanish empire once was. Her geography is against her. The day is gradually passing away when arbitrary power may hold distant regions in subjection to a central despotism; the day is at hand which demands that the bonds of union shall be natural and just, not arbitrary—bonds which forever assert their own inherent power to unite and grow stronger, not weaker, with the inevitable changes constantly being wrought out by the busy hand of time.

Man's social and political life depends much on the physical conditions by which he is surrounded. We have only to instance a mountain and valley population. The former is isolated and out of the way, and the people simple, uncouth, and uncultivated—contented, it is true, but, nevertheless, enjoying but little of the abundance and variety in which people of culture luxuriate. The valley population have a city, villages, rich lands, trade, and commerce; they are wealthy, cultivated, and realize far more the legitimate fruition of our entire nature.

Even missionaries, whose prejudices may be presumed to have been in favor of purely moral means, tell us that that heathen can only be permanently Christianized through changes in their physical conditions which commerce alone can bring about.

Physical conditions affect the destiny [Pg 280] of nations, and go far to determine the extent and character of political organizations. It makes a great difference whether a country has or has not the means of ready communication and transportation from one section to another. While the great body of Europe was comparatively uncultivated, with only the natural channels of commerce, and these unimproved, there could be little communication between the different sections of country; and Europe had no political or social unity. The people of the entire continent were in a fragmentary and disorganized mass, comparatively isolated, and independent of each other. The jurisdictions of the great barons and of the cities became at length united into kingdoms. The increase of commerce brought these kingdoms into relations with each other, and diplomacy grew out of national necessities. As the countries improved and the facilities and occasions for intercommunication and commerce increased, the principle of political unity must needs comprehend a wider range. At first, it took in only the component parts of kingdoms, and then the kingdoms in the form of great national leagues of more or less permanence. This form of political unity may be very imperfect, but it is nevertheless unity consummated in the best possible manner which the system of separate thrones would permit. Changes in the conditions and relations of peoples render changes in their political forms an absolute necessity. The facilities for education, intercommunication, travel, and commerce, are the great unitizers of peoples and nations.

A great, overgrown empire, which has been built up by arbitrary power, may fall to pieces, because it is not bound together by the ligaments which an ubiquitous commerce affords. Another, because thus interlaced and woven together, cannot be sundered. The dependence of part on part and the facilities of transportation from one section to another, render such an empire a really vital organism, which cannot be divided without destroying the whole; but since nations, as individuals, are tenacious of life, the whole cannot be destroyed, and the empire cannot be divided. There is no place for division, and none can be made. This principle, we believe, applies to our own country.

Lines for the transmission of intelligence, the highways of travel, the channels of intercommunication and commerce—these connect remote sections with each other, and, in connection with the specialization of industry, cause them to become mutually dependent, and thus form a web of unity knitting the many into one. The Mississippi River has been characterized by some one as a great original Unionist. It is so.

The channels and highways of commerce are of two kinds: natural and artificial. The natural are the seas, lakes, rivers; and these only become the means of political union according to the extent of the use which is made of them. The improvement of harbors and of rivers, and the modern revolutions in the art of navigation, have greatly increased their power to make one section necessary to another, and bind people to people. Were not steam applied to locomotion, the great rivers of North America would afford far less of promise for American unity than they now do.

Since whatever facilitates communication and transportation makes one class of people dependent on another, through the mutual exchange of social opportunity and of industrial productions, and binds them more firmly together; hence, also, the political and social values of the artificial channels of commercial intercourse. Wagon roads, canals, railroads, telegraphs, are all so many political unitizers; but the railroad, with its accompaniment, the telegraph, may be regarded as the chief of all.

Let us notice for a moment the polit [Pg 281] ical value of our rivers, with the improved navigation of the same, and of our railroads, in the suppression of the existing rebellion.

Had there been no navigable rivers and no railroads uniting the North and South, the chances for the local division of our country would be far greater than they are under existing circumstances. The South would have been comparatively isolated from the North, and our armies could not have reached her territory with the facility they now do. Prolonged for years, as the war must have been under such circumstances, the North would have grown weary of prosecuting it; the chances for intervention would have been greater, and the establishment of a Southern nation by no means an impossible thing.

With facilities for penetrating the country, it may be easier to reduce a dozen rebel States than one quarter of the territory if held by uncivilized Indians. We were longer subjugating the Seminole Indians than we are likely to be in putting down the rebellion. The facilities of transportation in the one case, and their absence in the other, make part of the difference. Besides, these same facilities and their accompaniments render Southern society a really vital and sensitive thing, so that a wound in some vital part, as Vicksburg or Chattanooga, is felt to the remotest ends of Secessia. It will not require extermination of all the members; a few mere such wounds, and the rebellious creature will have to yield.

The Tennessee River enabled us to drive the enemy out of Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi and Alabama. By means of the Mississippi River we have cut away a considerable limb of the 'confederacy,' and we believe it can never be restored. Nashville has become a depot of supplies for the army of the Cumberland, because of the Cumberland River and the railroad to the Ohio River.

When we advanced from Murfreesboro', on the 24th of June last, the rains fell almost incessantly, and the roads became at length really impassable. We were at Tullahoma and beyond it, on short rations. Had there been no means of transportation other than the army wagon and the common road, it is doubtful whether, under the circumstances, General Rosecrans could have held his advanced position so easily won. When some of the teams could not draw empty wagons back to Murfreesboro', it is not likely that such means of transportation would have been sufficient for the subsistence of our army in and around Tullahoma. But in less than ten days the joyful whistle of the locomotive was heard, and the army was soon abundantly supplied.

Take our present situation. Had there been no railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River, the campaign of last fall could not have been undertaken with any prospect of success. But allow that it had been undertaken, and the result of the battle of Chickamauga what it was: could our army have terminated its retreat at Chattanooga, and held this important military position? By no means: it would have recrossed the mountains, a broken, discouraged, and almost demoralized host. The trains have run almost constantly from Nashville to Stevenson and Bridgeport, and the army has been on half rations for nearly two months. If wagons could not bring supplies fifty miles, much less one hundred and fifty. And now (November 15th) that the distance for teams has, for some days, been reduced to six or seven miles, we are still very short of supplies.

Let the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad receive due credit for the part it has played in promoting the success of the campaign and 'saving the Army of the Cumberland.' Railroads and all other channels of commerce contribute most efficiently to the success of the great effort of our Government to restore the integrity of the Union: let them receive due credit, and be rightly [Pg 282] remembered when the great conflict is ended.

These facts may serve to suggest the value of the various commercial facilities as means of political unitization. A country without the means of travel and transportation may readily separate into independent fragments whenever any arbitrary institution, as that of slavery, develops antagonism between different geographical sections; and in that case the arbitrary institution would triumph, and civilization would be thrown backward. But in a country which speaks the same language, and is checkered all over by the pathways of commercial and social intercourse—since there is no place for division except by the rupture of innumerable ligaments—the integrity of its oneness will maintain itself; and if necessary to this end, the arbitrary institution, or cause of attempted rupture, whatever It may be, will be swept out of existence.

The vindication of national unity is the great issue; the abasement of slavery a subordinate one.

Here, then, may we perceive some reasons why our labor and sacrifice for the restoration of the Union are not given in vain; that we are not struggling to sustain a structure which will be liable at any time to pass into the history of the 'fall of empires.' We have the encouragement of new conditions—of conditions which give a warrant, wherever they obtain, for the permanence of political unity. Subdue the present rebellion, reinstate the Union, multiply the facilities for social intercourse and the mutual exchange of products, especially railroads, wherever there is sufficient promise of a need; and our country, thus knit together and united, has nothing to fear from the madness of local factions. Permeate the body politic in all its members by the nerves, veins, and arteries of a vital circulation, and it becomes an organized unity which is not susceptible of division into upper or lower, right or left, except by the destruction of the entire organism.

But admitting that continental unity is to obtain some day, still the question as to whether now is or is not the time for it to assume a more distinct form, brings us by a rational necessity to a brief notice of the influence of European diplomacy and the contingency of foreign intervention.

It is very clear that the 'balance of power' system of Europe, and the continental system which this war is waged on our part to sustain, are very unlike, if not antagonistic systems. The tone, all through the war, of a large portion of the British daily press, and of much of her weightier literature; the intrigues of Napoleon and the outspeaking of his minions, together with the measures which have been clandestinely taken by persons of power and influence to advance the interests of secession, show that there are influential classes in Western Europe, allied by interest to her fragmentary political organizations, who would gladly see the United States broken to pieces under the shock of rebellion. Their sympathies have been with the rebellion all through the war; and that they have not interfered more actively than they have, is not to be attributed to their sincere love for justice and neutrality, but to their own weakness—to the complicated nature of their own diplomacy, and its critical status just now, when there is danger of bursting volcanoes in their own midst.

It is a law of history that any political system of some degree of prevalence seeks to extend itself; indeed, this is a law of all movement, whether physical, chemical, social, or political. There is a political leaven which permeates the whole mass, and brings it into the same condition. It resulted once in the general prevalence of feudalism; it afterward touched the cities of civilizing Europe, and they became independent, and leagued together for a common purpose. It operated again, and gov [Pg 283] ernments of organized and more orderly character came into existence all over what was once feudal Europe. The prevailing system, or that which is animated by the strongest and most active principle, necessitates whatever is unlike it to become of the same character with itself, even though it might seem like the surrender of the better for the worse. This is very aptly shown by the fact that under feudalism allodial titles were voluntarily surrendered for feudal ones. This system subordinated even the church.

The question is legitimate: Have we nothing to fear from the leaven of political fragmentarism in Europe? Is there not vitality enough in the little-monarchy and balance-of-power system of Middle and Western Europe to extend its influence into this country, contributing effectually to the overthrow of American unity; and, by the operation of this political 'induction,' making the political system of America like the political system of Europe? Or, has the time come for the more permanent inauguration of the policy of continental unity—a system of very different genius from that which prevails in the former centres of civilization? We believe that there are the most rational grounds for encouragement.

Political fragmentarism is comparatively a primitive condition. Europe has bean growing out of it for hundreds of years. The grasp of political unity has gradually taken hold of the nations, and brought them organization and order out of isolation and anarchy. Even European diplomacy is an expression of the unitizing tendency, since it seeks to bind the nations together in leagues, making them as completely a unit as may be consistent with the pride and interests of separate and distinct sovereignties. Unitization is therefore in the line of political development; it has gained strength with the march of civilization and the growth of intelligence and freedom among the people. Our struggle, therefore, would seem to be a spontaneous uprising of the people for the security of a cardinal principle—a great torrent of human movement, surging forward with the stream of political development. History is, in its deepest heart, upon the side of unity, and ours is a sure faith that victory will crown our efforts.

We are led further to hope that the time has come for unity, by the fact that the European system has not as yet felt itself strong enough to meddle in any direct manner in our affairs to the detriment of our cause.

The fact that the political system of Europe is at present so completely busied with its own complications, together with the fact that our own country is so intersected by the natural and artificial channels of commerce and general intercourse, and by the interrelation and overlapping of interests, that there is no definite line for a fracture to be found, while, at the same time, our armies can readily penetrate into the enemy's country, and advance their base of supplies by means of the great thoroughfares of trade; these are sources of encouragement, and give us good reason to believe that the time has indeed come for the ushering in of a new political era by the successful vindication of American unity.

We repeat, this is the great issue of the war. Slavery has only sprung upon us; and if slavery stands in the way of national unity and political harmony, unity and harmony can only be secured by subordinating the power of slavery.

As to the importance and full significance of the principle of political unity, it is not proposed to enter into a detailed discussion here; the theme is too vast. A few suggestions must suffice in this connection.

One of the consequences of the want of political unity is national dissensions and frequent wars, by which the resources of nations are drained, property destroyed, countries devastated, the arm of industry weakened, com [Pg 284] merce crippled, and progress in the means of civilization generally retarded. Political unity would do away with national quarrels, so disastrous to human well-being; while the emulation of states and sections will furnish all the incentive that is necessary to urge a people on to honorable achievements.

It does not promise well for the pacific character of unity, that we have a great civil war; but wherefore? An antiquated and misplaced institution—a relic of a more primitive and barbarous form of society—has led to the development of antagonism between two local divisions of our country. The war grew out of this antagonism: destroy the cause of sectional misunderstanding, and this cause of war will never more give us trouble.

But a difficulty is suggested: Our people will never become alike, never a homogeneous people; the differences of country and climate will forever prevent this. Very good; we don't want sameness throughout the society of a great empire. This is a distinctly marked feature of primitive society. The more unlike as to industrial pursuits, the more variety in the tastes and wants of the people of different sections, the more dependent may these different sections become upon each other; and with facilities for intercourse, the more intimately do they become related. Unity develops itself through the specialization of parts and functions. This specializing process, as in the gradual formation of the vital organs in fetal development, is the very creation of unlikeness; and unity is the mutual dependence and necessary coöperation of these dissimilar organs. The more diversity the more complete the unity. It is antagonism—a very different thing—that does the mischief. It is not desirable that a people should be homogeneous; that would be a falling back into barbarous conditions. Unity demands that the people shall be heterogeneous and diversified, with heterogeneous and diversified occupations, tastes, and habits; and then, with proper facilities for mental intercommunication, travel, and transportation, they become a coöperative and coalescent people. It is coalescence we want, and not homogeneity.

If such be the conditions of unity, then surely it is not to be feared, because New England manufactures, the Middle States mine, the Western States farm, and the Southern States plant, that, therefore, they must needs be under separate and distinct governments. This very dissimilarity of soil, climate, occupation, and production enables the sections to contribute to each other's welfare, and is a condition of their unity. The heart, liver, lungs, stomach, brain, and nerves cannot dispense with each other in the vital economy; it is the very dependence of one special part upon another through the channels of circulation, that renders the superior animal organism so completely a unit. It cannot be repeated too often that it is not sameness of function, but heterogeneity of function, that unity requires. Hence, through the specialization of industries—one kind of manufactures here, and another there; mining in one locality, and farming in another; the growing of a certain product in one section, and the growing of a different product in a different section—all these, together with, the increasing facilities for correspondence and transportation, are preparing society for larger, more complete, and inevitable unity.

There need be no fear of confirmed hostility of feeling between the North and South when the war is over, should it end in the reëstablishment of the Union. Southern journalists say:

'If the North is successful in its mad scheme of conquest, we shall look upon ourselves as a subjugated people, and there never can be cordial union between the people of the two sections.'

Nonsense. With the coming of peace, there will also come a very different spirit over the dream of the entire [Pg 285] South. The great mass of her people have been cruelly duped, and not less cruelly coerced; and once the war is over, these people will become undeceived, and at once relieved from the gyves of a remorseless conscription. There will be a violent reaction in Southern sentiment, and a storm of indignation will be hurled against the instigators of rebellion for all the torture and agony and ruin they have brought to the millions of a once happy nation. The war for the Union will yet find an altar in every Southern home; it will become as truly appreciated there as here; the Southern people will one day glory as greatly in its magnificent results. There will be no longer a few thousand aristocrats, calling themselves 'the South,' and teaching hatred to freedom and progress. This class will be shorn of power and influence, as one of the consequences of the war; and being no longer competent for good or mischief, they may, indeed, nurse their gloom, and torture their lives to the bitter end with the wail, 'We are a subjugated people.' But it will be the wail of selfishness for the sceptre which has departed forever from their hands. There is nothing to fear from these. Very soon after the Government shall have vindicated its competence and extended its jurisdiction over the rebel States, will the most influential and active of their people range themselves on the side of the 'powers that be'—such is the charm of power, the magic of interest, the welcome of peace. All the antagonism generated and cherished by slavery will have totally disappeared; and the South will soon be on the side of all freedom. There will be cordial coöperation under free labor and free trade, between her people and our people; and though diversified as to occupations, habits, and tastes, they will constitute essentially one great political brotherhood.

When slavery, the cause of the present unhappy strife, is extinguished, our country has little to fear, except, perhaps, from the Rocky Mountains, which interpose so formidable a barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific States of our great Federal Union. This mountain barrier and the great distance by water may one day afford an occasion for the encouragement of ambitious men to repeat the experiment of secession. The antidote to this possible evil is the reduction of the most formidable features of the barrier, and the shortening of the forbidding interval. Span the mountains and intervening valleys with railroads and lines of telegraph, and every wire and rail assumes the dignity of a social and political power in the bonds of an indissoluble unity.

If there be so little to create apprehension for the future, may we not rationally hope that the diminution of war, if not its ultimate extinction, is one of the promises of political unity?

Great, strong, noble men—those who are great and noble in all the elements of their nature—such are never pugilists, and never fight: it is those of distorted and defective development—those who have not completeness and integrality within themselves, that are turbulent and break the peace.

Another value of comprehensive unity is that only in great coöperative combinations of mankind can the individual man find the fullest expression for all the faculties of his nature. There is no unity proper—no organization—in savage society; and life there is very simple, with little variety of expression and little enjoyment. As man becomes cultivated his wants increase, and he becomes a more social being. His happiness becomes more and more dependent on others; hence arise societies and organizations of various kinds. The more cultivated any people and the more diversified their wants, the more various do their relations become, and the more extensive their combinations. This is given merely as a fact of history. The truly philosophic eye, we believe, cannot be long in discern [Pg 286] ing that these larger combinations and more comprehensive unities are only a necessary outgrowth of an improving civilization, and indispensable to the fullest measure of happiness; since in them only can the life of a cultured people find the means of its best expression. The growth of unity, as revealed in history, is not an arbitrary thing incident to a chance concurrence of causes, but naturally growing out of the needs of a steady progress in the education and freedom of the people.

To say that it is through great social and political institutions that the individual finds the most ample means for the culture and satisfaction of the faculties and wants of his nature, is but another way of saying that it is through such institutions that he finds the widest range for individual liberty. A very little observation of history will show that as political unity has enlarged and political organization become more distinctly marked, the radii of individual freedom have at the same time swept a wider field.

Despotism curtails enterprise, and prevents the specialization of parts and functions as the genuine condition of unity. The free play of intelligence and interest is necessary to develop the diversity upon which unity depends. Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing the individual in the exercise of his legitimate rights. Unity and liberty are mutually dependent and forever inseparable. Hence the inestimable value of unity, the leading issue of the war.

The issues of the war might be symbolized by the picture of a great river; the smaller branches forming still larger ones, and these putting into the main stream—unity—itself, as it descends, widening into the great ocean of the future.

These issues might, also, be exhibited in a kind of formula. The following is no doubt very imperfect, but it may be somewhat suggestive. The first includes the second, the second the third:

As I close the preparation of this article for the press (November 26th), it becomes positively known that General Bragg is in full retreat. This is a great victory, and splendidly won. There has been no 'straggling to the rear,' no faltering, no serious reverse; the entire three days' conflict, from first to last, has gone right on. A noble victory, and worthy of a noble cause! Soldiers from every great section of the Union—from every State almost—have stood by the side of each other in the perilous conflict. Many have fallen a sacrifice to their country's great cause, unity. Let homage and gratitude from the deep-stirred heart of the nation be theirs; may they long be remembered; and may those who survive, long live to enjoy the fruits of their victory!

The South could ill afford to lose such a battle, here and now. Not long can she hold out in her unnatural struggle against destiny. The tide of a progressive civilization will roll over her, though for a time it must needs be crimsoned with the blood of martyrs.

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER I.

When, in the second year of Titus Vespasian, the Roman general Sergius Vanno returned from his armed expedition in the East, and asked for public honors, there were some in the senate who made objection. It was not fitting, they argued, that formal tokens of national commendation should be too readily bestowed. It had not been so in the time of their fathers. Long years of noble, self-sacrificing zeal and arduous service, crowned with conquests of supreme importance, had then been the only acknowledged title to the prize. It was scarcely proper that the same distinctions which had hitherto been awarded for the acquisition of the most valuable provinces should be granted for the annexation of a mere strip of worthless territory upon the extreme borders of the empire—wild, rugged, and inhospitable, and inhabited by nomadic tribes, who could only be brought under a nominal authority, and who would never prove otherwise than turbulent and unprofitable subjects. Nor was it a matter to be mentioned with especial laudation that Sergius Vanno had succeeded in repressing, with overwhelming force, a revolt in a few of the Ægean islands. If exploits such as these were to be so liberally recompensed, what honors could there be left to bestow upon deeds of acknowledged brilliancy and importance?

So, with cautious discrimination, spoke some of the senators; and so, in the secrecy of their hearts, most of them thought. But against all this were brought to bear, not only the influence which Sergius naturally commanded as a patrician of the highest rank, but also the far more powerful pressure of popular clamor. Sergius was a favorite with the people. His noble birth and lineage entitled him to their respect. He was of a rare type of manly beauty—was wealthy, and used his gold with liberality—gave abundant largesses to the poorer classes—was lavish in his expenditure upon the arts—did not disdain, at times, to descend from his natural station and associate with his inferiors, thereby pleasing the fancy of the masses for social equality [Pg 288] —patronized poets and actors, who, in return, sang or spouted his praise, and thus still further added to his fame—and was noted for a bold, frank, out-spoken demeanor, which tended to conciliate all classes with him. These were virtues not always to be found combined in one person. Moreover, he was impulsively brave; and, though still young, was gifted with more than ordinary military genius, and had carried on his campaign with that rashly daring energy which, when rewarded with success, never fails to commend its possessor to popular adulation. In addition to all this, other considerations of a less personal character exerted their influence. Many months had elapsed since Rome had enjoyed any great civic festivity, and the people had begun to long for a new stimulant. The completion of the colossal Flavian amphitheatre had been delayed beyond public expectation; and though its speedy inauguration had been announced, there was serious doubt whether the lower and more turbulent orders of the populace, so long restrained, would possess themselves with sufficient patience to await the occasion with proper calmness. In fact, some outlet must be given to their excited appetite for novelty; and therefore, after much solemn consideration, the senate yielded to the public clamor, and voted an ovation.

As a token of national appreciation, therefore, the honor thus bestowed upon Sergius Vanno was not one of the first order; nor were such pageants a novelty to the Roman people. Several times before, within the memory of that generation, victorious generals had entered the city with myrtle wreaths upon their brows, and had exhibited to applauding throngs the gathered wealth of conquered provinces. Nor had many years elapsed since the present emperor—then prince—crowned with the richer and more lavish glories of a triumph, had ridden through the Via Sacra, greeted with welcoming acclamations as the destroyer of the Jewish capital—displaying before him the spoils of the sacred temple, and bringing in his train such thousands upon thousands of captives, that it had seemed as though all Palestine was being emptied into Rome. Compared with such exploits, those of Sergius were of trifling importance. But it now entered little into the minds of the people to make these comparisons. Whatever had been done in past time by other commanders, was not worth considering at present. Whoever might have been renowned before, Sergius Vanno was the hero of to-day. To him should be all the honor which tens of thousands of ringing voices and applauding hands could lavish. And therefore, once more, as in the days of the past, the balconies of the palaces and villas lining the broad Sacra Via were gorgeous with rich gold and purple tapestries—the Forum glowed bright and resplendent with statues and decorated arches—altars smoked with sacrifice in front of columned temples—and the walls and slopes of the Palatine Hill were joyous with triumphal tokens, while, upon the summit, the house of the Cæsars glittered with banners and brave devices, and such costly adornments as were best fitted to grace the festivity and do honor to the exploits of a much-esteemed subject.

We know the scene. At first—in the full blaze of the noonday sun—standing silent and nearly deserted, except by a few workmen and artisans, who here and there lingered to complete the festive preparations, or by scattered parties of the prætorian guard, who, in holiday armor, moved slowly to and fro, to watch that order was maintained. Later—when the shadows deepened, and the air grew cooler—the avenues and prominent positions along the established route of the ovation beginning to fill with that great concourse of varied nationalities and conditions which only the imperial city could display. In the open streets [Pg 289] a disorderly rabble of slaves and bondmen—pouring in steady streams from their kennels behind the palaces and from the unhealthy purlieus of such quarters as had been spared from the architectural encroachments of the wealthy, and allowed to fester in their own neglected corruption. Gathered together in close fraternity, the Briton, the Goth, the African, and the Jew—each bearing his badge of life-long servitude, some even wearing marks of recent chastisement, but almost all awaiting the approaching spectacle with pleased and animated countenances, and in seeming forgetfulness that so many of their own number had graced former displays, and, by their degradation, had afforded amusement to other equally unsympathetic concourses. Among them, the lesser Romans—citizens in name, indeed, but, from their poverty and the overbearing exactions of the patricians, almost as much in slavery as those around them—disdainfully asserting their free birth, and in turn contemned by the slaves themselves, as men to whom liberty was but another title for slow starvation, and who would not dare to resent the vilest insults heaped upon them by noble-owned and protected menials—and now equally with the common herd obliged to submit to the strong argument of sword and lance, as, every little while, the soldiers along the line drove the whole writhing crowd, without distinction, into smaller and more confined compass. Here and there, knights and soldiers of high rank—riding up on horseback, and pushing through the struggling mass of slaves to the front, or more leisurely, but to equal purpose, waiting until their own menials had gone before, and, with mingled threats and blows, had cleared out a vacant space for them. Other crowds, standing in favorable positions upon housetops and upon hastily constructed stagings; and more especially upon the great amphitheatre, whose arches were blackened with clusters of spectators, and whose summit, in place of the last few layers of stone, so soon to be adjusted, had its deep human fringe. Upon palace balconies, patricians and noble ladies, displaying a dazzling array of gold and purple and rare jewelry, and attended by Ethiopian slaves, who, in glittering armlets, stood behind, holding feathered canopies to shield their mistresses from the sun. All this confusing concourse of wealth and poverty each moment increasing in breadth, and density, as every avenue emptied new swarms into the packed arena, until it seemed as though not only all Rome, but half the empire had gathered there.

Later yet, the music of flutes and hautboys—which, for a time, had been only indistinctly heard—breaking upon the ear with a clearer sound, and the van of the procession suddenly emerging into full view from behind the Circus Maximus, and, accompanied by the ringing shout of thousands spreading abroad new and louder welcomes, beginning to file past with rapid steps. First in order, the magistrates in full official robes; the spoils of war; the white sheep dressed for the sacrifice, and the priests bearing the holy vessels of the altar; gay trappings, flaunting standards, and all that could most readily inspire the heart with elation and enthusiasm. After these, and guarded on either side by detached parties of troops, the captives, of barbaric and Grecian origin mostly, but here and there interspersed with men of other races—Jews, Syrians, and Huns—who, through contiguity of place or love of arms or self-interest, or a kindred hatred of the Roman rule, had been drawn into the battle—and who, having bravely stood their ground, striving for success, and with hearts well prepared for the consequences of failure, had been overtaken by the usual defeat, and dragged into utter and hopeless slavery. Among them, men of the Ethiopian race, also—who, having been slaves in Greece, had fought, not for principle or [Pg 290] for freedom, but simply at their owners' bidding, and had thereby, upon being overcome, merely changed one class of masters for another—owners and slaves now knowing no difference in position, but standing involved in the same common fate. Some appearing defiant, others downcast and sullen, a few excited and curious, most of them walking with unfettered limbs, but here and there one heavily chained, betokening a fierce and unsubdued nature, upon which it was still necessary to put restraint. All marching or being dragged along at an equal pace; sometimes with an approximation to military exactness—at other points breaking into a confused mass, as women and children clung despairingly together and prevented the maintenance of any regular order. Around them, the spectators closely pressing, with morbid curiosity, discussing with loud approval the value of whatever of strength or beauty met their eyes, and occasionally greeting some undersized and misshapen victim with jeers of derision. And closing up the straggling line, more soldiers, marching in well-formed ranks, poising aloft myrtle-decked lances, and, while interchanging salutations with the eddying crowd, singing in measured cadence their songs of victory.

And at last, as the sun sank yet lower toward the horizon, a yet brighter brilliancy investing the scene, as far down the line new shouts arose, and the struggling throng caught up the loud acclaim and carried it onward like a great wave, betokening the speedy approach of the most distinguished feature of the procession—the conqueror himself—hailed Imperator by his troops—with his most noble friends clustered about him, the myrtle wreath encircling his brow, and his earnest gaze fixed upon the Capitol, the honorable termination of his route.

In every respect, indeed—except in the display of those few distinctive formalities required to mark, as with a legal stamp, the actual and comparative value of the honor—the same old familiar story, so often hitherto rehearsed upon that line of Sacra Via and of Forum: incense burning upon the altars, which had blazed for other heroes; garlands hanging from the arches which had graced past festivities; and surging crowds, heedful only of the present glory, and, with the customary popular fickleness, ready to forget it all as soon as the fleeting pageant should be over, now with indiscriminating zeal cheering the march of Sergius Vanno as frantically as in other days they had greeted the triumphal cars of Cæsar and of Vespasian.

CHAPTER II.

Gradually the sun approached and dipped below the blue line of extended plain which lay between the city and the sea; the long shadows of afternoon began to blend into the one deeper shade of evening; the groups of distant buildings became more and more indistinct; the arches of the Colosseum softly faded away, leaving but a broad mass of unbroken wall; upon the Palatine Hill the great house of the Cæsars shone less and less gloriously as the sky darkened behind the pile of decorated roofs; here and there a light gleamed from some distant quarter; here and there stars began to glisten in the sky.

Then the concourse of people, who had waited so long and patiently, began to break apart. The pageant was not yet entirely over, for fresh battalions of soldiers still marched past at rapid pace, tuning their steady tramp to the cadence of their songs of triumph. But the great feature of the occasion—the conqueror himself—had ridden by; and what yet remained was but a faint recapitulation of the glories which had gone before. Therefore the patricians retired from their balconies, the horsemen abandoned their stations and plunged down the many streets which led out from the Forum, and the crowd of slaves and menial citizens, [Pg 291] already rendered so indistinct in the fading light as to resemble one writhing, struggling monster rather than separate beings, began to stretch out its long arms into the narrow lanes and byways, and so gradually to melt away.

Withdrawing from the front balcony of the Vanno palace, where, shielded from the sun, she had sat and watched the procession pass by, Ænone, the young and fair wife of the conqueror, now sought rest and retirement in an inner apartment. Thither one of her women had preceded her, and had drawn forward a cushioned lounge, had beaten up the silken pillows, had placed a table near at hand, with a light repast spread upon it, had trimmed and filled with fresh olive oil the large bronze lamp which swung from the ceiling, and now stood by awaiting further orders.

Throwing herself upon the lounge, Ænone covered her face with her hands. What unbidden thought was it that came creeping into her heart to trouble her? Why was it that something of the bright joyousness of spirit with which she looked forward to that day had vanished? Surely nothing had occurred which of itself could bring to her either sorrow or repining. All things had happened as she had anticipated. She had seen her honored lord pass by with the myrtle wreath upon his brow, his most worthy officers at his side, and his bravest guards around him. She had seen that he was strong and without wound, as he had departed from her. She had heard the shouts of applause which had welcomed his approach as though he were a god; and, with her heart generously and unselfishly alive only to his honor, and unable to realize that all this frantic joy and adulation were not the passion of the nation's life, but were merely one single, careless throb of its fevered pulse, she had rejoiced with him, believing that he had indeed done what had made him the greatest of all living men. And, better than all, amid this scene of triumph, he had not seemed unmindful of her, for he had looked up and waved to her a salute, which the responsive crowd had joined in and carried along with redoubled acclamations, and he had sent to her his most trusty slave with a loving message. What, then, could she ask more?

Nothing that she could name, or that if she named, to others, would have seemed a reasonable desire. And yet at her heart there was a certain dim, indistinct foreboding of evil, which she could not entirely repress. Was it that, in his glance, as he rode by and beheld her awaiting him, there was less of longing love than of gratified pride? Or did that flush upon his bronzed face indicate too surely his enjoyment of this pageant for its own sake rather than for the pleasure which he might have supposed that she would derive from it? Was it from forgetfulness of her that, after he had ridden past, he did not again look back to wave one more recognition, but rather seemed to gaze eagerly forward to where the assembled senators stood ready to greet him? Or, on the contrary, were all these merely vague and empty imaginings arising from the exhaustion and wearisomeness of long, impatient waiting?

At length, raising her head, she saw her attendant bondwoman standing at the distance of a few paces, with her hands crossed upon her breast. The steady tramp of marching troops outside had ceased, for the last battalion had passed; and now the only sound was the silver bubbling and plashing of a little fountain that adorned the courtyard upon which the window of the apartment looked out.

'The pageant is over now,' said Ænone, 'and he will soon be here. Let me know as soon as my lord returns.'

The woman bowed her head in silence; and then, feeling that nothing more was wanted of her, slowly turned to depart. As she did so, a new comer entered the room—a male slave of Gallic [Pg 292] birth, who, by reason of his lofty stature as well as wonderful strength, had been promoted from the lowest order of servitude to become Sergius Vanno's armor bearer and chief attendant. In that capacity he had fought through the late campaign, and had now returned, bearing among his fellows his own share of honor for successful and daring exploits. He had been released from personal attendance only a few moments before, and was now carrying back his master's sword and buckler, to hang them up in their accustomed place, and himself subside into well-earned idleness. Being the first time, for many months, that he had seen his mistress, he muttered some rough ejaculations expressive of servile devotion, and then stood in lazy attitude awaiting her permission to speak further.

'Will not return to-night,' the man responded. 'The emperor demands his presence.'

'He knows not how long. But immediately after that there is to be a brave feast at the house of the poet Emilius, and it will doubtless be morning before they separate.'

The armor bearer turned upon his heel and strode away, the sword and buckler, together with his own rougher trappings, rattling at his back as he passed down the hall; and behind him slowly crept away the bondwoman. And Ænone, once more leaning back upon the lounge, gave herself up to sombre reflection.

It was of course no more than proper, she mused, that her lord should obey the behests of the emperor and wait upon him. Perhaps new honors would then be showered down; and, at the least, it was no light privilege to stand in the presence of the ruler of the world, and there give personal narration of his exploits. But when that interview was over, what need to join the revels of another household, instead of hurrying back to place his newly won garlands at her feet?

She pondered upon the dubious reputation which attached to the house of the poet Emilius, and recalled the terrible stories which, from time to time, she had heard regarding it. What might be the realities of the scenes there enacted, none could truly tell, except the few most intimate frequenters of the place; but report gave no flattering description of them. Even among the Roman ladies with whom she was associated, and whose information was confined to such stray bits of gossip as they had picked up from slaves and menials, and who, standing in unconscious awe of her simple purity of heart, often forebore to speak with her as freely and unguardedly as with each other, she had occasionally heard such startling tales of the wild dissipations there enacted, as surpassed conception, and left her horrified senses no calm refuge except in unbelief. The gorgeous feasts, the night-long libations, the social intimacy with dancing girls and gladiators, the mockery of all that was pure and holy, the derisive insults to the gods themselves—these were practices which the public voice connected with the house of Emilius, not as occasional outbreaks of wild frivolity, but as the fixed habits of his daily life. And if these things were true, what claim of pride or policy could such a place advance to distract her lord from the allegiance due to his own home alone?

But possibly these things might not be true. She reflected that the poet was wealthy; and as long as the world continues to be envious, riches will seldom fail to bring false report upon their possessor. He was a man of genius, also; and all such can scarcely fail to find rivals who will turn satirists and attack them in their homes and daily life. Certainly, it is not difficult for slander to magnify the genial gath [Pg 293] erings of kindred spirits into scenes of wild debauchery. And it was also true, that if mere outside appearance is of any value as an index of what is hidden, the slight figure, the pale and almost girlish face, and the winning and courteous demeanor of the poet were far from indicating a man of low and debasing inclinations. Moreover, his writings as surely spoke the contrary; and as she thus reasoned, Ænone lifted from its case a vellum roll with which Emilius himself had presented her, containing many of his poems, exquisitely engrossed. These poems treated not upon the pleasures of wine and love—those fruitful and ever-varying subjects of the Horatian school. Instead of this, they pursued, in deep-sounding and majestically rolling dactyls, the less favorite and trodden track of Socrates and Plato, and discoursed upon temperance and honor—upon the satisfaction derived from a well-spent life, and the delights attending a peaceful death—upon the immateriality of the soul, and the reward bestowed by the gods upon those who have honored them by leading a virtuous career. As Ænone slowly turned over leaf after leaf of the parchment roll, she felt her heart perplexed within her. She could scarcely believe that none of those tales of reckless dissipation were true, for she remembered that some of them had reached her ear attended by evidence so circumstantial that it was impossible to reject them; but, if true, how account for these grand maxims of lofty morality? What object could their author have in thus uselessly playing the hypocrite, when amatory and bacchanalian choruses would not only have been more consonant with his own feelings, but doubtless more acceptable to the world? She had not yet learned what it often takes the wisest man a lifetime to discover—that every inconsistency of conduct is not hypocrisy, but that it is one of the most common idiosyncrasies of the mind to write and believe one thing, and as self-approvingly to feel and act the reverse.

With a sigh she closed the volume, and restored it to its place within the case. Why ponder upon such things as these? The real character of the poet Emilius was, after all, a matter of but little consequence to her. Whether the meeting at his house was a wild, reckless orgy, or a mere intellectual gathering of literary genius, it was none the less certain that her lord was tarrying there, away from her side. But perhaps, indeed, even this was a duty which he owed to his fame and station; and her face brightened up with new hope as the suggestion flashed upon her. It might be that at this feast there would be present some poet of lofty epic powers, or historian of wondrous descriptive talent, ranking as the brightest star of Roman literature; and either of these, if properly conciliated, would doubtless celebrate her lord's exploits so grandly that in future ages his campaign would shine with far greater lustre than if simply committed to parchment in the dry detail of unadorned fact, and so filed away in the national archives. It was most fitting, therefore, that he should not permit his impatient love for her to allow him to neglect the opportunity of cultivating, by a wise and condescending courtesy, the world-renowned talents of these men, and thereby redoubling the resplendence of his own bright fame.

Easily satisfying her mind with this pleasing reasoning, she retired for the night into the innermost apartment—a retreat adorned with every luxury which could gratify pride and administer to a cultivated taste. The floor was covered with tesselated marbles of different shades and arranged in ingenious and novel patterns. The ceiling was resplendent with allegorical frescoes by the most celebrated masters of the day. There were glowing paintings upon the walls, rich tapestries in the windows, embroidered hangings upon the bed. Beside the tables stood [Pg 294] bronze figures holding forth lamps ready trimmed and lighted; fresh flowers had been placed in their allotted vases, and weighed down the air with perfume; and in a deep recess stood the bath ready filled, and scented with carefully plucked rose leaves floating upon the water. But all this display of magnificent luxury and elaborate taste, if regarded by her at all, now seemed to affect her with weariness rather than with pleasure.

Why, as she lay down upon her couch, and prepared to yield herself up to pleasant slumber, did her thoughts wander back to the time when poverty instead of luxury had been her lot? Why did those olden memories of the past so strongly haunt her? They were, perhaps, never entirely absent from her heart; but now they thronged about her with a force that would not bear repression. Perhaps it was that the very magnificence and pomp of power of which she was now the centre, recalled the memory of the distant past, by virtue of strong contrast alone; perhaps that the unsatisfied longing and vague foreboding of her soul necessarily impressed upon her the consciousness that wealth and honor alone cannot give perfect happiness, and thereby naturally led her thoughts back to the time when she had found true content in poverty and loneliness. However that might be, now, as she closed her eyes and shut out the view of the costly adornments around her, more vividly than ever before were pictured before her mind the scenes of her childhood: her father's cottage on the outskirts of Ostia—the olive grove upon the slope behind—the roadside well, where the villagers would sometimes gather about some invalided soldier from the German army, and listen to his tales of the last campaign—and in front, the bay, sparkling in the bright glare of the sun and laden with the corn-freighted ships of Alexandria.

And there, too, was the old wave-worn rock—the scene of her life's only romance—where, stealing out from her father's cabin at the evening hour, and seating herself so close to the waterline that the spray of the tideless sea would dash up and bathe her naked feet, she would wait in all innocence for the coming of the young sailor from Samos. How rapidly those hours used to pass! How pleadingly, on the last evening, he had knelt beside her, with his arm resting upon her knee, and there, gazing up into her face, had asked her for one long tress of hair! How foolish she had been to give it to him; and how earnestly he had vowed that he would come back some day, no longer poor and forlorn, but in his own two-masted vessel, with full banks of oars, manned by the slaves whom he would capture, and would then bear her away unto his own home! And how, like a silly girl, she had believed him, as though wandering sailor boys ever did come back to seek the loving hearts which had trusted them! And so the year had passed away, and, as she might well have known from the first, he had not returned. Nor was it to her regret; for but a little afterward the youthful patrician, already flushed with budding honors, had chanced to meet her; had loved her with a generous passion, lifting him above all sordid calculation about wealth or social differences, and had taught her in turn to bestow upon him an affection more true and absorbing than she had yet believed her heart was able to contain. And so her first romantic dream had ended, as all such childish dreams are apt to end. Let it go. Her heart had found its true bourne; she could well look back upon the past without regret, and smile at the youthful fancies connected with it.

One prayer to the gods—a further special invocation to her favorite goddess, who, at the foot of the couch, stretched forth marble arms lovingly toward her—and then the silver tinkling of the little courtyard fountain lulled her softly to sleep. [Pg 295]

CARL FRIEDRICH NEUMANN, THE GERMAN HISTORIAN OF OUR COUNTRY.

The first volume of a history of the United States by Carl Friedrich Neumann, of Berlin, [2] has just been announced as the first history of our country ever written originally in the German language. The appearance of such a work at this juncture in our national existence, is a noteworthy event, and the man who takes so unique an interest in our affairs should be introduced to our people. Having known him personally and intimately for many years, I shall attempt such sketch, making much of it anecdotal, for which purpose material is not wanting.

Dr. Neumann, born near Bamberg, in the kingdom of Bavaria, of Jewish parents, is now about sixty-five years of age, was educated at Heidelberg, passed over to the Protestant church at Munich, afterward attended lectures at Göttingen, and soon after became rector of the gymnasium at Speyer, but was dismissed from this place on account of the freedom with which he expressed himself on some religious topics in his historical teachings. He gave private lessons for a time in Munich, and then went to learn in a Benedictine monastery in Venice the Armenian language. This was in 1827. In 1829 he studied the Chinese language in Paris, went over to London, and sailed thence to visit India and China. He collected for himself about ten thousand volumes of Chinese works, embracing every department of the literature of this language, and bought for the Royal Library at Berlin two thousand four hundred volumes. Such collections had been till then unknown in Europe, and hence this was quite an event. Returning in 1831 from India, he made a present of all his Chinese books to the Royal Library at Munich, and was appointed conservator of this collection, and professor of Chinese and Armenian in the university of that capital.

Of Dr. Neumann's attainments in Oriental literature I know only what fame says, nor does it concern us much in this sketch. I once, however, sat with him in a retiring room of the Munich Museum (a great reading room), when Baron Tautphoeus, whose accomplished wife is so well known in this country as authoress of the 'Initials' and 'Quits,' entered, and asked if we had seen the notice of Dr. Neumann in the last number of the London Times . The doctor had read it; I had not, but immediately did so. It made him the equal of the greatest orientalists of the past and present ages, comparing him particularly with Klaproth. The Times , it is true, had a motive for this notice, as always, both in its praises and its lampoons. It had found views of Dr. Neumann on British India which it desired to commend, but even in our view this would not cancel the eulogy. His authorship in connection with Chinese and Armenian philosophy and history is very considerable, and outside of this field he won, in 1847, a prize offered by the French Institute for the best work on the 'Historical Development of the Peoples of Southern Russia.'

What was to be done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general history and ethnography. His powers of elocution were of a high order, and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's or Pope's [Pg 296] instinct for making rhymes—it was his nature, and could not be whipped out of him; and it was equally natural that it should assume the form of wit and humor.

There are not a few anecdotes in the popular mouth illustrating this trait. He seems to have had no great liking to that race of men called kings, and it is said that he once alluded to them, in a lecture, in the not very respectful remark that 'they were numbered, like the hacks in our streets.' The reader's apprehension of the point of another anecdote, in which Dr. Neumann appears in an attitude not very respectful to his own sovereign, Louis II of Bavaria, will depend upon his knowing something of the situation and history of the university buildings in Munich. The king, among the many things he did for the architectural adorning of the city, built a street to be called by his name. It is all outside of the old wall, and its outer end is closed by a triumphal arch. Next to this, and outside of the city as it then was, the king purchased ground, perhaps because it was cheap, and built the present university edifice. As much farther out of the then city proper lies the miserable little town of Schwabing. Professors and students disliked to be taken so far from their lodgings and their beerhouses, and the old university had been quite within the city. When the removal took place, Dr. Neumann sketched the history of the institution in a lecture, referring to its original establishment at Ingolstadt, its removal thence to Landschut, and thence to Munich, and then added, that 'his Majesty King Louis II had now been pleased to remove it to Schwabing .' We can imagine the sensation which such a sally would produce among students already stirred up for its appreciation, by having to walk from a half mile to a mile from those depots of beer barrels from which so many of them sucked their sluggish life and inspiration. But such jokes were not treason, or contempt of majesty, or anything else against law.

It should be added in this connection, for Dr. Neumann's benefit, that these stories, and many of the kind, are floating around, and are just like him, but I have never had any confirmation of them from him, and in all our intercourse, which was frequent and intimate for six years, while he spoke much and freely in favor of democratical and against monarchical institutions, I never found him indulging in coarse and clamorous denunciations of his king or Government.

When the great revolutionary movement of 1848 broke upon the land, the sovereigns of Germany saw and accepted their condition. The popular mind was so penetrated by this unrest, and the revolutionary leaders were so substantial in character, that resistance was folly, and the monarchs yielded, waiting the time when some change would enable them to divide the revolutionists and turn them against each other. They allowed and even encouraged the formation at Frankfort of a provisional Parliament, called the Fore-Parliament, which looked toward a permanent central Government at that place for united Germany. Of this body Dr. Neumann was a member. It was a fine field for the display of his free and liberal instincts, and we cannot conceive of his passing through its debates without making large drafts upon his exhaustless fund of humor and sarcasm. It would be strange, indeed, if he could witness the dawn of that freedom which he loved without showing signs of exultation, accompanied with occasional taunts at the regime which was passing away and seemed already beyond recovery.

But, although a regular Parliament followed—although a quasi emperor was elected in the person of the Archduke John of Austria, and his way, as he proceeded to Frankfort, was a perfect triumphal procession—although he selected his ministers, set them to work, [Pg 297] and Parliament was progressing with its constitution, and this continued for almost a year, still, that which the shrewd ministers of some of the sovereigns had doubtless foreseen and waited for, came. Radicals outran their wiser and more rational brethren, and took up arms. They would demolish at once those sovereignties which would have died by the slow action of time, had the central Government been fully established and wisely administered. But this new Government rather deliberated than acted. That which more than all else arouses the German mind—the Schleswig-Holstein question, identified as it is with the great question of the unity of the Teutonic race—was not taken up by the Government at Frankfort, but by that at Berlin. In the mean time the several Governments of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria had gained the mastery over their own domestic revolutions, so that they could act more freely. Austria called home its archduke and its members in the Frankfort Parliament, and finally the whole movement subsided into the old order of things.

The various Governments were now in a position in which they could punish those disturbers of their peace who had endangered their very existence. Of these Dr. Neumann was one, and in 1852 he was notified that his lectures were no longer needed in the university of Munich. It was doubtless thought that he would make some slight formal concessions, and be permitted to continue his active duties, as others had done. But he felt too independent. He had means to live upon. His retiring pension could not be withheld. He could now, moreover, give his individual powers to authorship, without feeling hampered by the thought that he had a Government to please. He has persevered in this course, notwithstanding the express wish of the philosophical faculty for his return to active duty in the university.

He had been occupied with a history of the British empire in India. To this he gave increased attention, and published it some years ago; but the Indian rebellion breaking out soon after its publication, he was led to sketch its history as an appendix. His investigations in the East brought him in contact with the peculiar history of the Japanese empire, and he threw off by the way a brief history of Japan, devoting a chapter to the results of the American expedition thither.

It was while prosecuting his inquiries into the history of Eastern Asia, that he met with such evidences of the commercial enterprise of the United States, and obtained such views of the future of our country, as to conceive the thought of writing its history for the German people, commencing with the war of 1812, the point at which he considered our wonderful growth and expansion to have begun; and long before finishing his history of British India, he was collecting material for this work. He found, however, that he could not begin at the point he had chosen without striking upon roots and rudely severing them, which had struck deeply into the soil of all the earlier periods of our existence. His plan was therefore enlarged.

The breaking out of the rebellion was a sad blow to him—it could not have been more so to an American. It was likely not only to spoil our country, but his history of it. It either cut off or dimmed or confused that prospect of growth and expansion which had been stretched out interminably before him. He read the daily London Times —he had for years taken the New York Herald , and his reliance upon this sheet had been rather too implicit. Years before the breaking out of the rebellion, I had suggested this, and introduced to him the New York Times and Evening Post , one of which he has taken ever since, not, however, without occasional intervals of sighing for his old companion the Herald , much as his ancestors, after having left Egypt, sighed [Pg 298] for its leeks and onions. Although he coupled the Herald and London Times — par nobile fratrum —as joint sharers of a favorite epithet of his— great liars —he still liked to read them.

Dr. Neumann had been a Democrat in his politics—for he was familiar with our distinctions in this country—but since the outbreak of the rebellion he has scarcely known where to place himself. He had made the personal acquaintance of Buchanan, when that 'old public functionary' was our Minister in London, and felt, as was quite natural, a little vain of this acquaintance when Buchanan became the head of the Government of that unseen land of his most enthusiastic admiration. The man, however, was less than the country, and he could drop him; but he still desired to see him succeeded by a Democrat. We often had little spats, in which I took the ground that such had been the extravagant demands of the South, made through the platforms of that party, that with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a Republican. But after the rebellion , his friends never knew what he was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause. In that land, where a thousand volunteers could not be raised to save a throne, how did his heart swell with just pride when the President called for seventy-five thousand, and afterward in succession for hundreds of thousands, and they came forth at the call! How depressed at instances of want of skill or decision in Government or generals! He nearly lost his patience with young men who were quietly pursuing their studies in Europe, when their country was in peril and its armies needed them; and he quite lost it when he met Americans who sympathized with the rebellion, or even seemed indifferent to their country's fortunes.

There was an American lady in Munich, soon after the rebellion broke out, whose husband had died some years before, while holding a position in the army which entitled her to a pension, for which she had drawn while there. She had heard of Professor Neumann's love for our country and country people, but had no idea of the strictness of his discrimination between the parties—thought that he might feel much like the thousands of Germans who quietly ask us which side we are on—she may, too, have inferred something from his having a brother in Savannah, Georgia. She soon found her mistake; for he informed her, in terms of no doubtful import, that his sympathy did not embrace those of her class; and thus the result of the pleasant visit she had promised herself was little short of being turned out doors.

About the 10th of December, 1861, we had at our house a little company of about thirty persons, and Dr. Neumann, with his wife and two daughters, was among them. An American gentleman, who had been known to his family and ours, had left for Russia two years before, and returned that very day, was one of the company, and we had not yet learned his views of secession. The first thing with Dr. Neumann and his daughters was to know how he stood on this question. They found him a rebel, and in giving him their minds in relation to this matter, one of the daughters expressed to him her wonder that I should allow him to enter my house as they would not allow him in theirs. The stir made in the company by this little brush at arms arrested the attention of all, and gave the Americans their first information as to where our quondam friend stood, as well as set them an example of zeal and enthusiasm in their own cause. [Pg 299]

I must close this notice with an incident which lies quite outside of Dr. Neumann's relations to America and Americans. On his retirement from his university labors, he withdrew mainly from the exciting scenes of public life. But in November, 1859, occurred the centennial anniversary of Schiller's birth. Of all the men connected with German popular literature, Schiller is most in the hearts of the people of Germany. The spirit of liberty shown in his 'William Tell'—his exile from his native Wirtemberg for the free expressions used in the first play he ever wrote—his high order of genius as a poet and historian—the subjects he chose, and the way he treated them, and, finally, his social and domestic character, have all combined to endear him to the whole people. This festival was everywhere observed, and with the highest enthusiasm; for although Governments were afraid of its effects, they were still more afraid to refuse permission to hold it. It lasted for several days, on one of which was a great public dinner, with several hundred in attendance, of which Dr. Neumann consented to be one. Champagne flowed freely, and although I did not taste this beverage, and know by experience little of its effects, it was easy to perceive that the animation could not all be accounted for by love to the memory even of Schiller. Poems were read, and speeches were made describing his character as poet, historian, or otherwise, according to the fancy of each speaker. I remember one from Bodenstedt, than whom few stand higher in the walks of polite literature, and one from Sybel, than whom no one in Germany ranks higher as a historian. Dr. Neumann, who, like an old parade horse long withrawn from the excitements of a parade, felt amid these scenes the spirit of former days stirred within him, rose to speak. We shall be prepared to appreciate the effect when we get an idea of the preternatural sensitiveness of those who composed the audience. A well-known poet, who may perhaps be called the poet-laureate of Bavaria, had read a poem on the occasion. It contained nothing to which any one could object, as we might infer from his position with the king, and yet I heard the poet himself say a few days afterward that the editors of a certain well-known journal, in publishing it, left out the stanzas containing the word Freiheit (liberty), so fearful were they of not pitching their tune to a key that would suit royal and Government ears. A similar sensitiveness pervaded the whole body present—nearly all drew their bread and beer from the Government, and did not wish it stopped or diminished. This class had gotten up the meeting, and hoped to control it. When they saw Dr. Neumann rise, they felt that there was a man naturally fearless, and now quite beyond that special sense of danger which made them cautious. Recollection passed over his seven years' silence, and called up the power with which he had harangued in other years. Nor was it so much what he said as the man who said it, which produced the effect, and yet there was much in the speech. He said that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and historian; but nothing had been said of him as a politician , and he should speak of him in this character. The rising of such a man was an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe tremble from centre to circumference. The word politician was a second shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded to compare Schiller with Goethe—the former frankly addressing himself to his friend in correspondence on the great questions of their politics, and trying to draw him out, the latter , then a minister of state, cautiously and warily declining to expose his views—he but carried out the impression made in his rising and his announcement. It [Pg 300] was the only properly stump speech—I use the phrase in the high sense in which it might be used of O'Connell or Clay—I ever heard in Germany.

Such is the man who has undertaken to write our country's history for the Germans. Of his work I have said nothing, for I have not seen it; I write this impromptu on seeing the newspaper announcement of the first volume. He will doubtless do much to set us right in the eyes of his own people, where, however, there is less need of this than in another land, whose people are more nearly related to us, where such service, however, is less likely to be done.

THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.

PART THREE.

In the last preceding article on this subject in The Continental , we concluded by considering the consequences of an early victory of the North over the entire South, followed by the restoration of the old Union upon precisely the old basis . We showed that, in such an event, the war would have been barren of results even to the extent of removing its own cause, or preventing its almost immediate and more desperate renewal; that the question at issue is a question of paramount governing power between two adverse theories of social existence; between two distinct and conflicting civilizations; between two antagonistic and irreconcilable political and moral forces; and that it must be fought out to the complete subordination of the less advanced or more barbarous and backward-tending of those forces—unless the wheels of progress on this continent are to be reversed, and the watchword of despotism be substituted for that of freedom: not only that it must be fought out on the battle field, but that the fruits of the victory must not be blindly or foolishly surrendered after the obvious and external victory is won.

We may say here, however, for the purpose of reserving the still more radical consideration of the nature of this conflict for some future day, that, adverse as these theories of social existence are—distinct and conflicting as are these two civilizations—antagonistic and irreconcilable as these contending political and moral forces now seem, and for present practical purposes must be taken to be—they are not essentially irreconcilable. Slavery, bad as it is, represents a truth in the larger Compound Truth of an Integral Social Philosophy. A deeper understanding of the whole problem of human society, possessed by the leading personages, North and South, would have saved the necessity of this war—would at this day even, adjust it peaceably, harmoniously, and perfectly, and would render unnecessary the whole view of the subject which we are now taking. The world, however, is not yet quite prepared for the peaceable intervention of scientific and truly philosophic methods in the settlement of its disputes; and the knowledge of the existence, even, of such methods, is as yet too little diffused to make them in any sense available for the purposes of the hour. The point of view from which these papers are being written, is, indeed, as stated in the last preceding number, higher than that of the ordinary politician, the [Pg 301] constitutional lawyer, or even that of common statesmanship and patriotic devotion. It is a point of view from which the interests of all mankind are taken into the account, and hence pertains, in a sense, to the domain of practical philosophy, or the universal aspect of politics; the politics of the globe and of all humanity, in all time. But it offers still a presentation of the subject toned down to the actual state of readiness in the world to hear reason, and to be influenced or governed by the suggestions contained in the writing. It is therefore an adaptation to an imperfect order of things, a mixed or concrete phase of political practical philosophy, which is the most that can now be aspired to. The point of view in question is therefore far lower than that of a final social philosophy having its basis in a perfect scientific theory, and working out from that basis into practical life. Perhaps, as will be again suggested in the course of this article, the events of this war may conduce to a readiness on this continent, or may create an earnest demand even, for higher solutions and the thorough treatment, by some competent mind, of all our Political and Sociatory problems. The day, however, for such a radical diagnosis and treatment of the disease of human society has not yet arrived.

In the mean time we must content ourselves with partial remedies, alleviations, best temporary resorts, and even desperate expedients. It is from this stand-point that the writer of these articles now speaks; that, feeling deeply in his heart and recognizing clearly in his head the common brotherhood and the equal essential manhood of the inhabitants of the Southern and Northern States—sympathetically and socially drawn, even, to the Southern side, by many endearing associations and recollections; that, clearly appreciating the fratricidal nature of this war—its essential non-necessity, if men were wise enough to avail themselves of better known and feasible, methods—he still deliberately and forcibly insists, under the circumstances which are, that the North should not only fight out the war to the last word of determinate conquest, but that it should, with wise but merciless rigor, extinguish the cause of the war, and hold with unflinching hand every advantage it gains, until new institutions and new methods of thought shall have been securely planted on every inch of the soil of the South.

Since, even, the last previous part of this series of papers was sent to the press, new and alarming indications have appeared in various quarters, of the drift in the public mind—North—in favor of an easy-going and conceding policy toward the South as the war draws to a close; a policy which would be nearly certain to lose to ourselves and to the world all the benefits of the war; to deprive the South, even, of those higher and ulterior benefits which would come to her also; to leave untouched the causes of the war, and to foster its early renewal with more than its former desperation.

Not to mention the reiterated and urgent renewals of the subject of reconstruction in quarters where we are accustomed to look for a partial loyalty or a covert opposition to the war, articles like the following, from the New York Times , of November 19th, frequently appear in the undoubtedly loyal press:

'Reconstruction .—Since we have been at the trouble of conquering the rebels in the State of Arkansas—since, after many great victories, we have now complete military possession of the State, and have armies posted on its eastern, western, and northern lines, and at its capital in the centre—we think it would be worth while in the Government to take steps to reorganize the civil administration there, and inaugurate a system of policy such as was adopted in Missouri two years ago, and which has proved so successful in pacifying that State. The loyal element in Arkansas is large, as is made [Pg 302] evident by the action of the people wherever our forces have penetrated, and by the enlistment of a good number of its citizens in the armies of the Union. One of the Senators from Arkansas, Senator Sebastian, whose term of office is as yet unexpired, is, and always has been, we believe, a sound loyal man; and Mr. Gantt, who was elected to Congress just before the outbreak of the rebellion, has recently given proof of his repentance and devotion to the Union in the remarkable address which we published last week. We do not see why the process of reconstruction might not be at once commenced in Arkansas, and why, before the close of next session, the State might not have a full congressional delegation in Washington.'

Not a word is here said of the important question of Slavery. The proposition is pure and simple to readmit the rebellious State of Arkansas to the Union, upon precisely the same footing as that upon which we retained the allegiance of Missouri—to treat, in other words, loyal and rebellious States in the same way.

In a subsequent article of the same able journal, one of the organs of the Republican party, this easy-going policy, the laissez-faire of statesmanship, is expanded at large, and explicitly adopted and recommended. The appearance of such an article in such a quarter is such a remarkable index of the existence in the public mind of the delusions we are exposing, that we transfer it bodily to our columns, for the sake of commenting upon its positions. Calhoun's famous expression, 'masterly inactivity,' is significantly adopted as a caption:

'Civil Policy toward Slavery .—There is a class of men who stick to the idea that something positive must be done by the Federal Government to end slavery. Even the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, a military measure for military ends solely, does not satisfy them. They want civil power exercised, and would gladly have even a breaking down of State lines and a reconstruction of the Government itself, as the only effectual means of destroying the institution of their special abhorrence.

'Now we, too, claim a good hearty hatred of slavery. We are as anxious as any to see it under the sod, beyond resurrection. But we don't believe in making any superfluous sacrifice to get it there. Seeing that it is dying, we are quite content to let it die quietly, without any attempt to pull the house down about its ears and our own ears. This seems to us to be a very absurd sort of impatience—prompted by giddy passion rather than sober reason.

'But how do we know slavery is dying? We know it from the unanimous testimony of all personal observers of its condition. There is not a man within the Union lines South, however friendly he may be to the institution, who pretends that there is any chance whatever of its being saved, if present causes continue . Two things are killing it.

' The first is the wear and tear of the war. Military operations always tend to disjoint and break up, within their scope, all the relations of society. They inevitably remit, to a greater or less extent, the social man to a state of nature. Inter arma leges silent . This is felt in every social connection, even the closest and strongest; for they all are, more or less, dependent on civil law. But it must be felt particularly in that connection, which of all others is the most forced and arbitrary—the connection between master and slave. Liberty is a natural instinct. The caged bird is not surer to fly through the parted wires than the slave, in his ordinary condition, from the broken chain— and the chain must be broken when the civil law, which alone gives it strength, passes away . There are men who complain of the anti-slavery war policy of the President. A policy that was anything else would not be a war policy at all. The war upon the rebellious slaveholding people of necessity involves an interruption of their laws; and unless the advancing army should make good this absence of civil rule by applying its own military power to keeping watch and ward over the slaves, and thus abandon its proper military business, the result is inevitable that the institution must melt away as the war goes on . Abraham Lincoln might be as much attached to slavery as Jefferson Davis himself, and yet no human sagacity would enable him to fight Jefferson Davis honestly and effec [Pg 303] tually without mortal injury to slavery. It is the war which kills slavery, and not the man who leads the war .

' The other destroying agency in open discussion . Slavery can live only in silence. There is a deadly antagonism between itself and free speech. Where the one exists the other cannot. The vitality of the one rests in pure force, and force and reason never agree. It always has been, and always will be, that force must either suppress reason or reason will subvert force. One of the first acts of the slavery propagandists in Kansas was to pass enactments through their spurious Legislature, making it a felony, punishable by imprisonment and hard labor, for any man to 'assert or maintain by speaking or writing that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory.' It has been so in every Slave State, and worse. Not only have slave codes interdicted, in every one of them, all adverse discussion of the institution, but a mob power has always been at hand to take summary vengeance upon it with Lynch law. These resorts were not a mere caprice; they were a necessity . Slavery being once accepted as the prime object, there was no alternative but to protect it just in this manner. But the war has ended all that. There can be no mobs where the bayonet governs; nor arbitrary local laws where general military law is paramount. The discussion of slavery is as free now in New Orleans as in New York . It is no more within the province of the military Governor, Shepley, to interfere with fair discussion there, than it is within the rightful power of the civil Governor, Seymour, to interfere with it here. And in the Border States, where the civil laws still prevail, hostility to the rebellion has excited such a dissatisfaction with slavery as its cause, that by general consent perfect freedom is allowed in arguing against the institution. The consequence of this freedom has been that Missouri has already determined to abolish it; Maryland and Delaware have put declared emancipationists in places of their highest trusts by unprecedented majorities; and Kentucky is visibly casting about to see how she can best rid herself of the curse.

' We say, then, that even if the National Government had the right to institute new civil measures against slavery, it would not be necessary. The unavoidable military operations of the war, and the free discussion which is sure to attend it, are enough of themselves to break down the institution. The Government has simply to stand quiet, and let these agencies work .'

The italics are our own, inserted for the sake of more easy reference. Not only is it unnecessary, according to this writer, to take any active and positive steps against Slavery at the South, but so soon as the rebel States wish to return within the Union, with all their old privileges and with Slavery surviving, they should be permitted to do so, and should be received with open arms. The Proclamation of Emancipation itself is thus quietly wiped out, and a policy sketched which, in the event of mere military defeat on their part, would, in the next place, be the most acceptable of all possible policies;—not to the loyal black men who are now struggling, fighting, and dying alongside of us, in the ranks; not to the small and feeble but growing anti-slavery party, which, in the presence of, and under the protection of our armies of the North, is just springing up and consolidating itself in the South;—but to Jefferson Davis himself, and to all the devoted and fanatical adherents of the slaveholding system in the South, and their 'Copperhead' friends in the North. The Times article concludes as follows:

'But we go farther, and say, that any other interference would not only be superfluous, but positively mischievous. To insure that slavery, when it dies, shall never rise again, you have got to depend largely upon the disposition of the Southern people. That disposition should not be needlessly embittered. It can't help becoming so if, as some propose, their States are reduced to the condition of mere territorial dependencies. Americans can never be satisfied to be underlings. Whatever the fortunes of war legitimately bring, they are sensible enough to submit to; but it is not in their spirit to consent to any permanent degradation. Undertake to deprive them permanently of their civil rights, and you simply make them your permanent [Pg 304] enemies. Territorialize them because you hate slavery, and the inevitable effect will be that you will only make them love slavery the more, and hate you the more. This could not always continue. State rights, sooner or later, would have to be restored. We don't believe that three years would elapse after the close of the war before the keeping those States in a territorial condition would be abandoned as an insufferable anomaly in our system of government. State rights once restored, the people, maddened by the thrall that had been put upon them, would be very likely to vindicate these rights by rehabilitating slavery. Every incentive of high pride and every impulse of low spite would combine to urge this; and the National Government would have no legitimate way of preventing it .

'It will never do to try to give slavery its lasting quietus by mere arbitrary force. To secure this we have got to rely in no small measure upon reason. We must never forget that just as Force is the natural ally of Slavery, just so Reason is the natural ally of Freedom. When the South has been overcome in fair fight, we must give its reason a fair chance to assert itself . Military authority over each reclaimed State should last until the majority of the people have made up their mind to resume, in good faith, their old relations to the Government, and have had a fair opportunity to canvass how that resumption shall best be inaugurated. Of course the machinery of the State Government cannot be given over to traitors; but whenever there is sound reason to believe that a fair loyal majority of the State want it, let them have it—and that, too, without imposing any conditions concerning slavery. If this just and rational policy is faithfully carried out, and no arbitrary issues are foisted in to impose a sense of subordination, we have not a doubt that every Slave State will follow the emancipating policy which the Border States, of their own accord, have already entered upon with such decision. Even if loyal duty don't prompt it, interest will. For slavery, after having been crippled as it has been by the war, even if it could live, would only be an encumbrance. But it can't live. It is already half dead. Let the loyal men of the South finish it and bury it in their own way .'

Compare, now, in the fair spirit of criticism, the beginning and the end of this unstatesman-like editorial. Slavery, we are emphatically told, is dying; first, because the presence of the war in its immediate vicinity is killing it; and, secondly, because free discussion, excited by the war and the presence of Northern influence incidental to the war, is killing it— therefore let us hasten to withdraw the military power, and the causes of free discussion, where, for a century, it has been annihilated until now, and has only now begun to exist, and leave in full activity all the causes of reaction and the reëstablishment of the old STATUS. 'There is not the slightest chance, whatever,' says the writer, 'of slavery being saved , IF PRESENT CAUSES CONTINUE.' Therefore hasten to discontinue present causes, by all means, and surrender the field to the operation of the old causes. 'The chain' of the slave ' must be broken when the civil law, which alone gives it strength, passes away .' Therefore hasten to restore the civil law to its old and tyrannical potency over the destiny of the slave. ' The institution must melt away as the war goes on .' Therefore, hasten not merely to finish the active stage of the war, but to surrender the power which victory will place in your hands to continue the same emancipating influences ; and to surrender it into the hands of men avowedly hostile to your policy, and who have been conquered fighting for their franchise to enslave.

' Not only ,' continues our editor, ' have slave codes interdicted, in every one of the Slave States, all adverse discussion of the institution, but a mob power has always been at hand to take summary vengeance upon it with Lynch law. These resorts were not a mere caprice; they were a necessity .' Hasten, therefore, to reëstablish these engines of terrorism and the institution which inevitably demands their existence. Ignore and set aside the Proclamation of Emancipation; betray the auxiliary black man; throttle and destroy the incipient party of freedom in its birth; turn the Young South, just rising into existence as the [Pg 305] friend of liberty and progress, over, stripped and unprotected, into the hands of the Old South, with its thongs, its thumbscrews, and its Lynch law; throw aside, the moment it is acquired, the power to civilize and regenerate the South—not because the war and the free discussion which accompany the war have killed slavery , but because they are killing it , and will be sure to kill it unless they are speedily withdrawn.

'But the war,' we are told, 'has ended all that. There can be no mobs where the bayonet governs; nor arbitrary local laws where general military law is paramount. The discussion of slavery is as free now in New Orleans as it is in New York.' True: therefore , hasten to restore the reign of mobs, or you will hurt the feelings of the men who make the mobs. Withdraw speedily 'the general military law,' and its 'paramount' control, expressly in order that the operation of 'the arbitrary local laws' may be resumed. Urge up the measures which will put an end to the state of affairs in which 'the discussion of slavery is as free in New Orleans as it is in New York.'

'And in the Border States, where the civil laws still prevail, hostility to the rebellion has excited such a dissatisfaction with slavery as its cause, that, by general consent, perfect freedom is allowed in arguing against the institution.' This is true while a United States force is in the vicinity to overawe traitors—while the friends of freedom feel confident that they have the strength of a nation at their back to aid them in resisting the local tyranny; hasten, therefore, to remove these supports, and leave them to struggle single handed and hopelessly against an inveterate and hoary despotism, which knows no law higher than its own will; and which has always been competent to crush out every rising aspiration toward freedom; until the accidental advantages of the war encouraged that timid utterance of true American sentiment in those quarters which is just now beginning feebly to make itself heard and felt. Hasten, therefore, to withdraw that support at the instant of time when the local friends of freedom have just been induced to declare themselves, and so to become the unshielded victims of slaveholding vindictiveness the instant the provisional security of the new party derived from abroad ceases to exist. What would 'the dissatisfaction with slavery' from 'hostility to the rebellion' have amounted to in Maryland, as a power, against the haughty and overbearing authority of the slaveholding Despotism, at the commencement of the war, without the intervention of General Butler; or that of Missouri, without that of General Fremont? What would that same dissatisfaction with Slavery amount to at this very day even, in those States, against the reflex wave of pro-slavery influence and power, if all influence from the armies and authority of the United States were completely withdrawn? Or, granting even that in those two Border States, the most advanced of all, the most under ordinary influences from the Free States, there is already inaugurated an Anti-slavery Movement which would retain energy enough to carry on the struggle without foreign aid—which even is extremely doubtful; the case would stand wholly otherwise in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or Arkansas, where no well-constituted Party of Freedom has as yet achieved any successes, and where the slaveholding interest and desperation are ten times stronger than they are in the Border States.

' 'We say, then, says the Times writer, ' that even if the National Government had the right to institute new civil measures against slavery, it would not be necessary. The unavoidable military operations of the war, and the free discussion which is sure to attend it, are enough of themselves to break down the institution. The Government has simply to stand quiet and let those influences work. '

All this, urged for the purposes for which it is here urged, is simply crying, [Pg 306] Peace! peace! when there is no peace. If these influences, the presence of the war power and free discussion, be to continue, very good. Then, indeed, is there a chance, amounting almost to a certainty, that Slavery will have to succumb, and all of these considerations, urged as a reason why the war power should be retained for an adequate period over the Slave States, even after their nominal submission, and free discussion encouraged and protected by that power—which we understand to be the policy recommended by General Butler—are consequent, logical, and patriotic; but put forth as reasons why we should hasten to surrender the influence over the destiny of man which has been so providentially, and yet with such immense sacrifice, placed in our hands, they are practically hostile to the vital purposes of the war, however honest and simple minded may be the individuals who recommend them.

Again: 'Territorialize them because you hate slavery, and the inevitable result will be that you will only make them love slavery the more,' etc.

It is not our purpose to insist on the technical process of territorializing the conquered rebel States. What we do insist on is that the military authority, which the nation has so laboriously asserted and acquired over them, shall not be withdrawn until the natural and necessary and appropriate consequences of the war shall have been attained; and that among these is the inauguration of Freedom instead of the reinstitution of that hideous anomaly of the nations, American Slavery. We insist that the rising, but as yet the feeble and timid Freedom Party of the South, including the blacks and a growing number of the poor whites, so fast as they become rightly informed, with a small number of enlightened, generous, and noble-minded men of the planter class, who sympathize with freedom, and are truly loyal in sympathy and soul to American principles and the American Government, be regarded and treated as the new and loyal South; and not a trumped-up party, which may arise any day, of as bitter traitors as ever lived, but who, seeing the hopelessness of their cause, which is, at bottom, Slavery, and nothing else, under the present issue of war, shall give in a hollow and pretended profession of loyalty, in order to secure, by other means, the same end. Does this truly loyal party at the South anywhere as yet wish the withdrawal of the protection of the General Government, and desire to be turned over to the tender mercies of their false and subtle enemy—which are unheard-of cruelties? Let the representation of the thousand loyal men from Middle Tennessee, recently made to the President of the United States, answer. On the contrary, there is nothing which those men so greatly dread—nothing which so checks their more rapid development as a party—as the fear that they may be so abandoned before their work is sufficiently advanced to secure its completion.

The three years which the Times writer concedes to the existence of an anomaly in our Government, may be amply enough to accomplish all that is required. So far from imbittering the feelings of the true friends of the Union in the South, assurance of the continuance of such a protection over them, even for that length of time, would infuse new confidence and new activity into all their movements. It is clearly the right of the policeman to judge when the mob is effectually suppressed, and as much his duty not to allow himself to be surprised and over-mastered by a pretended and hollow submission for the sake of seizing an advantage, as it is to inflict effectual blows of his cudgel while the row is in its more flagrant stages of development. The United States, having interfered by force to suppress a national riot, has a clear right, and a bounden duty, not to abandon the region of the disturbance until the animus of rebellion is subdued as effectually as its open mani [Pg 307] festation; and knowing that that animus is identical with the spirit, purposes, and designs of the slaveholding class—a conspiracy, in fine, to overthrow the Government in that sole behalf—it is alike bound effectually to cripple or actually to exterminate that malign influence.

Again says our writer under review: ' When the South has been overcome in fair fight, we must give its reason a chance to assert itself. ' Very true, if the mode of doing so be not foolishly misunderstood. The error here is in speaking of the South as one, whereas from this time forward and for some years to come, there will be an Old South, rebellious at heart, malignant, defiant, cruel, and revengeful to the last degree—bold, accustomed to rule with unquestioned authority—and, when conquered, refusing to remain conquered, except as the grapple of the conqueror is still at its throat; and a New South, loyal, loving, and devoted to its deliverers, but timid, shrinking, and tentative of its powers—liberty-loving, and truly American in sentiment, but unused to the exercise of political supremacy, unorganized, and weak;—an old South, refusing every appeal to reason, and only thirsting for vengeance; and a new South, ready to reason and to be reasoned with, and looking gratefully to the National Government as its guide and protector in the unequal contest before it—more fearful to it than ever—at the close of the war. How, then, shall we 'give the reason of the South a chance to assert itself'? By withdrawing our support from our friends, and the friends of America, and of man, in the South, and turning them over, like sheep to the wolves, to their unreasoning and vindictive enemies; or by standing by them in the weakness of their first essay to depend on reason and justice in the place of force or fraud; by developing, in fine, the reason of the South, which has been for a century overridden and suppressed by the incubus of an organized despotism, from which there is now, for the first time, the chance of a redemption, if these friends of Southern reason do not commit a blunder in their understanding of the case?

' Whenever ,' says the Times writer, ' there is sound reason to believe that a sound loyal majority of the State want it (reconstruction), let them have it—and that, too, without imposing any conditions concerning slavery .' That is to say, abandon the Proclamation of Emancipation, betray the colored man, who, trusting to our faith, is now enrolling himself in our armies; betray the timid friends of freedom, who, by our encouragement, have dared to proclaim their love of liberty, and subject themselves to inevitable banishment or extermination, unless the programme of a new free South be executed triumphantly and to the letter; furnish to the most malignant slaveholding faction an equal chance at the very least, on a hollow pretence of loyalty, to recover the ascendant and annihilate the new party of emancipation and a regenerated South; and all this to save the Southern malignants from being subjected to an unpleasant sense of 'subordination;' to prevent imbittering their sentiments; as if it were possible to add bitterness to gall, or venom to the virus of the rattlesnake. The most imbittering and offensive thing that can ever be done to those men is done the moment you pronounce the words of freedom and human rights, in conjunction with each other, as if they were the same thing. That done, every other measure grows mild. To territorialize the whole South, and place a satrap over every parish and county of it—saying no word for freedom—would be a gentle and conciliating procedure compared with the most innocent utterance of a mere sentiment in behalf of emancipation and the elevation of the negro to the status of a man. Why, then, strain at a gnat when we have already swallowed a camel? If we mean anything by Emancipation Proclamations, [Pg 308] the organization of negro troops, or even by our own inherent love of liberty, nothing after that need ever be handled gingerly with the South. Every recommendation to abstain from giving her offence is simply a recommendation to recede, not only from our whole war policy now so happily inaugurated, but to recede from every genuine and efficient sentiment the Northern people may entertain, or ever have entertained, in behalf of the distinctively American idea: the freedom and equality before the law of all men.

'If this just and rational policy is faithfully carried out,' continues our editor, 'and no arbitrary issues are foisted in to impose a sense of subordination, we have not a doubt that every Slave State will follow the emancipating policy which the Border States, of their own accord, have already entered upon with such decision. Even if loyal duty don't prompt it, interest will; for slavery, after having been crippled, as it has been by the war, even if it could live, would only be an encumbrance. But it can't live. It is already half dead. Let the loyal men of the South finish it and bury it in their own way'.

Now it is precisely this simple-minded and easy credence that everything will go right if it be at once handed over to the management of the men who may have been whipped in the battle field—this overweening confidence on the part of good men, and intelligent men, too, in the ordinary sense of intelligence, at the North, which is the most dangerous feature of the whole matter. We are just entering upon the real crisis of the war, when the war, by many, will be thought finished. It is exceedingly doubtful whether in any single Border State the Anti-slavery Movement has received as yet any such impetus or gained any such secure foothold that it could maintain the struggle for a six months, if the influence growing out of the presence of the war in their midst were withdrawn, and the political power were remanded in full to the local authorities; and, in respect to the States farther South, and wholly committed to the institution, it is certain that Slavery has hardly received what would prove a serious scratch upon its epidermis, if such changes were now to take place.

Indeed, on the contrary, there was never a time when temptation to slaveholding was a third part what it is to-day, aside from the threat of danger hanging over it from the continuance of the war, and the supposed determination of the Northern conquerors to put an end to it. The vital principle of Slavery which overrides every other consideration, is the extra-profitable nature and state of slave-labor products. The writer has himself seen Slavery firmly seated in the saddle and unassailable in an exposed region of the South, with cotton at from eight to twelve cents on the pound, and the same institution trembling toward its downfall when cotton fell to four and a half and five cents on the plantation. What must then be its hold on the cupidity of Southern men when the condition of Slavery, by virtue of the same state of war which threatens its existence on the one hand, has caused the price of cotton to rule, on the other hand, from twenty-five to seventy-five cents a pound, and has affected, in a somewhat similar way, every other product of the sort! An immense premium is thus offered for the continuance of the institution, and the danger is not slight that our own Northern men, thrown into the South, would be seduced, in great numbers, by the temptation, into becoming themselves slavery propagandists, unless the exigencies of the war, the esprit du corps , and the solidarity of interests springing up between them and the negro soldiers, and the prompt and energetic activity of the Government in behalf of an emancipation policy were all to combine to prevent it. In talking of Slavery, its power, its weakness, or its [Pg 309] prospects, men, unless they have been intimately mixed up with its workings, are apt to be reckoning without their host. Our own sentiment of justice in the matter, North, poor and feeble as it is in most of us, is immensely aided by the negative fact that our interests do not happen to be immediately involved adversely. Not one in ten thousand of Northern men or Europeans, thrown into the South previous to the war, ever withstood the infection of pro-slavery sentiment and action. Our soldiers do so now, only because they are in large bodies, because they are fighting the Southern men, and because they are becoming more and more identified with a distinct national policy in behalf of emancipation and the rights of man. Withdraw these causes, and the effects would be rapidly reversed. Northern officers and men could not be trusted to fraternize with the slave-holding aristocracy, previous to the time when the backbone of the institution of Slavery should have been effectually broken; not because they are bad men, but because they are men, and would act, under similar circumstances, as men—alike Northern, Southern, and European men—have acted in the years that are past. There is a far more reliable and trustworthy party of Southern anti-slavery men than are as yet their Northern allies; men who have suffered intensely from actual contact and struggle with the institution, and who have felt, in some measure, the steel of Slavery enter their own souls; but they are not numerous enough to stand without the aid of these same untrustworthy Northern auxiliaries, who already, at the first indication of incipient success for our arms, propose, like this writer, to remand them to the tender mercies of a Southern majority rule. It is the fear of this treachery which makes them so few as they are, and so weak. It is these men whom we wish to see sustained, recognized as the loyal and the new South, and aided in the work of reconstruction, when the somewhat distant period for it to be safe and wise shall have arrived. They are the men who will teach us wisdom, if we will follow their advice; and they, be assured of it, will not clamor for any early and thoughtless surrender of our present advantages, for fear of hurting the sensibilities of the South by imposing a sense of 'subordination.' With the agony of despair, such men would remonstrate against any such suicidal policy, and entreat the Government of the United States and the people of the North to stand by them in their great distress, through, until the end. While writing, the following newspaper paragraph attracts our attention, and is a fair expression of the truth we are seeking to inculcate:

'The Hon. Silas Casey, of Kentucky, brings news of the most intense feeling, on the subject of holding slaves in the Border States, among Union men. They contend that the restriction in the President's Proclamation has made Kentucky and Tennessee a 'national slave pen,' where slaves, fleeing from the 'confederate' States, are bought and sold by the thousand. He says the Unionists to a man are in favor of immediate and sweeping emancipation of all slaves within their borders—that there can be no protection for a Unionist as long as aristocratic secessionists are allowed to hold all their old slaves, and are protected in buying human beings, once freed by the President's Proclamation. The last and most important step to be taken by the Government, to insure Unionism in the Border States, is to emancipate the slaves of disloyalists in Kentucky and Tennessee. The military once removed from Kentucky, and again would commence the barbarism of slavery. Defenders of the Government would be murdered—freedom of speech be denied; the expulsion of Northern ministers, and the tar-and-feathering of Northern schoolmasters, for only preferring Union to secession, freedom to slavery, would go on as freely as in the palmiest days of the chivalry; Parson Brownlow would be driven from Knoxville, his press and dwelling burned, Casey and Green and Adams exiled forever, and the same [Pg 310] old war would have to be fought over again, with all its blood and horror, on Kentucky soil.'

'Again we call the attention of thoughtful men to the current phases of 'Border State' politics, and ask that they be deeply considered. If we open a hundred 'conservative' journals in succession, we shall find at least ninety of them asserting or assuming that the revolted States are to be reconciled to the Union by new concessions, new guarantees to slavery. But those States themselves emphatically repel this assumption. Every man in Delaware, in Maryland, in Tennessee, in Missouri, who is heartily and thoroughly anti-rebel is also anti-slavery, and nearly every one is for immediate, not gradual, emancipation. They were not Republicans; not one in twenty of them voted for Lincoln; they make no special pretensions to philanthropy; but they mean to live and die in the Union, and they do not choose to have their throats cut by rebels; so they desire that slavery should die, knowing by practical experience, by personal observation, that slavery and the rebellion are but two phases of the same thing—two names for one reality.'

Slavery, as things are, is neither 'crippled' nor 'half dead.' It is only a little sick, and threatened with being made more so, if the same effectual blows which have been dealt it are followed up hereafter with other blows still more effectual.

We have reason to believe that the writer of the Times article we have been reviewing, has passed some time with the Army of the Cumberland; that he has viewed the subject impartially from what he deems a large field of observation; and that he speaks honestly what he believes. But no observation even of that kind is sufficient to open the whole case. Let him be a Southern man, or a Northern man residing at the South, and committed to the emancipation policy; let him stay behind and see the banners of our army gradually retiring to the North, and the banished leaders of the rebellion and other slaveholding tyrants and harpies gathering in the wake and gradually surrounding him and his little band of patriots—reclaiming all their old authority and overawing and trampling down every incipient blade of the crop of freedom, which had been planted in the presence and under the shadow of our armies—and he will be better prepared to judge. From even the high authority of General Grant himself, on this subject, we dissent. Let him first grapple with a Southern slaveholding public sentiment, as a peaceable citizen holding adverse opinions, and without a victorious army at his back, and he will be better qualified to form and give a reliable opinion. He is represented as having said, in a private letter to the Hon. E. F. Washburn, of the date of August 13th, 1863, that the people of the North need not quarrel over the institution of Slavery; that what Vice-President Stevens acknowledges as the corner stone of the confederacy is already knocked out; that Slavery is already dead, and cannot be resurrected; that it would take a standing army to maintain Slavery in the South, if we were to make peace to-day guaranteeing to the South all their former constitutional privileges, etc. With profound respect for General Grant as a man and a soldier, we would still prefer the opinion, on this point, of any earnest member of the young and feeble anti-slavery party of the South, who resides a few miles away from the actual reach of the authority and influence of a Federal army.

It is refreshing to know that to this opinion of the victorious general, of exceedingly doubtful value, upon the specific point in question, he adds these memorable and patriotic words:

'I never was an Abolitionist, not even what would be called anti-slavery, but I try to judge fairly and honestly, and it became patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I am [Pg 311] to see peace established, I would not, therefore, be willing to see any settlement until this question is forever settled.'

Almost the only men in the nation who are really competent to judge when Slavery is really dead, in any region, are those Northern and Western anti-slavery men who have come into long and deadly collision with its spirit and power in Kansas and upon the western border of Missouri. Even Northern and Eastern Abolitionists, better versed perhaps in the theory of the subject, would prove very incompetent if matched in practical hostility with slaveholding opinion and might—slaveholding vindictiveness, cunning, treachery, and recklessness of every consideration, human or divine, but the gaining of their one end, the retention of their hold over the slave.

It is again refreshing, in the midst of the open or covert defence and protection among us of the surviving remnant of Slavery at the South, granting for the moment that it is now reduced to that, and in the midst of such easy and over-credulous and mistaken assumptions of its complete, virtual destruction already, by undoubted friends of freedom, as in the case of the Times editor, General Grant, and numerous others, to listen to such hearty utterances, in the keynote of the right policy, as were made by Secretary Chase in his recent speech at Cincinnati, and to be able to believe that they foreshadow the course of the Administration in this trying epoch of our country's history. We quote the following report:

'It was never intended to interfere with States that were loyal. This Proclamation comes up as a great feature in this war. In my judgment the Proclamation was the right thing in the right place, and without it I am just as sure as I am of my own existence that we could not have made the progress we have made. And I hold that the man who denounces the Proclamation either speaks ignorantly, speaks about that of which he knows little or nothing, or else he really desires that the rebellion should succeed.

'There are two classes of States in the South; there is the class of States that is affected by the Proclamation, and a class of States that is not. With this last class of States, which is not affected by the Proclamation, we have simply nothing to do, except to bid God speed to the unconditional Union men of those States, that they will do their own work in their own way and in their own time, and all we have to do is to stand by them.

'But in the States which are affected by the Proclamation the case is different. Either the Proclamation was a great, monstrous sham, and an imposition in the face of the world, or else that Proclamation was an effectual thing, and there are no slaves to-day in the rebel States. They are all enfranchised by the Proclamation, for what says it? All the slaves of these States are declared now and forever free, and the executive power is pledged to the maintenance of their freedom. If it were not so it would be a national imposture, and I would no more be guilty of that piece of infamy than I would steal into your house at night and rob your pantry. But what have we to do with this Proclamation in the rebellious Slave States? It is a very simple thing: just simply recognise the Union men who remain in those States . Such men as Mr. Flanders, and Mr. May, and a whole host of others, who were known as slaveowners, are now satisfied that the Union men of the South must see to it that slavery must never be permitted to be reëstablished in those States. Take such a man as the Hon. Charles Anderson. When he went home and stood up for the Union, what did the slave aristocracy do for him? They drove him from the State, and his wife and little ones were obliged to take shelter in the bush. And so with multitudes of Union men in Texas at the present day. But all of them wish to get back and establish a Free State in Texas; because, they say, no other than a Free State can ever protect them from the enemies of human freedom, and, I was going to say, of human nature. Again, in Florida there were many who were driven away who are now anxious to return. Is there a man here who wants these noble, generous Union men of the South to go back to be trampled under foot by restored rebels ! [Pg 312] Let them go back, but let them go back under the ægis of the American Union, and the protection of the Government pledged to them, and then they will take care to settle this question of slavery. They will amend the Constitution so as to put the slavery question where it ought to be. When that is done, who is going to talk about the Proclamation? You have here, my fellow citizens, an intelligent statement, as it seems to me, of the manner in which this thing can be settled: simply by standing by the unconditional Union men—who almost all of them have embraced the doctrine of emancipation in the Border States—and standing by the Union men in the rebellious States, and letting them protect themselves against the institution of slavery.'

At this stage of the present writing, and having just transferred these manly, patriotic, and statesmanlike sentiments to our columns, hoping that they might foreshadow the fixed policy of the Administration, of which Mr. Chase is so able and distinguished a member, we are overtaken by more than a full fruition of the hope in the publication of the President's Message and Proclamation of Amnesty to the South, upon the sole condition of the perpetual maintenance of the Proclamation of Emancipation issued a year ago; in other words, upon the condition of the total and definitive extinction of Slavery in the South. The men of the South who are ready for this are to be recognized as the loyal citizens, the New South—precisely what ought to be done. The machinery of the old State Governments is to remain intact, but to be turned over to this regenerated Southern party for administration. The whole military and civil force of the Union is to retain its guardianship over the South, during the transition, and to remain pledged to the maintenance of the status of freedom united with loyalty, until, by the growth and stability of the new order of things, the conquered territory shall dispense with its continued intervention. The plan devised by the President is admirable, and symptoms already exist that, like so many other of his leading measures, it is destined to meet with unbounded acceptance and popularity, from even the most diverse and disharmonious quarters. Trusting, therefore, that the practical administration of the war is drifting into the right policy, based on the true theory of its causes and legitimate termination, we may leave these merely political and military questions, and revert, in conclusion, to the possible remaining eventualities of the war. These may be, for the time, (1.) Seemingly prosperous and fortunate, or, (2.) Seemingly accompanied with disaster, discouragement, and dismay—ulterior even to the eventual triumph of our arms over the open enemies of the existing order of things.

Firstly, then, it may happen, that from this time out we shall be more and more decisively triumphant over the 'rump' of the rebellion still extant in the South; that the new policy of emancipation now so favorably inaugurated may work like a magical charm, and that among the happy and startling surprises to which we are daily becoming addicted, may be that of an unexpected readiness in the exhausted and repentant South to acquiesce in the new order of things; that our new financial scheme may develop germs of commercial prosperity more than adequate to compensate for all the strain upon our national energy and resources imposed by the war; that an immense and unparalleled expansion of national prosperity, hardly marred by the ripple of our financial encumbrances, may be in waiting for the future United States of America, and lie spread out in the immediate future before us; that untold wealth may be unearthed from our mines, marvellous discoveries and inventions made to increase our manufactures and means of locomotion, and new sources of learning and art and practical action be opened.

Suppose even less brilliant and rapid results. Suppose that the war lingers; [Pg 313] that numerous and desperate battles have yet to be fought, and some reverses to be endured; but that we continue to hold the heart of the South up to our present lines in Georgia and East Tennessee; that the new system of things is gradually established and becomes solidified within the States already possessed: even this state of things, if providentially enforced on us after our best exertions have been put forth to succeed, may, again, unexpectedly prove to have concealed under seeming failure a more fortunate termination of our herculean work. Perhaps there is even yet not enough national virtue among us to leaven the whole lump, and thus, by being delayed of our too greedy aspirations for success, we may only the more surely succeed. A halt at this period of the war was foreshadowed, it will be remembered by the reader, in the earlier portion of this series of papers, written more than two years ago. At any rate, if the remaining resistance of the rebel government should prove more obstinate and prolonged than is now generally anticipated, let there be no discouragement, and no serious disappointment. Remember again, in that event, that our supreme triumphs are moral and social, for which our military successes are merely a basis; and that moral and social changes demand time to be consolidated and secured. Immense changes are being rapidly effected in the public sentiment and the prospective action of the reconquered portions of the South; but such changes are not made in a day; and some retardation of the national aspiration for a speedy termination of the war may prove our providential security against evils which, our own precipitancy might possibly otherwise incur. The retention of our present hold, the gradual but slow progress to a complete final conquest, and the steady assimilation of the reintegrated portions of the South with our Northern and the truly American character and sentiment, would still, therefore, deserve to be reckoned upon the side of seeming or obvious success.

But on the other hand, let us consider, for a moment, the other alternative—that of apparent disaster, incurred from the war, not so much in the light of overwhelming military defeats, which need hardly now to be seriously apprehended, as from financial exhaustion and other secondary causes introduced into the working of our national and social life through the operation and influence of the war. Mr. Cobden, undoubtedly a friend of our nation, and a shrewd observer of the world's affairs on the basis of experience, or a knowledge of the past, warns us to look forward to a period of almost utter prostration after the war shall have terminated, and to a train of serious consequences from the terrific strain put by it upon our energies and resources. Forebodings of a similar kind haunt the imaginations of many of our own citizens. The history of past wars and their results justify the anticipation. Perchance all this may prove an unnecessary fear. It may happen that the almost boundless recuperative energies of this young American civilization of ours may be destined to astonish our enemies, our friends, and ourselves, as much as the extent of our resources for action have already done—that the strain put upon us, instead of enfeebling us in the least, has been merely a healthy exercise for the growing muscles and thews of a young giant just now ripening into a first manhood, and never heretofore called upon for any adequate exertion to display his strength. We once heard an enthusiastic and progressive orator, referring to the marvels of modern development, utter, with a sublime and audacious eloquence, the startling assertion that ' Experience is a fool. ' There is a sense, no doubt, in which the sentiment is true. Neither the growth, nor the inherent power, nor the elasticity of the rebound from seeming exhaustion, nor the immense acceleration of the rapidity of [Pg 314] the future career of the American people, is to be safely measured by a reference to what has occurred with former nationalities, in other and different times. Our experience of the future, whatever it may be, will be, no doubt, essentially different from any of the past.

But assume, on the contrary, that the prediction is essentially well founded; that we have before us, in the immediate future, a period of extreme exhaustion, depression, and even of temporary discouragement in the public mind. All this need not, to the philosophic mind, cause the slightest apprehension of permanent evil results—of any serious check even, to our inevitable destiny, as the heirs of unbounded prosperity and the leaders of the vanguard of the progress of the world. A halt, in this sense, in the rapidity of our career, would be only the necessary price of our immense and invaluable achievement, the elimination of chattel slavery from the constitution of our social and political life. We have still other and great social evils remaining behind. The scientific and harmonious adjustment of the relations of capital to labor, of the employers to the employed, in the constitution of our free competitive society as it will still remain after Slavery is dead, is the next great practical question which will force itself upon our attention, and insist upon being definitively settled, before we can enter upon that ulterior triumphant national development which is reserved, in the decrees of destiny, for us as a people. This problem, seemingly so difficult, will be found unexpectedly easy of solution, so soon as the thinking and practical mind of the people is seriously called to its consideration. It is worthy of observation, that periods of great pecuniary depression are favorable to the progress of ideas. It is written in the Providence of God that the American people must, within the few years to come, solve the whole problem of justice to the laboring man; must, indeed, accept its office as the Champion and the Illustrator, in a practical way, of Universal Justice, in all the relations of life. Are we prepared to enter on this career, intelligently, lovingly, and with voluntary alacrity, from affection to the True and the Good; or must we be again scourged into the consideration of great questions lying immediately in our way, by the providential inflictions of disaster and distress?

We can now see easily enough, that had we been ready and desirous, as a people, to do justice to the black man, we should have escaped the horrors of a great war. We may predict, with the assurance of a religious faith, backed, we might almost affirm, by the certainty of a scientific demonstration, that if we are already sufficiently prepared to be simply just, we shall be saved from the serious infliction of more national suffering; and that if, on the contrary, this preparation of the heart and the head has not been wrought in us by what we have already endured, we shall be called directly and continuously to the suffering of more and perhaps greater inflictions. 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,' but not blindly nor uselessly, and not, therefore, after the right frame of mind has been wrought in the subject of the punishment. The law is precisely the same, whether we speak theologically or from the profoundest philosophical principles; and it may almost be said that the American people have only to choose whether they will immediately enter, with the close of the war, upon a higher career of prosperity, or whether they will endure an additional term of tuition in the school of adversity. These words may seem mystical, unaccompanied with further illustration and elaboration of the ideas, but it is not the place here to pursue them.

Let us proceed with the supposition that we have before us, at the conclusion of this war, a period of great national suffering. Such periods, we [Pg 315] have already said, are favorable to the development of thought. We may add, they are alike favorable to the growth of earnest purpose. Through suffering we are perfected. Thought and high purpose are secure bases of noble achievement. If we are not yet prepared to be inducted into our national mission, through providential favor, then let us come to it through the inverse method: through Ulterior and Reactionary Consequence .

It may be that we are to endure still more grievous afflictions than pecuniary and commercial revulsion and depression. Our political constitution still bears in its bosom, even after Slavery is removed, dangerous seeds of anarchy and prospective revolution. Within the two years past, grave mutterings, to which American ears have been heretofore altogether unused, have been heard in various quarters, touching the superior advantages of 'strong government,' the speakers, mostly of the higher or wealthier order of life, meaning thereby, the old and retrograde forms of monarchy, or something of that sort. Periods of disaster tend to reveal a latent lack of confidence in the permanency of existing things. Investigations in Sociology impeach the wisdom of our institutions, in common with that of all others that have been tried in the past, from another point of view. Periods of distress and privation stimulate the turbulence of the 'dangerous classes.' All national experience reveals, in fine, the existence, in the very nature of human society, of great antagonistic principles struggling with each other in mighty conflict, and with which no political or governmental arrangements heretofore extant have been adequate rightly to cope.

The great and bloody contest with Slavery, now going on, is an instance of such a conflict; and the fact that we, in the midst of this nineteenth century, had arrived at the knowledge of no better solution of it than an appeal to the old, barbarous, uncertain, and terrible ordeal of battle, is an illustration of the incompetency in question. Slavery, bad as it is, is the representative of a great social principle, which, separated from the special mode of its manifestation, has in it that which is good and right. Mr. Cobden justly characterizes the great American war as an insurrection of aristocracy against the principle of democracy. But aristocracy is not wholly wrong, nor is democracy wholly right, in the nature and constitution of things. These are two great antagonistic principles, when sifted to the bottom; one the principle of Order, through Subordination, the soul of Conservatism; and the other the principle of Freedom, through Individuality, the soul of Progression. Neither will ever expunge or expel the other from the constitution of man, individually or collectively; and it pertains to Science, the Science of Politics, based on the Unity of the Sciences below that level, to be arrived at by humanity in the future, to discover and lead in the complete harmony and reconciliation between the two. The writer of these papers has in manuscript a labored document upon the Slavery question from this more radical and philosophical point of view, which was prepared just previous to the outbreak of the existing war, in the hope of attracting the leading minds, North and South, to the peaceable and scientific solution of the whole Slavery question. But the antagonism was too far advanced, passions too much aroused, the popular ignorance of the existence of higher methods of solution too dense, and the crisis too imminent for the existence of any demand for such considerations then; and the publication of the document was withheld. In it were shown the significance of Slavery as a Fact in History and a Principle in Nature; its Compensations and Advantages; its positive value, in fact, in the larger sense, in the development of human society on the planet; then its destiny to give [Pg 316] way in our advancing civilization to the higher doctrine of abstract rights and individual culture through intellectual means; and again, the insufficiency of the latter doctrine, when taken for the whole truth; and finally, to show how, by the intervention of the science of the subject, the value of both the Principles in conflict could be extracted and made coöperative, and their evils completely neutralized. The world not being ripe for the adoption of the superior and rational methods here intimated for the adjustment of our difficulties—the readiness of one party even, without the equal readiness of the other, being inadequate—the crisis and the conflict could not be averted; and that again being the case, it is of the utmost importance that the second in order of the two adverse principles, the principle of democracy, be completely triumphant; not because it is more true, but because it is a more advanced truth, and one step nearer, therefore, to the final solution, which will then lap back, and subsume and assimilate and reconcile the whole family of fundamental principles upon which the existence of human society is inexpugnably based . It is upon this lower ground of adaptation to the exigency of the age and the occasion, and as a means to the development of still higher truths, that we urge the inestimable importance of the effectual conquest over the South by the North.

But the two Principles, thus brought face to face with each other, in deadly array, under the present guise of chattel slavery and republican freedom, are not extinguished in the world, nor in America even, nor are they to be permanently reconciled with each other by any outcoming whatsoever of the present war. These principles are the Aristocratic and the Democratic; the principle of conservative order and progressive freedom. Both are vital and essential forces, ever living, ever active; always antagonistic; never reconciled in the past; never to be reconciled in the future, till it be done finally, effectually, and forever, through the SCIENCE of the subject. By the contingencies of this war still future, by the lingering and disastrous sequelæ of the war, or by other and possible eventualities not yet sufficiently developed to be distinctly cognizable, the inherent and unconquerable antagonism (until reconciled through science) of the great opposing forces in human society is liable to be burst upon us with a conflagration in comparison with which even the devastations of the present war will seem trifling. The writer of these papers anticipated and predicted for a long time, and has not yet fully ceased to anticipate, that the present conflict may gradually shape itself into a desperate and universal struggle, North and South, between these two principles, in their bald, undisguised, and unmitigated hostility; that, in other words, as a party of freedom should be developed at the South, there would be developed pari passu at the North a great reactionary party; assimilating the elements of a bogus democracy and all those who by organization or position are inherently and overweeningly aristocratic; a party bold, powerful, and desperate enough to bring home the civil war to our own doors; in other words, that the war would become a war wholly of Ideas; and those defined down to their sharpest and most ultimate differences of logical significance. In that case, the events of the French Revolution would have been, or will be, repeated in America, on a more gigantic scale. Warning symptoms have already appeared among us of the possibilities of all this. If it be in the good providence of God that we are to escape this terrible ordeal—if it be permitted that this cup of national evils pass from us—it can only be that we are a step farther on in the completion of our education, as a nation, than was obviously revealed to the investigation of the observer; that, as a people, we are nearer [Pg 317] to a genial and willing acceptance of truth and obedience to the dictates of justice than appeared.

Still the conflict of principles endures in the world at large—the Aristocratic Principle, represented by autocracy, absolutism, prelacy, and slaveholding authority, on the one hand, and the Democratic Principle, represented by republicanism, Protestantism, dead-levelism, with free and destructive competition, on the other. As Slavery and Freedom have been preparing for their local conflict in America during the thirty years past; so, for the whole century gone by, the threatening cloud of the final conflict between the two great governing ideas in the world has been gathering. Occasional sharp and some terrific encounters have been had. Is this conflict of opinion to become more and more consolidated and defined, and finally embodied in two great hostile camps, covering the whole earth with an actual war, replete with desolation and carnage—not a war of distinct nationalities, but of the partisans of the two great antagonistic drifts of human development? Is there to be literally the great battle of Armageddon in the world before the incoming of a better age? or has the ignorant wrath of man sufficiently prevailed, and are we in truth prepared to investigate with sobriety, accept with simple honesty, and faithfully to practise the lessons of wisdom which the experience of the past or the new discoveries of the present or the future may bring? The religious world is becoming deeply penetrated with the conviction that we are, in the world at large, upon the verge of great events—that we are nearing the termination of an Old Dispensation and the commencement of a New; without, perhaps, defining very clearly, or attempting even to define distinctly to the imagination the nature of the change. The deepest philosophy of the age forecasts similar eventualities for an early day and for the whole earth. Thus it is that the investigation of The Great American Crisis, actual and urgent, might properly lead us up to the consideration of a Great World Crisis, impending and probable. On some other occasion it may be thought proper to give to this latter subject a distinct and more elaborate treatment. The object which we have proposed in the present series is now sufficiently accomplished, and the writer takes leave of the reader, with a profound conviction that to the anxious cry, What of the night? the answer, All is well, can be conscientiously returned. Even should the seemingly disastrous features sketched above in the alternative programme of our national future yet providentially reveal themselves in the scroll of our nation's history, let not the patriot or the lover of mankind for a moment despair. It will be but the intensified darkness preceding the light—the crisis of a deep-seated disease prognosticating health. The destiny of America is the destiny of man; and that is, that we come soon into the inheritance of new glories—an unlimited development and prosperity, founded on Religion married to Science, eventuating in the reconciliation of Order and Progression, in Universal Justice, and in the elevation, protection, mutual coöperation and happiness of all. [Pg 318]

THISTLE-DOWN.

Pale and fleecy, ghosty and white,
Onward borne in their unknown flight—
Flimsy and fragile, pure and fair—
Mystic things the thistles are.

Drifting about on a windy day—
Ghosty children at their play—
Revelling up above the trees,
Hither and thither on the breeze.

Slow and sadly, how they fly,
Chasing shadows in the sky!
Never resting, never still,
Through the valley, o'er the hill.

Walking round o'er the churchyard mould,
Up above the bosoms cold;
Flitting past each marble door,
Sadly breathing: 'Gone before!'

Spectres wild with their viewless steeds,
Riding on where nothing leads;
Up to the sky when the earth gets brown—
Ever restless thistle-down.

Through the forest cool and dark,
Never hitting the destined mark;
Over the earth and through the air,
Downy thistles everywhere .

Darting in at the open door,
Telling of joys that come no more;
Robed in grave clothes fine and thin—
Shades of phantoms, ever dim.

Up the church-aisles Sabbath-days,
Where the dusky twilight plays;
Round the altar, o'er the bier,
Preaching more than priests do here .

Solemn are the words they say—
Silent sermons free of PAY;
And the lessons they impart,
Never vanish from the heart .
[Pg 319]

THE LOVE LUCIFER.

[The author of 'The Love Lucifer' says in regard to it: 'I enclose a narration of facts . Not noted for assurance, I yet feel well assured that its publication in The Continental 'will do uses.'' Should there be any among our readers who have inquired into our modern necromancy, they will not fail to recognize in the excited, wild, incoherent, and uncultured jargon of the spirits of 'The Love Lucifer,' the same style and character evinced by those to whom they may have been introduced by the 'mejums.' The two Bulwers, the Howitts, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Halls, the De Morgans, &c., have taken a deep interest in these half-comic, half-serious, and always incoherent demonstrations.

Perhaps the matter-of-fact experience of our author may shield some of our readers from 'obsessions, delusions, magnetic streams of Od,' be they angelic, human, demoniac, or Koboldic in their origin.— Ed. Con. ]

CHAPTER I.

The things herein might well remain in soak for one decade, at least. The writer certainly did well to let a dozen sane, practical years pass between these experiences and their narration.

I was a youth after the own heart of my Presbyterian preceptors—proposed to become a Presbyterian preceptor. The son of a New York merchant, I was schooled in the schooling of such; and was steadfastly minded to know no life-purpose but the salvation of sinners. But I was a little restive—felt that the limits of the Shorter Catechism were too short and strait for me. The shadow of Schleiermacher's readjustment of Christianity was upon me. I felt that some old things were passing away. In common with so many others who inclined toward the sacerdotal office, I was unconsciously turning my back upon it, on account of the crudities contained in the only existing creeds for which I had any respect. American Protestant youth have not been alone in this regard. Says the London Times , 'The number of men of education and social position who enter into orders is becoming less and less every year.' Let then ancient, true, everlasting Christianity be speedily adjusted to modern facts, lest it further lapse.

Free thoughted, earnestly disposed toward the acquirement and dissemination of absolute spiritual truth, as was not unnatural, I thoroughly investigated the 'Supernaturalism' of the day. I soon assented to the general proposition that sociability with the invisibles is practicable, if not profitable; but ever held at a cheap rate the philosophies and religions, harmonious and other, which the full-blooded ghost-mongers so zealously promulgated. I still maintain that great good will result from these chaotic developments; for instance, that the impartial mind will find in them that scientific foundation for belief in much of the supernaturalism (to repeat the absurd expression) of the Bible, of which the age stands in such woful need. That this generation does experience such a lack is made sufficiently apparent in the 'Essays and Reviews.' On no other point are the noble freemen who therein and thereby grope after the 'readjustment,' so utterly deaf, dumb, halt, and blind, as they are in respect to Scripture miracles. In fact, these writers cast the most wondrous of the actæ sanctorum to the winds. Methinks the more thoughtful and earnest men of Christendom must, then, assent to the proposition that we have pressing need of a new flood of such practical phenomena as sturdy old Baxter gave to the Sadducees of his day, in his 'Certainty of the World of Spirits.' Whether these strange doings gradually cease, or take on new and more striking aspects, I doubt not they will help to give a healthy vigor to our emaciated faith in the existence of an unseen and spiritual world. Let us not, then, ut [Pg 320] terly scorn the strange rabble who have rushed headlong after this curiousest curiosity of modern times—except the rebellion—even though they may remind us of 'the Queen's ragged regiment of literature.' It should be taken for granted that so startling a novelty would attract the floating scum of society, whether the solid folk heeded or derided it.

Though the following narrative may bring upon me an infinite derision, I have long felt that it should be published, on account of the light it throws upon some of the most mysterious facts of existence. Others may have had similar experiences; but, if so, pride keeps them from confessing how utterly they have been hoodwinked and enslaved by those invisible loafers who form so large a portion of the newcomers and who are permitted—not to put on too fine a point—to do the dirty work of cleansing the modern mind of its gross Augean Sadduceeism. The only theory promotive of self-complacency that I could ever concoct, as to why I was put through such an ordeal, is, that I was suffered for my own and the general benefit to see the dangers of necromancy, and especially the awful psychodynamical methods used by spirits to obsess and gradually craze human brains. I, at least, received a scare that made me careful, ever after, how I called spirits from the vasty deep, or elsewhere. After passing perils manifold, both carnal and spiritual—having gone, torrent-borne, through the yawning chasms represented in Cole's 'Voyage of Life' pictures, I come into calmer seas, the lines fall in pleasant places; and now I sit me down, in life's high noon—having lighted on a certain place where was a den (a pleasanter than Bunyan's)—to write the strange things that befell me in the seeming long ago—the dew and freshness of my youth. And though I be reckoned of many a dreamer of dreams, he shall not, I think, go unprofited, who can rightly 'read my rede.'

To come, then, to the details. I had been for several months, whether wisely or unwisely doth not appear, a link in one of those human chain rings supposed to be as peculiarly receptive of extra and super and ultra mundane facts as a legislative 'ring' is of the loose change of the lobby; and had sought in vain for personal contact with the world to come, when one afternoon a streak of the 'od' lightning suddenly ran down my right arm, as I sat in my private apartment, and behold I was a 'writing mejum.' The usual 'proofs' of relationship were given. Not being very credulous, however, I did not, at first, acknowledge them as such. But as my time was at my own disposal just then, I gave myself up to the influence for several days. The consequence was, that I became so thoroughly mesmerized, or 'biologized,' that I ceased to be complete master of my own faculties, and was forced to give a half assent to all the absurdities that were communicated. Be it understood, then, that these experiences are given as those of a person whose will, whose very soul and proprium had been temporarily subjugated by some other will or wills; and whose natural powers of discrimination were as much distraught as are those of the subjects of the itinerant biologist; who are made to believe, most firmly, that cayenne pepper is sugar, that water is fire, that a cane is a snake. As for the readers of this periodical who still insist that even animal and spiritual magnetism are humbugs, I can only say, with the author of the 'Night Side of Nature,' 'How closely their clay must be wrapped about them!' For one, I have generally avoided any witnessing of marvels of this class—priding myself in believing in their occurrence because of the pure à priori reasonableness of the thing.

It will be observed that in this, as in most other alleged intercourses with the invisible world, there is persistent, continuous attempt to excite the vanity of [Pg 321] the mortal who is venturing the dangerous experiment. If the secret history of all the modern mediums were revealed—no matter what their natural disposition to vanity—it would be found that the vast majority of them had been incessantly flattered by their spiritual familiars, and each informed that he or she was the very individual of whom a forlorn, misguided world had been all this while in anxious expectation! This appears to have been the history of necromancy from the beginning. Flattery has ever been the chief stock in trade of those beings who are so properly called 'seducing spirits.' 'Tis ever with glozing words that these children of the wilderness gain the ear and the affections, and entrance through the heart-gates kept by Parley the Porter. Let me not be supposed to include in this class all the spirits who have been of late years so busy among us mortal and immortal Yankees. I consider that the old expression 'white, black, and gray' fully describes the denizens of the 'interior.' In fact, all seers insist that human creatures, in and out of the body, appear to them white or variously shaded toward black, according to their moral status. It is probable that the reason why the black and gray varieties have been so almost exclusively heard from, of late, is to be found in the fact, that it is contrary to the laws of God and nature for us to seek society beyond the terrestrial plane; and that our only proper course, in this regard, is to avoid the supernatural, as a general thing; and when it is apparently thrust upon us, to have only so much to do with it as is quite inevitable. When the authorities of heaven have anything to say to a mortal, they will force him to listen, if necessary—even if they have to throw him, like Paul, from his horse.

Well, I had embarked, like Virgil, or Dante, on my perilous tour through Hades. There was, at once, a crowding about my pathway (only a bridle path) of ostensible, estimable deceased relatives, who, after imparting a variety of priceless information, started off in the usual style, magnifying mine office. According as their influence over my rational faculties became more complete, the proportions of their Munchausenisms increased. Unfortunately for the duration of the fantasy, their jumble of Scripture prophecies concerning me—which was then made to appear nearly coherent—was so plainly writ, that as soon as the blockade of my faculties was raised, the illusion, never more than half complete, was dispelled. My 'great mission' was not fully developed at the first session; but when I had become perfectly clairaudient (I never became clairvoyant), and could dispense with the pencil, a queer mixture of metempsychosis and Parseeism was poured into my ear. It ran somewhat as follows: The two beings first created were, a Lucifer predominant in love, and a Lucifer predominant in intellect; whom we may call the Love Lucifer and the Intellectual Lucifer. The latter was the individual who fell, who played the copperhead in Eden, and has been kicking up such a bobbery ever since. The story ran, that these two persons—the original Ahriman and Ormozd—have been tilting against each other all through earth's career—appearing in the forms of the principal good and bad men. Thus their quarrels gave the outline and the skeleton to the whole story of Adam's race. According to this new 'philosophy of history,' these spirits of light and darkness have been, from the beginning, striving for the mastery; on the one hand, in the persons of the most eminent saints, from Abraham to Augustine, and others not yet canonized; on the other hand, in the persons of the world conquerors noted for heartless intellectuality, from Nimrod to Napoleon (shall we add Jeff. Davis?). Well, I, great I, was to enjoy the distinguished honor of finishing the list of Love Lucifers; and, after winding up the small affairs [Pg 322] of earth, was to lock up the other big dog—after he had appeared in his last great role—and then inaugurate the millennium—a new latter-day Jacob's ladder having been established in the centre of Africa to forward the work.

It soon appeared that there was a star, a prima donna , in this company who—after adding a few loose planks to life's little stage—were striving to still personate mortals and put off immortality. A deceased damsel, of whom I had heard as 'a morning star among the living,' appeared now, as 'a Hesper among the dead;' and was imposingly introduced to me, by a quasi near 'relative,' as being only too happy to learn that she was one half of the eternal unit of which I was the complement. I began to be as lordly and self-satisfied as the bewildered sot in the 'Taming of the Shrew.' After exhausting my small stock of writing paper, I concluded to allow my new friends to spend their loquacity on some old college note books, the handiwork of a relative—every other page being blank. The venerable professors of Columbia College would have had their dignity and propriety quite frightened out of them, had they seen what weird statements were presently sandwiched in with their dry disquisitions on science and philosophy. Whenever an especially startling announcement was made, a furious gust of the 'od' would run down my arm; and each word would be made to cover half a page. We went into the new business regardless of expense.

My invisible charmer, who had—it must be said, not very prudishly—proposed for my hand, no sooner got possession of it, than 'she' began to protest that when she learned what a splendid fate was in store for her, as tender to my royal highness, she could only weep for joy for several days. Presently she sent out through my captive digits the following:

'We have, indeed, a long journey to travel together, most loving partner; and how my innermost soul exults, in view of that unending oneness, of soul and spirit, which is to be our portion! .... Ah me, why was I chosen to join my eternal being with yours? when innumerable seraphs would salute you 'husband' with enthusiastic joy and gratitude!....'

Here is one plain fact, whatever else may be doubted. After conversing for two days with this extraordinary visitor, I became most desperately in love with her, or him, or it—as you please. Though past my majority, my placid nature had never before been thoroughly aroused in this direction. Now, by reason of the tact and knowledge of my nature, possessed by the invisible party, and still more because of my state of mesmeric subjection, I was sighing like a furnace or a Romeo. Not Ulysses, Circe tempted—not Sintram seeking his Undine—not the hapless sailor wight pursuing the maiden of the mer , was more utterly enamored than was I. As a proof that I was no bad specimen of the 'gushing' persuasion, at this period, read the following expressive though sometimes commonplace retort. I do not profess to know, and do not much care, whether it was the utterance of an artful fiend, a misguided saint, or one of those 'sympathetic spirits' of whom Swedenborg makes frequent mention. According to his statement, these beings are in such a condition, that whenever they come in contact with a mortal, they chime in with and encourage the views and tendencies of their terrestrial acquaintance; and often, without meaning it, lead him into great errors—being themselves used as cats' paws by decidedly evil spirits. But here is the tender missive, which I transcribe from between two heavy pages of notes on the Aristotelian and Baconian philosophies:

'I thought that I had experienced the joys of reciprocal affection; but never until now have begun to realize what an unbounded sea of bliss two kindred souls can bathe in. Ah! who could [Pg 323] have convinced me that so much rapture could be crowded into a few moments, as was mine while you were pouring forth the inexhaustible treasures of your mind upon my entranced ear? Spare me the sudden transition from mere esteem to such huge, melodious irresistible outpouring of affection. It takes away my strength; while the expression of my warm feelings can never so affect your sturdy, much tried, trouble-scathed manhood.'

You see that the flattery is never forgotten. But adulation is an instrument of the weak as well as of the deceitful. The utterer of this may have been innocent of fraud, and, like myself, mesmerized into following the will of a more powerful being. Again, the purpose of this being may have been a good one. Such, and so many, and so great, and varied, and strange, seem to be the possibilities and dangers of the inner life.

A systematic series of attempts seems to have been made—by some person or persons to the deponent most emphatically unknown—to get my cool, phlegmatic nervous system and brain excited. The two principal means made use of to complete the obsession were, that just mentioned, and the announcement of a succession of 'big things,' as about to occur—the biggest kind of things—those the expectation of which was best calculated to set my brain in a whirl. It will be seen, in the sequel, that, failing to thoroughly accomplish their purpose by such means, my spirit friends or fiends, as the case may be, undertook the bug-a-boo, frightening process; which was apparently working successfully, when their operations, in that style, were suddenly brought to a final close, by some means which must ever, I suppose, remain unknown to me. The startling events stated as imminent were generally made dependent upon the clairvoyant opening that had been promised me.

The first beatific vision that was to greet my gaze would be, of course, that one which I was to behold most frequently throughout the æons without end—even the face of that radiant being who had gone before, to await me in the angelhood; where, beaming seraphic upon me forever, it was to be to me the embodiment of all ideals of loveliness, grace, refinement, love. In its every lineament I was to read and decipher an endless series of ever fresh and most celestial arcana—was continually to find new proof of love and wisdom, and of the divine ability to adapt human to human. Since the love of the mate is next to the love of the Maker, it is no profanity to say that,

'When I'd been there ten thousand years,
Bright, happy as the sun,
I'd have no less days to sing its praise
Than when I first begun.'

Instead of through a fast-waning honeymoon of love, that face was to entrance me while the sun of heaven stood in the zenith of heaven—and we read that there is no night there, forevermore. Was not this promised sight a sufficient cause for excitement? What prospect—save that of a vision of Deity—could be better adapted to arouse the loftiest and most exquisite emotions? What better fitted to gather into one all long-cherished feelings of admiration and reverence for the noble of the other sex—to aggregate and revive all those chivalrous, gallant, elevating, purifying, tender thoughts which we have ever had, with regard to them, in our highest moments?

Some reader may say: 'Why will you thus attempt to dignify ideas that you acknowledge were excited in a confused brain, by apparently mischievous or irresponsible spirits?' I answer, that even if the immediate exciting cause of this current of ideas was some ill-designing being, the ideas themselves were not, necessarily, either evil or undignified; and that only such portion of the brain was addled as would be likely to rebel against the obsession.

Waiting the appointed hour, I sat [Pg 324] imagining the scene. I saw myself suddenly rising ('sudden Ianthe rose') from the prone body and all circumjacent grossness—rising, through clouds and darkness, to some delightsome plane of the inner world. A dozen yards in front of me, beside a graceful tree, would stand 'the only.' We would gaze at each other, with intense scrutiny, for some moments. Each would think, 'There is plenty of time; it is to last forever.' We would even look about us, still saying nothing. Being eternally modelled, fitted, fore-ordained, and predestined for each other, love arrows would, of course, have pierced our centres of palpitation at the first mutual glance. Still, though quivering with emotion, neither would be disposed to lessen the distance. Methought we would even seat ourselves on the mossy banks—the dozen yards still intervening—and, each leaning back against a tree, would 'face the enemy'—the eternal joy-sharer, sorrow-sharer, worship, wisdom, love, pity, wonder, use, sport, hope-sharer; while, occasionally, a premonitory, prophetic pang of rapture out of the coming eternities of bliss would thrill through us. I had even a fancy that there would be no interchange of words, no lessening of the coy distance of space and manner, during this first interview. 'It is to last so long! so long!' Again, I fancied that we might sit there only weeping, as we looked and loved . 'So long! so long!' Tender, dewy eyes wandering naively, innocently, over each feature of face and form—inquiry, wonder, joy in them—pleased surprise, that such and such points of the vision should be as they are. Indefinite longings becoming definite, as all things longed for appear embodied, as faith is lost in sight. Again, I imagined laconic speech might ensue—like the single-line dialogue of Greek tragedies. But here the wings of imagination drooped, and I could only see the separation. She would glide toward me. Her warm finger-tips would touch my palm, her tender azure eyes would beam once fully and closely upon me. One moment I would see the inner heaven opened; and the next—the familiar furniture of my room would be before me. Thus I imagined. The curious may learn what actually befell, on a future occasion.

AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.

LETTER NO. IV. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.

In my third and last letter on American Finances and Resources, the effect of the substitution of free for slave labor in the United States by the abolition of slavery was discussed. In that letter it was shown by the official American Census of 1860, that the product that year, per capita , of Massachusetts was $235; per capita , Maryland $96; and of South Carolina $56. Massachusetts had no slaves; Maryland, 87,189; and South Carolina, 402,406. Thus we see the annual value of the products of labor decreased in proportion to the number of slaves. In further proof of the position assumed in that letter, that the progress of wealth, of population, and education in the United States, was most injuriously affected by slavery, I now present other official facts from our Census of 1860. My first comparison will be that of the [Pg 325] Free State of New York with slaveholding Virginia.

By the Census, the population of Virginia in 1790 was 748,308, and in 1860, 1,596,318, making the ratio of increase 113.32 per cent. In 1790 New York numbered 340,120, and in 1860, 3,880,735, the ratio of increase being 1,040.99. (Table 1, Prelim. Census Rep., p. 132.) Thus, the rate of increase in New York exceeded that of Virginia more than nine to one.

In 1790, the population of Virginia was largely more than double that of New York. In 1860, the population of New York was very largely more than double that of Virginia. In 1790, Virginia, in population, ranked first of all the States, and New York the fifth. In 1860, they had reversed their positions, and New York was the first, and Virginia the fifth. (Rep. p. 120.) At the same rate of progress, from 1860 to 1900, as from 1790 to 1860, Virginia, retaining slavery, would have sunk from the first to the twenty-first State, and would still continue, at each succeeding decade, descending the inclined plane toward the lowest position of all the States. Such has been, and still continues to be, the effect of slavery, in dragging down that once great State from the first toward the last in rank in the Union. But if, as in the absence of slavery must have been the case, Virginia had increased from 1790 to 1860 in the same ratio as New York, her population in 1860 would have been 7,789,141, and she must always have remained the first in rank of all the States.

Area .—The natural advantages of Virginia far exceed those of New York. The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and that of New York 47,000. The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was 12.19, and in 1860, 26.02. That of New York, in 1790, was 7.83, and in 1860, 84.36. Now, if New York, with her present numbers per square mile, had the area of Virginia, her population, in 1860, would have been 5,175,654, and that of Virginia, reduced to the area of New York, on the basis of her present numbers per square mile, would have been 1,320,000. This illustrates the immense effect of area, as one of the great elements influencing the progress of population. But wonderful as are these results, the great fact is omitted in this calculation, that Virginia, in 1790, had largely more than double the population of New York. Thus, if we reverse the numbers of New York and Virginia in 1790, and take the actual ratio of increase of each for the succeeding seventy years, the population of Virginia, in 1860, would have been 728,875, and that of New York, as we have seen, would have been 7,789,141, making the difference exceed seven millions, or very largely more than ten to one. Reverse the areas also, and the difference would exceed eight millions.

Shore Line .—As furnishing cheap and easy access for imports and exports, creating marts for commerce with great cities, and affecting the interior most beneficially, the shore line, with adequate harbors, constitutes a vast element in the progress of states and empires. Now, by the last tables of the United States Coast Survey, the shore line of Virginia was 1,571 miles, and of New York 725 miles. The five great parallel tide-water rivers of Virginia, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the York River, James River, and Roanoke (partly in North Carolina), with their tributaries, furnish easy access for hundreds of miles into the interior, with both shores of the noble Chesapeake Bay for many miles, as well as its magnificent outlet and the main ocean for a considerable distance, all within the limits of Virginia. We have seen that the coast line of Virginia is largely more than double that of New York, and the harbors of Virginia are more numerous, deeper, and much nearer the great valley of the Ohio and Mississippi. By the Coast Survey tables, the mean low water in the harbor of New [Pg 326] York, by Gedney's Channel, is 20 feet, and at high-water spring tides is 24.2; north channel, 24, mean low water, and 29.1 spring tides, high water; south channel, 22, and 27.1; main ship channel, after passing S. W. spit buoy, on N. E. course, one mile up the bay, for New York, 22.5-27.06. By the same tables, from capes at entrance of Chesapeake Bay to Hampton, at mean low water, 30 feet; spring tides, high water, 32.8. Anchorage in Hampton Roads, 59-61.8. From Hampton Roads to Sewell's Point, 25-27.8. South of Sewell's Point (one mile and a half), 21-23.8; up to Norfolk, 23-25.8. From Hampton Roads to James River, entering to the northward of Newport News, middle ground, 22-24.8. From Hampton Roads to James River, entering to the southward of Newport News, middle ground, 27-29.8. From abreast the tail of York Spit, up to Yorktown, 33-35.8. Elizabeth River, between Norfolk and navy yard, 25.5-28.3.

When we leave the tide-water rivers for the interior navigable streams, Virginia has a vast advantage. New York has no such rivers above tide, but Virginia has the Ohio for hundreds of miles, with its tributaries, the Kanawha, Guyandotte, and Big Sandy. It is true, New York has several of the great lakes, and the vast advantage of connection with them through her great canal. But, in the absence of slavery, the canal projected by Washington (preceding that of New York) would have connected, through Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay with the Ohio River. The James River, flowing into the Chesapeake, cuts the Blue Mountains, and the Kanawha, a confluent of the Ohio, cuts the Alleghany; thus opening an easy and practicable route for a great canal from the eastern to the western waters. The valley of the lakes, with which New York is connected by her canal, has an area of 335,515 square miles. The valley of the Mississippi, with which the Chesapeake would long since, in the absence of slavery, have been connected by the Virginia canal, has an area of 1,226,600 square miles. The shore line of the Mississippi and its tributaries, above tide water, is 35,644 miles. (Page 35, Compend. Census of 1850.) Our shore line of the lakes is 3,620 miles, including bays, sounds, and islands; and that of the British, 2,629. (Ib. 35.) The connection of the lakes with the Ohio and Mississippi would be the same for both States, the one being from the lakes to these rivers, and the other from the rivers to the lakes. The location of Virginia is more central than that of New York, and Virginia runs farther west by several hundred miles. We are so accustomed to look at the connection of New York with the West by her canal, and Virginia with no such union, that it is difficult to realize the great change if Virginia had been connected by her progressing work with the Ohio and Mississippi, and thence, by the present canals, with the lakes.

It is apparent, then, that, as regards easy access to the West, the natural advantages of Virginia surpass New York, and with greater facilities for artificial works. How many decades would be required, after emancipation, to bring the superior natural advantages of Virginia into practical operation, is not the question; nor do I believe that the city of New York will ever cease to be the centre of our own trade, and ultimately of the commerce of the world. But although Virginia, in adhering to slavery, has lost her supremacy in the Union, it is quite certain that, as a Free State, she would commence a new career of wonderful prosperity, that capital and population from the North and from Europe would flow there with a mighty current, her lands be doubled in value, and her town and city property far more than quadrupled.

Mines .—Virginia has vast mines of coal, the great element of modern progress. New York has none. It is coal that has made Great Britain a mighty [Pg 327] empire, giving her power, by land and sea, equal to the manual force of all mankind. It is stated by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in his report before referred to, of November, 1860, 'that an acre of coal, three feet thick, is equal to the product of 1,940 acres of forest trees; and each acre of a coal seam four feet in thickness, and yielding one yard of pure coal, is equivalent to 5,000 tons, and possesses, therefore, a reserve of mechanical strength in its fuel, equal to the life labor of more than 1,600 men.'

This statement of the Commissioner is made on the highest authority, and proves the vast natural advantages of Virginia over New York. Virginia, also, has far more abundant mines of iron, more widely diffused over the State, reaching from tide water to the Ohio. She has also these iron mines in juxtaposition with coal and all the fluxes. Virginia, also, has valuable mines of gold, lead, and copper. New York has no gold or copper mines, and produced in 1860 but $800 worth of lead. (Table 14.)

Hydraulic Power .—Omitting Niagara, which thus far scorns the control of man, the hydraulic power of Virginia very far exceeds that of New York. It is to be found on the Potomac and its tributaries, and upon nearly every stream that flows into the Chesapeake or Ohio. The superior mildness of the climate of Virginia makes this power available there for a much greater portion of the year. The great falls of the Potomac, where Washington constructed the largest locks of the continent, has a water power unsurpassed, and is but twelve miles from tide water, at Washington. This point is a most healthy and beautiful location, surrounded by lands whose natural fertility was very great, and, in the absence of slavery, must have been a vast manufacturing city. This water power could move more spindles than are now worked on all this continent.

Agriculture and Manufactures .—The natural fertility of the soil of Virginia far exceeded that of New York, with a more genial sun, and much more favorable seasons for agricultural products, as well as for stock. The number of acres of land in Virginia susceptible of profitable culture, is nearly double that of New York, but much of it has been impoverished by slave labor, scratching and exhausting the soil, without manure or rotation of crops. The Census shows that Virginia has all the products of New York, and cotton in addition. Virginia produced, in 1860, 12,727 bales of cotton (Table 36), worth, at present prices, nearly $3,000,000. She also adjoins the States of North Carolina and Tennessee, producing, in 1850, 372,964 bales, worth, at present prices, nearly $90,000,000. Virginia is also much nearer than New York to all the other cotton States. With these vast advantages, with her larger area, more fertile soil, cheaper subsistence, her coal and iron and great hydraulic power, with so much cotton raised by herself and in adjacent States, Virginia should have manufactured much more cotton than New York. But, by the Census (Table 22), the value of the cotton manufacture of Virginia in 1850 was $1,446,109, and in 1860, $1,063,611—a decrease of one third. In New York, the value of the cotton manufacture in 1850 was $5,019,323, and in 1860, $7,471,961, an increase of over 48 per cent. So, if we look at the tables of mines, manufactures, and the fisheries, with the vastly superior advantages of Virginia, the whole product in 1860 was of the value of $51,300,000, and of agriculture $68,700,000; while in New York these values were respectively $379,633,560 and $226,376,440. (Tables of Census, 33 and 36.)

Climate and Mortality .—By Table 6, page 22, of the Census, there were for the year ending June 1st, 1860, 46,881 deaths in New York, being 1 in every 82 of the population, and 1.22 per cent. The number of deaths in [Pg 328] Virginia, in the same year, was 22,472, being 1 in every 70 of the population, or 1.43 per cent. There was, then, a slight difference in favor of New York. But Virginia is divided into four geographical sections; the tide-water, the Piedmont (running from the tide-water region to the Blue Mountains), the valley between these mountains and the Alleghanies, and the trans-Alleghany to the Ohio. These three last sections, containing three fourths of the area and white population of the State, surpass New York in salubrity, with the most bracing and delightful climate. The climate of Virginia is far more favorable for stock and agricultural products than New York, with longer and better seasons, and is more salubrious than the climate of Europe. (Comp. 1850.)

Progress of Wealth .—We have seen how great was the advance in population of New York over Virginia, from 1790 to 1860, being in the ratio of more than 9 to 1. Now let us compare the relative progress of wealth. It is contended by the advocates of slavery, that it accumulates wealth more rapidly, and thus enriches the nation, although it may depress its moral and intellectual development, its increase of numbers and of power, and tarnish its reputation throughout the world. As population and its labor create wealth, it must be retarded by a system which, as we have seen in this case, diminishes the relative advance of numbers in the ratio of more than 9 to 1. But the Census proves that slavery greatly retards the increase of wealth. By Tables 33 and 36 of the Census of 1860, it appears, omitting commerce, that the products of industry, as given, viz., of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year in New York $606,000,000, or $156 per capita ; and in Virginia $120,000,000, or $75 per capita . This shows a total value of product in New York more than five times greater than in Virginia, and per capita more than 2 to 1. If we include the earnings of commerce, and all business not given in the Census, I think it will be shown hereafter, that the value of the products and earnings of New York, in 1860, exceeded those of Virginia at least 7 to 1. As to the rate of increase, the value of the products of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, of Virginia, in 1850, was $84,180,428 (Table 9), and in New York $358,736,603, showing an increase in Virginia from 1850 to 1860 of $35,519,572, being 41 per cent., and in New York $249,263,397, being 70 per cent., exhibiting a difference of 29 per cent. Now the increase of population in Virginia from 1850 to 1860 was 12.29 per cent., and in New York 25.29 per cent., the difference being only 13 per cent. (Table 1, p. 131.) Thus, it appears, the increase of wealth in New York, exclusive of the gains of commerce, as compared with Virginia, was more than double the ratio of the augmentation of population. By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195, 'The true value of the real and personal property, according to the eighth Census was, New York, $1,843,338,517, and of Virginia, $793,249,681.' Now we have seen the value of the products of New York in 1860 by the Census was $606,000,000, and in Virginia $120,000,000. Thus, as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of New York was 34 per cent., and Virginia 15 per cent.; the annual product of capital being more than double in New York what it was in Virginia. The problem then is solved in Virginia, as it was in Maryland and South Carolina, and all the South compared with all the North, that slavery retards the progress of wealth and accumulation of capital in the ratio of 2 to 1. Our war taxes may be very great, but the tax of slavery is far greater, and the relief from it, in a few years, will add much more to the national wealth than the whole deduction made by the war debt. Our total wealth, by the Census of 1860, being, by Table 35, $16,159,616,068, one per cent. taken annually to pay the interest [Pg 329] and gradually extinguish the war debt, would be $161,596,160; whereas, judging by Virginia and New York, the diminished increase of the annual product of capital, as the result of slavery, is 2.10 per cent., or $453,469,250 per annum, equal in a decade, without compounding the annual results, to $4,534,692,500.

That our population would have reached in 1860 nearly 40,000,000, and our wealth have been more than doubled, if slavery had been extinguished in 1790, is one of the revelations made by the Census; while in science, in education, and national power, the advance would have been still more rapid, and the moral force of our example and success would have controlled for the benefit of mankind the institutions of the world.

By Table 36, page 196, of the Census of 1860, the cash value of the farms of Virginia was $371,096,211, being $11.91 per acre, and of New York $803,343,593, being $38.26 per acre. Now, by the Table, the number of acres embraced in these farms of New York was 20,992,950, and in Virginia 31,014,950, the difference of value per acre being $25.36, or much more than 3 to 1 in favor of New York. Now, if we multiply this number of acres of farm lands of Virginia by the New York value, it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia, $1,186,942,136, and the additional value caused by emancipation $815,845,925. But, stupendous as is this result in regard to lands, it is far below the reality. We have seen that the farm lands of Virginia, improved and unimproved, constituted 31,014,950 acres. By the Census and the Land Office Tables, the area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres. Deduct the farm lands, and there remain unoccupied 8,250,330 acres. Now, Virginia's population to the square mile being 26.02, and that of New York 84.36, with an equal density in Virginia, more than two thirds of these Virginia lands, as in New York, must have been occupied as farms. This would have been equivalent, at two thirds, to 5,500,000 acres, which, at their present average value of $2 per acre, would be worth $11,000,000; but, at the value per acre of the New York lands, these 5,500,000 acres would be worth $206,430,000. Deduct from this their present value, $11,000,000, and the remainder, $195,430,000, is the sum by which the unoccupied lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been increased in value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced value of their present farms, $815,845,925, and the result would be $1,011,275,925, as the gain of Virginia in the value of lands by emancipation. To these we should add, from the same cause, the enhancement of the town and city property in Virginia to the extent of several hundred millions of dollars. In order to realize the truth, we must behold Virginia as she would have been, with New York railroads and canals, farms, manufactures, commerce, towns, and cities. Then we must consider the superior natural advantages of Virginia, her far greater area, her richer soil, her more genial sun, her greater variety of products, her mines of coal, iron, gold, copper, and lead, her petroleum, her superior hydraulic power, her much larger coast line, with more numerous and deeper harbors—and reflect what Virginia would have been in the absence of slavery. Her early statesmen, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Mason, Tucker, and Marshall, all realized this great truth, and all desired to promote emancipation in Virginia. But their advice was disregarded by her present leaders—the new, false, and fatal dogmas of Calhoun were substituted; and, as a consequence, Virginia, from the first rank ( longo intervallo ) of all the States, has fallen to the fifth, and, with slavery continued, will descend still more rapidly in the future than in the past.

By Census Table 36, p. 197, the value, in 1860, of the farm lands of all the [Pg 330] Slave States, was $2,570,466,935, and the number of acres 245,721,062, worth $10.46 per acre. In the Free States, the value of the farm lands was $4,067,947,286, and the number of acres 161,462,008, worth $25.19 per acre. Now if, as certainly in the absence of slavery would have been the case, the farm lands of the South had been worth as much per acre as those of the North, their total value would have been $6,189,713,551, and, deducting the present price, the additional cash value would have been $3,619,246,616.

But if, to this, we add the increased value of the unoccupied lands of the South, by multiplying them by the difference between their value per acre and that of the unoccupied lands of the North, the result is $2,240,000,000, which, added to that of the farm lands, makes $5,859,246,616, as the augmented value of the lands of the South caused by emancipation.

By Census Tables of 1860, 33 and 36, the total value of the products of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries in the Free States was $4,150,000,000, and of the Slave States $1,140,000,000, making the products of the Free States in 1860 nearly 4 to 1 of the Slave States, and $217 per capita for the Free States, and for the Slave States $93 per capita . This is exclusive of commerce, which would greatly increase the ratio in favor of the North, that of New York alone being nearly equal to that of all the Slave States. Now, multiplying the population of the Slave States by the value of the products per capita of the Free States, and the result is $2,653,631,032, making, by emancipation, the increased annual product of the Slave States $1,511,031,032, and in ten years, exclusive of the yearly accumulations, $15,110,310,320.

By the Table 35, Census of 1860, the total value of all the property, real and personal, of the Free States, was $10,852,081,681, and of the Slave States, $5,225,307,034. Now, the product, in 1860, of the Free States, being $4,150,000,000, the annual yield on the capital was 39 per cent.; and, the product of the Slave States being $1,140,000,000, the yield on the capital was 22 per cent. This was the gross product in both cases. I have worked out these amazing results from the Census Tables, to illustrate the fact, that the same law, by which slavery retarded the progress of wealth in Virginia, as compared with New York, and of Maryland and South Carolina, as compared with Massachusetts, rules the relative advance in wealth of all the Slave States, as compared with that of all the Free States. I have stated that the statistics of commerce, omitted in these tables, would vastly increase the difference in favor of the Free States as compared with the Slave States, and of New York as contrasted with Virginia. I shall now resume the latter inquiry, so as to complete the comparison between New York and Virginia. By commerce is embraced, in this examination, all earnings not included under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the mines, or fisheries.

Railroads .—The number of miles of railroads in operation in New York, in 1860, including city roads, was 2,842 miles, [3] costing $138,395,055; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807. (Census Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230 and 233.) Now, by the same Census Report, p. 105, the value of the freights of the New York roads for 1860 was as follows: Product of the forest—tons carried, 373,424; value per ton, $20; total value, $7,468,480. Of animals—895,519 tons; value per ton, $200; total value, $179,103,800. Vegetable food—1,103,646 tons; value per ton, $50; total value, $55,182,000. Other agricultural products—143,219 tons; value per ton, $15; total value, $2,148,055. Manufactures—511,916 tons; value per ton, $500; total value, $391,905,500. Other articles—930,244 tons; value $10 per ton; total value, $9,302,440. Grand total, 4,741,773 [Pg 331] tons carried; value per ton, $163. Total values, $773,089,275. Deducting one quarter for duplication, makes 3,556,330 tons carried on the New York roads in 1860; and the value, $579,681,790. The values of the freights on the Virginia roads, as estimated, is $60,000,000, giving an excess to those of New York of $519,681,790, on the value of railroad freights in 1860. The passenger account, not given, would largely increase the disparity in favor of New York.

Canals .—The number of miles of canals in New York is 1,038, and their cost $67,567,972. In Virginia, the number of miles is 178, and the cost $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The estimated value of the freight on the New York canals is 19 times that of the freight on the Virginia canals. (Census.)

Tonnage .—The tonnage of vessels built in New York in 1860 was 31,936 tons, and in Virginia 4,372. (Census, p. 107.)

Banks .—The number of banks in New York in 1860 was 303; capital $111,441,320, loans $200,351,332, specie $20,921,545, circulation $29,959,506, deposits $101,070,273: and in Virginia the number was 65; capital $16,005,156, loans $24,975,792, specie $2,943,652; circulation $9,812,197, deposits $7,729,652. (Table 34, p. 193, Census.)

Insurance Companies .—The risks taken in New York were $916,474,956, or nearly one third of those in the whole Union. Virginia, estimated at $100,000,000; difference in favor of New York $816,474,956. (Census, p. 79.)

Exports and Imports, etc. —Our exports abroad from New York for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, were $145,555,449, and the foreign imports $248,489,877; total of both, $394,045,326. The clearances same year from New York were 4,574,285 tons, and the entries 4,836,448 tons; total of both, 9,410,733 tons. In Virginia, the exports the same year were $5,858,024, and the imports $1,326,249; total of both, $7,184,273; clearances, 80,381 tons, entries, 97,762 tons; total of both, 178,143 tons. (Table 14, Register of United States Treasury.) Revenue collected from customs same year in New York, $37,788,969, and in Virginia $189,816, or 200 to 1 in favor of New York. (Tables U.S. Com. of Customs.) No returns are given for the coastwise and internal trade of either State, but the tables of the railway and canal transportation of States show nearly the same proportion in favor of New York as in the foreign trade. Thus the domestic exports from New York for the above year abroad were $126,060,967, and from Virginia $5,833,370. (Same Table, 14.) And yet Virginia, as we have seen, had much greater natural advantages than New York for commerce, as well as for mines, manufactures, and agriculture. But slavery has almost expelled commerce from Virginia, and nearly paralyzed all other pursuits.

These Tables, taken from the Census and the Treasury records, prove incontestably, that slavery retards the progress of wealth and population throughout the South, but especially in Virginia. Nor can the Tariff account for the results; for Virginia, as we have seen, possesses far greater advantages than New York for manufactures. Besides, the commerce of New York far surpasses that of Virginia, and this is the branch of industry supposed to be affected most injuriously by high tariffs, and New York has generally voted against them with as much unanimity as Virginia. But there is a still more conclusive proof. The year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs, and yet, from 1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of increase of New York over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to 1860. Thus, by Table 1 of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population in Virginia was as follows:

In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318, in 1820, 1,065,129, and in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of New York was 340,120, in 1820, 1,372,111, and in 1860, 3,880,735. Thus, from 1790 to 1820, before the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase of the population of New York, as compared with Virginia, was very far greater than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the Tariff had no influence whatever in depressing the progress of Virginia as compared with New York.

We have heretofore proved by the Census the same position as regards the relative progress of Maryland and Massachusetts, and the same principle applies as between all the Free, as compared with all the Slave States. In New York, we have seen that from 1790 to 1820, in the absence of high tariffs, and even before the completion of her great canal, her advance in population was much more rapid than from 1820 to 1860. Indeed, it is quite clear that, so far as the Tariff had any influence, it was far more unfavorable to New York than to Virginia, New York being a much greater agricultural as well as commercial State.

Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and intellectual development.

Newspapers and Periodicals .—The number of newspapers and periodicals in New York in 1860 was 542, of which 365 were political, 56 religious, 63 literary, 58 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860 was 320,930,884. (Census Tables, Nos. 15, 37.) The number in Virginia was 139; of which 117 were political, 13 religious, 3 literary, 6 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860 was 26,772,568. Thus, the annual circulation of the press in New York was twelve times as great as that of Virginia. As to periodicals: New York had 69 monthlies, of which 2 were political, 25 religious, 24 literary, and 18 miscellaneous; 10 quarterlies, of which 5 were religious, and 5 literary; 6 annuals, of which 2 were political, 2 religious, and 2 miscellaneous. Virginia had 5 monthlies, of which 1 was political, 2 religious, 1 literary, and 1 miscellaneous; and no quarterlies or annuals. The annual circulation of the New York monthlies was 2,045,000; that of Virginia was 43,900; or more than 43 to 1 in favor of New York.

As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged and printed. The number of public schools in New York in 1850 was 11,580, teachers 13,965, pupils 675,221; colleges, academies, etc., pupils 52,001; attending school during the year, as returned by families, 693,329; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 23,341. Public libraries, 11,013; volumes, 1,760,820. Value of churches $21,539,561. (Comp. Census, 1850.)

The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937, teachers 3,005, pupils 67,438; colleges, academies, etc., pupils 10,326; attending school during the year, as returned by families, 109,775; native white adults of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868. Public libraries, 54; volumes, 88,462. Value of churches, $2,902,220. (Compend. of Census of 1850.) By Table 155, same compend., the percentage of native free [Pg 333] population in Virginia over 20 years of age who cannot read or write is 19.90, and in New York 1.87, in North Carolina 30.34, in Maryland 11.10, in Massachusetts 0.32, or less than one third of one per cent. In New England, the percentage of native whites who cannot read or write is 0.42, or less than one half of one per cent.; and in the Southern States 20.30, or 50 to 1 in favor of New England. (Compend., Table 571.) But, if we take the whole adult population of Virginia, including whites, free blacks, and slaves, 42.05 per cent., or nearly one half, cannot read or write; and in North Carolina, more than one half cannot read or write. We have seen, by the above official tables of the Census of 1850, that New York, compared with Virginia, had nearly ten times as many pupils at schools, colleges, and academies, twenty times as many books in libraries, and largely more than seven times the value of churches; while the ratio of native white adults who cannot read or write was more than 10 to 1 in Virginia, compared with New York. We have seen, also, that in North Carolina nearly one third of the native white adults, and in Virginia nearly one fifth, cannot read or write, and in New England 1 in every 400, in New York 1 in every 131, in the South and Southwest 1 in every 42 of the native white adults. (Comp. p. 153.)

My next comparison will be that of two great new Western States—Illinois, a Free State, and Missouri, slaveholding.

The comparison is just, for while Missouri has increased since 1810 in wealth and population, much more rapidly than any of the Slave States, there are several Free States whose relative advance has exceeded that of Illinois. The rapid growth of Missouri is owing to her immense area, her fertile soil, her mighty rivers (the Mississippi and Missouri), her central and commanding position, and to the fact that she has so small a number of slaves to the square mile, as well as to the free population.

The population of Illinois, in 1810, was 12,282, and in 1860, 1,711,951; the ratio of increase from 1810 to 1860 being 13,838.70. (Table 1, Cens. 1860.) The population of Missouri in 1810, was 20,845, and in 1860, 1,182,012; the ratio of increase from 1810 to 1860 being 5,570.48. (Ib.) The rank of Missouri in 1810 was 22, and of Illinois 23. The rank of Missouri in 1860 was 8, and of Illinois, 4.

Area .—The area of Missouri is 67,380 square miles, being the 4th in rank, as to area, of all the States. The area of Illinois is 55,405 square miles, ranking the 10th. Missouri, then, has 11,875 more square miles than Illinois. This excess is greater by 749 square miles than the aggregate area of Massachusetts, Delaware, and Rhode Island, containing in 1860 a population of 1,517,902. The population of Missouri per square mile in 1810 exceeded that of Illinois .08; but, in 1860, the population of Missouri per square mile was 17.54, ranking the 22d, and that of Illinois, 30.90, ranking the 13th. Illinois, with her ratio to the square mile and the area of Missouri, would have had in 1860 a population of 2,082,042; and Missouri, with her ratio and the area of Illinois, would have had in 1860 a population of 971,803, making a difference in favor of Illinois of 1,110,239 instead of 529,939. The absolute increase of population of Illinois per square mile from 1850 to 1860 was 15.54, and of Missouri 7.43, Illinois ranking the 6th in this ratio and Missouri the 14th. These facts prove the vast advantages which Missouri possessed in her larger area as compared with Illinois.

But Missouri in 1810, we have seen, had nearly double the population of Illinois. Now, reversing their numbers in 1810, the ratio of increase of each remaining the same, the population of Illinois in 1860 would have been 2,905,014, and of Missouri, 696,983. If we [Pg 334] bring the greater area of Missouri as an element into this calculation, the population of Illinois in 1860 would have exceeded that of Missouri more than two millions and a half.

Mines .—By Census Tables, 9, 10, 13, and 14, Missouri produced, in 1860, pig iron of the value of $575,000; Illinois, none. Bar and rolled iron—Missouri, $535,000; Illinois, none. Lead—Missouri, $356,660; Illinois, $72,953. Coal—Missouri, $8,200; Illinois, $964,187. Copper—Missouri, $6,000; Illinois, none. As to mines, then, Missouri has a decided advantage over Illinois. Indeed, the iron mountains of Missouri are unsurpassed in the world. That Illinois approaches so near to Missouri in mineral products, is owing to her railroads and canals, and not to equal natural advantages. The number of miles of railroad in operation in 1860 was, 2,868 in Illinois, and 817 in Missouri; of canals, Illinois, 102 miles; Missouri, none. (Tables 38, 39.) But if Missouri had been a Free State, she would have at least equalled Illinois in internal improvements, and the Pacific Railroad would have long since united San Francisco, St. Louis, and Chicago.

Illinois is increasing in a progressive ratio as compared with Missouri. Thus, from 1840 to 1850 the increase of numbers in Illinois was 78.81, and from 1850 to 1860, 101.01 per cent., while the increase of Missouri from 1840 to 1850 was 77.75, and from 1850 to 1860, 73.30. Thus, the ratio is augmenting in Illinois, and decreasing in Missouri. If Illinois and Missouri should each increase from 1860 to 1870, in the same ratio as from 1850 to 1860, Illinois would then number 3,441,448, and Missouri, 2,048,426. (Table 1.) In 1850, Chicago numbered 29,963, and in 1860, 109,260. St. Louis, 77,860 in 1850, and 160,773 in 1860. (Table 40.) From 1840 to 1850 the ratio of increase of Chicago was 570.31, and from 1850 to 1860, 264.65, and of St. Louis, from 1840 to 1850, 372.26 per cent., and from 1850 to 1860, 106.49. If both increased in their respective ratios from 1860 to 1870 as from 1850 to 1860, Chicago would number 398,420 in 1870, and St. Louis, 331,879. It would be difficult to say which city has the greatest natural advantages, and yet when St. Louis was a city, Chicago was but the site of a fort.

Progress of Wealth .—By Census Table 36, the cash value of the farms of Illinois in 1860, was $432,531,072, and of Missouri, $230,632,126, making a difference in favor of Illinois of $201,898,946, which is the loss which Missouri has sustained by slavery in the single item of the value of her farm lands. Abolish slavery there, and the value of the farm lands of Missouri would soon equal those of Illinois, and augment the wealth of the farmers of Missouri over two hundred millions of dollars. But these farm lands of Missouri embrace only 19,984,809 acres (Table 36), leaving unoccupied 23,138,391 acres. The difference between the value of the unoccupied lands of Missouri and Illinois, is six dollars per acre, at which rate the increased value of the unoccupied lands of Missouri, in the absence of slavery, is $148,830,346. Thus it appears, that the loss to Missouri in the value of her lands, caused by slavery, is $340,729,292. If we add to this the diminished value of town and city property in Missouri, from the same cause, the total loss in that State in the value of real estate, exceeds $400,000,000, which is nearly twenty times the value of her slaves. By Table 35, the increase in the value of the real and personal property of Illinois from 1850 to 1860, was $715,595,276, being 457.93 per cent., and of Missouri, $363,966,691, being 265.18 per cent. At the same rate of increase from 1860 to 1870, the total wealth of Illinois would then be $3,993,000,000, and of Missouri, $1,329,000,000, making the difference against Missouri, in 1870, caused by slavery, $2,664,000,000, which is more than double the whole debt of the nation, and more than twice [Pg 335] the value of all the slaves in the Union.

The total wealth of the Union in 1860 exceeded $16,000,000,000. If this were increased $1,000,000,000 in time, by the augmented wealth of Missouri, and our revenue from duties and taxes should be $220,000,000, the increased income, being one seventeenth of the whole, would exceed $12,000,000 per annum; or, if the increase of wealth should be only $200,000,000, then the augmented proportional annual revenue would be $2,750,000, or nearly one eightieth part of the whole revenue.

By overthrowing the rebellion, the taxes to pay the national debt will be collected from all the States, instead of being confined to those that are loyal. The rebel Confederate debt, never having had any existence in law or justice, but having been created only to support a wicked rebellion, will of course be expunged by the reëstablishment of the Union. All the rebel States' debt incurred since the revolt, for the purpose of overthrowing the Government, will, of course, have no legal existence. Under the Federal Constitution, no State Legislature can have any lawful existence, except in conformity with its provisions, accompanied by a prior oath of every member to support the Constitution of the United States. These assemblages, then, since the revolt in the several States, calling themselves State Legislatures, never had any legal existence or authority, and were mere assemblages of traitors. Such is the clear provision of the Federal Constitution, and of the law of nations and of justice. It would be strange, indeed, if conventicles of traitors in revolted States could legally or rightfully impose taxes on the people of such States, loyal or disloyal, to overthrow the Government. Indeed, if justice could have her full sway, the whole debt of this Government, incurred to suppress this rebellion, ought to be paid by the traitors alone.

My next comparison will be that of the Free State of Pennsylvania with Virginia.

Virginia was a considerable colony when Pennsylvania was occupied only by Indian tribes. In 1790, Virginia was first in rank of all the States, her number of inhabitants being 748,308. (Census Rep., 120, 121.) Pennsylvania then ranked the second, numbering 434,373 persons. (Ib.) In 1860 the population of Virginia was 1,596,318, ranking the fifth; Pennsylvania still remaining the second, and numbering 2,905,115. (Ib.) In 1790 the population of Virginia exceeded that of Pennsylvania 313,925; in 1860 the excess in favor of Pennsylvania was 1,308,797. The ratio of increase of population of Virginia from 1790 to 1860 was 113.32 per cent., and of Pennsylvania in the same period, 569.03. At the same relative ratio of increase for the next seventy years, Virginia would contain a population of 3,405,265 in 1930; and Pennsylvania 19,443,934, exceeding that of England. Such has been and would continue to be the effect of slavery in retarding the progress of Virginia, and such the influence of freedom in the rapid advance of Pennsylvania. Indeed, with the maintenance and perpetuity of the Union in all its integrity, the destiny of Pennsylvania will surpass the most sanguine expectations.

The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was 12.19, and in 1860, 26.02; whilst that of Pennsylvania in 1790 was 9.44, and in 1860, 63.18. (Ib.) The absolute increase of the population of Virginia per square mile, from 1790 to 1860, was 13.83, and from 1850 to 1860, 2.85; whilst that of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1860, was 53.74, and from 1850 to 1860, 12.93. (Ib.)

Area .—The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and of Pennsylvania 46,000, the difference being 15,352 square miles, which is greater by 758 square miles than the aggregate area of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware, containing in 1860 [Pg 336] a population of 1,803,429. (Ib.) Retaining their respective ratios of increase per square mile from 1790 to 1860, and reversing their areas, that of Virginia in 1860 would have been 1,196,920, and of Pennsylvania 3,876,119. Reversing the numbers of each State in 1790, the ratio of increase in each remaining the same, the population of Pennsylvania in 1860 would have been 5,408,424, and that of Virginia, 926,603. Reversing both the areas and numbers in 1790, and the population of Pennsylvania would have exceeded that of Virginia in 1860 more than six millions.

Shore Line .—By the Tables of the Coast Survey, the shore line of Virginia is 1,571 miles, and of Pennsylvania only 60 miles. This vastly superior coast line of Virginia, with better, deeper, more capacious, and much more numerous harbors, unobstructed by ice, and with easy access for so many hundred miles by navigable bays and tide-water rivers leading so far into the interior, gives to Virginia great advantages over Pennsylvania in commerce and every branch of industry. Indeed, in this respect, Virginia stands unrivalled in the Union. The hydraulic power of Virginia greatly exceeds that of Pennsylvania.

Mines .—Pennsylvania excels every other State in mineral wealth, but Virginia comes next.

Soil .—In natural fertility of soil, the two States are about equal; but the seasons in Virginia are more favorable, both for crops and stock, than in Pennsylvania. Virginia has all the agricultural products of Pennsylvania, with cotton in addition. The area, however, of Virginia (39,265,280 acres) being greater by 9,825,280 acres than that of Pennsylvania (29,440,000 acres), gives to Virginia vast advantages.

In her greater area, her far superior coast line, harbors, rivers, and hydraulic power, her longer and better seasons for crops and stock, and greater variety of products, Virginia has vast natural advantages, and with nearly double the population of Pennsylvania in 1790. And yet, where has slavery placed Virginia? Pennsylvania exceeds her now in numbers 1,308,797, and increased in population from 1790 to 1860, in a ratio more than five to one. Such is the terrible contrast between free and slave institutions!

Progress of Wealth .—By Census Tables (1860) 33 and 36, it appears (omitting commerce) that the products of industry, as given, viz., of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year in Pennsylvania, of the value of $399,600,000, or $138 per capita ; and in Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 per capita . This shows a total value of product in Pennsylvania much more than three times that of Virginia, and, per capita , nearly two to one. That is, the average value of the product of the labor of each person in Pennsylvania is nearly double that of each person, including slaves, in Virginia. Thus is proved the vast superiority of free over slave labor, and the immense national loss occasioned by the substitution of the latter for the former.

As to the rate of increase: the value of the products of Virginia in 1850 was $84,480,428 (Table 9), and in Pennsylvania, $229,567,131, showing an increase in Virginia, from 1850 to 1860, of $35,519,572, being 41 per cent.; and in Pennsylvania, $170,032,869, being 51 per cent.; exhibiting a difference of 10 per cent. in favor of Pennsylvania. By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195, the true value then of the real and personal property was, in Pennsylvania, $1,416,501,818, and of Virginia, $793,249,681. Now, we have seen, the value of the products in Pennsylvania in 1860 was $399,600,000, and in Virginia, $120,000,000. Thus, as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of Pennsylvania was 29 per cent., and of Virginia, 15 per cent. By Census Table 35, the total value of the real and personal property of Pennsylvania was [Pg 337] $722,486,120 in 1850, and $1,416,501,818 in 1860, showing an increase, in that decade, of $694,015,698, being 96.05 per cent.; and in Virginia, $430,701,082 in 1850, and $793,249,681 in 1860, showing an increase of $362,548,599, or 84.17 per cent.

By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the cash value of the farms of Virginia was $371,092,211, being $11.91 per acre; and of Pennsylvania, $662,050,707, being $38.91 per acre. Now, by this table, the number of acres embraced in these farms of Pennsylvania was 17,012,153 acres, and in Virginia, 31,014,950; the difference of value per acre being $27, or largely more than three to one in favor of Pennsylvania. Now, if we multiply the farm lands of Virginia by the Pennsylvania value per acre, it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia $1,204,791,804; and the additional value, caused by emancipation, $835,699,593. But the whole area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres, deducting from which the farm lands, there remain unoccupied 8,250,330 acres. Now, if (as would be in the absence of slavery) the population per square mile of Virginia equalled that of Pennsylvania, three fifths of these lands would have been occupied as farms, viz. 4,950,198, which, at the Pennsylvania value per acre, would have been worth $188,207,524. Deduct from this their present average value of $2 per acre, $9,800,396, and the remainder, $178,407,128, is the sum by which the unoccupied lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been increased in value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced value of their present farms, and the result is $1,014,106,721 as the gain, on this basis, of Virginia in the value of her lands, by emancipation. To these we should add the increased value of town and city lots and improvements, and of personal property, and, with emancipation, Virginia would now have an augmented wealth of at least one billion and a half of dollars.

The earnings of commerce are not given in the Census Tables, which would vastly increase the difference in the value of their annual products in favor of Pennsylvania as compared with Virginia. These earnings include all not embraced under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the mines, and fisheries. Let us examine some of these statistics.

Railroads .—The number of miles of railroad in operation in Pennsylvania in 1860, including city roads, was 2,690.49 miles, [4] costing $147,283,410; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807. (Census Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230, 232.) The annual value of the freight carried on these roads is estimated at $200,000,000 more in Pennsylvania than in Virginia, and the passenger account would still more increase the disparity.

Canals .—The number of miles of canals in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 1,259, and their cost, $42,015,000. In Virginia the number of miles was 178, and the cost, $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The estimated value of the freight on the Pennsylvania canals is ten times that of the freight on the Virginia canals.

Tonnage .—The tonnage of vessels built in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 21,615 tons, and in Virginia, 4,372. (Census, p. 197.)

Banks .—The number of banks in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 90; capital, $25,565,582; loans, $50,327,127; specie, $8,378,474; circulation, $13,132,892; deposits, $26,167,143;—and in Virginia the number was 65; capital, $16,005,156; loans, $24,975,792; specie, $2,943,652; circulation, $9,812,197; deposits, $7,729,652. (Census Table 35, p. 193.)

Exports and Imports, etc. —Our exports abroad from Pennsylvania, for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, and foreign imports, were of the value of $20,262,608. The clearances, same year, from Pennsylvania, and entries were 336,848 tons. In Virginia the ex [Pg 338] ports the same year and foreign imports were of the value of $7,184,273; clearances and entries, 178,143 tons. (Table 14, Register of U.S. Treasury.) Revenue from customs, same year, in Pennsylvania, $2,552,924, and in Virginia, $189,816; or more than twelve to one in favor of Pennsylvania. (Tables U.S. Commissioner of Customs.) No returns are given for the coastwise and internal trade of either State; but the railway and canal transportation of both States shows a difference of ten to one in favor of Pennsylvania. And yet, Virginia, as we have seen, had much greater natural advantages than Pennsylvania for commerce, foreign and internal, her shore line up to head of tide water being 1,571 miles, and Pennsylvania only 60 miles.

We have seen that, exclusive of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania in 1860 were of the value of $399,600,000, or $138 per capita ; and in Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 per capita . But, if we add the earnings of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania must have exceeded those of Virginia much more than four to one, and have reached, per capita , nearly three to one. What but slavery could have produced such amazing results? Indeed, when we see the same effects in all the Free States as compared with all the Slave States, and in any of the Slave States, as compared with any of the Free States, the uniformity of results establishes the law beyond all controversy, that slavery retards immensely the progress of wealth and population.

That the Tariff has produced none of these results, is shown by the fact that the agriculture and commerce of Pennsylvania vastly exceed those of Virginia, and yet these are the interests supposed to be most injuriously affected by high tariffs. But there is still more conclusive proof. The year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs, and yet, from 1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of increase of Pennsylvania over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to 1860. Thus, by Table 1 of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population in Virginia was as follows:

In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318; in 1820, 1,065,129, and in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of Pennsylvania was 434,373; in 1820, 1,348,233, and in 1860, 2,906,115. Thus, from 1790 to 1820, before the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase of the population of Pennsylvania, as compared with Virginia, was very far greater than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the tariff had no influence in depressing the progress of Virginia as compared with Pennsylvania.

Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and intellectual development.

Newspapers and Periodicals .—The number of newspapers and periodicals in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 367, of which 277 were political, 43 religious, 25 literary, 22 miscellaneous; and the total number of copies circulated in 1860 was 116,094,480. (Census Tables, Nos. 15, 37.) The number in Virginia was 139, of which 117 were political, 13 religious, 3 literary, 6 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860 was 26,772,568, being [Pg 339] much less than one fourth that of Pennsylvania. The number of copies of monthly periodicals circulated in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 464,684; and in Virginia, 43,900: or much more than ten to one in favor of Pennsylvania.

As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or printed. The number of public schools in Pennsylvania in 1850 was 9,061; teachers, 10,024; pupils, 413,706; colleges, academies, &c., pupils, 26,142; attending school during the year, as returned by families, 504,610; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 51,283; public libraries, 393; volumes, 363,400; value of churches, $11,853,291; percentage of native free population (adults) who cannot read or write, 4.56. (Comp. Census of 1850.)

The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937; teachers, 3,005; pupils, 67,438; colleges, academies, etc., pupils, 10,326; attending school, as returned by families, 109,775; native white adults of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868; public libraries, 54; volumes, 88,462; value of churches, $2,902,220; percentage of native free adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, 19.90. (Comp. Census of 1850.) Thus, the church and educational statistics of Pennsylvania, and especially of free adults who cannot read or write, is as five to one nearly in favor of Pennsylvania. When we recollect that nearly one third of the population of Pennsylvania are of the great German race and speak the noble German language, to which they are greatly attached, and hence the difficulty of introducing common English public schools in the State, the advantage, in this respect, of Pennsylvania over Virginia is most extraordinary.

My last comparison will be that of our two smallest States—Rhode Island, a Free State, and Delaware, slaveholding.

In 1790 the population of Rhode Island was 69,110, and that of Delaware 59,096. In 1860, the former numbered 174,620, the latter 112,216. Thus, from 1790 to 1860, the ratio of increase of population of Rhode Island was 152.67 per cent., and of Delaware, 89.88. At the same relative rate of increase, for the next, as for the last seventy years, the population of Rhode Island in 1930, would be 441,212, and of Delaware, 213,074. Thus in 1790, Rhode Island numbered but 10,014 more than Delaware, 62,404 more in 1860, and, at the same ratio of increase, 228,138 more in 1930. Such has been and would be the effect of slavery in retarding the increase of Delaware, as compared with Rhode Island. (Census Table, 1860, No. 1.)

The population of Rhode Island per square mile in 1790, was 52.15, and in 1860, 133.71; that of Delaware, 27.87 in 1790, and 59.93 in 1860. The absolute increase of population of Rhode Island, per square mile, from 1790 to 1860, was 80.79, and from 1850 to 1860, 20.74; that of Delaware, from 1790 to 1860, was 25.05, and from 1850 to 1860, 9.76. (Ib.)

Area .—The area of Rhode Island is 1,306 square miles, and of Delaware, 2,120, being 38 per cent., or much more than one third larger than Rhode Island. Retaining their respective ratios of increase, per square mile, from 1790 to 1860, and reversing their areas, the population of Rhode Island in 1860, would have been 283,465, and of Delaware, 78,268.

In natural fertility of soil Delaware is far superior to Rhode Island, the seasons much more favorable for crops and stock, and with more than double the number of acres of arable land.

Progress of Wealth .—By Census Tables 33 and 36 (omitting commerce), it appears that the products of industry as given, viz., of agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year, in Rhode Island, of the value of $52,400,000, or $300 per capita , and in Delaware, $16,100,000, or $143 per capita . That is, the average annual [Pg 340] value of the product of the labor of each person in Rhode Island is greatly more than double that of the labor of each person in Delaware, including slaves. This, we have seen, would make the value of the products of labor in Rhode Island in 1930, $132,368,600, and in Delaware, only $30,469,582, notwithstanding the far greater area and superior natural advantages of Delaware as compared with Rhode Island.

As to the rate of increase: the value of the products of Delaware in 1850 was $7,804,992, in 1860, $16,100,000; and in Rhode Island, in 1850, $24,288,088, and in 1860, $52,400,000. (Table 9, Treas. Rep., 1856), exhibiting a large difference in the ratio in favor of Rhode Island.

By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the cash value of the farm lands of Rhode Island in 1860 was $19,385,573, or $37.30 per acre (519,698 acres), and of Delaware, $31,426,357, or $31.39 per acre (1,004,295 acres). Thus, if the farm lands of Delaware were of the cash value of those of Rhode Island per acre, it would increase the value of those of Delaware $5,935,385, whereas the whole value of her slaves is but $539,400.

But by Table 35, Census of 1860, the total value of the real and personal property in Rhode Island in 1860, was $135,337,588, and of Delaware, $46,242,181, making a difference in favor of Rhode Island, $89,095,497, whereas, we have seen, in the absence of slavery, Delaware must have far exceeded Rhode Island in wealth and population.

The earnings of commerce are not given by the Census, but, to how vast an extent this would swell the difference in favor of Rhode Island, we may learn from the Census, Bank Table No. 34. The number of the banks of Rhode Island in 1860, was 91; capital, $20,865,569; loans, $26,719,877; circulation, $3,558,295; deposits, $3,553,104. In Delaware, number of banks, 12, capital, $1,640,675; loans, $3,150,215; circulation, $1,135,772; deposits, $976,223.

Having shown how much slavery has retarded the material progress of Delaware, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and intellectual development.

Newspapers and Periodicals .—The number of newspapers and periodicals in Rhode Island in 1860, was 26, of which 18 were political, 6 literary, and 2 miscellaneous. (Census, Table No. 37.) The number in Delaware was 14, of which 13 were political, and 1 literary. Of periodicals, Delaware had none; Rhode Island 1. The number of copies of newspapers and periodicals issued in Rhode Island in 1860 was 5,289,280, and in Delaware only 1,010,776, or largely more than five to one in favor of Rhode Island.

As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or published. The number of public schools in Rhode Island in 1850 was 426, teachers 518, pupils 23,130; attending school during the year, as returned by families, whites, 28,359; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 1,248; public libraries, 96; volumes, 104,342; value of churches, $1,293,600; percentage of native free adults who cannot read or write, 149. Colleges and academies, pupils, 3,664. (Comp. Census of 1850.) The number of public schools in Delaware in 1850, was 194, teachers, 214, pupils, 8,970; attending school during the year, whites, as returned by families, 14,216; native free adults of the State who cannot read or write, 9,777; public libraries, 17; volumes, 17,950; value of churches, $340,345; percentage of native free adults who cannot read or write, 23.03; colleges and academies, pupils, 764. (Comp. Census, 1850.)

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

PART THE LAST.

'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 .

CHAPTER VI.

About two weeks after Hiram's interview with Dr. Ephraim Peters, he had occasion to spend a long evening in company with certain influential members (of which he, of course, was the most influential) of St. Jude's.

It was past eleven o'clock when the meeting broke up. It was a clear, cold, December night, and Hiram buttoned his coat quite to his chin as he descended the steps to commence his walk home. Some had carriages in waiting; but he, fully alive to his brother's advice, preferred to go on foot. One gentleman kept him company for a couple of blocks; after that, he proceeded alone.

As he passed the corner of a street which ran at right angles to the one he was pursuing, a man came suddenly upon him, and, standing square in his path, demanded in a savage tone, 'Do you want your wood split?'

Hiram turned quickly aside, to avoid the questioner; but he had time to observe that he was an athletic man, with a limping gait, and a fierce, demoniacal countenance. He carried in his hand something like a butcher's cleaver; and before Hiram could escape, he repeated the question: 'Do you want your wood split?'

The stranger was not to be so easily disposed of. He put himself before the millionnaire a second time, and repeated his question.

Hiram Meeker was not a coward—that is, so far as his brain served him; and we all know he had enough of that.

Finding he was not to get rid of the unknown so readily, he stopped and regarded him with careful scrutiny.

Hiram was not slow to perceive that the man was insane, and he endeavored to humor him.

'Yes,' he said, 'I want my wood split very much indeed. It is too late to-night; but come to my house to-morrow, and you shall have the job.'

'Oh, no, no, no!' cried the other, 'I work only by night—only by night—and I cannot go to your house—you must come to mine!'

'I must first go home,' said Hiram, calmly, 'and send my wood round for you to split.'

'Not so, not so,' retorted the maniac. 'It has already been sent. Come and see!'—and he began pulling at Hiram's arm—not with ferocity, but with a doggedness almost worse.

Hiram looked up and down the street. Not a soul was visible. The creature who stopped his way was a powerful man—was armed with a deadly weapon—was mad.

Hiram came swiftly to a conclusion. He would appear to yield, and in the walk he was about to take it was almost a certainty that they would encounter some one. So he replied, in a good-natured manner: 'Well, if the wood has been sent to you, we had better go and have it split at once.'

'That's the talk—that's the talk! But we must hurry. Come on—come [Pg 342] quick, and you will see how I will do it up.'

He did not relax his hold of Hiram's arm. The two walked rapidly forward—much more rapidly than Hiram desired; but the crazy man kept exclaiming: 'We must make haste, I promised him I would not leave the room. No more would I; but you see, if I can earn the money, I am all right—all right—all right!'

'How much have you got?' he asked, stopping abruptly, and turning suddenly on Hiram.

'I have got ever so much. Now I think of it, suppose I pay you on the spot, so that you can go ahead and split the wood? It is getting late, you see.'

'That won't do—that won't do. I want him to have the money! Come—come along, and give it to him.'

On they pressed, till at length the man exclaimed: 'Here we are! Don't you perceive?'

He had stopped before an old and very common-looking house. In the second story one could see a light burning. The madman motioned Hiram to enter. The millionnaire was glad to discover that he was so near the end of his journey, and in a perfectly respectable neighborhood. Not doubting that he would find the apartment occupied, and quite sure there were inhabitants in the other part of the house, he proceeded to mount the stairs with alacrity, his companion following close at his heels.

It was with a sense of quiet relief that Hiram opened the door into a well-lighted room. This feeling was suddenly changed to one of horror on ascertaining that there was no one in the apartment, but that on a bed at the farther end of it was extended the corpse of a woman, already laid out and ready for the coffin! He stepped quickly backward, but it was too late. The madman was close behind him, and egress was out of the question.

The poor creature walked to the bedside, and it seemed as if sanity was vainly struggling to regain its place.

Hiram advanced at the word of command, and the other again took his arm; and both stood very still, looking at the dead woman.

'You are right. I must first earn the money—earn the money. Then—then I will wake her. Yes, then I will wake her.'

'Is it your wife?' demanded Hiram, timidly, impelled by an irresistible impulse to ask the question.

'Wife!' shouted the other, glaring on Hiram—'wife! who talks to me about wife? Do you? Say quick!—do you?'—and he raised the cleaver in a menacing manner.

'It was not I,' said Hiram, with as much calmness as he could command, while he looked at the other fixedly—'it was not I.'

'Glad to hear you say so. If it had been, I would have made kindling wood of you—yes, kindling wood of you!—That's all got along with,' he added, lowering the cleaver. 'Now take a seat.'

The madman sat down on one side of a small table, and motioned Hiram to occupy the chair opposite.

'Now we are comfortable. Don't you think so? Shan't have to move, shall we? Old Meeker, d——n his soul!—don't own this house. Come, let's have a gay old time!'—and he commenced, half shouting, half singing:

'Ain't I glad to get out of the wilderness—
To get out of the wilderness,
To get out of the wilderness?—
Ain't I glad to get out of the wilderness?
Hip, hip, hurrah!'

Hiram sat pale, but not trembling. He knew his very life depended on his composure, and he believed that the [Pg 343] noise which the madman was making would soon bring persons to the spot.

'You don't seem to like my little song,' he exclaimed, 'I will give you another.' And he shouted on:

'I wish I was a horse, as big as any elephant—
As big as any elephant,
As big as any elephant—
I wish I was a horse, as big as any elephant—
Hip, hip, hurrah!'

'Wife—wife! who said 'wife' to me?—who said 'wife' to me?' And he burst forth more furiously than ever:

'My wife's dead, and I want another one—
And I want another one,
And I want another one—
My wife's dead, and I want another one—
Hip, hip, hurrah!'

The man had now become so much excited, that he commenced walking rapidly around the room, brandishing his weapon in a most reckless manner.

Hiram's situation was becoming critical. He did not lose his self-possession, but began to balance the chances of attempting to escape by moving swiftly to the door, against keeping his seat and closely watching the maniac.

As if divining what was passing in his mind, the madman suddenly placed his back to the door, as if to bar any egress, and commenced singing again.

Hiram, whose every sense was on the alert, thought he saw the knob of the door turn. He was not mistaken; for now it commenced partially to open.

The maniac, feeling the pressure, turned about, leaving the entrance free—and Dr. Ephraim Peters entered.

He seemed to take in matters at a glance. Addressing the madman in a calm but commanding tone, he said: 'How is it that you have disobeyed me? I shall not trust you again. Sit down.'

The effect was electrical. An entire change came over the countenance and bearing of the maniac; he dropped the cleaver, and, passing to the other side of the room, took a seat in close proximity to the corpse.

Then turning, the young doctor addressed Hiram: 'Is your presence here forced or voluntary?'

As they went out, the doctor closed the door, and the two stood together in the gloomy hall at the top of the staircase.

'I am Dr. Peters, who called to see you about two weeks ago, on behalf of a poor woman whose dead body is now in that room. I told you, if she had to be moved, it would kill her. Your agent drove her out, and she lies here dead! It has made her husband crazy—a temporary lunacy, I trust—but, whatever it is, there you see the whole.

'I am expecting some persons every moment,' he continued, 'who will remain here all night, and I will detain you no longer.'

The doctor spoke in such a tone of quiet dignity, that it was impossible for Hiram to reply. He fumbled for a moment in his coat, and then drew out his pocket book. Producing several bills, he offered them to the doctor, muttering half inaudibly something about his desire to pay funeral expenses.

'Your money perish with you!' he said, solemnly. 'Think you charity consists in bank notes?'

The doctor turned and reëntered the chamber; and Hiram Meeker proceeded slowly down the stairs and into the street.

His thoughts, as he walked homeward, were not of an enviable nature. [Pg 344] I confess I have no desire to attempt to portray them.

CHAPTER VII.

His rest was broken by strange dreams, frightful or preposterous, which, running into each other, became blended in a confused mass of floating fancies.

Suddenly he realized just what he was. No business—no money—no earth—no foothold—nothing but a naked soul.

Hiram lay breathing with slow respirations. Even his piety was not present to support him. The world was swept from under him.

Then came a stern sense—a patent conviction—of all he had counted on: nothing—nothing!

He turned over, and fell asleep again. But still refreshing slumber was denied him; still were the night visions terrifying.

At last these appeared to take a definite shape. Heaving, working, revolving, the chaotic mass assumed form and grew luminous.

All of a sudden, IT changed to one great, bright, burning eye . Then he was the eye—all eye—nothing but eye! What sights were presented! The eye was gifted with a wonderful vision. It could discern true from false—real from counterfeit—what was genuine from sham and pretence.

More than this. The eye —which was Hiram—could discriminate between what men considered valuable and available and important, and also good and essential, and by all means to be secured: I say, the eye had the power to distinguish between these, and what was in truth and in very deed good and just and right, and truly to be desired and sought after.

Some shrank into littleness and utter insignificance, which formerly had large proportions and a towering importance; others, which before seemed puny and of little worth, grew grandly into magnitude, and power, and might.

At a great distance could be observed the habitations of the children of men. They appeared like objects seen through an inverted telescope—far off and exceedingly diminished.

He looked no larger than a man's thumb. He had fenced off a portion of the sands, so that no one except himself (and many attempted) could have access thereto. He was engaged transporting these sands in the most careful manner, one by one, into a large warehouse, for better security, as it would seem.

What is wonderful in all this is, that Hiram, the whole time, thought it gold he was storing, whereas the eye could perceive it to be sand only—glittering sand.

At length the vision faded away. Hiram started up in a mortal agony. The effort woke him, and he gazed wildly around. It was not yet light. Weary and exhausted by what he had passed through, he soon fell asleep, and this time slumbered peacefully.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining cheerfully into his room. The whole aspect of things was changed. The old scenes were shifted into place, the old machinery set in motion—Hiram was himself again!

CHAPTER VIII.

I hope the reader is willing to revisit this charming spot. For I confess that I myself feel impelled to do so. Indeed, I sometimes regret following the fortunes of Hiram Meeker to New York. Far more agreeable would it have been to have continued the story of Joel Burns, and showed what a good man may achieve, notwithstanding the workings of the 'ancient leaven,' and the [Pg 345] divers contests which spring up daily within and around him.

I propose, therefore, only a brief visit to the place which the reader may recollect was commenced by Joel Burns in his youth, when his love for Ellen Bellows lent to his already energetic spirit a tenfold force and vigor and perseverance.

The twenty-five years which have told with such effect on New York, have also produced great changes and great improvements in Burnsville. It was a thriving village when we last knew it. Now it is a large town. The higher portion is covered with fine buildings. Churches, hotels, academies, and various institutions for which New England is remarkable, seem specially to flourish here.

There are some old landmarks which I am sure we shall recognize—Joel Burns's house, for example, and the little brick 'office' from which Hiram sallied one morning before daylight to take the stage for New York, to attack Joslin the paper dealer.

The improvements have been astonishing. Beautiful trees skirt the principal streets, and form an arch above. Everywhere you behold displayed signs of admirable taste.

Below, in the valley, is the railroad; and opposite the 'paper mill' has been erected one of the finest 'stations' in the State. Here has sprung up a large manufacturing place, rivalling in size and business importance the 'ridge,' as we used to call it, but leaving the latter free from the noise and bustle of the mills and factories and machinery of our now famous 'Slab City.'

Dr. Egerton married Sarah Burns, as you have long since guessed. He is one of the few men of talent who has no ambition to quit his happy home to adventure in a large city. He is celebrated far and near, but nothing can draw him away from the spot where a youth he came to watch over a young girl whose life was trembling in the balance.

And Sarah, think you she is not repaid for her fidelity to her father? By it she escaped the grasp of Hiram Meeker, and is now—she has been for years—a loving, trustful, joyous wife.

Happy Sarah Burns! I commenced this narrative by recounting an un happy incident in your life. How grateful is the task of recording your triumph over the greatest danger which can threaten a maiden—the danger of loving unworthily !

Joel Burns! I confess that, of all at Burnsville, it is in you my feelings of interest centre—you, whose romantic fidelity to your wife's memory has thrown a charm over your whole existence. It is a great treasure—is it not?—a heart so true, so loyal, so pure and faithful, that not one, no, not one of all the young and fair and good and fascinating from out this world's fair creation can divert it for a moment, or change its even, constant, ever-loving pulsations. Such a heart you possess, Joel Burns!

Joel Burns was 'mated' as well as 'married;' and when his wife died, he did not really lose her. In spirit she attended him wherever he went—always near him—more actually present, Joel used sometimes to think, than she ever was before.

How could he wish to marry again, when his wife was all the time by his side—an ever-present, ever-abiding comfort and consolation?

I say, herein lay the charm and the glory of Joel's life. His influence on his place, after it grew beyond the proportions of a village, and became one of the largest towns in the State, was just as great as when it had but a dozen buildings.

Joel did not permit the desire to accumulate to become a passion. On the contrary, he diffused his wealth—not by direct gifts in charity, but by afford [Pg 346] ing everybody around him opportunity to get on and prosper, just exactly as if the world was common to all, and as if all should be allowed a fair chance to live in it!

You have no idea how the attempt to practise this principle enriched the life and nature of Joel Burns.

[There are two Spirits—towering, gigantic Genii—who attend on man: one the Absorbing, the other the Imparting, Spirit. Both are active, energetic, untiring. The former, if it gains access to the soul, commences at once to narrow and impoverish it; while the latter enlarges and makes the soul rich. Herein is explained the old enigma which a dying man is said to have uttered:

I have remarked that Burnsville was one of the largest towns in the State. This was not only the case, but the immense manufactories in 'Slab City' made it much more prominent than any other, and brought it into more direct communication with New York.

Hiram Meeker heard, from time to time, of all that Joel was doing. In fact, impelled by a strong impulse, he took pains to ascertain what progress he made from year to year. But Hiram could not, with all his penetration, fathom a nature like that of Joel. It was always a puzzle to him. For it was not given to a man, who had all his life harbored the wicked Demon Absorption , to understand the excellency and happiness of such a life.

But he watched Burnsville. Indeed, he was tempted to make some heavy investments there when the railroad was constructed—of which event, as the leading capitalist of the country, he had the earliest information. He abandoned the idea, however, for he shrank from coming in contact with his old employer.

But, reader, if you think I am endeavoring to depict a faultless person, you are much mistaken. Faultless is lifeless, when applied to human beings. It is in the contest with our faults that the glory of our humanity shines forth. It is this which binds our race together in one great brotherhood. Pray, tell me what we could do with a faultless man or woman. What have we in common with any such person? What sympathy have we with either, or either with us?

Joel Burns was constitutionally ardent and energetic, not to say impetuous. With such characteristics are always strong attending imperfections. He had his share of these. But his motives were honest, his principles right, his intents true; and I declare I think it to be a real felicity and blessing to observe the faults of such a man, and witness how he encounters and battles with, and conquers them—or if for a moment overcome, to behold his genuine regret and contrition.

I will pursue this no further. I have some work to do in the metropolis. If I linger at Burnsville, I shall be quite unfitted for it—I shall, indeed.

Ellen Bellows—Ellen Burns—don't you see that Joel has remembered your dying injunction, and has tried to 'live right?' Yes, you do. It was for this that you have never forsaken him.

Sarah Egerton smiles on me as I pass out of the gate. A group of children, half grown, and full grown, give me joyous greeting; and the Doctor waves his hand from his carriage, as he drives along on his errands of mercy and benevolence.

I must make haste. There is no stage to wait five minutes for me. The time table is a despot.

CHAPTER IX.

There was to be a large party at Mrs. Caruther's, a married daughter of Mrs. Bennett. The Bennetts and the Meekers, by the way, always kept up their intimacy. Mr. Bennett is dead. He died the year he was seventy, leaving a large fortune. The widow lives in the old house, and the children are married, and are bringing out their children now.

I say, Mrs. Caruthers was to give a large party. Mrs. Meeker, who invariably attended her daughter, could not go. Belle must not go alone. She arranged, so she said, to drive early in the evening to Mrs. Caruther's, and to stay there all night.

For two or three weeks previous, Belle, under the inspiration of Signor Barbone, who now exercised a complete control over her, had been making, quietly but very efficiently, her arrangements for quitting her father's roof.

By degrees, and with an amazing display of secretiveness, she managed to convey out of the house all that she might require for a considerable absence.

Her jewels were not lost sight of, nor anything else of value. The Signor had provided proper receptacles for all these articles—indeed, had greatly aided the young lady in the selection of what to take. More than this—Signor Barbone ( proh pudor! ) had suggested that she should fortify herself with such sums of money as she might be able to get together without exciting suspicion.

Strange as you may think, Belle was possessed of so little delicacy, that she actually entered into the spirit of the enterprise—regarding the affair as a capital joke, enabling her to hold out against papa should he prove obstinate, as he might for a few days (it could only be for a few days), and inclined to be severe.

What with all her jewels, including some recent expensive purchases, made for the first time in her life without payment on the spot (this also at the suggestion of the Signor), and with sums quietly got together for several weeks, including some considerable amounts coaxed from her father on various pretences, and a pretty large sum borrowed over night from mamma—I say, with all this, the 'happy pair' were pretty well fortified for their first campaign.

Mrs. Caruthers, of course, knew nothing of Belle's tale to her mother, that she was to pass the night at her house. She simply expected Belle to grace her party.

Quite early in the day the young lady ordered a handsome ball dress placed in a box, and directed it to be taken to her dressmaker, to receive some trifling alterations before evening. She would call in good season there, so she told her mother, and order it sent to Mrs. Caruthers's.

Then, waiting for Mrs. Meeker, to take her morning drive, she went to her room and hurried on a travelling dress.

She was going down stairs, when Harriet's nurse opened the door of her young mistress's apartment, and asked her to step a moment into the room.

Belle turned with all the composure she could muster; she curbed her impatience, and looked amiable.

'Yes, dear; you know I am to be early at Mrs. Caruthers's. Mamma can't go with me—so I am to stay all night.'

'It looks odd, doesn't it I—I have sent my ball dress to Laroche, to be altered a little; and I have to call there now, and I want her to see me in this. Do you know, I don't think she has fitted me well at all?'

'Oh, no. I thought you were going into the parlor, and I was about to ask you to sit with me a little while. I have something to say to you about Gus. I want you to talk to papa. You know papa will listen to you . Tell him—never mind, dear, to-morrow will do as well—I hope you will have a pleasant evening.'

By a sort of instinctive tenderness not denied to any human creature, Belle paused and looked back, and, hesitating a moment, returned; going to where her sister was reclining, she kissed her affectionately, without speaking one word.

Belle was already out of the room. She bounded down the staircase, passed hastily through the hall, and was soon walking rapidly along the street.

When the six o'clock New York train for Philadelphia passed through Newark, it received on board Mr. and Mrs. Filippo Barbone, who were just starting on their wedding excursion.

No wonder, the next day, that Belle is late. We who are in the secret will not be astonished; neither does Mrs. Meeker think it at all strange that Belle should not return in the morning after the excitement of a grand evening display such as Mrs. Caruthers will be sure to have.

The day wears on. As the dinner hour approaches, Mrs. Meeker decides to send the carriage for her.

The coachman soon drives up before Mrs. Caruthers's; and the footman, descending, announces simply that he has called for Miss Belle. The answer which is brought to him is, that Miss Belle is not in the house. He returns and reports accordingly.

Although this little incident is very annoying to Mrs. Meeker, still she has no other idea than that Belle has stopped to make some call or do some shopping on her way home.

Had she considered a moment, she would have perceived how unreasonable was such a supposition. But, as Mrs. Meeker could not have the slightest suspicion of the truth, she was forced to imagine something.

In the midst of her perplexity, Hiram entered. He was so accustomed, and especially of late, to his daughter's greeting at the door, that he missed these affectionate tokens of her presence when he entered the house.

'Belle has not returned yet from Mrs. Caruthers's. It is rather strange. I have just sent the carriage for her. Wakeman brings back word that she is not there.'

'Wakeman is an idiot!' exclaimed Hiram, with a degree of temper so unusual, that Mrs. Meeker started—'an idiot! I dare say he did not make his message intelligible.'

Now, 'Wakeman' was Mrs. Meeker's private servant—a family servant, she was pleased to say; thereby meaning, not that he had been in the employ of her father, honest Thorn the plumber, nor yet in the service of her mother, the "poor relation," but that in fact he was her servant before she was married, and had remained par excellence her servant ever since.

She therefore rose in arms at once, in vindication of her favorite, and was about to work herself into one of her customary manifestations, which Hiram was evidently in no state of mind to bear, when there was suddenly a ring at the door. An instant's parley, and the servant entered, bearing a note to Mr. Meeker. [Pg 349]

A 'terrible sagacity' informed Hiram's heart of something dreadful about to shock it. He tore open the envelope with fierceness, and read as follows:

' Dear Papa : Don't be angry with me. I was married yesterday to Filippo Barbone. I married him because I love him, and could never love any one else. I knew you would not consent, but I could not live without him. Forgive your little girl, dear papa, and write me to come back to you with my dear Filippo. Oh, I know you will like him . Send to me at the Gresham House, Philadelphia. I shall be in agony till I hear from you. Love to dear mamma and Harriet. If I only had your forgiveness, how happy I should be, dear, dear papa!

'Your little Belle.'

[This letter, mainly the production of the Signor, was prepared and put into the hands of his accomplice before the runaways set off, with directions to watch for Hiram's entrance into his house, and deliver immediately after.]

He glared fiercely about him, as if endeavoring to find some person on whom to vent it.

There was no one but his wife, who stood directly before him, her angry reply in favor of 'Wakeman' having been cut short by the entrance of the servant with the note.

As Hiram's glance fell on her, a sudden suspicion seized him that she was in some way privy to the affair. In an instant he had grasped her arm, and, shaking her with all his might, he exclaimed: 'Wretch!—monster!—she-devil!—limb of Satan!'

The affair was seriously enough certainly, but it had a ludicrous aspect. There was Arabella, without having the slightest idea of what could cause such a violent outbreak, tossed about like a whirligig by the usually calm, sedate, and self-possessed Hiram, who seemed suddenly transported into a very demon.

Portions of her headdress began to come down. A pair of side curls dropped—a first-rate shot, a sportsman would say—the effect of a double shake and a sudden fetch-up. Next a profusion of hair from the back of the head tumbled off. Teeth began to chatter, and various portions of the structure in which she was encased, to give way.

All this time, Arabella was vainly endeavoring to give utterance to various exclamations, but she could only gasp out some unintelligible sound, while her eyes flashed fire and her cheeks burned with rage.

At last Hiram was exhausted, and with exhaustion came some little thought of what he had been doing. He relinquished his hold of his wife, picked up the note which he had dropped on the floor, put it into her hands, and quit the room.

Hiram stood a moment in the hall, quite overcome by the revulsion that succeeded the storm. Then he slowly mounted the stairs, and proceeded to the room of his invalid child.

Harriet was so struck with the change in her father's countenance, that she started up and exclaimed: 'Why, papa, what is the matter?'

'Your sister has run away with a low, vile swindler. My curse rest on her forever!'

'Tell me, my child,' said Hiram, mournfully, while he seated himself by her side and took her hand—'tell your father truly, did you know anything about this?'

Quite calmly Hiram told his daughter what had occurred. The travelling dress, and Belle's last kiss, flashed on her mind. She repeated the circumstance. [Pg 350]

'And you know nothing of this Filippo Barbone?' said Hiram, forcing himself with difficulty to pronounce the name.

'And your mother?' continued he, slowly, and in a tone which terrified his child.

'Oh, I am sure she knew nothing about it, perfectly sure. I know she did not wish Belle to go to Mrs. Caruthers's, because she could not go with her; and even after Belle made the arrangement to stay all night, mamma did not seem to be at all satisfied.'

Hiram was convinced, and the want of an object on which to wreak his anger now served to exhaust it.

Harriet put her hand gently upon his cheek. 'Papa,' she said, timidly, 'may I tell you what to do?'

'Send for Belle to come back, and her husband too, and let us make them happy,' said Harriet, almost abruptly.

Hiram started—a new idea had struck him. It was as if somehow he had received a new accession of wealth by the surrender of Harriet's share. A strange confusion of ideas, certainly; but the thought grew on him, as we shall see by-and-by. Now, however, it gave place to the dominant feeling.

Harriet, encouraged by his silence, broke in again: 'Won't you, papa?' she whispered.

Hiram turned and looked at her angrily, but was compelled to lower his countenance before his daughter's earnest, truthful, heavenly gaze.

He started up and went back to the parlor. He began to feel ashamed of his violence toward his wife, and was anxious to dispose of the matter as soon as possible.

As soon as her husband had left her, she proceeded to read the note he placed in her hands. That accomplished, she took the precaution to ring the bell several times with great energy; and, having disposed of the little articles which lay scattered on the floor, she threw herself on the sofa, in violent hysterics.

When Hiram entered, these were at once renewed. Her husband understood this phase of her constitution; and, directing the maid servants to remove their mistress to her own room, he ordered dinner to be served.

Two or three times the waiter observed that his master put his hand to his head and then to his heart, as if endeavoring to tranquillize himself.

After dinner, he mounted his horse, and rode several miles. When he returned, one would not have known, to look at him, that anything unusual had happened.

During the nest week Hiram was occupied in making his will. A new and important idea seemed to have possession of him.

From that period he never permitted his daughter's name to be mentioned, and would receive no communication from her.

Arabella's hysterics continued, at intervals for several days. Her husband, in view of his violence toward her, was very considerate, but the affair was never alluded to by either.

Arabella, perhaps, felt that she deserved some punishment for tolerating the 'Count in disguise;' and Hiram never got over a certain feeling of mortification when he thought of the scene in the parlor.

THE MECHANICAL TENDENCY IN MODERN SOCIETY.

There is no greater absurdity than the attempt to demonstrate anything from historical evidence, or to frame from it an argument whose cogency shall even approach to a demonstration. Granting the hypothesis that like causes will always produce like effects, we find ourselves unable to show that the cases are exactly, or even proximately, the same. History is not a record of every circumstance, but of those only that were deemed worthy of perpetuation; and even were all circumstances known to us, we must receive them as seen through the opinions of the historian, while the present is as it seems to us; so two cases, while appearing to agree, may in reality be very unlike. And, in addition to this, so many are the events that precede any given effect, that it is impossible to determine which is the cause, and which only the circumstance attending that cause. So, while our literature is flooded, with so many 'demonstrations from history,' many a philosopher finds himself in the situation of the sage who demonstrated that 'Tenterton steeple' was the 'cause of Godwin Sands.'

From this it has arisen that practical men have come to despise not only all reasonings from history, but social science altogether, deeming it a pleasant tissue of thoughts that may amuse a leisure hour, but nothing of practical importance. On most subjects this is unfortunately true, but sometimes in the state of a nation there are indications, repeated again and again, showing the existence of a cause which, unless counteracted, will eventually produce certain disastrous effects. Though seen and pointed out by many wise men, still the existence of the cause cannot be logically proved, nor the time of its effect mathematically calculated. Such were the terrible premonitions which foretold the French Revolution, and such are the signs showing over and over again the existence of a mechanical tendency in our own social state. Very seldom, almost never, do we have mathematical certainty as the ground of our action, but the greater part of our lives is directed by moral or probable evidence; and though most of our reasoning on this subject must be derived from history or social science, we deem it worthy of the same treatment that is given, to other questions. If the probabilities be not as great, let it pass with other schemes and theories, but if those probabilities be great enough to make it of practical and vital importance, then let it become an element in every man's consideration.

There is a great deal of possible confusion in this word mechanical . To most readers it would bring the idea of invention, the increasing number of cotton mills and iron founderies, of steamships and power presses, and such progress would be considered in the highest degree praiseworthy; but the sense in which we use the word is somewhat more general. A machine differs from a man in this respect: the former acts without intelligence and without volition, in accordance with certain laws impressed upon it from without; while a man chooses his own end by his own volition, in the light of his own intelligence, and in the same manner decides upon the means for obtaining that end. A mechanical condition would therefore be one wherein an individual acts without intelligence or volition, according to certain laws or habits coming to him from others; a mechanical state of society, one wherein the government moves on according to the will of one or more men, without thought, love, or even at [Pg 352] tention from the mass of the people, content only with their acquiescence. On the other hand, a rational condition, both of society and of the individual, would be that in which the thought, will, and love of the individual gave strength and life to every act.

The question whether our social state is becoming mechanical, losing personal thought and volition, is of great and vital importance, on account of the terrible major premise that lies beneath. For prove but once that this is the fact, and there comes upon us the great general truth: 'The nation that is growing mechanical is hastening toward its destruction.' The proof of this assertion is written everywhere in history. The limits of this article render it impossible that a tithe of the proof should be brought forward in its support, and therefore only the most general truths can be laid down for the reader to verify from his own historical knowledge. No fact is more indisputable than that every preceding civilization has had its birth, progress, and death, differing only in length from the life of a mortal man; and in the state of each one, in proportion as this mechanical tendency increased, in that proportion their national life departed.

The first period in every nation has been that called the heroic or golden age. Whether this was, in reality, or only in poetic dream, the best age, depends upon another question: What is the true aim in the life of men and nations? If it be but to live comfortably and without confusion, then the architecture and laws of later times are a proof of progress; but if the great end be to develop the whole man, and live a brave, thoughtful, truthful life, with or without tumult, then is the first the golden age; for, entering on a new mode of life, undirected by habits of thought or action from his ancestors, each man makes use of his personal thought in finding out, and volition in choosing, his method of life. No history has recorded the internal state of such a nation, but only the fact that it has always been successful in preserving its liberties against invasion.

The next is the age of leaders, when individual thought has so far departed that they begin to look to others not yet as governors, but directors. This, to a superficial view the noblest age, marks the beginning of a decline. Its great power of invasion, as under Pericles or Cæsar, comes from the fact that, while strength enough is left to carry out the details, there is not enough of independence in thought to mar the unity in the plan of its leader. Its brilliant literature springs from division of labor; life has become so complex that each man cannot comprehend it all—so one takes the department of thought, another of action. The man of thought tries to bring back that courage and virtue which he sees are departing, by singing beautiful songs in their praise; while the man of action, feeling their waning power in himself, makes up, by repeating these praises, the lack of a heroic life.

The next is the mechanical age of society, which life has so outgrown the mind that the man cannot attend to both his own affairs and the state, which latter, therefore, he gladly yields to others. This is the age of standing armies, hired to protect a people too careless to protect themselves. This is the age of tyrants, as the lesser Cæsars or Philip of Macedon. This is the age which ushers in the last period of the nation, a mechanical state of the individual, when thought has so departed that the man is not able to attend even to his own life, and, like a passive machine, the state is impelled and directed in even the least things by one tyranny from without. It is hardly necessary to add that Alexander in Greece, Elagabalus in Rome, Louis XVI in France, were followed by a destruction as certain as the fact that God meant the earth to be inhabited by men and not machines.

Having shown the grave consequence [Pg 353] that lies beneath it, we come now to the all-important consideration, whether our own social state has this mechanical tendency. The preceding sketch not only shows the truth which we have deduced from it, that this tendency is a prelude to a nation's death, but it also points out another, namely, that civilization contains within itself certain causes which finally work its destruction. We may, by a diligent study, find out these causes, such as increase of outward knowledge, division of labor, a complexity of outward relations, and a consequent hurried life that leaves no time for thought; but a careful analysis of all these reduces them to one great cause—an undue attention to physical prosperity. This cause existed among ancient nations in sufficient force to bring about their destruction, but it possessed not a tithe of the universality and strength which it holds among the modern, for, whereas it was once individual, it is now national, pervading every part of the social state.

Before the world was thickly settled and the nations established, it was held that the power of a nation consisted in the extent of its dominions, so that while the individual strove for wealth in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, the state despised such low pursuits, and turned its attention to increase of territory. But when, after the fall of Rome, it was found that the earth was too fully peopled and national power too well established for such means of strength, attention was turned to another source of power in the cultivation of a people's own resources and increase of its wealth. Wealth is obtained by the addition of mental power to physical products, increasing their value for supplying the wants of man. So that attention to physical comfort and prosperity which was despised by the brave nations of antiquity, is now the leading object of government: treaties are made, wars are declared, rebellions break out, not on account of national glory or right, but in consideration of cotton manufacture, facilities of commerce, or freedom of trade. Nations as well as men are absorbed in the same great pursuit, adding mind to matter for production of wealth.

From this undue attention to physical prosperity spring certain subordinate causes, which, upon examination, are found to be the exact differentia of modern times. The characteristics which distinguish our age from all others are the very ones which have been found so destructive to preexistent civilizations. The first characteristic of this kind is the abundance of outward knowledge. In the pursuit of wealth, the ocean, the desert, the isles of the sea have been ransacked for commodities to gratify the desires of man, and, in order that nature may be pliable for the same purpose in the hands of the artisan, its laws have been studied with the greatest success; the bowels of the earth, the depths of the air, the prison of the arctic seas, have all been subject to the same strict scrutiny in this design.

The knowledge thus obtained comes pouring in by lightning and steam, and is scattered over the world within the reach of the poorest by means of the printing press. The man of to-day is a citizen of the world; he seems to be ubiquitous. It is as though he had a thousand eyes and ears, and, alas! only one mind. Thought has two conditions: first, knowledge, as food and stimulus; second, time for distributing and digesting that knowledge. But the first is so superabundantly fufilled that it entirely obliterates the second. Knowledge comes pouring in from all quarters so rapidly, that the man can hardly receive, much less arrange and think out, the enormous mass of facts daily accumulating upon him. The boasted age of printing presses and newspapers, of penny magazines, and penny cyclopædias, is not necessarily the age of thought. There is a world- [Pg 354]

will be the result; but to the working-man division of labor is mental death. The ancients might call these masses the ignobile vulgus , the French nobles might sneer at them as sans-culottes , we may deride them as the 'common herd,' all attempting to ignore their existence in history or politics; but it will be all in vain—for in the end it is the people that rule, be the government of the surface what it may. Either they will raise their rulers by their intelligent freedom, or drag the brilliant crowd down with them to destruction in spite of theory or law. Not only in mad sedition and revolution, but always, the masses govern.

The next great characteristic of the age is the increased complexity of outward relations, while the inner mental power does not increase in the same ratio. The former causes had a mechanical tendency in that they lessened the mental strength, for all volition must have its foundation in thought; but this has the same tendency, inasmuch as it increases the objects of thought beyond the power of the mind to satisfy the demand. If any intelligent man should stop in the midst of his life, and consider the relations by which he is surrounded, and for the satisfying of which he is responsible, he will shrink amazed from their enormous complexity: demands from the state for support and thoughtful fidelity, demands from his fellow men for love and charity, children demanding education and training, his own nature demanding cultivation and development, and, last of all, or rather first of all, his God demanding thoughtful love and service. When he proceeds to consider how he may best satisfy all these, there pours in upon him knowledge unbounded, schemes, theories, and methods innumerable, so that he retreats at last in despair and returns to his business—so he calls it, as though to make money were all that a man was sent into the world for, as though his children, his country, his fellow man, were not all his business. The outer world seems to have risen to overwhelm him, and the reason of it lies in this same great cause of undue attention to outward prosperity.

In the pursuit of wealth, men have aggregated themselves into towns and cities, whose area is measured by square miles, and their population by hundreds of thousands or millions; the mind meanwhile, instead of increasing in proportion to the demands thus made upon it, has rather diminished in power. Added to this, each man finds his own private affairs in the same state. The social barrier of birth is either gone or fast departing, and each man recognizes wealth as the only way to power; but the concentrated attention of men and nations in this direction has so complicated its pursuit that he must give his whole mind and heart to this alone, if he would hope to succeed in it, or even comprehend it. While these two worlds, the objective and the thinking subjective, have thus grown so enormously out of proportion, the world has found a remedy again in division of labor. The different relations, which are the unalienable obligations of every man, have been parcelled out among all, and each takes but one as his vocation, leaving all the rest to the vicarious performance of others. Politicians care for the state, teachers for the children, charitable societies for each man's neighbor, and preachers fulfil his duty to God.

The first mistake in the world's action is this. In this partition, thoughts and actions have become separated, the world is filled and the individual confounded by new religions, methods of education, theories of government, propounded by those par excellence called the thinking men, while the men who work have no time for thought. Wisdom is theory proved by experience, but here, alas! the reasoning man and the practical man are separated, so that we are farther than ever from the living truth. [Pg 356] [Pg 355]

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.'

Behind this first mistake, that one man can do the thinking for another, the great error in the world's reasoning on this subject is this, that one man can perform another's duties at all. The duty is his, the responsibility is his, and none can perform the one or assume the other. Granting that he may supply the thought or mechanical; the dynamical, the love and soul power which would make that logic effectual, can come only from each individual himself.

The duty which each man owes to his children is education and training. Schools and teachers may supply schemes of education, improved methods of study, and instil some facts or even ideas into the mind; but that which vivifies the intellect and brings out every power in its fullest development is the motive of love; and it was meant that the filial affection of the child toward its parent should be the life of its opening mind. The mere logic of religion, Sunday schools and teachers, may supply one day out of seven; but to animate that logic and make it a practical thing, a faith instead of a belief, it must be made concrete and living in the loving life of home. In this case no one does the duty or assumes the responsibility of the parent.

Our duty to our fellow men is not charity as we use the word—a bill dropped into the contribution box, or a subscription to a charitable society; but χἁρις in the old meaning of love and help. Poverty springs from two causes—improvidence, a lack of the savoir-faire in the affairs of life, or overwhelming circumstances, which have broken the spirit of the man and made him sit down discouraged and despairing. In either case, money is no remedy. If the man be improvident, it only helps the evil for a moment, and the want soon returns: what the man needs is instruction and care from those better versed in the art of living. And in the second case, to give money is no avail, but rather an evil; for instead of thus recognizing his degradation, the man needs encouragement, the enthusiasm of a strong and successful heart, giving life and light to him who thus sits in darkness. This demands the time and careful thought of every man, or the duty is left undone. Charitable institutions are well enough: the only error is in supposing that they can assume the responsibility of the individual. 'This ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone.'

Our country cannot be left to politicians, for its first great demand is the careful thought of every man in the direction of its affairs; and this, no single man or class of men can supply. The action of Government should be conditioned by the needs of the people, and these can be known only by the people themselves. It is for every man, therefore, to keep an earnest and heedful eye to his own needs and the wants of those about him, if the vox populi would be vox Dei , the utterance of God's truth; otherwise the opinion of the people will be the voice of demagogues, which is as far as possible from the voice of God. Another need is that of continual watchfulness, lest the country be defrauded, or its rulers become corrupt. No class of men can be appointed as watchmen, lest they also go in the same way: but it is the unalienable duty of the whole people. When the emergency of defence arises, no man can really perform his duty by the payment of money or the providing of a substitute; for that which makes a country strong is not armies or cannon, but life. The Moors held Grenada, in the midst of Spain, for years, the Swiss have remained amid the storms of Europe for centuries, a Rome of huts went out to conquer the world, while a Rome of palaces is doomed to invasion and death. Every nation has money [Pg 357] enough, if it have only patriotism and its attendant courage. Even if war has become mechanical and men fight at a distance, so that the courage of a hand to hand conflict is of no avail, it finally comes to the same result; a nation needs not cannon or armies, but men whose hands are strong and whose minds are quick because of the love in their hearts. No man performs his duty unless he sends a substitute of equal bravery and patriotism to that which he should himself possess, and then he must do the substitute's duty by going in his place. Politicians and hired soldiery can neither govern nor protect a country; it needs the people themselves as individuals.

In religion, no man pretends to say that a class of men can perform the duty which each man owes to God, and the person who should say such a thing would be considered in jest or partially deranged. Yet it is so tacitly held, and practically believed. As the man sits in his cushioned seat on the Lord's day, and looks up at the stately edifice which he has helped to build, and hears the eloquent words of the preacher whom he in part pays, he has a comfortable feeling that his work is done. To be sure, no man can love God without knowing Him, and none can know Him well without a careful and intelligent study of His works in creation and revelation; but the man himself has no time for this, he has something else to do, and if he but hire another to dig out these truths, and present them to him, as it were ready made, of a Sunday, he considers that it is enough. The preacher performs the thinking and the architect the acting of man's duty to God. So the world goes on; religion is merely logical, mechanical, a kind of 'greatest amount of happiness' affair, a lubricant to make the wheels of society move on smoothly, instead of being from the soul, dynamical, giving love and life to the world.

This mechanical tendency has also an element which makes it worse than any corresponding state in former times, for these at least contained a faith which was positive, while ours is utterly negative; theirs sprang from want of mental power, ours from want of time. When in times past a people felt the power of thought going from them, and became conscious of their inability to solve the great riddle of life which was perplexing them, they chose the best remedy for what was irremediable, and turned to wiser men than they for direction and help. From thence sprang faith, reverence, hero worship, which stands next in rank to independent thought. But we, having no time to attend to these things, have yet no faith in those to whom they are entrusted, and no hope of their successful issue; we but shrug our shoulders at the thought, say, 'I cannot attend to it,' and let it go. So laisser aller is the cry of the age, a dead negation of thought and volition.

By proving the existence of the causes that produce it, we have shown the presence of a mechanical tendency in our social state; the same thing may be done in another way, by proving the existence of effects that flow from it. The truest index of a people's condition is found in the meaning which they attach to certain, words. A history of the word virtus , manhood, is a history of the social condition of the Roman people. If, then, we find that the conceptions which we attach to such words as God, man, and society are mechanical, then society must have such a tendency, for these words lie at the foundation of all government, all social movements, and all individual actions.

First, the meaning of the word God. We, as a people, neither deny nor pretend to deny, in words, the existence of a Being, infinite in power and wisdom, who governs the universe according to his will; yet practically we have ignored His existence, and deified the laws of nature instead, given up the idea of a free volition, worshipping a [Pg 358] mechanical necessity of cause and effect. The cause of this dates back to Bacon's 'Novum Organum,' the introduction of the Inductive Philosophy. He laid down the principle that nature must be interrogated if she would be understood, that from a careful study of the effects we must deduce the cause, instead of presuming the cause, and explaining the effects on this hypothesis.

This form of study and the study itself are well enough when confined to their right proportion; but desire for wealth, in its endeavor to adapt nature to the wants of man, has forced the study out of its proportion, and deduced from it an untruth. In proving the being of a God from nature alone, we get only the idea of power joined to a dead necessity of laws; and it must be in the study of the human soul, with its personality and volition, that we shall get the other ideas, which, joined to that of power, prove to us the being of a personal God. Nature has been studied and analyzed and searched with all the social and individual power of the age, while the science of mind and soul has stood still; and so it is that men no longer believe there is any God but cause and effect; not the nation which is right is successful, but 'God is always on the side which has the most cannon;' not the just man, but the shrewd man, will succeed; not God but rain and sunshine, will bring forth the harvest.

Give us back the time when men fought hand to hand in ordeal of battle, or bared their feet to walk over burning ploughshares in their firm trust that God would defend the right; give them back with all their superstitions and darkness, if with them we may receive again the lost knowledge of a God who is 'Our Father,' a God who loves and protects His children. If there is anywhere on the earth a soul that trusts and prays, then must the world be wrong in its belief. A law is a rule of conduct, a law of nature is a rule of God's conduct, and though we have abstracted the personality and freedom, they are none the less there. There is also a mitigated form of this atheism as follows: many believe in a personal God, yet conceive Him to be fettered by his own laws; as if He had made the machine of the universe, wound it up, and could now only stand helplessly aside to see it go. Prayer is of no avail to such a God; thus the first need of the soul is left unsatisfied, and man stands in the universe alone. Herein is their error: because He has always acted in this manner, they reason that He always will, and then go farther and think He always must; not seeing how He stands behind and moves the law. When the hammer in the pianoforte rises, the wire will sound; but there is one who sits unseen at the key board and controls the wires of the hammer. When the lightning bolt falls, the tree is shattered; but God holds the lightning in His hands.

Succeeding a mechanical idea of God, we have a similar idea of man. The fundamental question of human nature is that of free will or necessity. The history of philosophy is but a history of the conflict of these two ideas: in the life of the individual also, the same great question arises, whether he can be what he will, or will be what he must. From this come all those articles on 'Nature and Circumstances,' 'Genius and Labor,' with which college magazines are filled—endeavors of the young mind to solve this most vital problem. Modern society has declared itself on the side of necessity: while acknowledging man preeminently free in his relations to others, it yet considers him as the bondslave of motives. When God is the mere bondsman of necessity, and his religion only the means of the greatest amount of happiness, surely his creature must be in the same slavery. There are three great motives that sway men—love for themselves, love to others, and love to God. The first of these is measurable, [Pg 359] the others immeasurable. In the first, given a greater means of happiness, ten thousand dollars instead of nine thousand, and the action follows in that direction as a matter of necessity. But love of children, patriotism, benevolence, love of God rise above this logical and mechanical, to the region of free and incalculable volition.

Society, ignoring any such thing as soul, has declared that only the measurable and necessary remains in man. Thence has arisen the science of averages, pretending to foretell with mathematical certainty what a man must do under given circumstances. Thence also has arisen this maxim, so often quoted as final in all such questions, 'Every man has his price.' Perhaps there is some ground too for this opinion. We have before shown how, by division of labor, affection and volition have been abstracted from life, while only a formal performance of duties by others remains, and it would be strange if, under such régime , these parts of the human nature should not become shrunken. But the soul is not wholly gone yet; the world is mistaken—a little is left which cannot be measured by dollars and cents, enough of benevolence yet to make tolerable, enough of faith and love in the hearts of a few holy men to keep the world from corruption.

Society was called by the Great Master a brotherhood. Even in heathen times men were held by ties of kindred and country; now they acknowledge practically no bond but that of interest. The word that is continually in our mouths is 'framework of society,' 'social mechanism,' as though it were impelled by a force from without, instead of being a living and vital thing, moved and governed by its own vital forces. 'Law of averages,' 'honesty is the best policy,' 'law of supply and demand,' are supposed to be the forces that drive the affair, while any such power as love or faith is ignored. But as with individuals, so with society. The world is not so bad as it declares itself to be. Enough of patriotism is still left to affect the gold market at times, enough of faith to keep alive the effete aristocracy of Europe, enough of courage and honor to rally around and bravely uphold a tattered flag in a battle for constitutional freedom.

Although we have shown the existence of a mechanical tendency, yet our labor is incomplete and practically useless unless we have shown how it may be retarded or wholly counterbalanced. Some countervailing element there must be, as is evident from the fact that, while the causes that produce this tendency exist in modern society in tenfold greater power than they ever had in ancient life, yet their operation has been, by far, less rapid. Greece and Rome existed barely a thousand years, while Anglo-Saxon civilization has already flourished much longer than that, and as yet shows no signs of immediate decay.

The retarding cause is war. This does not strike at the root of the matter and eradicate the love of physical prosperity, but only retards the movement, by awaking men to see that their interests are inseparable from those of the state. In the midst of war they see that one cannot perform the duty of another, that hired soldiery cannot protect a state, but their own hearts and arms must be enlisted unless they would be buried in its ruins. It wakes up the dormant dynamical powers of courage and heroism, and checks for a moment the selfish individualism that was taking the life from the nation.

This only retards, it does not counterbalance or neutralize this tendency. War was common to ancient and modern times alike; but that cause which has so long held our society from ruin, and on which we base our hope of an indestructible civilization, is the Christian religion. This strikes at the root of the matter, being antagonistic not only to the one simple cause, but to each of the subordinate causes that [Pg 360] are derived from it. Disproportionate attention to outward prosperity springs from the idea that the happiness of men and nations is inseparable from wealth. Directly opposed to this is the teaching of religion, that happiness and strength come from performing truly the duties of life. The first derivative cause which we found under this was an accumulation of facts which overburden the mind and destroy its power. Religion has little to do with outward facts, it taxes but little the receptive power; it has to do rather with changing knowledge into wisdom, applying the few vital facts to the life. This knowledge, we have found, is objective, ignoring the Γνωθι σεαυτὁν; but religious thought is intensely subjective; all other things it esteems as of no avail, except those that relate to the outward condition and tendency of the individual. Know thyself in relation to man and God—this it continually demands. No man can be religious without thought—continual, earnest thought, perceiving and defining duties; therefore, wherever religion comes, even the mind that was sunken in weakness is raised to renewed life. It is in this way that religion counterbalances the influence of division of labor. While this takes away the last incentive to thought on the part of the workman, degrading him to a cunning but expensive machine, religion gives to him a new spring of thought, vivifies his blunted mind by the power of transformed affections, and makes him again a man.

The next derivative was lack of time, taking affection and volition from life by dividing the duties of the individual among others. In immediate antagonism to this, religion declares that the individual stands alone in his duties and responsibilities before God. It recognizes no institution of charity or social partition, but reiterates the command, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' which includes everything.

Religion is opposed to this tendency, not only in its causes, but in its effects. It brings back to us the idea of a personal God. It makes no mention of nature, but simply says: 'The heavens declare the glory of God,' 'He sendeth his rain on the just and the unjust.' No laws of nature are spoken of as conditioning the action of God, but He sees the sparrow's fall and provides for it; He hears and answers the prayer of His children. It declares man to be more than a slave driven by motives, with every action necessitated; it declares him a creature of free volition, whose action can neither be calculated nor controlled. It declares him possessed of powers of love and hate, which defy mathematics; a being above all price, to whom honesty may be more than 'the best policy,' even the loving obedience of a child to a loving Father. It declares society to be no mere framework tied together by interest, but a brotherhood, like a living soul, having a common Father, Saviour, and Home. In place of supply and demand, policy, interest, it enunciates but one word, love .

It would be worse than useless if we had come so far in reasoning, and obtained no practical result, which might be embodied in each man's action. We have shown the existence of this tendency, and the powers that are antagonistic to it. We cannot prove the result, for there is no analogy in any preceding case which history affords; we cannot calculate the strength of the opposing powers, for the issue lies in man's volition, which is above mathematics. Yet practically, the result, as far as regards us individually, is as valuable as though this were possible. The result depends upon the world's decision, and each man is responsible for his part of that decision, whether he will give his heart to outward or inward prosperity. If he would have his children, to unnumbered generations, rise up to bless the age in which he lived, and him who lived therein; if [Pg 361] he would do what he can to make his country's civilization perpetual, and his own life truly happy, let him give up all thought of laissez faire , 'it will last my time,' and begin to lead an earnest, thoughtful life, sacrificing, if need be, something of outward prosperity for the sake of fulfilling his duty in love and action to his fellow men and to God.

AN INDIAN LOVE-SONG.

From his ambush in thy shadowy eyes young Love an arrow shot,
When beneath thy father's wigwam my youthful brain grew hot.
My heart is all a-quiver, but hear me while I sing;
Oh let me be thy beau, and I will never snap the string!
Then clad in noiseless moccasons the feet of the years shall fall;
For I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall scalp us all.

Not with the glittering wampum have I come thy smiles to woo;
But I offer a cabin passage down life's river in my canoe;
And to beguile the voyage, if thou wilt come aboard,
Till sunset fire the waters the fire-water shall be poured.
While clad in noiseless moccasons the feet of the years shall fall;
And I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall scalp us all.

Though my pipe of peace thy cruelty has shattered, stem and bowl,
A thousand thongs from thy dear hide are knotted round my soul.
From every murderous tomahawk my dove shall shielded be;
And if famine stare us in the face, I'll jerk my heart for thee.
So, clad in noiseless moccasons the feet of the years shall fall;
And I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall scalp us all.
[Pg 362]

LITERARY NOTICES.

Poems from the Inner Life . By Lizzie Doten . Boston: Wm. White & Co., 'Banner of Light' Office, 158 Washington street, New York: A. J. Davis, 274 Canal street.

This book was written from what is called 'the plane of spiritual experience' of which we, being neither clairvoyant, clairaudient, nor clairsentient, know positively nothing.' Miss Doten says: 'I claim both a general and particular inspiration. I know that many sincere and earnest souls will decide, in the integrity of their well-trained intellects, that my claim to an intercourse with the invisible world is an extravagant assumption, and has no foundation in truth. I cannot conscientiously deny that in the mysteries of my inner life I have been acted upon decidedly and directly by disembodied intelligences, and this sometimes by an inspiration characteristic of the individual, or by a psychological influence similar to that whereby mind acts upon mind in the body. Many of the poems were given by direct spirit influence before public audiences. For many of them I could not obtain the authorship, but for such as I could the names are given.'

Strange statements truly, and yet we see no reason to doubt that Miss Doten fully believes them to be simple records of facts known to herself. We do not doubt her truth and good faith; but we confess ourselves puzzled with the contradictory and inconsequent phenomena of modern spiritualism. These developments never bring any accession to our knowledge. In addition to the curious circumstances attending the creation of these poems, many of them are very beautiful. In those purporting to have been dictated by the spirit of Poe, the similarity of style is quite remarkable. His alliterations, his frequent assonances and rhymes, his chiming and ever-musical rhythms are wonderfully well reproduced. But has he learned nothing new to tell us in those 'supernal spheres'? Has he struck upon no new path in those weird regions, grasped no fresh and startling thought to weave into the perfect music of his lines? Nay, has he learned no new tunes, chimes, or rhythms 'where the angels' feet make music over all the starry floor'? Could he not lift for us the veil of Isis? The 'inspiration' from Shakspeare we regard as a total failure. He who never repeated himself on earth, comes to us who love him, after his long residence in heaven, and travesties his own matchless dramas by weak quotations from them, as if he had been cogitating only his own words through the new scenes of glory which had opened before him. Our great Shakspeare has grown none in the passing centuries—comes from the empyrean to gabble like a dotard of the visions of his youth? We quote from the poem:

'Man learns in this Valhalla of his soul
To love, nor ever finds 'Love's Labor Lost.'
No two-faced Falstaff proffers double suit;
No Desdemona mourns Iago's art;
And every Romeo finds his Juliet.'

Trust us, fair and gifted Miss Doten, the spirit who sang this into your soul was not Shakspeare, nor, unless we are much mistaken, even one of his acquaintances.

Faith and Fancy . By John Savage , Author of 'Sibyl, a Tragedy.' New York: James B. Kirker, 599 Broadway. Washington, D. C.: Philip & Solomon.

We are glad to welcome this little volume of poems, some of which were published anonymously, and received general praise from critics and readers. They are vigorous, patriotic, rhythmical, and many of them are marked with imaginative power. The 'Muster of the North' is a bold and striking poem.

Life of Edward Livingston . By Charles Havens Hunt . With an Introduction by George Bancroft . New York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway.

Mr. Hunt has had great advantages in the preparation of this interesting life, the only surviving members of Mr. Livingston's imme [Pg 363] diate family having placed in his hands the whole mass of papers left by him at his death. The work has a double interest. As a man, Mr. Livingston claims our sympathies from his domestic virtues, his unvarying sweetness of demeanor, his high ability and culture; as jurist and statesman, he is closely related to the great epochs of our country. It fell to his lot, after our acquisition of Louisiana, to adjust the old municipal laws derived from France and Spain, to the new condition of the connection with America. 'The code which he prepared at the instance of the State of Louisiana,' says Mr. Bancroft, 'is in its simplicity, completeness, and humanity at once an impersonation of the man and an exposition of the American Constitution. If it has never been adopted as a whole, it has proved an unfailing fountain of reforms, suggested by its principles.' Mr. Livingston will live historically with such men as Bacon, Montesquieu, Beccaria, and Bentham. His great work in its final form was styled 'A System of Penal Law,' and was divided into 'A Code of Crimes and Punishments,' 'A Code of Procedure,' 'A Code of Evidence,' and 'A Code of Reform and Prison Discipline,' besides 'A Book of Definitions.' This work is marked by great unity of design, by the shunning of legal ambiguity, by the preventing rather than avenging crime, and by bringing 'mercy to season justice.'

Space fails to follow Mr. Livingston through his congressional career, his social and domestic life, his many and pleasant relations with General Jackson, George M. Dallas, and most of the leading men of his own times. We close this short notice with a quotation from Charles J. Ingersoll: 'A purer, sweeter, or superior spirit seldom has departed. He belonged to a peerage of which there are very few members.' We doubt not this important record will obtain a wide recognition.

Rambles Among Words : their Poetry, History, and Wisdom. By William Swinton . Revised Edition. New York: Dion Thomas, 142 Nassau street.

We are glad to welcome a new edition of this interesting book. Some fifteen hundred illustrations of the Poetry, History, and Wisdom of Words are presented to the reader in these pages, the greater number of which have never before been etymologically analyzed. Mr. Swinton's classifications are ingenious and suggestive. We have 'The Work of the Senses, 'The Idealism of Words,' 'Fossil Poetries,' 'Fossil Histories,' 'Words of Abuse,' 'Growth of Words,' 'Verbal Ethics,' 'English in America,' &c. Our author says: 'In the growth of Words all the activities of the mind conspire. Language is the mirror of the living inward consciousness. Language is concrete metaphysics. What rays does it let in on the mind's subtile workings! There is more of what there is of essential in metaphysics—more of the structural action of the human mind, in Words, than in the concerted introspection of all the psychologists.' And very skilfully has Mr. Swinton elicited the pregnant meanings, the rich coloring, the 'concrete metaphysics,' the terrors, delights, and wonders of words. Thoughtlessly enough we use them, but they are coins of matchless worth, stamped with the history and marked by the complicated powers of the being in the fire of whose soul they are fused. Truthfulness of derivation, history, erudition, poetry, and imagination meet in the charming pages before us, and enthral the interest. We recommend the work not only to the student, but to all readers of intelligence. Those already familiar with the subject will find much rare and original matter; while those to whom it is new will be astonished and startled with the unsuspected resources of the magical regions through which 'Rambles among Words' will conduct them.

The Vagabonds . By J. T. Trowbridge . With Illustrations by F. O. C. Darley. New York: James G. Gregory, 46 Walker street.

Most of the readers of the Atlantic Monthly will remember 'The Vagabonds'—a poem remarkable for its truth and pathos. Darley has caught the spirit of the 'two travellers'—indeed, the expression of love and pity in the face of the dog is almost human. If we but read this poem aright, a moral lies in every verse, teaching us compassion for erring humanity, and mercy to the dumb creatures whom no sin or degradation can alienate from their loyal affections. We thank Darley for these exquisite and tender illustrations. They are worthy of his fame. May they save our poor four-footed 'Rogers' many a kick, and elicit a deeper sympathy for earth's unfortunate vagabonds! [Pg 364]

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE METROPOLITAN FAIR IN AID OF THE UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION.

Believing it to be the duty of all public and private citizens, of all journals and publications, to do whatsoever may be in their power to aid the Metropolitan Fair in the effort to sustain the Sanitary Commission in its important functions, we propose devoting to this purpose the pages of our Editor's Table.

Fort Sumter fell on the 15th of April, 1861; on the 16th, the President's proclamation calling out seventy-five thousand troops to suppress an armed rebellion was issued. The effect was electric, startling the loyal States into sudden activity. Men rushed to arms, and women thronged together to devise means to alleviate suffering likely soon to occur among the brave fellows speeding to face death in behalf of their country. Surgeons and physicians were invited to meet with them and instruct them how to make lint, prepare bandages, and educate nurses.

About fifty ladies met during this juncture at the New York Infirmary for women, April 25th, 1861, and a committee was appointed to organize the benevolence of our women into a Central Association. A meeting was called in the Cooper Institute, April 29th, attended by the largest assembly of ladies ever drawn together before. It was presided over by D. D. Field, Esq. [5] Rev. Dr. Bellows explained the object of the meeting, and an eloquent address was made by Vice-President Hamlin. Dr. Crawford, since Brigadier-General Crawford, who had been at Fort Sumter, followed him. Drs. Wood, Mott, Stevens, etc., urged the merits of the enterprise. Articles of organization were brought in, which, under the name of the Women's Central Association of Relief, united the women of New York in a society whose objects were to collect and distribute authentic information with regard to the wants of the army; to establish a recognized union with the New York Medical Association for the supply of lint, bandages, etc.; to solicit the aid of all local associations; and to take measures for training and securing a supply of nurses against any possible demand of war. Dr. Mott was appointed President of the Association; Rev. Dr. Bellows, Vice-President; G. F. Allen, Esq., Secretary; and Howard Potter, of Brown Brothers & Co., Treasurer.

Wise questions were put to the Chief Medical Purveyor of the U. S. Army by the Association, to which kind and patient verbal answers were returned. But it was evident that he regarded its solicitude as exaggerated, and its proffer of aid as almost superfluous, believing the Medical Department was fully aroused to its duties, and able to meet them. There can be no doubt that this opinion was perfectly honest, loyal, and faithful. But the women still believed that something might be done for the objects of their solicitude. A committee, consisting of Dr. W. H. Van Buren, Dr. Elisha Harris, Dr. Jacob Harsen, and Rev. Dr. Bellows, etc., was appointed to visit Washington, and confer with the medical authorities and the War Department in regard to the whole subject of volunteer aid to the army. The committee came to the conclusion, after some weeks' observation in and about Washington, that neither the Government, the War Department, the Bureau, the army, nor the people understood the gigantic nature of the business entered upon, or were half prepared to meet the necessities which must in a few weeks or months fall crushingly upon them. Such facts convinced them of the [Pg 365] necessity of a much more extensive system than had been contemplated at the period of their organization, and thus the idea of a Sanitary Commission, with an office and resident staff at Washington, presented itself to them as alone able to meet the views of the Central Association and the emergencies of the case. The ordering of a Sanitary Commission without rights or powers was finally granted, the duties being enough to satisfy the most active. The order for the Commission was issued by the Secretary of War June 9th, and approved by the President June 13th, 1861. Women feel that our soldiers belong to the nation , and thus local, and personal prejudices have yielded to the truly federal principles of the Sanitary Commission. They are withdrawn from local politics, and have felt the assault upon the life of the nation in its true national aspect. They have been the first to appreciate and understand the all-embracing duties of the Sanitary Commission. With Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, New Haven, Hartford, Providence, Boston, Portland, and Concord for centres, there are at least 15,000 Soldiers' Aid Societies, all under the control of women, employed in supplying, through the Sanitary Commission, the wants of the sick and wounded in the great Federal Army. The skill and business energies of the women managing the vast operations of the chief centres of supply unfold a new and glowing page in the history of the capacities of the sex.

Why does the Sanitary Commission need so much money? Because the present machinery of the Commission, supported by the Central Treasury cannot be kept in motion without large expenditures; and large as the cost is, the results for good are almost infinitely larger. The Sanitary distributes the supplies sent, embraces Sanitary Inspection by medical men of general hospitals, Sanitary Inspection by medical men of camps and field hospitals, Special Relief with all its agencies and in all its various departments, and the Hospital Directory with its register and its 500,000 names. Every dollar expended meets some real want, or helps to save a life. Do the people wish this agency in behalf of the soldiers in tent, hospital, and on the battle field—at the East—West—South, to cease? or is it their will to continue it in its largeness of plan, its scientific exactness, its ability to do all that the friends at home would themselves desire to do for our soldiers? Our generous and loyal people have given their entire confidence to the Sanitary Commission—they have decided that it shall not die for lack of material aid, estimating beyond all money and all price the lives and health of the brave men now in the field for the defence of the country, and grateful that they may repose in the certitude that every cent contributed will be used in the surest manner to effect the results required. To aid in sustaining this beneficent institution, New York is about to inaugurate a great Metropolitan Fair. She asks in the sacred name of freedom and humanity that her children come together with the works of their hands, the results of their enterprise, the achievements of their talents, the bloom of their genius, to do her honor in a Great Exhibition of Art, Industry, Commerce, all devoted to the cause of human progress. She begs of her children to do the work which is given them to do, with a spirit of love and patriotism, remembering no private griefs, no unworthy animosities; remembering only the bleeding sons of the Republic, who threw themselves, in their youth and strength, into the yawning gulf which opened before them, hoping that, propitiated by such a sacrifice, it might close again—willing to die, or live maimed and suffering, that a happy, peaceful and united people might again possess the fairest land which God has given to mankind. Chicago, Cincinnati, and Boston have already done nobly in this direction, and New York should contribute in proportion to her means and advantages. The Atlantic seaboard should make great exertions, seeing that more than one half of the money received by the Commission has been contributed from the shores of the Pacific—California having sent more than five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

The Managers of the Fair invite all Merchants, Manufacturers, and Artisans to contribute of their wares to its stores, giving such goods as they make or deal in—such goods as are made profitable to them by the prosperity of the country which our soldiers are fighting to maintain.

Painters and Sculptors, who have done so much for the honor of their country, all [Pg 366] who are connected with the Fine Arts, either as creators, as dealers, or possessors of Art Treasures, are asked to send their contributions for exhibition or sale .

Farmers are invited to bring to the Fair gifts from their barns, stalls, dairies, and poultry yards.

Publishers and Booksellers are confidently looked to for aid. A Second-hand Book Stall will be attached to this Department, to which contributions are asked from the shelves of those who are cumbered with duplicate copies, or who have books which they no longer use. Connected with this Department will be a table for the exposition and sale of valuable Autographs.

On the Musicians, Musical Instrument Makers, and Music Dealers, the Managers confidently rely for a worthy representation of the beautiful art of which they are ministers, by the giving of Musical Performances and of instruments and music for sale.

The Managers and Artists of the various Theatres are invited to set apart one evening during the Fair, the performances on which shall be for the benefit of the fund.

It is hoped that the Public Schools and Public Institutions of a benevolent character may contribute in some fitting manner to the Fair.

It is also hoped, from the well-known patriotism of the Fire Department and the Police, that they will bear an honorable and conspicuous part in this life-preserving and humane undertaking.

A Department of Arms and Trophies will be established, to which not only arms and flags captured in the present war, but all articles of this kind having a historic or intrinsic interest, will be acceptable contributions, either for sale or exhibition.

An Old Curiosity Shop will afford all who have interesting relics of the past in their possession an opportunity to enable others to share the pleasure of examining them. Valuable contributions have been already received in this department. Let it be clearly stated whether articles of this kind are for sale or only for exhibition.

A Newspaper will be published daily, which, in addition to the latest telegraphic news, will contain short and piquant articles upon the incidents of the day, and especially of the Fair.

It is intended that, so far as practicable, each city in the State desiring that its contributions shall be kept together, shall have a separate space set apart for them, and that each of these cities shall be represented in the General Committee of Management.

A certain number of each Executive Committee will be at its Office—the Ladies at No. 2 Great Jones street, the Gentlemen at No. 842 Broadway—every day, from 10 a. m. to 4 p. m.

Contributions are to be sent to the Receiving Depot, No. 2 Great Jones street, where they will be credited to their givers, and their receipt acknowledged by the proper committee.

It is particularly requested that each contribution be plainly marked with the name of the contributor, for exposition during the Fair, and that each article be accompanied by a memorandum of its value.

REGULATIONS.

1. Every application by note for contributions shall be upon paper bearing the symbol of the Fair, and signed in writing by a member of the Executive Committee; and every member of a special committee shall be provided with a similar certificate of authority.

2. It is earnestly requested that all contributions in money be sent to the Treasurer, to whose order all checks should be made payable.

3. At the Fair, every article shall be sold at its current value, when that is determinable.

4. In all raffles, the number of tickets sold shall not exceed the original valuation of the articles raffled for.

6. In every department, a cashier shall be appointed to receive money and make change.

OFFICERS.

Ladies' Association

Mrs.	Hamilton Fish , President .
"	David Lane , Vice-President .
"	A. V. Stout , Second Vice-President .
"	Ellen R. Strong , Treasurer .
"	John Sherwood , Secretary .
Miss	Catherine Nash , Assistant Secretary .

Executive Committee.
Office, No. 2 Great Jones street.

Mrs.	Marshall O. Roberts.
"	Francis Lieber.
"	Wm. H. Van Buren.
"	Richard M. Hunt.
"	Jonathan Sturges.
"	A. Schermerhorn.
"	David D. Field.
"	S. G. Courtney.
"	Daniel Le Roy.
"	Benjamin Nathan.
"	John Jacob Astor.
"	Gurdon Buck.
"	Ogden Hoffman.
"	Josiah S. Colgate.
"	Frank E. Howe.
"	John A. Dix.
"	A. Hamilton, jr.
"	Thomas F. Meagher.
"	Philip Hamilton.
"	Frederick Billings.
"	Morris Ketchum.
Miss	Catherine Hone.

Gentlemen's Association.

Major-gen.	John A. Dix , President .
Mr.	Jonathan Sturges , First Vice-President .
"	James T. Brady , Second Vice-President .
"	Wilson G. Hunt , Chairman of Gen. Com .
"	Richard Grant White , Secretary .

Executive Committee.
Office, No. 842 Broadway.

Mr. George Griswold Gray, Chairman .
Mr. R. G. White, Secretary .

Mr.	Marshall O. Roberts.
"	Arthur Leary.
"	James L. Kennedy.
"	Charles H. Marshall.
"	A. Van Rensselaer.
"	Nathan'l P. Hosack.
"	Peter Marie.
"	Abr'm M. Cozzens.
"	L. R. Jerome.
"	Wm. T. Blodgett.
"	Fletcher Harper.
"	Lloyd Aspinwall.
"	Wm. Scharfenberg.
"	Levi P. Morton.
"	Chris'n E. Detmold.
"	Henry Chauncey.
"	Charles A. Bristed.
"	Thomas Acton.
"	C. Godfrey Gunther.
"	Henry S. Fearing.
"	A. R. Macdonough.
"	Francis A. Stout.
"	James A. Roosevelt.
"	Le Grand B. Cannon.
"	Edward Delano.
"	John F. Kensett.
"	James F. Ruggles.
"	Moses Lazarus.
"	Joseph G. Heywood.
"	Philetus T. Holt.
"	Uriel A. Murdock.
"	Elliott F. Shepard.
"	Edward Matthews.
"	S. B. Janes.

We have deemed it best thus to gather together from all available sources all the information we could glean from the circulars, etc., of the Metropolitan Fair, with the names of its officers, and the addresses of the Executive Committees, that we might give all possible information to our widely spread circle of readers. We give, from the excellent article in the January number of the North American Review already quoted, a vivid description of scenes occurring in the great Northwest, upon a similar occasion.

'In Chicago, for instance, the Branch has lately held a fair of colossal proportions, to which the whole Northwest was invited to send supplies, and to come in mass! On the 26th of October last, when it opened, a procession of three miles in length, composed of wagon loads of supplies, and of people in various ways interested, paraded through the streets of Chicago; the stores being closed, and the day given up to patriotic sympathies. For fourteen days the fair lasted, and every day brought reënforcements of supplies, and of people and purchasers. The country people, from hundreds of miles about, sent in upon the railroads all the various products of their farms, mills, and hands. Those who had nothing else sent the poultry from their barnyards; the ox or bull or calf from the stall; the title deed of a few acres of land; so many bushels of grain, or potatoes, or onions. Loads of hay, even, were sent in from ten or a dozen miles out, and sold at once in the hay market. On the roads entering the city were seen rickety and lumbering wagons, made of poles, loaded with a mixed freight,—a few cabbages, a bundle of socks, a coop of tame ducks, a few barrels of turnips, a pot of butter, and a bag of beans,—with the proud and humane farmer driving the team, his wife behind in charge of the baby, while two or three little children contended with the boxes and barrels and bundles for room to sit or lie. Such were the evidences of devotion and self-sacrificing zeal the Northwestern farmers gave, as, in their long trains of wagons, they trundled into Chicago, from twenty and thirty miles' distance, and unloaded their contents at the doors of the Northwestern Fair, for the benefit of the United States Sanitary Commission. The mechanics and artisans of the towns and cities were not behind the farmers. Each manufacturer sent his best piano, plough, threshing machine, or sewing machine. Every form of agricultural implement, and every product of mechanical skill, was represented. From the watchmaker's jewelry to horse shoes and harness; from lace, cloth, cotton, and linen, to iron and steel; from wooden and waxen and earthen ware to butter and cheese, bacon and beef;—nothing came amiss, and nothing failed to come, and the ordering of all this was in the hands of women. They fed in the restaurant, under 'the Fair,' at fifty cents a meal, 1,500 mouths a day, for a fortnight, from food furnished, cooked, and served by the women of Chicago; and so orderly and convenient, so practical and wise were the arrangements, that, day by day, they had just what they had ordered and what they counted on, always enough, and never too much. They divided the houses of the town, and levied on No. 16 A street, for five turkeys, on Monday; No. 37 B street, for 12 apple pies, on Tuesday; No. 49 C street, for forty pounds of roast beef, on Wednesday; No. 23 D street was to furnish so much pepper on Thursday; No. 33 E street, so much salt on Friday. In short, every preparation was made in advance, at the least inconvenience possible to the people, to distribute in the most equal manner the welcome burden of feeding the visitors at the fair, at the expense of the good people of Chicago, but for the pecuniary benefit of the Sanitary Commission. Hun [Pg 368] dreds of lovely young girls, in simple uniforms, took their places as waiters behind the vast array of tables, and everybody was as well served as at a first-class hotel, at a less expense to himself, and with a great profit to the fair. Fifty thousand dollars, it is said, will be the least net return of this gigantic fair to the treasury of the Branch at Chicago.'

We cannot believe that there is the least necessity to urge upon our generous people the absolute duty of contributing largely to the support of the Sanitary Commission, the strong and helpful angel of our bloody battle fields. Our sick soldiers, burning with fever, shivering with the debility of disease, with pallid faces and emaciated frames, ask from us that its healing dews shall still be suffered to descend upon them. Stricken down upon the battle field in the full bloom of manly vigor, lying festering in their ghastly wounds among the dead and dying, exposed to the dews of night, the broiling fervors of the midday sun, we may hear them implore us that the ambulances of the Sanitary may be allowed to aid in bringing them shelter, aid, strength to live, or patience to die. Bleeding stumps of manly limbs are piteously held forth to us that surgeons may be supplied for amputation, that balls buried in the flesh or lodged in the bone may be extracted by hands skilful in the use of knife and probe. Let these brave fellows feel that the arms of the men and women of this country are clasped around them in sustaining love. Ah, have we not all dear ones in this grand army? answer me, fair and true daughters of our soil.

'The subtile sense, the faith intense, of woman's heart and brain,
Give her a prophet's power to see, to suffer, and maintain.'

Let us not stop to measure what is prudent for us to give, but let us give freely, promptly, as we would do if we saw before us the suffering victims of this holy war! Every dollar may save a life, every penny a pang. O God! shall we stop to count pence with our stricken brave dying and bleeding before us? Every gift, however small, from a loyal soul, will be greeted, every good giver welcomed. Let us listen to the most sublime of all music, the great heart-throbs of a free people chiming together in the vigorous rhythm of the Divine charities. Let our nation comprehend from within the march of its vast destinies, its true and ever-growing force in the love and self-sacrifice of its children. Let the benediction of our American Evangel, 'All men are born free and equal,' sound on until all voices swell in the grand diapason of everywhere harmonious and united Humanity, for this is the strength of man and the true meaning of our Union.

'From the vine-land, from the Rhine-land,
From the Shannon, from the Scheldt,
From the ancient homes of genius,
From the sainted home of Celt,
From Italy, from Hungary,
All as brothers join and come,
To the sinew-bearing bugle
And the foot-propelling drum:
Too glad beneath the starry flag to die, and keep secure
The Liberty they dreamed of by the Danube, Elbe, and Suir.'

Let us at least prove ourselves worthy of the century in which we live, and show the astonished world how a free people honors, guards, cares for, and shelters its suffering heroes.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Or Black Head. There is great confusion in names in this part of the range.

[2] Dr. Neumann has removed from Munich to Berlin within a year past.

[3] Now over 3,000 miles.

[4] Now 2,907 miles.

[5] For most of these facts, see Article on the Sanitary Commission in the North American Review for January, 1864.

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I.	Political unity vs. secession:

	{ A progressive civilization vs. a stagnant one;
	{ A republican form of government vs. an aristocratic one;
II.	{ Personal freedom vs. chattel slavery;
	{ General peace vs. diplomatic intrigue and war;
	{ An enlarged individual freedom vs. espionage, censure, and restriction:

	{ Common schools and general intelligence vs. partial culture and general ignorance;
	{ Free inquiry vs. conventional stultification;
	{ Free speech and a free press vs. the surveillance of a mercenary police;
	{ The political equality of classes vs. the inequality of
	{ ruling, servile, and disfranchised classes;
	{ Respect for the affections vs. disregard for ties of home and family;
	{ Wages labor vs. compulsory labor;
III.	{ The dignity of labor vs. the opprobrium and servility of labor;
	{ A healthy industrial activity vs. indolence and crushing toil;
	{ The continual specialization of industry vs. industrial sameness;
	{ Incentives to invention and improvement vs. mechanical inactivity;
	{ A constantly renewed soil vs. an exhausted one;
	{ A great navy and flourishing commerce vs. general commercial apathy;
	{ Great industrial prosperity vs. industrial stagnation;
	{ Greater variety and versatility in life vs. a narrow and bigoted uniformity.

AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.
LETTER NO. III.
PALMER, THE AMERICAN SCULPTOR.
CLOUDS.
CIRRUS.
CUMULI.
RAIN CLOUDS.
SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.
THE ISSUES OF THE WAR.
ÆNONE:
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CARL FRIEDRICH NEUMANN, THE GERMAN HISTORIAN OF OUR COUNTRY.
THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.— PART THREE .
THISTLE-DOWN.
THE LOVE LUCIFER.
CHAPTER I.
AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.
LETTER NO. IV.
WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?— PART THE LAST.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MECHANICAL TENDENCY IN MODERN SOCIETY.
AN INDIAN LOVE-SONG.
LITERARY NOTICES.
EDITOR'S TABLE.

From	1790	to	1800	17.63	per cent.
"	1800	"	1810	10.73	"
"	1810	"	1820	9.31	"
"	1820	"	1830	13.71	"
"	1830	"	1840	2.34	"
"	1840	"	1850	14.60	"
"	1850	"	1860	12.29	"

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. V.—MARCH, 1864.—No. III.

CONTENTS

AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.

LETTER NO. III. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.

PALMER, THE AMERICAN SCULPTOR.

CLOUDS.

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO PROFESSOR GUYOT.

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

II.—THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.

THE ISSUES OF THE WAR.

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CARL FRIEDRICH NEUMANN, THE GERMAN HISTORIAN OF OUR COUNTRY.

THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.

PART THREE.

THISTLE-DOWN.

THE LOVE LUCIFER.

CHAPTER I.

AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.

LETTER NO. IV. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

PART THE LAST.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MECHANICAL TENDENCY IN MODERN SOCIETY.

AN INDIAN LOVE-SONG.

LITERARY NOTICES.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE METROPOLITAN FAIR IN AID OF THE UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION.

REGULATIONS.

OFFICERS.

FOOTNOTES:

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE