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diff --git a/22609.txt b/22609.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41e960b --- /dev/null +++ b/22609.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8201 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose +and Poetry, Volume V, by James Russell Lowell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V + Political Essays + + +Author: James Russell Lowell + + + +Release Date: September 15, 2007 [eBook #22609] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRITINGS OF JAMES RUSSELL +LOWELL IN PROSE AND POETRY, VOLUME V*** + + +E-text prepared by Thierry Alberto and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 22609-h.htm or 22609-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/0/22609/22609-h/22609-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/0/22609/22609-h.zip) + + + + + +Riverside Edition + +THE WRITINGS OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IN PROSE AND POETRY + +VOLUME V + +Political Essays + +by + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + + + + + + + +[Illustration: _Mr. Lowell in 1881_] + + + +London +MacMillan and Co. +1898 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 1 + +THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER 17 + +E PLURIBUS UNUM 45 + +THE PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S REBELLION 75 + +GENERAL McCLELLAN'S REPORT 92 + +THE REBELLION: ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 118 + +McCLELLAN OR LINCOLN 153 + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN 177 + +RECONSTRUCTION 210 + +SCOTCH THE SNAKE, OR KILL IT? 239 + +THE PRESIDENT ON THE STUMP 264 + +THE SEWARD-JOHNSON REACTION 283 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AT THE AGE OF 62. + ENGRAVED ON STEEL, BY J. A. J. WILCOX _Frontispiece_ + +MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON 56 + +GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN 92 + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN 178 + +ANDREW JOHNSON 264 + +WILLIAM H. SEWARD 302 + + + + +POLITICAL ESSAYS + + + + +THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY + +1858 + + +There was no apologue more popular in the Middle Ages than that of the +hermit, who, musing on the wickedness and tyranny of those whom the +inscrutable wisdom of Providence had intrusted with the government of +the world, fell asleep, and awoke to find himself the very monarch +whose abject life and capricious violence had furnished the subject of +his moralizing. Endowed with irresponsible power, tempted by passions +whose existence in himself he had never suspected, and betrayed by the +political necessities of his position, he became gradually guilty of +all the crimes and the luxury which had seemed so hideous to him in his +hermitage over a dish of water-cresses. + +The American Tract Society from small beginnings has risen to be the +dispenser of a yearly revenue of nearly half a million. It has become a +great establishment, with a traditional policy, with the distrust of +change and the dislike of disturbing questions (especially of such as +would lessen its revenues) natural to great establishments. It had been +poor and weak; it has become rich and powerful. The hermit has become +king. + +If the pious men who founded the American Tract Society had been told +that within forty years they would be watchful of their publications, +lest, by inadvertence, anything disrespectful might be spoken of the +African Slave-trade,--that they would consider it an ample equivalent +for compulsory dumbness on the vices of Slavery, that their colporteurs +could awaken the minds of Southern brethren to the horrors of St. +Bartholomew,--that they would hold their peace about the body of Cuffee +dancing to the music of the cart-whip, provided only they could save +the soul of Sambo alive by presenting him a pamphlet, which he could +not read, on the depravity of the double shuffle,--that they would +consent to be fellow members in the Tract Society with him who sold +their fellow members in Christ on the auction block, if he agreed with +them in condemning Transubstantiation (and it would not be difficult +for a gentleman who ignored the real presence of God in his brother man +to deny it in the sacramental wafer),--if those excellent men had been +told this, they would have shrunk in horror, and exclaimed, "Are thy +servants dogs, that they should do these things?" + +Yet this is precisely the present position of the Society. + +There are two ways of evading the responsibility of such inconsistency. +The first is by an appeal to the Society's Constitution, and by +claiming to interpret it strictly in accordance with the rules of law +as applied to contracts, whether between individuals or States. The +second is by denying that Slavery is opposed to the genius of +Christianity, and that any moral wrongs are the necessary results of +it. We will not be so unjust to the Society as to suppose that any of +its members would rely on this latter plea, and shall therefore confine +ourselves to a brief consideration of the other. + +In order that the same rules of interpretation should be considered +applicable to the Constitution of the Society and to that of the United +States, we must attribute to the former a solemnity and importance +which involve a palpable absurdity. To claim for it the verbal accuracy +and the legal wariness of a mere contract is equally at war with common +sense and the facts of the case; and even were it not so, the party to +a bond who should attempt to escape its ethical obligation by a legal +quibble of construction would be put in coventry by all honest men. In +point of fact, the Constitution was simply the minutes of an agreement +among certain gentlemen, to define the limits within which they would +accept trust funds, and the objects for which they should expend them. + +But if we accept the alternative offered by the advocates of strict +construction, we shall not find that their case is strengthened. +Claiming that where the meaning of an instrument is doubtful, it should +be interpreted according to the contemporary understanding of its +framers, they argue that it would be absurd to suppose that gentlemen +from the Southern States would have united to form a society that +included in its objects any discussion of the moral duties arising from +the institution of Slavery. Admitting the first part of their +proposition, we deny the conclusion they seek to draw from it. They are +guilty of a glaring anachronism in assuming the same opinions and +prejudices to have existed in 1825 which are undoubtedly influential in +1858. The Anti-slavery agitation did not begin until 1831, and the +debates in the Virginia Convention prove conclusively that six years +after the foundation of the Tract Society, the leading men in that +State, men whose minds had been trained and whose characters had been +tempered in that school of action and experience which was open to all +during the heroic period of our history, had not yet suffered such +distortion of the intellect through passion and such deadening of the +conscience through interest, as would have prevented their discussing +either the moral or the political aspects of Slavery, and precluded +them from uniting in any effort to make the relation between master and +slave less demoralizing to the one and less imbruting to the other. + +Again, it is claimed that the words of the Constitution are conclusive, +and that the declaration that the publications of the Society shall be +such as are "satisfactory to all Evangelical Christians" forbids by +implication the issuing of any tract which could possibly offend the +brethren in Slave States. The Society, it is argued, can publish only +on topics about which all Evangelical Christians are agreed, and must, +therefore, avoid everything in which the question of politics is +involved. But what are the facts about matters other than Slavery? +Tracts have been issued and circulated in which Dancing is condemned as +sinful; are all Evangelical Christians agreed about this? On the +Temperance question, against Catholicism,--have these topics never +entered into our politics? The simple truth is that Slavery is the only +subject about which the Publishing Committee have felt Constitutional +scruples. Till this question arose, they were like men in perfect +health, never suspecting that they had any constitution at all; but +now, like hypochondriacs, they feel it in every pore, at the least +breath from the eastward. + +If a strict construction of the words "all Evangelical Christians" be +insisted on, we are at a loss to see where the committee could draw the +dividing line between what might be offensive and what allowable. The +Society publish tracts in which the study of the Scriptures is enforced +and their denial to the laity by Romanists assailed. But throughout the +South it is criminal to teach a slave to read; throughout the South no +book could be distributed among the servile population more incendiary +than the Bible, if they could only read it. Will not our Southern +brethren take alarm? The Society is reduced to the dilemma of either +denying that the African has a soul to be saved, or of consenting to +the terrible mockery of assuring him that the way of life is to be +found only by searching a book which he is forbidden to open. + +If we carry out this doctrine of strict construction to its legitimate +results, we shall find that it involves a logical absurdity. What is +the number of men whose outraged sensibilities may claim the +suppression of a tract? Is the _taboo_ of a thousand valid? Of a +hundred? Of ten? Or are tracts to be distributed only to those who will +find their doctrine agreeable, and are the Society's colporteurs to be +instructed that a Temperance essay is the proper thing for a +total-abstinent infidel, and a sermon on the Atonement for a distilling +deacon? If the aim of the Society be only to convert men from sins they +have no mind to, and to convince them of errors to which they have no +temptation, they might as well be spending their money to persuade +schoolmasters that two and two make four, or geometricians that there +cannot be two obtuse angles in a triangle. If this be their notion of +the way in which the gospel is to be preached, we do not wonder that +they have found it necessary to print a tract upon the impropriety of +sleeping in church. + +But the Society are concluded by their own action; for in 1857 they +unanimously adopted the following resolution: "That those moral duties +which grow out of the existence of Slavery, as well as those moral +evils and vices which it is known to promote and which are condemned in +Scripture, and so much deplored by Evangelical Christians, undoubtedly +do fall within the province of this Society, and can and ought to be +discussed in a fraternal and Christian spirit." The Society saw clearly +that it was impossible to draw a Mason and Dixon's line in the world of +ethics, to divide Duty by a parallel of latitude. The only line which +Christ drew is that which parts the sheep from the goats, that great +horizon-line of the moral nature of man, which is the boundary between +light and darkness. The Society, by yielding (as they have done in +1858) to what are pleasantly called the "objections" of the South +(objections of so forcible a nature that we are told the colporteurs +were "forced to flee") virtually exclude the black man, if born to the +southward of a certain arbitrary line, from the operation of God's +providence, and thereby do as great a wrong to the Creator as the +Episcopal Church did to the artist when without public protest they +allowed Ary Scheffer's _Christus Consolator_, with the figure of the +slave left out, to be published in a Prayer-Book. + +The Society is not asked to disseminate Anti-slavery doctrines, but +simply to be even-handed between master and slave, and, since they have +recommended Sambo and Toney to be obedient to Mr. Legree, to remind him +in turn that he also has duties toward the bodies and souls of his +bondmen. But we are told that the time has not yet arrived, that at +present the ears of our Southern brethren are closed against all +appeals, that God in his good time will turn their hearts, and that +then, and not till then, will be the fitting occasion to do something +in the premises. But if the Society is to await this golden opportunity +with such exemplary patience in one case, why not in all? If it is to +decline any attempt at converting the sinner till after God has +converted him, will there be any special necessity for a tract society +at all? Will it not be a little presumptuous, as well as superfluous, +to undertake the doing over again of what He has already done? We fear +that the studies of Blackstone, upon which the gentlemen who argue thus +have entered in order to fit themselves for the legal and +constitutional argument of the question, have confused their minds, and +that they are misled by some fancied analogy between a tract and an +action of trover, and conceive that the one, like the other, cannot be +employed till after an actual conversion has taken place. + +The resolutions reported by the Special Committee at the annual meeting +of 1857, drawn up with great caution and with a sincere desire to make +whole the breach in the Society, have had the usual fate of all +attempts to reconcile incompatibilities by compromise. They express +confidence in the Publishing Committee, and at the same time impliedly +condemn them by recommending them to do precisely what they had all +along scrupulously avoided doing. The result was just what might have +been expected. Both parties among the Northern members of the Society, +those who approved the former action of the Publishing Committee and +those who approved the new policy recommended in the resolutions, those +who favored silence and those who favored speech on the subject of +Slavery, claimed the victory, while the Southern brethren, as usual, +refused to be satisfied with anything short of unconditional +submission. The word Compromise, as far as Slavery is concerned, has +always been of fatal augury. The concessions of the South have been +like the "With all my worldly goods I thee endow" of a bankrupt +bridegroom, who thereby generously bestows all his debts upon his wife, +and as a small return for his magnanimity consents to accept all her +personal and a life estate in all her real property. The South is +willing that the Tract Society should expend its money to convince the +slave that he has a soul to be saved so far as he is obedient to his +master, but not to persuade the master that he has a soul to undergo a +very different process so far as he is unmerciful to his slave. + +We Americans are very fond of this glue of compromise. Like so many +quack cements, it is advertised to make the mended parts of the vessel +stronger than those which have never been broken, but, like them, it +will not stand hot water,--and as the question of slavery is sure to +plunge all who approach it, even with the best intentions, into that +fatal element, the patched-up brotherhood, which but yesterday was +warranted to be better than new, falls once more into a heap of +incoherent fragments. The last trial of the virtues of the Patent +Redintegrator by the Special Committee of the Tract Society has ended +like all the rest, and as all attempts to buy peace at too dear a rate +must end. Peace is an excellent thing, but principle and pluck are +better; and the man who sacrifices them to gain it finds at last that +he has crouched under the Caudine yoke to purchase only a contemptuous +toleration, that leaves him at war with his own self-respect and the +invincible forces of his higher nature. + +But the peace which Christ promised to his followers was not of this +world; the good gift he brought them was not peace, but a sword. It was +no sword of territorial conquest, but that flaming blade of conscience +and self-conviction which lightened between our first parents and their +lost Eden,--that sword of the Spirit that searcheth all things,--which +severs one by one the ties of passion, of interest, of self-pride, that +bind the soul to earth,--whose implacable edge may divide a man from +family, from friends, from whatever is nearest and dearest,--and which +hovers before him like the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth, beckoning him, +not to crime, but to the legitimate royalties of self-denial and +self-sacrifice, to the freedom which is won only by surrender of the +will. Christianity has never been concession, never peace; it is +continual aggression; one province of wrong conquered, its pioneers are +already in the heart of another. The mile-stones of its onward march +down the ages have not been monuments of material power, but the +blackened stakes of martyrs, trophies of individual fidelity to +conviction. For it is the only religion which is superior to all +endowment, to all authority,--which has a bishopric and a cathedral +wherever a single human soul has surrendered itself to God. That very +spirit of doubt, inquiry, and fanaticism for private judgment, with +which Romanists reproach Protestantism, is its stamp and token of +authenticity,--the seal of Christ, and not of the Fisherman. + +We do not wonder at the division which has taken place in the Tract +Society, nor do we regret it. The ideal life of a Christian is possible +to very few, but we naturally look for a nearer approach to it in those +who associate together to disseminate the doctrines which they believe +to be its formative essentials, and there is nothing which the enemies +of religion seize on so gladly as any inconsistency between the conduct +and the professions of such persons. Though utterly indifferent to the +wrongs of the slave, the scoffer would not fail to remark upon the +hollowness of a Christianity which was horror-stricken at a dance or a +Sunday drive, while it was blandly silent about the separation of +families, the putting asunder whom God had joined, the selling +Christian girls for Christian harems, and the thousand horrors of a +system which can lessen the agonies it inflicts only by debasing the +minds and souls of the race on which it inflicts them. Is your +Christianity, then, he would say, a respecter of persons, and does it +condone the sin because the sinner can contribute to your coffers? Was +there ever a simony like this,--that does not sell, but withholds, the +gift of God for a price? + +The world naturally holds the Society to a stricter accountability than +it would insist upon in ordinary cases. Were they only a club of +gentlemen associated for their own amusement, it would be very natural +and proper that they should exclude all questions which would introduce +controversy, and that, however individually interested in certain +reforms, they should not force them upon others who would consider them +a bore. But a society of professing Christians, united for the express +purpose of carrying both the theory and the practice of the New +Testament into every household in the land, has voluntarily subjected +itself to a graver responsibility, and renounced all title to fall back +upon any reserved right of personal comfort or convenience. + +We say, then, that we are glad to see this division in the Tract +Society; not glad because of the division, but because it has sprung +from an earnest effort to relieve the Society of a reproach which was +not only impairing its usefulness, but doing an injury to the cause of +truth and sincerity everywhere. We have no desire to impugn the motives +of those who consider themselves conservative members of the Society; +we believe them to be honest in their convictions, or their want of +them; but we think they have mistaken notions as to what conservatism +is, and that they are wrong in supposing it to consist in refusing to +wipe away the film on their spectacle-glasses which prevents their +seeing the handwriting on the wall, or in conserving reverently the +barnacles on their ship's bottom and the dry-rot in its knees. We yield +to none of them in reverence for the Past; it is there only that the +imagination can find repose and seclusion; there dwells that silent +majority whose experience guides our action and whose wisdom shapes our +thought in spite of ourselves;--but it is not length of days that can +make evil reverend, nor persistence in inconsistency that can give it +the power or the claim of orderly precedent. Wrong, though its +title-deeds go back to the days of Sodom, is by nature a thing of +yesterday,--while the right, of which we became conscious but an hour +ago, is more ancient than the stars, and of the essence of Heaven. If +it were proposed to establish Slavery to-morrow, should we have more +patience with its patriarchal argument than with the parallel claim of +Mormonism? That Slavery is old is but its greater condemnation; that we +have tolerated it so long, the strongest plea for our doing so no +longer. There is one institution to which we owe our first allegiance, +one that is more sacred and venerable than any other,--the soul and +conscience of Man. + +What claim has Slavery to immunity from discussion? We are told that +discussion is dangerous. Dangerous to what? Truth invites it, courts +the point of the Ithuriel-spear, whose touch can but reveal more +clearly the grace and grandeur of her angelic proportions. The +advocates of Slavery have taken refuge in the last covert of desperate +sophism, and affirm that their institution is of Divine ordination, +that its bases are laid in the nature of man. Is anything, then, of +God's contriving endangered by inquiry? Was it the system of the +universe, or the monks, that trembled at the telescope of Galileo? Did +the circulation of the firmament stop in terror because Newton laid his +daring finger on its pulse? But it is idle to discuss a proposition so +monstrous. There is no right of sanctuary for a crime against humanity, +and they who drag an unclean thing to the horns of the altar bring it +to vengeance, and not to safety. + +Even granting that Slavery were all that its apologists assume it to +be, and that the relation of master and slave were of God's appointing, +would not its abuses be just the thing which it was the duty of +Christian men to protest against, and, as far as might be, to root out? +Would our courts feel themselves debarred from interfering to rescue a +daughter from a parent who wished to make merchandise of her purity, or +a wife from a husband who was brutal to her, by the plea that parental +authority and marriage were of Divine ordinance? Would a police-justice +discharge a drunkard who pleaded the patriarchal precedent of Noah? or +would he not rather give him another month in the House of Correction +for his impudence? + +The Anti-slavery question is not one which the Tract Society can +exclude by triumphant majorities, nor put to shame by a comparison of +respectabilities. Mixed though it has been with politics, it is in no +sense political, and springing naturally from the principles of that +religion which traces its human pedigree to a manger, and whose first +apostles were twelve poor men against the whole world, it can dispense +with numbers and earthly respect. The clergyman may ignore it in the +pulpit, but it confronts him in his study; the church-member, who has +suppressed it in parish-meeting, opens it with the pages of his +Testament; the merchant, who has shut it out of his house and his +heart, finds it lying in wait for him, a gaunt fugitive, in the hold of +his ship; the lawyer, who has declared that it is no concern of his, +finds it thrust upon him in the brief of the slave-hunter; the +historian, who had cautiously evaded it, stumbles over it at Bunker +Hill. And why? Because it is not political, but moral,--because it is +not local, but national,--because it is not a test of party, but of +individual honesty and honor. The wrong which we allow our nation to +perpetrate we cannot localize, if we would; we cannot hem it within the +limits of Washington or Kansas; sooner or later, it will force itself +into the conscience and sit by the hearthstone of every citizen. + +It is not partisanship, it is not fanaticism, that has forced this +matter of Anti-slavery upon the American people; it is the spirit of +Christianity, which appeals from prejudices and predilections to the +moral consciousness of the individual man; that spirit elastic as air, +penetrative as heat, invulnerable as sunshine, against which creed +after creed and institution after institution have measured their +strength and been confounded; that restless spirit which refuses to +crystallize in any sect or form, but persists, a Divinely commissioned +radical and reconstructor, in trying every generation with a new +dilemma between ease and interest on the one hand, and duty on the +other. Shall it be said that its kingdom is not of this world? In one +sense, and that the highest, it certainly is not; but just as certainly +Christ never intended those words to be used as a subterfuge by which +to escape our responsibilities in the life of business and politics. +Let the cross, the sword, and the arena answer, whether the world, that +then was, so understood its first preachers and apostles. Caesar and +Flamen both instinctively dreaded it, not because it aimed at riches or +power, but because it strove to conquer that other world in the moral +nature of mankind, where it could establish a throne against which +wealth and force would be weak and contemptible. No human device has +ever prevailed against it, no array of majorities or respectabilities; +but neither Caesar nor Flamen ever conceived a scheme so cunningly +adapted to neutralize its power as that graceful compromise which +accepts it with the lip and denies it in the life, which marries it at +the altar and divorces it at the church-door. + + + + +THE ELECTION IN NOVEMBER + +1860 + + +While all of us have been watching, with that admiring sympathy which +never fails to wait on courage and magnanimity, the career of the new +Timoleon in Sicily; while we have been reckoning, with an interest +scarcely less than in some affair of personal concern, the chances and +changes that bear with furtherance or hindrance upon the fortune of +united Italy, we are approaching, with a quietness and composure which +more than anything else mark the essential difference between our own +form of democracy and any other yet known in history, a crisis in our +domestic policy more momentous than any that has arisen since we became +a nation. Indeed, considering the vital consequences for good or evil +that will follow from the popular decision in November, we might be +tempted to regard the remarkable moderation which has thus far +characterized the Presidential canvass as a guilty indifference to the +duty implied in the privilege of suffrage, or a stolid unconsciousness +of the result which may depend upon its exercise in this particular +election, did we not believe that it arose chiefly from the general +persuasion that the success of the Republican party was a foregone +conclusion. + +In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private +thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a +peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual. Nothing can absolve +us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, and +therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers. For though during +its term of office the government be practically as independent of the +popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the people are +called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs. +Theoretically, at least, to give democracy any standing-ground for an +argument with despotism or oligarchy, a majority of the men composing +it should be statesmen and thinkers. It is a proverb, that to turn a +radical into a conservative there needs only to put him into office, +because then the license of speculation or sentiment is limited by a +sense of responsibility; then for the first time he becomes capable of +that comparative view which sees principles and measures, not in the +narrow abstract, but in the full breadth of their relations to each +other and to political consequences. The theory of democracy +presupposes something of these results of official position in the +individual voter, since in exercising his right he becomes for the +moment an integral part of the governing power. + +How very far practice is from any likeness to theory, a week's +experience of our politics suffices to convince us. The very government +itself seems an organized scramble, and Congress a boy's debating-club, +with the disadvantage of being reported. As our party-creeds are +commonly represented less by ideas than by persons (who are assumed, +without too close a scrutiny, to be the exponents of certain ideas) our +politics become personal and narrow to a degree never paralleled, +unless in ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. Our Congress debates and +our newspapers discuss, sometimes for day after day, not questions of +national interest, not what is wise and right, but what the Honorable +Lafayette Skreemer said on the stump, or bad whiskey said for him, half +a dozen years ago. If that personage, outraged in all the finer +sensibilities of our common nature, by failing to get the contract for +supplying the District Court-House at Skreemeropolisville City with +revolvers, was led to disparage the union of these States, it is seized +on as proof conclusive that the party to which he belongs are so many +Cat_a_lines,--for Congress is unanimous only in misspelling the name of +that oft-invoked conspirator. The next Presidential Election looms +always in advance, so that we seem never to have an actual Chief +Magistrate, but a prospective one, looking to the chances of reelection, +and mingling in all the dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an +unhappy talent for making them dirtier. The cheating mirage of the +White House lures our public men away from present duties and +obligations; and if matters go on as they have gone, we shall need a +Committee of Congress to count the spoons in the public plate-closet, +whenever a President goes out of office,--with a policeman to watch +every member of the Committee. We are kept normally in that most +unprofitable of predicaments, a state of transition, and politicians +measure their words and deeds by a standard of immediate and temporary +expediency,--an expediency not as concerning the nation, but which, if +more than merely personal, is no wider than the interests of party. + +Is all this a result of the failure of democratic institutions? Rather +of the fact that those institutions have never yet had a fair trial, +and that for the last thirty years an abnormal element has been acting +adversely with continually increasing strength. Whatever be the effect +of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that +its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has +compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their +moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent +ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of statesmanship, +to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for opinions, and +to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized world for +patriotism. We have been asked to admit, first, that it was a necessary +evil; then that it was a good both to master and slave; then that it +was the corner-stone of free institutions; then that it was a system +divinely instituted under the Old Law and sanctioned under the New. +With a representation, three fifths of it based on the assumption that +negroes are men, the South turns upon us and insists on our +acknowledging that they are things. After compelling her Northern +allies to pronounce the "free and equal" clause of the preamble to the +Declaration of Independence (because it stood in the way of enslaving +men) a manifest absurdity, she has declared, through the Supreme Court +of the United States, that negroes are not men in the ordinary meaning +of the word. To eat dirt is bad enough, but to find that we have eaten +more than was necessary may chance to give us an indigestion. The +slaveholding interest has gone on step by step, forcing concession +after concession, till it needs but little to secure it forever in the +political supremacy of the country. Yield to its latest demand,--let it +mould the evil destiny of the Territories,--and the thing is done past +recall. The next Presidential Election is to say _Yes_ or _No_. + +But we should not regard the mere question of political preponderancy +as of vital consequence, did it not involve a continually increasing +moral degradation on the part of the Non-slaveholding States,--for Free +States they could not be called much longer. Sordid and materialistic +views of the true value and objects of society and government are +professed more and more openly by the leaders of popular outcry,--for +it cannot be called public opinion. That side of human nature which it +has been the object of all lawgivers and moralists to repress and +subjugate is flattered and caressed; whatever is profitable is right; +and already the slave-trade, as yielding a greater return on the +capital invested than any other traffic, is lauded as the highest +achievement of human reason and justice. Mr. Hammond has proclaimed the +accession of King Cotton, but he seems to have forgotten that history +is not without examples of kings who have lost their crowns through the +folly and false security of their ministers. It is quite true that +there is a large class of reasoners who would weigh all questions of +right and wrong in the balance of trade; but we cannot bring ourselves +to believe that it is a wise political economy which makes cotton by +unmaking men, or a far-seeing statesmanship which looks on an immediate +money-profit as a safe equivalent for a beggared public sentiment. We +think Mr. Hammond even a little premature in proclaiming the new +Pretender. The election of November may prove a Culloden. Whatever its +result, it is to settle, for many years to come, the question whether +the American idea is to govern this continent, whether the Occidental +or the Oriental theory of society is to mould our future, whether we +are to recede from principles which eighteen Christian centuries have +been slowly establishing at the cost of so many saintly lives at the +stake and so many heroic ones on the scaffold and the battle-field, in +favor of some fancied assimilation to the household arrangements of +Abraham, of which all that can be said with certainty is that they did +not add to his domestic happiness. + +We believe that this election is a turning-point in our history; for, +although there are four candidates, there are really, as everybody +knows, but two parties, and a single question that divides them. The +supporters of Messrs. Bell and Everett have adopted as their platform +the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the Laws. This may +be very convenient, but it is surely not very explicit. The cardinal +question on which the whole policy of the country is to turn--a +question, too, which this very election must decide in one way or the +other--is the interpretation to be put upon certain clauses of the +Constitution. All the other parties equally assert their loyalty to +that instrument. Indeed, it is quite the fashion. The removers of all +the ancient landmarks of our policy, the violators of thrice-pledged +faith, the planners of new treachery to established compromise, all +take refuge in the Constitution,-- + + "Like thieves that in a hemp-plot lie, + Secure against the hue and cry." + +In the same way the first Bonaparte renewed his profession of faith in +the Revolution at every convenient opportunity; and the second follows +the precedent of his uncle, though the uninitiated fail to see any +logical sequence from 1789 to 1815 or 1860. If Mr. Bell loves the +Constitution, Mr. Breckinridge is equally fond; that Egeria of our +statesmen could be "happy with either, were t' other dear charmer +away." Mr. Douglas confides the secret of his passion to the +unloquacious clams of Rhode Island, and the chief complaint made +against Mr. Lincoln by his opponents is that he is _too_ Constitutional. + +Meanwhile, the only point in which voters are interested is, What do +they mean by the Constitution? Mr. Breckinridge means the superiority +of a certain exceptional species of property over all others; nay, over +man himself. Mr. Douglas, with a different formula for expressing it, +means practically the same thing. Both of them mean that Labor has no +rights which Capital is bound to respect,--that there is no higher law +than human interest and cupidity. Both of them represent not merely the +narrow principles of a section, but the still narrower and more selfish +ones of a caste. Both of them, to be sure, have convenient phrases to +be juggled with before election, and which mean one thing or another, +or neither one thing nor another, as a particular exigency may seem to +require; but since both claim the regular Democratic nomination, we +have little difficulty in divining what their course would be after the +fourth of March, if they should chance to be elected. We know too well +what regular Democracy is, to like either of the two faces which each +shows by turns under the same hood. Everybody remembers Baron Grimm's +story of the Parisian showman, who in 1789 exhibited the _royal_ Bengal +tiger under the new character of _national_, as more in harmony with +the changed order of things. Could the animal have lived till 1848, +he would probably have found himself offered to the discriminating +public as the _democratic_ and _social_ ornament of the jungle. The +Pro-slavery party of this country seeks the popular favor under even +more frequent and incongruous _aliases_: it is now _national_, now +_conservative_, now _constitutional_; here it represents +Squatter-Sovereignty, and there the power of Congress over the +Territories; but, under whatever name, its nature remains unchanged, +and its instincts are none the less predatory and destructive. + +Mr. Lincoln's position is set forth with sufficient precision in the +platform adopted by the Chicago Convention; but what are we to make of +Messrs. Bell and Everett? Heirs of the stock in trade of two defunct +parties, the Whig and Know-Nothing, do they hope to resuscitate them? +or are they only like the inconsolable widows of Pere la Chaise, who, +with an eye to former customers, make use of the late Andsoforth's +gravestone to advertise that they still carry on business at the old +stand? Mr. Everett, in his letter accepting the nomination, gave us +only a string of reasons why he should not have accepted it at all; and +Mr. Bell preserves a silence singularly at variance with his +patronymic. The only public demonstration of principle that we have +seen is an emblematic bell drawn upon a wagon by a single horse, with a +man to lead him, and a boy to make a nuisance of the tinkling symbol as +it moves along. Are all the figures in this melancholy procession +equally emblematic? If so, which of the two candidates is typified in +the unfortunate who leads the horse?--for we believe the only hope of +the party is to get one of them elected by some hocus-pocus in the +House of Representatives. The little boy, we suppose, is intended to +represent the party, which promises to be so conveniently small that +there will be an office for every member of it, if its candidate should +win. Did not the bell convey a plain allusion to the leading name on +the ticket, we should conceive it an excellent type of the hollowness +of those fears for the safety of the Union, in case of Mr. Lincoln's +election, whose changes are so loudly rung,--its noise having once or +twice given rise to false alarms of fire, till people found out what it +really was. Whatever profound moral it be intended to convey, we find +in it a similitude that is not without significance as regards the +professed creed of the party. The industrious youth who operates upon +it has evidently some notion of the measured and regular motion that +befits the tongues of well-disciplined and conservative bells. He does +his best to make theory and practice coincide; but with every jolt on +the road an involuntary variation is produced, and the sonorous +pulsation becomes rapid or slow accordingly. We have observed that the +Constitution was liable to similar derangements, and we very much doubt +whether Mr. Bell himself (since, after all, the Constitution would +practically be nothing else than his interpretation of it) would keep +the same measured tones that are so easy on the smooth path of +candidacy, when it came to conducting the car of State over some of the +rough places in the highway of Manifest Destiny, and some of those +passages in our politics which, after the fashion of new countries, are +rather _corduroy_ in character. + +But, fortunately, we are not left wholly in the dark as to the aims of +the self-styled Constitutional party. One of its most distinguished +members, Governor Hunt of New York, has given us to understand that its +prime object is the defeat at all hazards of the Republican candidate. +To achieve so desirable an end, its leaders are ready to coalesce, here +with the Douglas, and there with the Breckinridge faction of that very +Democratic party of whose violations of the Constitution, corruption, +and dangerous limberness of principle they have been the lifelong +denouncers. In point of fact, then, it is perfectly plain that we have +only two parties in the field: those who favor the extension of +slavery, and those who oppose it,--in other words, a Destructive and a +Conservative party. + +We know very well that the partisans of Mr. Bell, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. +Breckinridge all equally claim the title of conservative: and the fact +is a very curious one, well worthy the consideration of those foreign +critics who argue that the inevitable tendency of democracy is to +compel larger and larger concessions to a certain assumed communistic +propensity and hostility to the rights of property on the part of the +working classes. But the truth is, that revolutionary ideas are +promoted, not by any unthinking hostility to the _rights_ of property, +but by a well-founded jealousy of its usurpations; and it is Privilege, +and not Property, that is perplexed with fear of change. The +conservative effect of ownership operates with as much force on the man +with a hundred dollars in an old stocking as on his neighbor with a +million in the funds. During the Roman Revolution of '48, the beggars +who had funded their gains were among the stanchest reactionaries, and +left Rome with the nobility. No question of the abstract right of +property has ever entered directly into our politics, or ever +will,--the point at issue being, whether a certain exceptional kind of +property, already privileged beyond all others, shall be entitled to +still further privileges at the expense of every other kind. The +extension of slavery over new territory means just this,--that this one +kind of property, not recognized as such by the Constitution, or it +would never have been allowed to enter into the basis of +representation, shall control the foreign and domestic policy of the +Republic. + +A great deal is said, to be sure, about the rights of the South; but +has any such right been infringed? When a man invests money in any +species of property, he assumes the risks to which it is liable. If he +buy a house, it may be burned; if a ship, it may be wrecked; if a horse +or an ox, it may die. Now the disadvantage of the Southern kind of +property is--how shall we say it so as not to violate our Constitutional +obligations?--that it is exceptional. When it leaves Virginia, it is a +thing; when it arrives in Boston, it becomes a man, speaks human +language, appeals to the justice of the same God whom we all +acknowledge, weeps at the memory of wife and children left behind,--in +short, hath the same organs and dimensions that a Christian hath, and +is not distinguishable from ordinary Christians, except, perhaps, by a +simpler and more earnest faith. There are people at the North who +believe that, beside _meum_ and _tuum_, there is also such a thing as +_suum_,--who are old-fashioned enough, or weak enough, to have their +feelings touched by these things, to think that human nature is older +and more sacred than any claim of property whatever, and that it has +rights at least as much to be respected as any hypothetical one of our +Southern brethren. This, no doubt, makes it harder to recover a +fugitive chattel; but the existence of human nature in a man here and +there is surely one of those accidents to be counted on at least as +often as fire, shipwreck, or the cattle-disease; and the man who +chooses to put his money into these images of his Maker cut in ebony +should be content to take the incident risks along with the advantages. +We should be very sorry to deem this risk capable of diminution; for we +think that the claims of a common manhood upon us should be at least as +strong as those of Freemasonry, and that those whom the law of man +turns away should find in the larger charity of the law of God and +Nature a readier welcome and surer sanctuary. We shall continue to +think the negro a man, and on Southern evidence, too, so long as he is +counted in the population represented on the floor of Congress,--for +three fifths of perfect manhood would be a high average even among +white men; so long as he is hanged or worse, as an example and terror +to others,--for we do not punish one animal for the moral improvement +of the rest; so long as he is considered capable of religious +instruction,--for we fancy the gorillas would make short work with a +missionary; so long as there are fears of insurrection,--for we never +heard of a combined effort at revolt in a menagerie. Accordingly, we do +not see how the particular right of whose infringement we hear so much +is to be made safer by the election of Mr. Bell, Mr. Breckinridge, or +Mr. Douglas,--there being quite as little chance that any of them would +abolish human nature as that Mr. Lincoln would abolish slavery. The +same generous instinct that leads some among us to sympathize with the +sorrows of the bereaved master will always, we fear, influence others +to take part with the rescued man. + +But if our Constitutional Obligations, as we like to call our +constitutional timidity or indifference, teach us that a particular +divinity hedges the Domestic Institution, they do not require us to +forget that we have institutions of our own, worth maintaining and +extending, and not without a certain sacredness, whether we regard the +traditions of the fathers or the faith of the children. It is high time +that we should hear something of the rights of the Free States, and of +the duties consequent upon them. We also have our prejudices to be +respected, our theory of civilization, of what constitutes the safety +of a state and insures its prosperity, to be applied wherever there is +soil enough for a human being to stand on and thank God for making him +a man. Is conservatism applicable only to property, and not to justice, +freedom, and public honor? Does it mean merely drifting with the +current of evil times and pernicious counsels, and carefully nursing +the ills we have, that they may, as their nature it is, grow worse? + +To be told that we ought not to agitate the question of Slavery, when +it is that which is forever agitating us, is like telling a man with +the fever and ague on him to stop shaking, and he will be cured. The +discussion of Slavery is said to be dangerous, but dangerous to what? +The manufacturers of the Free States constitute a more numerous class +than the slaveholders of the South: suppose they should claim an equal +sanctity for the Protective System. Discussion is the very life of free +institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral +enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed. +The Swiss guide enjoins silence in the region of avalanches, lest the +mere vibration of the voice should dislodge the ruin clinging by frail +roots of snow. But where is our avalanche to fall? It is to overwhelm +the Union, we are told. The real danger to the Union will come when the +encroachments of the Slave-Power and the concessions of the Trade-Power +shall have made it a burden instead of a blessing. The real avalanche +to be dreaded,--are we to expect it from the ever-gathering mass of +ignorant brute force, with the irresponsibility of animals and the +passions of men, which is one of the fatal necessities of slavery, or +from the gradually increasing consciousness of the non-slaveholding +population of the Slave States of the true cause of their material +impoverishment and political inferiority? From one or the other source +its ruinous forces will be fed, but in either event it is not the Union +that will be imperilled, but the privileged Order who on every occasion +of a thwarted whim have menaced its disruption, and who will then find +in it their only safety. + +We believe that the "irrepressible conflict"--for we accept Mr. +Seward's much-denounced phrase in all the breadth of meaning he ever +meant to give it--is to take place in the South itself; because the +Slave System is one of those fearful blunders in political economy +which are sure, sooner or later, to work their own retribution. The +inevitable tendency of slavery is to concentrate in a few hands the +soil, the capital, and the power of the countries where it exists, to +reduce the non-slaveholding class to a continually lower and lower +level of property, intelligence, and enterprise,--their increase in +numbers adding much to the economical hardship of their position and +nothing to their political weight in the community. There is no +home-encouragement of varied agriculture,--for the wants of a slave +population are few in number and limited in kind; none of inland trade, +for that is developed only by communities where education induces +refinement, where facility of communication stimulates invention and +variety of enterprise, where newspapers make every man's improvement in +tools, machinery, or culture of the soil an incitement to all, and +bring all the thinkers of the world to teach in the cheap university of +the people. We do not, of course, mean to say that slaveholding States +may not and do not produce fine men; but they fail, by the inherent +vice of their constitution and its attendant consequences, to create +enlightened, powerful, and advancing communities of men, which is the +true object of all political organizations, and is essential to the +prolonged existence of all those whose life and spirit are derived +directly from the people. Every man who has dispassionately endeavored +to enlighten himself in the matter cannot but see, that, for the many, +the course of things in slaveholding States is substantially what we +have described, a downward one, more or less rapid, in civilization and +in all those results of material prosperity which in a free country +show themselves in the general advancement for the good of all, and +give a real meaning to the word Commonwealth. No matter how enormous +the wealth centred in the hands of a few, it has no longer the +conservative force or the beneficent influence which it exerts when +equably distributed,--even loses more of both where a system of +absenteeism prevails so largely as in the South. In such communities +the seeds of an "irrepressible conflict" are surely if slowly ripening, +and signs are daily multiplying that the true peril to their social +organization is looked for, less in a revolt of the owned labor than in +an insurrection of intelligence in the labor that owns itself and finds +itself none the richer for it. To multiply such communities is to +multiply weakness. + +The election in November turns on the single and simple question, +Whether we shall consent to the indefinite multiplication of them; and +the only party which stands plainly and unequivocally pledged against +such a policy, nay, which is not either openly or impliedly in favor of +it,--is the Republican party. We are of those who at first regretted +that another candidate was not nominated at Chicago; but we confess +that we have ceased to regret it, for the magnanimity of Mr. Seward +since the result of the Convention was known has been a greater +ornament to him and a greater honor to his party than his election to +the Presidency would have been. We should have been pleased with Mr. +Seward's nomination, for the very reason we have seen assigned for +passing him by,--that he represented the most advanced doctrines of his +party. He, more than any other man, combined in himself the moralist's +oppugnancy to Slavery as a fact, the thinker's resentment of it as a +theory, and the statist's distrust of it as a policy,--thus summing up +the three efficient causes that have chiefly aroused and concentrated +the antagonism of the Free States. Not a brilliant man, he has that +best gift of Nature, which brilliant men commonly lack, of being always +able to do his best; and the very misrepresentation of his opinions +which was resorted to in order to neutralize the effect of his speeches +in the Senate and elsewhere was the best testimony to their power. Safe +from the prevailing epidemic of Congressional eloquence as if he had +been inoculated for it early in his career, he addresses himself to the +reason, and what he says sticks. It was assumed that his nomination +would have embittered the contest and tainted the Republican creed with +radicalism; but we doubt it. We cannot think that a party gains by not +hitting its hardest, or by sugaring its opinions. Republicanism is not +a conspiracy to obtain office under false pretences. It has a definite +aim, an earnest purpose, and the unflinching tenacity of profound +conviction. It was not called into being by a desire to reform the +pecuniary corruptions of the party now in power. Mr. Bell or Mr. +Breckinridge would do that, for no one doubts their honor or their +honesty. It is not unanimous about the Tariff, about State-Rights, +about many other questions of policy. What unites the Republicans is a +common faith in the early principles and practice of the Republic, a +common persuasion that slavery, as it cannot but be the natural foe of +the one, has been the chief debaser of the other, and a common resolve +to resist its encroachments everywhen and everywhere. They see no +reason to fear that the Constitution, which has shown such pliant +tenacity under the warps and twistings of a forty-years' pro-slavery +pressure, should be in danger of breaking, if bent backward again +gently to its original rectitude of fibre. "All forms of human +government," says Machiavelli, "have, like men, their natural term, and +those only are long-lived which possess in themselves the power of +returning to the principles on which they were originally founded." + +It is in a moral aversion to slavery as a great wrong that the chief +strength of the Republican party lies. They believe as everybody +believed sixty years ago; and we are sorry to see what appears to be an +inclination in some quarters to blink this aspect of the case, lest the +party be charged with want of conservatism, or, what is worse, with +abolitionism. It is and will be charged with all kinds of dreadful +things, whatever it does, and it has nothing to fear from an upright +and downright declaration of its faith. One part of the grateful work +it has to do is to deliver us from the curse of perpetual concession +for the sake of a peace that never comes, and which, if it came, would +not be peace, but submission,--from that torpor and imbecility of faith +in God and man which have stolen the respectable name of Conservatism. +A question which cuts so deep as that which now divides the country +cannot be debated, much less settled, without excitement. Such +excitement is healthy, and is a sign that the ill humors of the body +politic are coming to the surface, where they are comparatively +harmless. It is the tendency of all creeds, opinions, and political +dogmas that have once defined themselves in institutions to become +inoperative. The vital and formative principle, which was active during +the process of crystallization into sects, or schools of thought, or +governments, ceases to act; and what was once a living emanation of the +Eternal Mind, organically operative in history, becomes the dead +formula on men's lips and the dry topic of the annalist. It has been +our good fortune that a question has been thrust upon us which has +forced us to reconsider the primal principles of government, which has +appealed to conscience as well as reason, and, by bringing the theories +of the Declaration of Independence to the test of experience in our +thought and life and action, has realized a tradition of the memory +into a conviction of the understanding and the soul. It will not do for +the Republicans to confine themselves to the mere political argument, +for the matter then becomes one of expediency, with two defensible +sides to it; they must go deeper, to the radical question of right and +wrong, or they surrender the chief advantage of their position. What +Spinoza says of laws is equally true of party platforms,--that those +are strong which appeal to reason, but those are impregnable which +compel the assent both of reason and the common affections of mankind. + +No man pretends that under the Constitution there is any possibility of +interference with the domestic relations of the individual States; no +party has ever remotely hinted at any such interference; but what the +Republicans affirm is, that in every contingency where the Constitution +can be construed in favor of freedom, it ought to be and shall be so +construed. It is idle to talk of sectionalism, abolitionism, and +hostility to the laws. The principles of liberty and humanity cannot, +by virtue of their very nature, be sectional, any more than light and +heat. Prevention is not abolition, and unjust laws are the only serious +enemies that Law ever had. With history before us, it is no treason to +question the infallibility of a court; for courts are never wiser or +more venerable than the men composing them, and a decision that +reverses precedent cannot arrogate to itself any immunity from +reversal. Truth is the only unrepealable thing. + +We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to +suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, +Presidents' messages, and Congress for the last dozen years, lest we +endanger the safety of the Union. The true danger to popular forms of +government begins when public opinion ceases because the people are +incompetent or unwilling to think. In a democracy it is the duty of +every citizen to think; but unless the thinking result in a definite +opinion, and the opinion lead to considerate action, they are nothing. +If the people are assumed to be incapable of forming a judgment for +themselves, the men whose position enables them to guide the public +mind ought certainly to make good their want of intelligence. But on +this great question, the wise solution of which, we are every day +assured, is essential to the permanence of the Union, Mr. Bell has no +opinion at all, Mr. Douglas says it is of no consequence which opinion +prevails, and Mr. Breckinridge tells us vaguely that "all sections have +an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which support +these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the election of +its special favorite is the one thing that can give back peace to the +distracted country. The distracted country will continue to take care +of itself, as it has done hitherto, and the only question that needs an +answer is, What policy will secure the most prosperous future to the +helpless Territories, which our decision is to make or mar for all +coming time? What will save the country from a Senate and Supreme Court +where freedom shall be forever at a disadvantage? + +There is always a fallacy in the argument of the opponents of the +Republican party. They affirm that all the States and all the citizens +of the States ought to have equal rights in the Territories. +Undoubtedly. But the difficulty is that they cannot. The slaveholder +moves into a new Territory with his _institution_, and from that moment +the free white settler is virtually excluded. _His_ institutions he +cannot take with him; they refuse to root themselves in soil that is +cultivated by slave-labor. Speech is no longer free; the post-office is +Austrianized; the mere fact of Northern birth may be enough to hang +him. Even now in Texas, settlers from the Free States are being driven +out and murdered for pretended complicity in a plot the evidence for +the existence of which has been obtained by means without a parallel +since the trial of the Salem witches, and the stories about which are +as absurd and contradictory as the confessions of Goodwife Corey. +Kansas was saved, it is true; but it was the experience of Kansas that +disgusted the South with Mr. Douglas's panacea of "Squatter +Sovereignty." + +The claim of _equal_ rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy. +Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every +inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. For +what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,--that +their _local law_ be made the law of the land, and coextensive with the +limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no +unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another; +and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law makes +property" (confounding _a_ law existing anywhere with _the_ law which +is binding everywhere), can deceive only those who have either never +read the Constitution, or are ignorant of the opinions and intentions +of those who framed it. It is true only of the States where slavery +already exists; and it is because the propagandists of slavery are well +aware of this, that they are so anxious to establish by positive +enactment the seemingly moderate title to a right of existence for +their institution in the Territories,--a title which they do not +possess, and the possession of which would give them the oyster and +the Free States the shells. Laws accordingly are asked for to protect +Southern property in the Territories,--that is, to protect the +inhabitants from deciding for themselves what their frame of government +shall be. Such laws will be passed, and the fairest portion of our +national domain irrevocably closed to free labor, if the on-slaveholding +States fail to do their duty in the present crisis. + +But will the election of Mr. Lincoln endanger the Union? It is not a +little remarkable that, as the prospect of his success increases, the +menaces of secession grow fainter and less frequent. Mr. W. L. Yancey, +to be sure, threatens to secede; but the country can get along without +him, and we wish him a prosperous career in foreign parts. But Governor +Wise no longer proposes to seize the Treasury at Washington,--perhaps +because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. The old Mumbo-Jumbo is +occasionally paraded at the North, but, however many old women may be +frightened, the pulse of the stock-market remains provokingly calm. +General Cushing, infringing the patent-right of the late Mr. James, the +novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on the edge of the horizon. The +exegesis of the vision has been various, some thinking that it means a +Military Despot,--though in that case the force of cavalry would seem +to be inadequate,--and others the Pony Express. If it had been one +rider on two horses, the application would have been more general and +less obscure. In fact, the old cry of Disunion has lost its terrors, if +it ever had any, at the North. The South itself seems to have become +alarmed at its own scarecrow, and speakers there are beginning to +assure their hearers that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do them no +harm. We entirely agree with them, for it will save them from +themselves. + +To believe any organized attempt by the Republican party to disturb the +existing internal policy of the Southern States possible presupposes a +manifest absurdity. Before anything of the kind could take place, the +country must be in a state of forcible revolution. But there is no +premonitory symptom of any such convulsion, unless we except Mr. +Yancey, and that gentleman's throwing a solitary somerset will hardly +turn the continent head over heels. The administration of Mr. Lincoln +will be conservative, because no government is ever intentionally +otherwise, and because power never knowingly undermines the foundation +on which it rests. All that the Free States demand is that influence in +the councils of the nation to which they are justly entitled by their +population, wealth, and intelligence. That these elements of prosperity +have increased more rapidly among them than in communities otherwise +organized, with greater advantages of soil, climate, and mineral +productions, is certainly no argument that they are incapable of the +duties of efficient and prudent administration, however strong a one it +may be for their endeavoring to secure for the Territories the single +superiority that has made themselves what they are. The object of the +Republican party is not the abolition of African slavery, but the utter +extirpation of dogmas which are the logical sequence of attempts to +establish its righteousness and wisdom, and which would serve equally +well to justify the enslavement of every white man unable to protect +himself. They believe that slavery is a wrong morally, a mistake +politically, and a misfortune practically, wherever it exists; that it +has nullified our influence abroad and forced us to compromise with our +better instincts at home; that it has perverted our government from its +legitimate objects, weakened the respect for the laws by making them +the tools of its purposes, and sapped the faith of men in any higher +political morality than interest or any better statesmanship than +chicane. They mean in every lawful way to hem it within its present +limits. + +We are persuaded that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do more than +anything else to appease the excitement of the country. He has proved +both his ability and his integrity; he has had experience enough in +public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a +politician. That he has not had more will be no objection to him in the +eyes of those who have seen the administration of the experienced +public functionary whose term of office is just drawing to a close. He +represents a party who know that true policy is gradual in its +advances, that it is conditional and not absolute, that it must deal +with facts and not with sentiments, but who know also that it is wiser +to stamp out evil in the spark than to wait till there is no help but +in fighting fire with fire. They are the only conservative party, +because they are the only one based on an enduring principle, the only +one that is not willing to pawn to-morrow for the means to gamble with +to-day. They have no hostility to the South, but a determined one to +doctrines of whose ruinous tendency every day more and more convinces +them. + +The encroachments of Slavery upon our national policy have been like +those of a glacier in a Swiss valley. Inch by inch, the huge dragon +with its glittering scales and crests of ice coils itself onward, an +anachronism of summer, the relic of a by-gone world where such monsters +swarmed. But it has its limit, the kindlier forces of Nature work +against it, and the silent arrows of the sun are still, as of old, +fatal to the frosty Python. Geology tells us that such enormous +devastators once covered the face of the earth, but the benignant +sunlight of heaven touched them, and they faded silently, leaving no +trace, but here and there the scratches of their talons, and the gnawed +boulders scattered where they made their lair. We have entire faith in +the benignant influence of Truth, the sunlight of the moral world, and +believe that slavery, like other worn-out systems, will melt gradually +before it. "All the earth cries out upon Truth, and the heaven blesseth +it; ill works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous +thing." + + + + +E PLURIBUS UNUM + +1861 + + +We do not believe that any government--no, not the Rump Parliament on +its last legs--ever showed such pitiful inadequacy as our own during +the past two months. Helpless beyond measure in all the duties of +practical statesmanship, its members or their dependants have given +proof of remarkable energy in the single department of peculation; and +there, not content with the slow methods of the old-fashioned +defaulter, who helped himself only to what there was, they have +contrived to steal what there was going to be, and have peculated in +advance by a kind of official post-obit. So thoroughly has the credit +of the most solvent nation in the world been shaken, that an +administration which still talks of paying a hundred millions for Cuba +is unable to raise a loan of five millions for the current expenses of +government. Nor is this the worst: the moral bankruptcy at Washington +is more complete and disastrous than the financial, and for the first +time in our history the Executive is suspected of complicity in a +treasonable plot against the very life of the nation. + +Our material prosperity for nearly half a century has been so +unparalleled that the minds of men have become gradually more and more +absorbed in matters of personal concern; and our institutions have +practically worked so well and so easily that we have learned to trust +in our luck, and to take the permanence of our government for granted. +The country has been divided on questions of temporary policy, and the +people have been drilled to a wonderful discipline in the manoeuvres +of party tactics; but no crisis has arisen to force upon them a +consideration of the fundamental principles of our system, or to arouse +in them a sense of national unity, and make them feel that patriotism +was anything more than a pleasant sentiment,--half Fourth of July and +half Eighth of January,--a feeble reminiscence, rather than a living +fact with a direct bearing on the national well-being. We have had long +experience of that unmemorable felicity which consists in having no +history, so far as history is made up of battles, revolutions, and +changes of dynasty; but the present generation has never been called +upon to learn that deepest lesson of polities which is taught by a +common danger, throwing the people back on their national instincts, +and superseding party-leaders, the peddlers of chicane, with men +adequate to great occasions and dealers in destiny. Such a crisis is +now upon us; and if the virtue of the people make up for the imbecility +of the Executive, as we have little doubt that it will, if the public +spirit of the whole country be awakened in time by the common peril, +the present trial will leave the nation stronger than ever, and more +alive to its privileges and the duties they imply. We shall have +learned what is meant by a government of laws, and that allegiance to +the sober will of the majority, concentrated in established forms and +distributed by legitimate channels, is all that renders democracy +possible, is its only conservative principle, the only thing that has +made and can keep us a powerful nation instead of a brawling mob. + +The theory that the best government is that which governs least seems +to have been accepted literally by Mr. Buchanan, without considering +the qualifications to which all general propositions are subject. His +course of conduct has shown up its absurdity, in cases where prompt +action is required, as effectually as Buckingham turned into ridicule +the famous verse,-- + + "My wound is great, because it is so small," + +by instantly adding,-- + + "Then it were greater, were it none at all." + +Mr. Buchanan seems to have thought, that, if to govern little was to +govern well, then to do nothing was the perfection of policy. But there +is a vast difference between letting well alone and allowing bad to +become worse by a want of firmness at the outset. If Mr. Buchanan, +instead of admitting the right of secession, had declared it to be, as +it plainly is, rebellion, he would not only have received the unanimous +support of the Free States, but would have given confidence to the +loyal, reclaimed the wavering, and disconcerted the plotters of treason +in the South. + +Either we have no government at all, or else the very word implies the +right, and therefore the duty, in the governing power, of protecting +itself from destruction and its property from pillage. But for Mr. +Buchanan's acquiescence, the doctrine of the right of secession would +never for a moment have bewildered the popular mind. It is simply +mob-law under a plausible name. Such a claim might have been fairly +enough urged under the old Confederation; though even then it would +have been summarily dealt with, in the case of a Tory colony, if the +necessity had arisen. But the very fact that we have a National +Constitution, and legal methods for testing, preventing, or punishing +any infringement of its provisions, demonstrates the absurdity of any +such assumption of right now. When the States surrendered their power +to make war, did they make the single exception of the United States, +and reserve the privilege of declaring war against them at any moment? +If we are a congeries of mediaeval Italian republics, why should the +General Government have expended immense sums in fortifying points +whose strategic position is of continental rather than local +consequence? Florida, after having cost us nobody knows how many +millions of dollars and thousands of lives to render the holding of +slaves possible to her, coolly proposes to withdraw herself from the +Union and take with her one of the keys of the Mexican Gulf, on the +plea that her slave-property is rendered insecure by the Union. +Louisiana, which we bought and paid for to secure the mouth of the +Mississippi, claims the right to make her soil French or Spanish, and +to cork up the river again, whenever the whim may take her. The United +States are not a German Confederation, but a unitary and indivisible +nation, with a national life to protect, a national power to maintain, +and national rights to defend against any and every assailant, at all +hazards. Our national existence is all that gives value to American +citizenship. Without the respect which nothing but our consolidated +character could inspire, we might as well be citizens of the +toy-republic of San Marino, for all the protection it would afford us. +If our claim to a national existence was worth a seven years' war to +establish, it is worth maintaining at any cost; and it is daily +becoming more apparent that the people, so soon as they find that +secession means anything serious, will not allow themselves to be +juggled out of their rights, as members of one of the great powers of +the earth, by a mere quibble of Constitutional interpretation. + +We have been so much accustomed to the Buncombe style of oratory, to +hearing men offer the pledge of their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor +on the most trivial occasions, that we are apt to allow a great +latitude in such matters, and only smile to think how small an advance +any intelligent pawnbroker would be likely to make on securities of +this description. The sporadic eloquence that breaks out over the +country on the eve of election, and becomes a chronic disease in the +two houses of Congress, has so accustomed us to dissociate words and +things, and to look upon strong language as an evidence of weak +purpose, that we attach no meaning whatever to declamation. Our +Southern brethren have been especially given to these orgies of +loquacity, and have so often solemnly assured us of their own courage, +and of the warlike propensities, power, wealth, and general superiority +of that part of the universe which is so happy as to be represented by +them, that, whatever other useful impression they have made, they +insure our never forgetting the proverb about the woman who talks of +her virtue. South Carolina, in particular, if she has hitherto failed +in the application of her enterprise to manufacturing purposes of a +more practical kind, has always been able to match every yard of +printed cotton from the North with a yard of printed fustian, the +product of her own domestic industry. We have thought no harm of this, +so long as no Act of Congress required the reading of the +"Congressional Globe." We submitted to the general dispensation of +long-windedness and short-meaningness as to any other providental +visitation, endeavoring only to hold fast our faith in the divine +government of the world in the midst of so much that was past +understanding. But we lost sight of the metaphysical truth, that, +though men may fail to convince others by a never so incessant +repetition of sonorous nonsense, they nevertheless gradually persuade +themselves, and impregnate their own minds and characters with a belief +in fallacies that have been uncontradicted only because not worth +contradiction. Thus our Southern politicians, by dint of continued +reiteration, have persuaded themselves to accept their own flimsy +assumptions for valid statistics, and at last actually believe +themselves to be the enlightened gentlemen, and the people of the Free +States the peddlers and sneaks they have so long been in the habit of +fancying. They have argued themselves into a kind of vague faith that +the wealth and power of the Republic are south of Mason and Dixon's +line; and the Northern people have been slow in arriving at the +conclusion that treasonable talk would lead to treasonable action, +because they could not conceive that anybody should be so foolish as to +think of rearing an independent frame of government on so visionary a +basis. Moreover, the so often recurring necessity, incident to our +system, of obtaining a favorable verdict from the people has fostered +in our public men the talents and habits of jury-lawyers at the expense +of statesmanlike qualities; and the people have been so long wonted to +look upon the utterances of popular leaders as intended for immediate +effect and having no reference to principles, that there is scarcely a +prominent man in the country so independent in position and so clear of +any suspicion of personal or party motives that they can put entire +faith in what he says, and accept him either as the leader or the +exponent of their thoughts and wishes. They have hardly been able to +judge with certainty from the debates in Congress whether secession +were a real danger, or only one of those political feints of which they +have had such frequent experience. + +Events have been gradually convincing them that the peril was actual +and near. They begin to see how unwise, if nothing worse, has been the +weak policy of the Executive in allowing men to play at Revolution till +they learn to think the coarse reality as easy and pretty as the +vaudeville they have been acting. They are fast coming to the +conclusion that the list of grievances put forward by the secessionists +is a sham and a pretence, the veil of a long-matured plot against +republican institutions. And it is time the traitors of the South +should know that the Free States are becoming every day more united in +sentiment and more earnest in resolve, and that, so soon as they are +thoroughly satisfied that secession is something more than empty +bluster, a public spirit will be aroused that will be content with no +half-measures, and which no Executive, however unwilling, can resist. + +The country is weary of being cheated with plays upon words. The United +States are a nation, and not a mass-meeting; theirs is a government, +and not a caucus,--a government that was meant to be capable, and is +capable, of something more than the helpless _please don't_ of a +village constable; they have executive and administrative officers that +are not mere puppet-figures to go through the motions of an objectless +activity, but arms and hands that become supple to do the will of the +people so soon as that will becomes conscious and defines its purpose. +It is time that we turned up our definitions in some more trustworthy +dictionary than that of avowed disunionists and their more dangerous +because more timid and cunning accomplices. Rebellion smells no sweeter +because it is called Secession, nor does Order lose its divine +precedence in human affairs because a knave may nickname it Coercion. +Secession means chaos, and Coercion the exercise of legitimate +authority. You cannot dignify the one nor degrade the other by any +verbal charlatanism. The best testimony to the virtue of coercion is +the fact that no wrongdoer ever thought well of it. The thief in jail, +the mob-leader in the hands of the police, and the murderer on the drop +will be unanimous in favor of this new heresy of the unconstitutionality +of constitutions, with its Newgate Calendar of confessors, martyrs, and +saints. Falstaff's famous regiment would have volunteered to a man for +its propagation or its defence. Henceforth let every unsuccessful +litigant have the right to pronounce the verdict of a jury sectional, +and to quash all proceedings and retain the property in controversy by +seceding from the court-room. Let the planting of hemp be made penal, +because it squints toward coercion. Why, the first great secessionist +would doubtless have preferred to divide heaven peaceably, would have +been willing to send commissioners, must have thought Michael's +proceedings injudicious, and could probably even now demonstrate the +illegality of hell-fire to any five-year-old imp of average education +and intelligence. What a fine world we should have, if we could only +come quietly together in convention, and declare by unanimous +resolution, or even by a two-thirds vote, that edge-tools should +hereafter cut everybody's fingers but his that played with them; that, +when two men ride on one horse, the hindmost shall always sit in front; +and that, when a man tries to thrust his partner out of bed and gets +kicked out himself, he shall be deemed to have established his title to +an equitable division, and the bed shall be thenceforth his as of +right, without detriment to the other's privilege in the floor! + +If secession be a right, then the moment of its exercise is wholly +optional with those possessing it. Suppose, on the eve of a war with +England, Michigan should vote herself out of the Union and declare +herself annexed to Canada, what kind of a reception would her +commissioners be likely to meet in Washington, and what scruples should +we feel about coercion? Or, to take a case precisely parallel to that +of South Carolina, suppose that Utah, after getting herself admitted to +the Union, should resume her sovereignty, as it is pleasantly called, +and block our path to the Pacific, under the pretence that she did not +consider her institutions safe while the other States entertained such +unscriptural prejudices against her special weakness in the patriarchal +line. Is the only result of our admitting a Territory on Monday to be +the giving it a right to steal itself and go out again on Tuesday? Or +do only the original thirteen States possess this precious privilege of +suicide? We shall need something like a Fugitive Slave Law for runaway +republics, and must get a provision inserted in our treaties with +foreign powers, that they shall help us catch any delinquent who may +take refuge with them, as South Carolina has been trying to do with +England and France. It does not matter to the argument, except so far +as the good taste of the proceeding is concerned, at what particular +time a State may make her territory foreign, thus opening one gate of +our national defences and offering a bridge to invasion. The danger of +the thing is in her making her territory foreign under any +circumstances; and it is a danger which the government must prevent, if +only for self-preservation. Within the limits of the constitution two +sovereignties cannot exist; and yet what practical odds does it make, +if a State may become sovereign by simply declaring herself so? The +legitimate consequence of secession is, not that a State becomes +sovereign, but that, so far as the general government is concerned, she +has outlawed herself, nullified her own existence as a State, and +become an aggregate of riotous men who resist the execution of the +laws. + +We are told that coercion will be civil war; and so is a mob civil war, +till it is put down. In the present case, the only coercion called for +is the protection of the public property, and the collection of the +federal revenues. If it be necessary to send troops to do this, they +will not be sectional, as it is the fashion nowadays to call people who +insist on their own rights and the maintenance of the laws, but federal +troops, representing the will and power of the whole Confederacy. A +danger is always great so long as we are afraid of it; and mischief +like that now gathering head in South Carolina may soon become a +danger, if not swiftly dealt with. Mr. Buchanan seems altogether too +wholesale a disciple of the _laissez-faire_ doctrine, and has allowed +activity in mischief the same immunity from interference which is true +policy only in regard to enterprise wisely and profitably directed. He +has been naturally reluctant to employ force, but has overlooked the +difference between indecision and moderation, forgetting the lesson of +all experience, that firmness in the beginning saves the need of force +in the end, and that forcible measures applied too late may be made to +seem violent ones, and thus excite a mistaken sympathy with the +sufferers by their own misdoing. The feeling of the country has been +unmistakably expressed in regard to Major Anderson, and that not merely +because he showed prudence and courage, but because he was the first +man holding a position of trust who did his duty to the nation. Public +sentiment unmistakably demands that, in the case of Anarchy _vs._ +America, the cause of the defendant shall not be suffered to go by +default. The proceedings in South Carolina, parodying the sublime +initiative of our own Revolution with a Declaration of Independence +that hangs the franchise of human nature on the kink of a hair, and +substitutes for the visionary right of all men to the pursuit of +happiness the more practical privilege of some men to pursue their own +negro,--these proceedings would be merely ludicrous, were it not for +the danger that the men engaged in them may so far commit themselves as +to find the inconsistency of a return to prudence too galling, and to +prefer the safety of their pride to that of their country. + +[Illustration: _Major Anderson_] + +It cannot be too distinctly stated or too often repeated that the +discontent of South Carolina is not one to be allayed by any +concessions which the Free States can make with dignity or even safety. +It is something more radical and of longer standing than distrust of +the motives or probable policy of the Republican party. It is neither +more nor less than a disbelief in the very principles on which our +government is founded. So long as they practically retained the +government of the country, and could use its power and patronage to +their own advantage, the plotters were willing to wait; but the moment +they lost that control, by the breaking up of the Democratic party, and +saw that their chance of ever regaining it was hopeless, they declared +openly the principles on which they have all along been secretly +acting. Denying the constitutionality of special protection to any +other species of property or branch of industry, and in 1832 +threatening to break up the Union unless their theory of the +Constitution in this respect were admitted, they went into the late +Presidential contest with a claim for extraordinary protection to a +certain kind of property already the only one endowed with special +privileges and immunities. Defeated overwhelmingly before the people, +they now question the right of the majority to govern, except on their +terms, and threaten violence in the hope of extorting from the fears of +the Free States what they failed to obtain from their conscience and +settled convictions of duty. Their quarrel is not with the Republican +party, but with the theory of Democracy. + +The South Carolina politicians have hitherto shown themselves adroit +managers, shrewd in detecting and profiting by the weaknesses of men; +but their experience has not been of a kind to give them practical +wisdom in that vastly more important part of government which depends +for success on common sense and business habits. The members of the +South Carolina Convention have probably less knowledge of political +economy than any single average Northern merchant whose success depends +on an intimate knowledge of the laws of trade and the world-wide +contingencies of profit and loss. Such a man would tell them, as the +result of invariable experience, that the prosperity of no community +was so precarious as that of one whose very existence was dependent on +a single agricultural product. What divinity hedges cotton, that +competition may not touch it,--that some disease, like that of the +potato and the vine, may not bring it to beggary in a single year, and +cure the overweening conceit of prosperity with the sharp medicine of +Ireland and Madeira? But these South Carolina economists are better at +vaporing than at calculation. They will find to their cost that the +figures of statistics have little mercy for the figures of speech, +which are so powerful in raising enthusiasm and so helpless in raising +money. The eating of one's own words, as they must do, sooner or later, +is neither agreeable nor nutritious; but it is better to do it before +there is nothing else left to eat. The secessionists are strong in +declamation, but they are weak in the multiplication-table and the +ledger. They have no notion of any sort of logical connection between +treason and taxes. It is all very fine signing Declarations of +Independence, and one may thus become a kind of panic-price hero for a +week or two, even rising to the effigial martyrdom of the illustrated +press; but these gentlemen seem to have forgotten that, if their +precious document should lead to anything serious, they have been +signing promises to pay for the State of South Carolina to an enormous +amount. It is probably far short of the truth to say that the taxes of +an autonomous palmetto republic would be three times what they are now. +To speak of nothing else, there must be a military force kept +constantly on foot; and the ministers of King Cotton will find that the +charge made by a standing army on the finances of the new empire is +likely to be far more serious and damaging than can be compensated by +the glory of a great many such "spirited charges" as that by which +Colonel Pettigrew and his gallant rifles took Fort Pinckney, with its +garrison of one engineer officer and its armament of no guns. Soldiers +are the most costly of all toys or tools. The outgo for the army of the +Pope, never amounting to ten thousand effective men, in the cheapest +country in the world, has been half a million of dollars a month. Under +the present system, it needs no argument to show that the +non-slaveholding States, with a free population considerably more than +double that of the slaveholding States, and with much more generally +distributed wealth and opportunities of spending, pay far more than the +proportion predicable on mere preponderance in numbers of the expenses +of a government supported mainly by a tariff on importations. And it is +not the burden of this difference merely that the new Cotton Republic +must assume. They will need as large, probably a larger, army and navy +than that of the present Union; as numerous a diplomatic establishment; +a postal system whose large yearly deficit they must bear themselves; +and they must assume the main charges of the Indian Bureau. If they +adopt free trade, they will alienate the Border Slave States, and even +Louisiana; if a system of customs, they have cut themselves off from +the chief consumers of foreign goods. One of the calculations of the +Southern conspirators is to render the Free States tributary to their +new republic by adopting free trade and smuggling their imported goods +across the border. But this is all moonshine; for, even if smuggling +could not be prevented as easily as it now is from the British +Provinces, how long would it be before the North would adapt its tariff +to the new order of things? And thus thrown back upon direct taxation, +how many years would it take to open the eyes of the poorer classes of +Secessia to the hardship of their position and its causes? Their +ignorance has been trifled with by men who cover treasonable designs +with a pretence of local patriotism. Neither they nor their misleaders +have any true conception of the people of the Free States, of those +"white slaves" who in Massachusetts alone have a deposit in the Savings +Banks whose yearly interest would pay seven times over the four hundred +thousand dollars which South Carolina cannot raise. + +But even if we leave other practical difficulties out of sight, what +chance of stability is there for a confederacy whose very foundation is +the principle that any member of it may withdraw at the first +discontent? If they could contrive to establish a free trade treaty +with their chief customer, England, would she consent to gratify +Louisiana with an exception in favor of sugar? Some of the leaders of +the secession movement have already become aware of this difficulty, +and accordingly propose the abolition of all State lines,--the first +step toward a military despotism; for, if our present system have one +advantage greater than another, it is the neutralization of numberless +individual ambitions by adequate opportunities of provincial +distinction. Even now the merits of the Napoleonic system are put +forward by some of the theorists of Alabama and Mississippi, who +doubtless have as good a stomach to be emperors as ever Bottom had to a +bottle of hay, when his head was temporarily transformed to the +likeness of theirs,--and who, were they subjects of the government that +looks so nice across the Atlantic, would, ere this, have been on their +way to Cayenne, a spot where such red-peppery temperaments would find +themselves at home. + +The absurdities with which the telegraphic column of the newspapers has +been daily crowded, since the vagaries of South Carolina finally +settled down into unmistakable insanity, would give us but a poor +opinion of the general intelligence of the country, did we not know +that they were due to the necessities of "Our Own Correspondent." At +one time, it is Fort Sumter that is to be bombarded with floating +batteries mounted on rafts behind a rampart of cotton-bales; at +another, it is Mr. Barrett, Mayor of Washington, announcing his +intention that the President-elect shall be inaugurated, or Mr. +Buchanan declaring that he shall cheerfully assent to it. Indeed! and +who gave them any choice in the matter? Yesterday, it was General Scott +who would not abandon the flag which he had illustrated with the +devotion of a lifetime; to-day, it is General Harney or Commodore +Kearney who has concluded to be true to the country whose livery he has +worn and whose bread he has eaten for half a century; to-morrow, it +will be Ensign Stebbins who has been magnanimous enough not to throw up +his commission. What are we to make of the extraordinary confusion of +ideas which such things indicate? In what other country would it be +considered creditable to an officer that he merely did not turn traitor +at the first opportunity? There can be no doubt of the honor both of +the army and navy, and of their loyalty to their country. They will do +their duty, if we do ours in saving them a country to which they can be +loyal. + +We have been so long habituated to a kind of local independence in the +management of our affairs, and the central government has fortunately +had so little occasion for making itself felt at home and in the +domestic concerns of the States, that the idea of its relation to us as +a power, except for protection from without, has gradually become vague +and alien to our ordinary habits of thought. We have so long heard the +principle admitted, and seen it acted on with advantage to the general +weal, that the people are sovereign in their own affairs, that we must +recover our presence of mind before we see the fallacy of the +assumption, that the people, or a bare majority of them, in a single +State, can exercise their right of sovereignty as against the will of +the nation legitimately expressed. When such a contingency arises, it +is for a moment difficult to get rid of our habitual associations, and +to feel that we are not a mere partnership, dissolvable whether by +mutual consent or on the demand of one or more of its members, but a +nation, which can never abdicate its right, and can never surrender it +while virtue enough is left in the people to make it worth retaining. +It would seem to be the will of God that from time to time the manhood +of nations, like that of individuals, should be tried by great dangers +or by great opportunities. If the manhood be there, it makes the great +opportunity out of the great danger; if it be not there, then the great +danger out of the great opportunity. The occasion is offered us now of +trying whether a conscious nationality and a timely concentration of +the popular will for its maintenance be possible in a democracy, or +whether it is only despotisms that are capable of the sudden and +selfish energy of protecting themselves from destruction. + +The Republican party has thus far borne itself with firmness and +moderation, and the great body of the Democratic party in the Free +States is gradually being forced into an alliance with it. Let us not +be misled by any sophisms about conciliation and compromise. +Discontented citizens may be conciliated and compromised with, but +never open rebels with arms in their hands. If there be any concessions +which justice may demand on the one hand and honor make on the other, +let us try if we can adjust them with the Border Slave States; but a +government has already signed its own death-warrant, when it consents +to make terms with law-breakers. First re-establish the supremacy of +order, and then it will be time to discuss terms; but do not call it a +compromise, when you give up your purse with a pistol at your head. +This is no time for sentimentalisms about the empty chair at the +national hearth; all the chairs would be empty soon enough, if one of +the children is to amuse itself with setting the house on fire, +whenever it can find a match. Since the election of Mr. Lincoln, not +one of the arguments has lost its force, not a cipher of the statistics +has been proved mistaken, on which the judgment of the people was made +up. Nobody proposes, or has proposed, to interfere with any existing +rights of property; the majority have not assumed to decide upon any +question of the righteousness or policy of certain social arrangements +existing in any part of the Confederacy; they have not undertaken to +constitute themselves the conscience of their neighbors; they have +simply endeavored to do their duty to their own posterity, and to +protect them from a system which, as ample experience has shown, and +that of our present difficulty were enough to show, fosters a sense of +irresponsibleness to all obligation in the governing class, and in the +governed an ignorance and a prejudice which may be misled at any moment +to the peril of the whole country. + +But the present question is one altogether transcending all limits of +party and all theories of party policy. It is a question of national +existence; it is a question whether Americans shall govern America, or +whether a disappointed clique shall nullify all government now, and +render a stable government difficult hereafter; it is a question, not +whether we shall have civil war under certain contingencies, but +whether we shall prevent it under any. It is idle, and worse than idle, +to talk about Central Republics that can never be formed. We want +neither Central Republics nor Northern Republics, but our own Republic +and that of our fathers, destined one day to gather the whole continent +under a flag that shall be the most august in the world. Having once +known what it was to be members of a grand and peaceful constellation, +we shall not believe, without further proof, that the laws of our +gravitation are to be abolished, and we flung forth into chaos, a +hurlyburly of jostling and splintering stars, whenever Robert Toombs or +Robert Rhett, or any other Bob of the secession kite, may give a flirt +of self-importance. The first and greatest benefit of government is +that it keeps the peace, that it insures every man his right, and not +only that, but the permanence of it. In order to this, its first +requisite is stability; and this once firmly settled, the greater the +extent of conterminous territory that can be subjected to one system +and one language and inspired by one patriotism, the better. That there +should be some diversity of interests is perhaps an advantage, since +the necessity of legislating equitably for all gives legislation its +needful safeguards of caution and largeness of view. A single empire +embracing the whole world, and controlling, without extinguishing, +local organizations and nationalities, has been not only the dream of +conquerors, but the ideal of speculative philanthropists. Our own +dominion is of such extent and power, that it may, so far as this +continent is concerned, be looked upon as something like an approach to +the realization of such an ideal. But for slavery, it might have +succeeded in realizing it; and in spite of slavery, it may. One +language, one law, one citizenship over thousands of miles, and a +government on the whole so good that we seem to have forgotten what +government means,--these are things not to be spoken of with levity, +privileges not to be surrendered without a struggle. And yet while +Germany and Italy, taught by the bloody and bitter and servile +experience of centuries, are striving toward unity as the blessing +above all others desirable, we are to allow a Union, that for almost +eighty years has been the source and the safeguard of incalculable +advantages, to be shattered by the caprice of a rabble that has out-run +the intention of its leaders, while we are making up our minds what +coercion means! Ask the first constable, and he will tell you that it +is the force necessary for executing the laws. To avoid the danger of +what men who have seized upon forts, arsenals, and other property of +the United States, and continue to hold them by military force, may +choose to call civil war, we are allowing a state of things to gather +head which will make real civil war the occupation of the whole country +for years to come, and establish it as a permanent institution. There +is no such antipathy between the North and the South as men ambitious +of a consideration in the new republic, which their talents and +character have failed to secure them in the old, would fain call into +existence by asserting that it exists. The misunderstanding and dislike +between them is not so great as they were within living memory between +England and Scotland, as they are now between England and Ireland. +There is no difference of race, language, or religion. Yet, after a +dissatisfaction of near a century and two rebellions, there is no part +of the British dominion more loyal than Scotland, no British subjects +who would be more loath to part with the substantial advantages of +their imperial connection than the Scotch; and even in Ireland, after a +longer and more deadly feud, there is no sane man who would consent to +see his country irrevocably cut off from power and consideration to +obtain an independence which would be nothing but Donnybrook Fair +multiplied by every city, town, and village in the island. The same +considerations of policy and advantage which render the union of +Scotland and Ireland with England a necessity apply with even more +force to the several States of our Union. To let one, or two, or half a +dozen of them break away in a freak of anger or unjust suspicion, or, +still worse, from mistaken notions of sectional advantage, would be to +fail in our duty to ourselves and our country, would be a fatal +blindness to the lessons which immemorial history has been tracing on +the earth's surface, either with the beneficent furrow of the plough, +or, when that was unheeded, the fruitless gash of the cannon ball. + +When we speak of coercion, we do not mean violence, but only the +assertion of constituted and acknowledged authority. Even if seceding +States could be conquered back again, they would not be worth the +conquest. We ask only for the assertion of a principle which shall give +the friends of order in the discontented quarters a hope to rally +round, and the assurance of the support they have a right to expect. +There is probably a majority, and certainly a powerful minority, in the +seceding States, who are loyal to the Union; and these should have that +support which the prestige of the General Government can alone give +them. It is not to the North nor to the Republican party that the +malcontents are called on to submit, but to the laws and to the benign +intentions of the Constitution, as they were understood by its framers. +What the country wants is a permanent settlement; and it has learned, +by repeated trial, that compromise is not a cement, but a wedge. The +Government did not hesitate to protect the doubtful right of property +of a Virginian in Anthony Burns by the exercise of coercion, and the +loyalty of Massachusetts was such that her own militia could be used to +enforce an obligation abhorrent, and, as there is reason to believe, +made purposely abhorrent, to her dearest convictions and most venerable +traditions; and yet the same Government tampers with armed treason, and +lets _I dare not_ wait upon _I would_, when it is a question of +protecting the acknowledged property of the Union, and of sustaining, +nay, preserving even, a gallant officer whose only fault is that he has +been too true to his flag. While we write, the newspapers bring us the +correspondence between Mr. Buchanan and the South Carolina "Commissioners;" +and surely never did a government stoop so low as ours has done, not +only in consenting to receive these ambassadors from Nowhere, but in +suggesting that a soldier deserves court-martial who has done all he +could to maintain himself in a forlorn hope, with rebellion in his +front and treachery in his rear. Our Revolutionary heroes had +old-fashioned notions about rebels, suitable to the straightforward +times in which they lived,--times when blood was as freely shed to +secure our national existence as milk-and-water is now to destroy it. +Mr. Buchanan might have profited by the example of men who knew nothing +of the modern arts of Constitutional interpretation, but saw clearly +the distinction between right and wrong. When a party of the Shays +rebels came to the house of General Pomeroy, in Northampton, and asked +if he could accommodate them,--the old soldier, seeing the green sprigs +in their hats, the badges of their treason, shouted to his son, "Fetch +me my hanger, and I'll _accommodate_ the scoundrels!" General Jackson, +we suspect, would have accommodated rebel commissioners in the same +peremptory style. + +While our Government, like Giles in the old rhyme, is wondering whether +it is a government or not, emissaries of treason are cunningly working +upon the fears and passions of the Border States, whose true interests +are infinitely more on the side of the Union than of slavery. They are +luring the ambitious with visionary promises of Southern grandeur and +prosperity, and deceiving the ignorant into the belief that the +principles and practice of the Free States were truly represented by +John Brown. All this might have been prevented, had Mr. Buchanan in his +Message thought of the interests of his country instead of those of his +party. It is not too late to check and neutralize it now. A decisively +national and patriotic policy is all that can prevent excited men from +involving themselves so deeply that they will find "returning as +tedious as go o'er," and be more afraid of cowardice than of +consequences. + +Slavery is no longer the matter in debate, and we must beware of being +led off upon that side-issue. The matter now in hand is the +reestablishment of order, the reaffirmation of national unity, and the +settling once for all whether there can be such a thing as a government +without the right to use its power in self-defence. The Republican +party has done all it could lawfully do in limiting slavery once more +to the States in which it exists, and in relieving the Free States from +forced complicity with an odious system. They can be patient, as +Providence is often patient, till natural causes work that conviction +which conscience has been unable to effect. They believe that the +violent abolition of slavery, which would be sure to follow sooner or +later the disruption of our Confederacy, would not compensate for the +evil that would be entailed upon both races by the abolition of our +nationality and the bloody confusion that would follow it. More than +this, they believe that there can be no permanent settlement except in +the definite establishment of the principle, that this Government, like +all others, rests upon the everlasting foundations of just +Authority,--that that authority, once delegated by the people, becomes +a common stock of Power to be wielded for the common protection, and +from which no minority or majority of partners can withdraw its +contribution under any conditions,--that this power is what makes us a +nation, and implies a corresponding duty of submission, or, if that be +refused, then a necessary right of self-vindication. We are citizens, +when we make laws; we become subjects, when we attempt to break them +after they are made. Lynch-law maybe better than no law in new and +half-organized communities, but we cannot tolerate its application in +the affairs of government. The necessity of suppressing rebellion by +force may be a terrible one, but its consequences, whatever they may +be, do not weigh a feather in comparison with those that would follow +from admitting the principle that there is no social compact binding on +any body of men too numerous to be arrested by a United States marshal. + +As we are writing these sentences, the news comes to us that South +Carolina has taken the initiative, and chosen the arbitrament of war. +She has done it because her position was desperate, and because she +hoped thereby to unite the Cotton States by a complicity in blood, as +they are already committed by a unanimity in bravado. Major Anderson +deserves more than ever the thanks of his country for his wise +forbearance. The foxes in Charleston, who have already lost their tails +in the trap of Secession, wished to throw upon him the responsibility +of that second blow which begins a quarrel, and the silence of his guns +has balked them. Nothing would have pleased them so much as to have one +of his thirty-two-pound shot give a taste of real war to the boys who +are playing soldier at Morris's Island. But he has shown the discretion +of a brave man. South Carolina will soon learn how much she has +undervalued the people of the Free States. Because they prefer law to +bowie-knives and revolvers, she has too lightly reckoned on their +caution and timidity. She will find that, though slow to kindle, they +are as slow to yield, and that they are willing to risk their lives for +the defence of law, though not for the breach of it. They are beginning +to question the value of a peace that is forced on them at the point of +the bayonet, and is to be obtained only by an abandonment of rights and +duties. + +When we speak of the courage and power of the Free States, we do not +wish to be understood as descending to the vulgar level of meeting brag +with brag. We speak of them only as among the elements to be gravely +considered by the fanatics who may render it necessary for those who +value the continued existence of this Confederacy as it deserves to be +valued to kindle a back-fire, and to use the desperate means which God +has put into their hands to be employed in the last extremity of free +institutions. And when we use the term coercion, nothing is farther +from our thoughts than the carrying of blood and fire among those whom +we still consider our brethren of South Carolina. These civilized +communities of ours have interests too serious to be risked on a +childish wager of courage,--a quality that can always be bought cheaper +than day-labor on a railway-embankment. We wish to see the Government +strong enough for the maintenance of law, and for the protection, if +need be, of the unfortunate Governor Pickens from the anarchy he has +allowed himself to be made a tool of by evoking. Let the power of the +Union be used for any other purpose than that of shutting and barring +the door against the return of misguided men to their allegiance. At +the same time we think legitimate and responsible force prudently +exerted safer than the submission, without a struggle, to unlawful and +irresponsible violence. + +Peace is the greatest of blessings, when it is won and kept by manhood +and wisdom; but it is a blessing that will not long be the housemate of +cowardice. It is God alone who is powerful enough to let His authority +slumber; it is only His laws that are strong enough to protect and +avenge themselves. Every human government is bound to make its laws so +far resemble His that they shall be uniform, certain, and +unquestionable in their operation; and this it can do only by a timely +show of power, and by an appeal to that authority which is of divine +right, inasmuch as its office is to maintain that order which is the +single attribute of the Infinite Reason that we can clearly apprehend +and of which we have hourly example. + + + + +THE PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S REBELLION + +1861 + + +Had any one ventured to prophesy on the Fourth of March that the +immediate prospect of Civil War would be hailed by the people of the +Free States with a unanimous shout of enthusiasm, he would have been +thought a madman. Yet the prophecy would have been verified by what we +now see and hear in every city, town, and hamlet from Maine to Kansas. +With the advantage of three months' active connivance in the cabinet of +Mr. Buchanan, with an empty treasury at Washington, and that reluctance +to assume responsibility and to inaugurate a decided policy, the common +vice of our politicians, who endeavor to divine and to follow popular +sentiment rather than to lead it, it seemed as if Disunion were +inevitable, and the only open question were the line of separation. So +assured seemed the event that English journalists moralized gravely on +the inherent weakness of Democracy. While the leaders of the Southern +Rebellion did not dare to expose their treason to the risk of a popular +vote in any one of the seceding States, _The Saturday Review_, one +of the ablest of British journals, solemnly warned its countrymen to +learn by our example the dangers of an extended suffrage. + +Meanwhile, the conduct of the people of the Free States, during all +these trying and perilous months, had proved, if it proved anything, +the essential conservatism of a population in which every grown man +has a direct interest in the stability of the national government. +So abstinent are they by habit and principle from any abnormal +intervention with the machine of administration, so almost +superstitious in adherence to constitutional forms, as to be for a +moment staggered by the claim to a _right_ of secession set up by all +the Cotton States, admitted by the Border Slave States, which had the +effrontery to deliberate between their plain allegiance and their +supposed interest, and but feebly denied by the Administration then in +power. The usual panacea of palaver was tried; Congress did its best to +add to the general confusion of thought; and, as if that were not +enough, a Convention of Notables was called simultaneously to thresh +the straw of debate anew, and to convince thoughtful persons that men +do not grow wiser as they grow older. So in the two Congresses the +notables talked,--in the one those who ought to be shelved, in the +other those who were shelved already,--while those who were too +thoroughly shelved for a seat in either addressed Great Union Meetings +at home. Not a man of them but had a compromise in his pocket, adhesive +as Spalding's glue, warranted to stick the shattered Confederacy +together so firmly that, if it ever broke again, it must be in a new +place, which was a great consolation. If these gentlemen gave nothing +very valuable to the people of the Free States, they were giving the +Secessionists what was of inestimable value to them,--Time. The latter +went on seizing forts, navy-yards, and deposits of Federal money, +erecting batteries, and raising and arming men at their leisure; above +all, they acquired a prestige, and accustomed men's minds to the +thought of disunion, not only as possible, but actual. They began to +grow insolent, and, while compelling absolute submission to their +rebellious usurpation at home, decried any exercise of legitimate +authority on the part of the General Government as _Coercion_,--a new +term, by which it was sought to be established as a principle of +constitutional law, that it is always the Northern bull that has gored +the Southern ox. + +During all this time, the Border Slave States, and especially Virginia, +were playing a part at once cowardly and selfish. They assumed the +right to stand neutral between the government and rebellion, to +contract a kind of morganatic marriage with Treason, by which they +could enjoy the pleasant sin without the tedious responsibility, and to +be traitors in everything but the vulgar contingency of hemp. Doubtless +the aim of the political managers in these States was to keep the North +amused with schemes of arbitration, reconstruction, and whatever other +fine words would serve the purpose of hiding the real issue, till the +new government of Secessia should have so far consolidated itself as to +be able to demand with some show of reason a recognition from foreign +powers, and to render it politic for the United States to consent to +peaceable separation. They counted on the self-interest of England and +the supineness of the North. As to the former, they were not wholly +without justification,--for nearly all the English discussions of the +"American Crisis" which we have seen have shown far more of the +shop-keeping spirit than of interest in the maintenance of free +institutions; but in regard to the latter they made the fatal mistake +of believing our Buchanans, Cushings, and Touceys to be representative +men. They were not aware how utterly the Democratic party had divorced +itself from the moral sense of the Free States, nor had they any +conception of the tremendous recoil of which the long-repressed +convictions, traditions, and instincts of a people are capable. + +Never was a nation so in want of a leader; never was it more plain +that, without a head, the people "bluster abroad as beasts," with +plenty of the iron of purpose, but purpose without coherence, and with +no cunning smith of circumstance to edge it with plan and helve it with +direction. What the country was waiting for showed itself in the +universal thrill of satisfaction when Major Anderson took the +extraordinary responsibility of doing his duty. But such was the +general uncertainty, so doubtful seemed the loyalty of the Democratic +party as represented by its spokesmen at the North, so irresolute was +the tone of many Republican leaders and journals, that a powerful and +wealthy community of twenty millions of people gave a sigh of relief +when they had been permitted to install the Chief Magistrate of their +choice in their own National Capital. Even after the inauguration of +Mr. Lincoln, it was confidently announced that Jefferson Davis, the +Burr of the Southern conspiracy, would be in Washington before the +month was out; and so great was the Northern despondency that the +chances of such an event were seriously discussed. While the nation was +falling to pieces, there were newspapers and "distinguished statesmen" +of the party so lately and so long in power base enough to be willing +to make political capital out of the common danger, and to lose their +country, if they could only find their profit. There was even one man +found in Massachusetts, who, measuring the moral standard of his party +by his own, had the unhappy audacity to declare publicly that there +were friends enough of the South in his native State to prevent the +march of any troops thence to sustain that Constitution to which he had +sworn fealty in Heaven knows how many offices, the rewards of almost as +many turnings of his political coat. There was one journal in New York +which had the insolence to speak of _President_ Davis and _Mister_ +Lincoln in the same paragraph. No wonder the "dirt-eaters" of the +Carolinas could be taught to despise a race among whom creatures might +be found to do that by choice which they themselves were driven to do +by misery. + +Thus far the Secessionists had the game all their own way, for their +dice were loaded with Northern lead. They framed their sham +constitution, appointed themselves to their sham offices, issued their +sham commissions, endeavored to bribe England with a sham offer of low +duties and Virginia with a sham prohibition of the slave-trade, +advertised their proposals for a sham loan which was to be taken up +under intimidation, and levied real taxes on the people in the name of +the people whom they had never allowed to vote directly on their +enormous swindle. With money stolen from the Government, they raised +troops whom they equipped with stolen arms, and beleaguered national +fortresses with cannon stolen from national arsenals. They sent out +secret agents to Europe, they had their secret allies in the Free +States, their conventions transacted all important business in secret +session;--there was but one exception to the shrinking delicacy +becoming a maiden government, and that was the openness of the +stealing. We had always thought a high sense of personal honor an +essential element of chivalry; but among the _Romanic_ races, by which, +as the wonderful ethnologist of _De Bow's Review_ tells us, the +Southern States where settled, and from which they derive a close +entail of chivalric characteristics, to the exclusion of the vulgar +Saxons of the North, such is by no means the case. For the first time +in history the deliberate treachery of a general is deemed worthy of a +civic ovation, and Virginia has the honor of being the first State +claiming to be civilized that has decreed the honors of a triumph to a +cabinet officer who had contrived to gild a treason that did not +endanger his life with a peculation that could not further damage his +reputation. Rebellion, even in a bad cause, may have its romantic side; +treason, which had not been such but for being on the losing side, may +challenge admiration; but nothing can sweeten larceny or disinfect +perjury. A rebellion inaugurated with theft, and which has effected its +entry into national fortresses, not over broken walls, but by breaches +of trust, should take Jonathan Wild for its patron saint, with the run +of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet for a choice of sponsors,--godfathers we +should not dare to call them. + +Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Speech was of the kind usually called "firm, +but conciliatory,"--a policy doubtful in troublous times, since it +commonly argues weakness, and more than doubtful in a crisis like ours, +since it left the course which the Administration meant to take +ambiguous, and, while it weakened the Government by exciting the +distrust of all who wished for vigorous measures, really strengthened +the enemy by encouraging the conspirators in the Border States. There +might be a question as to whether this or that attitude were expedient +for the Republican party; there could be none as to the only safe and +dignified one for the Government of the Nation. Treason was as much +treason in the beginning of March as in the middle of April; and it +seems certain now, as it seemed probable to many then, that the country +would have sooner rallied to the support of the Government, if the +Government had shown an earlier confidence in the loyalty of the +people. Though the President talked of "repossessing" the stolen forts, +arsenals, and custom-houses, yet close upon this declaration followed +the disheartening intelligence that the cabinet were discussing the +propriety of evacuating not only Fort Sumter, which was of no strategic +importance, but Fort Pickens, which was the key to the Gulf of Mexico, +and to abandon which was almost to acknowledge the independence of the +Rebel States. Thus far the Free States had waited with commendable +patience for some symptom of vitality in the new Administration, +something that should distinguish it from the piteous helplessness of +its predecessor. But now their pride was too deeply outraged for +endurance; indignant remonstrances were heard from all quarters, and +the Government seemed for the first time fairly to comprehend that it +had twenty millions of freemen at its back, and that forts might be +taken and held by honest men as well as by knaves and traitors. The +nettle had been stroked long enough; it was time to try a firm grip. +Still the Administration seemed inclined to temporize, so thoroughly +was it possessed by the notion of conciliating the Border States. In +point of fact, the side which those States might take in the struggle +between Law and Anarchy was of vastly more import to them than to us. +They could bring no considerable reinforcement of money, credit, or +arms to the rebels; they could at best but add so many mouths to an +army whose commissariat was already dangerously embarrassed. They could +not even, except temporarily, keep the war away from the territory of +the seceding States, every one of which had a sea-door open to the +invasion of an enemy who controlled the entire navy and shipping of the +country. The position assumed by Eastern Virginia and Maryland was of +consequence only so far as it might facilitate a sudden raid on +Washington, and the policy of both these States was to amuse the +Government by imaginary negotiations till the plans of the conspirators +were ripe. In both States men were actively recruited and enrolled to +assist in attacking the capital. With them, as with the more openly +rebellious States, the new theory of "Coercion" was ingeniously +arranged like a valve, yielding at the slightest impulse to the passage +of forces for the subversion of legitimate authority, closing +imperviously, so that no drop of power could ooze through in the +opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, +would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, +who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, +"My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, +then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of +Governor Letcher in the same energetic way would have saved the +disasters of Harper's Ferry and Norfolk,--for disasters they were, +though six months of temporizing had so lowered the public sense of +what was due to the national dignity that people were glad to see the +Government active at length, even if only in setting fire to its own +house. + +We are by no means inclined to criticise the Administration, even if +this were the proper time for it; but we cannot help thinking that +there was great wisdom in Napoleon's recipe for saving life in dealing +with a mob,--"First fire grape-shot _into_ them; after that, over their +heads as much as you like." The position of Mr. Lincoln was already +embarrassed when he entered upon office, by what we believe to have +been a political blunder in the leaders of the Republican party. +Instead of keeping closely to the real point, and the only point, at +issue, namely, the claim of a minority to a right of rebellion when +displeased with the result of an election, the bare question of +Secession, pure and simple, they allowed their party to become divided, +and to waste themselves in discussing terms of compromise and +guaranties of slavery which had nothing to do with the business in +hand. Unless they were ready to admit that popular government was at an +end, those were matters already settled by the Constitution and the +last election. Compromise was out of the question with men who had gone +through the motions, at least, of establishing a government and +electing an anti-president. The way to insure the loyalty of the Border +States, as the event has shown, was to convince them that disloyalty +was dangerous. That revolutions never go backward is one of those +compact generalizations which the world is so ready to accept because +they save the trouble of thinking; but, however it may be with +revolutions, it is certain that rebellions most commonly go backward +with disastrous rapidity, and it was of the gravest moment, as +respected its moral influence, that Secession should not have time +allowed it to assume the proportions and the dignity of revolution; in +other words, of a rebellion too powerful to be crushed. The secret +friends of the secession treason in the Free States have done their +best to bewilder the public mind and to give factitious prestige to a +conspiracy against free government and civilization by talking about +the _right_ of revolution, as if it were some acknowledged principle of +the Law of Nations. There is a right and sometimes a duty of rebellion, +as there is also a right and sometimes a duty of hanging men for it; +but rebellion continues to be rebellion until it has accomplished its +object and secured the acknowledgment of it from the other party to the +quarrel, and from the world at large. The Republican Party in the +November elections had really effected a peaceful revolution, had +emancipated the country from the tyranny of an oligarchy which had +abused the functions of the Government almost from the time of its +establishment, to the advancement of their own selfish aims and +interests; and it was this legitimate change of rulers and of national +policy by constitutional means which the Secessionists intended to +prevent. To put the matter in plain English, they resolved to treat the +people of the United States, in the exercise of their undoubted and +lawful authority, as rebels, and resorted to their usual policy of +intimidation in order to subdue them. Either this magnificent empire +should be their plantation, or it should perish. This was the view even +of what were called the moderate slaveholders of the Border States; and +all the so-called compromises and plans of reconstruction that were +thrown into the caldron where the hell-broth of anarchy was brewing had +this extent, no more,--What terms of _submission_ would the people make +with their natural masters? Whatever other result may have come of the +long debates in Congress and elsewhere, they have at least convinced +the people of the Free States that there can be no such thing as a +moderate slaveholder,--that moderation and slavery can no more coexist +than Floyd and honesty, or Anderson and treason. + +We believe, then, that conciliation was from the first impossible,--that +to attempt it was unwise, because it put the party of law and loyalty +in the wrong,--and that, if it was done as a mere matter of policy in +order to gain time, it was a still greater mistake, because it was the +rebels only who could profit by it in consolidating their organization, +while the seeming gain of a few days or weeks was a loss to the +Government, whose great advantage was in an administrative system +thoroughly established, and, above all, in the vast power of the +national idea, a power weakened by every day's delay. This is so true +that already men began to talk of the rival governments at Montgomery +and Washington, and Canadian journals to recommend a strict neutrality, +as if the independence and legitimacy of the mushroom despotism of New +Ashantee were an acknowledged fact, and the name of the United States +of America had no more authority than that of Jefferson Davis and +Company, dealers in all kinds of repudiation and anarchy. For more than +a month after the inauguration of President Lincoln there seemed to be +a kind of interregnum, during which the confusion of ideas in the +Border States as to their rights and duties as members of the "old" +Union, as it began to be called, became positively chaotic. Virginia, +still professing neutrality, prepared to seize the arsenal at Harper's +Ferry and the navy-yard at Norfolk; she would prevent the passage of +the United States' forces "with a serried phalanx of her gallant sons," +two regiments of whom stood looking on while a file of marines took +seven wounded men in an engine-house for them; she would do everything +but her duty,--the gallant Ancient Pistol of a commonwealth. She +"resumed her sovereignty," whatever that meant; her Convention passed +an ordinance of secession, concluded a league offensive and defensive +with the rebel Confederacy, appointed Jefferson Davis commander-in-chief +of her land-forces and somebody else of the fleet she meant to steal at +Norfolk, and then coolly referred the whole matter back to the people +to vote three weeks afterwards whether they _would_ secede three weeks +before. Wherever the doctrine of Secession has penetrated, it seems to +have obliterated every notion of law and precedent. + +The country had come to the conclusion that Mr. Lincoln and his cabinet +were mainly employed in packing their trunks to leave Washington, when +the "venerable Edward Ruffin of Virginia" fired that first gun at Fort +Sumter which brought all the Free States to their feet as one man. That +shot is destined to be the most memorable one ever fired on this +continent since the Concord fowling-pieces said, "That bridge is ours, +and we mean to go across it," eighty-seven Aprils ago. As these began a +conflict which gave us independence, so that began another which is to +give us nationality. It was certainly a great piece of good-luck for +the Government that they had a fort which it was so profitable to lose. +The people were weary of a masterly inactivity which seemed to consist +mainly in submitting to be kicked. We know very well the difficulties +that surrounded the new Administration; we appreciate their reluctance +to begin a war the responsibility of which was as great as its +consequences seemed doubtful; but we cannot understand how it was hoped +to evade war, except by concessions vastly more disastrous than war +itself. War has no evil comparable in its effect on national character +to that of a craven submission to manifest wrong, the postponement of +moral to material interests. There is no prosperity so great as +courage. We do not believe that any amount of forbearance would have +conciliated the South so long as they thought us pusillanimous. The +only way to retain the Border States was by showing that we had the +will and the power to do without them. The little Bopeep policy of + + "Let them alone, and they'll all come home + Wagging their tails behind them" + +was certainly tried long enough with conspirators who had shown +unmistakably that they desired nothing so much as the continuance of +peace, especially when it was all on one side, and who would never have +given the Government the great advantage of being attacked in Fort +Sumter, had they not supposed they were dealing with men who could not +be cuffed into resistance. The lesson we have to teach them now is, +that we are thoroughly and terribly in earnest. Mr. Stephens's theories +are to be put to a speedier and sterner test than he expected, and we +are to prove which is stronger,--an oligarchy built _on_ men, or a +commonwealth built _of_ them. Our structure is alive in every part with +defensive and recuperative energies; woe to theirs, if that vaunted +corner-stone which they believe patient and enduring as marble should +begin to writhe with intelligent life! + +We have no doubt of the issue. We believe that the strongest battalions +are always on the side of God. The Southern army will be fighting for +Jefferson Davis, or at most for the liberty of self-misgovernment, +while we go forth for the defence of principles which alone make +government august and civil society possible. It is the very life of +the nation that is at stake. There is no question here of dynasties, +races, religions, but simply whether we will consent to include in our +Bill of Rights--not merely as of equal validity with all other rights, +whether natural or acquired, but by its very nature transcending and +abrogating them all--the Right of Anarchy. We must convince men that +treason against the ballot-box is as dangerous as treason against a +throne, and that, if they play so desperate a game, they must stake +their lives on the hazard. The one lesson that remained for us to teach +the political theorists of the Old World was, that we are as strong to +suppress intestine disorder as foreign aggression, and we must teach it +decisively and thoroughly. The economy of war is to be tested by the +value of the object to be gained by it. A ten years' war would be cheap +that gave us a country to be proud of, and a flag that should command +the respect of the world because it was the symbol of the enthusiastic +unity of a great nation. + +The Government, however slow it may have been to accept the war which +Mr. Buchanan's supineness left them, is acting now with all energy and +determination. What they have a right to claim is the confidence of the +people, and that depends in good measure on the discretion of the +press. Only let us have no more weakness under the plausible name of +Conciliation. We need not discuss the probabilities of an +acknowledgment of the Confederated States by England and France; we +have only to say, "Acknowledge them at your peril." But there is no +chance of the recognition of the Confederacy by any foreign +governments, so long as it is without the confidence of the brokers. +There is no question on which side the strength lies. The whole tone of +the Southern journals, so far as we are able to judge, shows the +inherent folly and weakness of the secession movement. Men who feel +strong in the justice of their cause, or confident in their powers, do +not waste breath in childish boasts of their own superiority and +querulous depreciation of their antagonists. They are weak, and they +know it. And not only are they weak in comparison with the Free States, +but we believe they are without the moral support of whatever deserves +the name of public opinion at home. If not, why does their Congress, as +they call it, hold council always with closed doors, like a knot of +conspirators? The first tap of the Northern drum dispelled many +illusions, and we need no better proof of which ship is sinking than +that Mr. Caleb Cushing should have made such haste to come over to the +old Constitution, with the stars and stripes at her mast-head. + +We cannot think that the war we are entering on can end without some +radical change in the system of African slavery. Whether it be doomed +to a sudden extinction, or to a gradual abolition through economical +causes, this war will not leave it where it was before. As a power in +the state, its reign is already over. The fiery tongues of the +batteries in Charleston harbor accomplished in one day a conversion +which the constancy of Garrison and the eloquence of Phillips had +failed to bring about in thirty years. And whatever other result this +war is destined to produce, it has already won for us a blessing worth +everything to us as a nation in emancipating the public opinion of the +North. + + + + +GENERAL McCLELLAN'S REPORT + +1864 + + +We can conceive of no object capable of rousing deeper sympathy than a +defeated commander. Though the first movement of popular feeling may be +one of wrathful injustice, yet, when the ebb of depression has once +fairly run out, and confidence begins to set back, hiding again that +muddy bed of human nature which such neap-tides are apt to lay bare, +there is a kindly instinct which leads all generous minds to seek every +possible ground of extenuation, to look for excuses in misfortune +rather than incapacity, and to allow personal gallantry to make up, as +far as may be, for want of military genius. There is no other kind of +failure which comes so directly home to us, none which appeals to so +many of the most deeply rooted sentiments at once. Want of success in +any other shape is comparatively a personal misfortune to the man +himself who fails; but how many hopes, prides, sacrifices, and heroisms +are centred in him who wields the embattled manhood of his country! An +army is too multitudinous to call forth that personal enthusiasm which +is a necessity of the heart. The imagination needs a single figure +which it can invest with all those attributes of admiration that become +vague and pointless when divided among a host. Accordingly, we +impersonate in the general, not only the army he leads, but whatever +qualities we are proud of in the nation itself. He becomes for the +moment the ideal of all masculine virtues, and the people are eager to +lavish their admiration on him. His position gives him at a bound what +other men must spend their lives in winning or vainly striving to win. +If he gain a battle, he flatters that pride of prowess which, though it +may be a fault of character in the individual man, is the noblest of +passions in a people. If he lose one, we are all beaten with him, we +all fall down with our Caesar, and the grief glistens in every eye, the +shame burns on every cheek. Moralize as we may about the victories of +peace and the superiority of the goose-quill over the sword, there is +no achievement of human genius on which a country so prides itself as +on success in war, no disgrace over which it broods so inconsolably as +military disaster. + +[Illustration: _General McClellan_] + +There is nothing more touching than the sight of a nation in search of +its great man, nothing more beautiful than its readiness to accept a +hero on trust. Nor is this a feeble sentimentality. It is much rather a +noble yearning of what is best in us, for it is only in these splendid +figures which now and then sum up all the higher attributes of +character that the multitude of men can ever hope to find their blind +instinct of excellence realized and satisfied. Not without reason are +nations always symbolized as women, for there is something truly +feminine in the devotion with which they are willing to give all for +and to their ideal man, and the zeal with which they drape some +improvised Agamemnon with all the outward shows of royalty from the +property-room of imagination. This eagerness of loyalty toward +first-rate character is one of the conditions of mastery in every +sphere of human activity, for it is the stuff that genius works in. +Heroes, to be sure, cannot be made to order, yet with a man of the +right fibre, who has the stuff for greatness in him, the popular +enthusiasm would go far toward making him in fact what he is in fancy. +No commander ever had more of this paid-up capital of fortune, this +fame in advance, this success before succeeding, than General +McClellan. That dear old domestic bird, the Public, which lays the +golden eggs out of which greenbacks are hatched, was sure she had +brooded out an eagle-chick at last. How we all waited to see him stoop +on the dove-cote of Richmond! Never did nation give such an example of +faith and patience as while the Army of the Potomac lay during all +those weary months before Washington. Every excuse was invented, every +palliation suggested, except the true one, that our chicken was no +eagle, after all. He was hardening his seres, he was waiting for his +wings to grow, he was whetting his beak; we should see him soar at last +and shake the thunder from his wings. But do what we could, hope what +we might, it became daily clearer that, whatever other excellent +qualities he might have, this of being aquiline was wanting. + +Disguise and soften it as we may, the campaign of the Peninsula was a +disastrous failure,--a failure months long, like a bad novel in weekly +instalments, with "To be continued" grimly ominous at the end of every +part. So far was it from ending in the capture of Richmond that nothing +but the gallantry of General Pope and his little army hindered the +Rebels from taking Washington. And now comes Major-General George B. +McClellan, and makes affidavit in one volume[1] octavo that he is a +great military genius, after all. It should seem that this genius is of +two varieties. The first finds the enemy, and beats him; the second +finds him, and succeeds in getting away. General McClellan is now +attempting a change of base in the face of public opinion, and is +endeavoring to escape the consequences of having escaped from the +Peninsula. For a year his reputation flared upward like a rocket, +culminated, burst, and now, after as long an interval, the burnt-out +case comes down to us in this Report. + + [1] _Letter of the Secretary of War, transmitting Report on the + Organization of the Army of the Potomac, and of the Campaigns in + Virginia and Maryland under the Command of Major-General George + B. McClellan, from July 26, 1861, to November 7, 1862._ + Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1864. 8vo, pp. 242. + +There is something ludicrously tragic, as our politics are managed, in +seeing an Administration compelled to print a campaign document (for +such is General McClellan's Report in a double sense) directed against +itself. Yet in the present case, had it been possible to escape the +penance, it had been unwise, for we think that no unprejudiced person +can read the volume without a melancholy feeling that General McClellan +has foiled himself even more completely than the Rebels were able to +do. He should have been more careful of his communications, for a line +two hundred and forty-two pages long is likely to have its weak points. +The volume before us is rather the plea of an advocate retained to +defend the General's professional character and expound his political +opinions than the curt, colorless, unimpassioned statement of facts +which is usually so refreshing in the official papers of military men, +and has much more the air of being addressed to a jury than to the War +Department at Washington. It is, in short, a letter to the people of +the United States, under cover to the Secretary of War. General +McClellan puts himself upon the country, and, after taking as much time +to make up his mind as when he wearied and imperilled the nation in his +camp on the Potomac, endeavors to win back from public opinion the +victory which nothing but his own over-caution enabled the Rebels to +snatch from him before Richmond. He cannot give us back our lost time +or our squandered legions; but how nice it would be if we would give +him back his reputation, which has never been of any great use to us, +and yet would be so convenient for him! It was made for him, and +accordingly fits him better than it would any one else. But it is +altogether too late. There is no argument for the soldier but success, +no wisdom for the man but to acknowledge defeat and be silent under it. +The Great Captain on his sofa at Longwood may demonstrate how the +Russian expedition might, could, would, and should have ended +otherwise; but meanwhile its results are not to be reasoned with,--the +Bourbons are at the Tuileries, and he at St. Helena. There is hardly +anything that may not be made out of history by a skilful manipulator. +Characters may be white-washed, bigotry made over into zeal, timidity +into prudence, want of conviction into toleration, obstinacy into +firmness; but the one thing that cannot be theorized out of existence, +or made to look like anything else, is a lost campaign. + +We have had other unsuccessful generals, but not one of them has ever +been tempted into the indecorum of endeavoring to turn a defeat in the +field to political advantage. Not one has thought of defending himself +by imputations on his superiors. Early in the war General McDowell set +an example of silence under slanderous reproach that won for him the +sympathy and respect of whoever could be touched by self-reliant +manliness. It is because General McClellan has seen fit to overstep the +bounds of a proper official reserve, because, after more than a year +for reflection, he has repeated charges of the grossest kind against +those under whose orders he was acting, and all this from a political +motive, that we think his Report deserving of more than usual +attention. It will be no fault of his if he be not put in nomination +for the Presidency, and accordingly it becomes worth our while to +consider such evidences of character and capacity as his words and +deeds afford us. + +We believe that General McClellan has been ruined, like another general +whose name began with Mac, by the "All hail hereafter" of certain +political witches, who took his fortunes into their keeping after his +campaign in Western Virginia. He had shown both ability and decision in +handling a small force, and he might with experience have shown similar +qualities in directing the operations of a great army, had not the +promise of the Presidency made him responsible to other masters than +military duty and unselfish patriotism. Thenceforward the soldier was +lost in the politician. He thought more of the effect to be produced by +his strategy on the voters behind him than on the enemy in his front. +What should have been his single object--the suppression of the +rebellion for the sake of the country--was now divided with the desire +of merely ending it by some plan that should be wholly of his own +contrivance, and should redound solely to his own credit and +advancement. He became giddy and presumptuous, and lost that sense of +present realities, so essential to a commander, in contemplating the +mirage that floated the White House before his eyes. At an age +considerably beyond that of General Bonaparte when he had triumphantly +closed his first Italian campaign, he was nick-named "the _young_ +Napoleon," and from that time forth seems honestly to have endeavored, +like Toepffer's Albert, to resemble the ideal portrait which had been +drawn for him by those who put him forward as their stalking-horse. And +it must be admitted that these last managed matters cleverly, if a +little coarsely. They went to work deliberately to Barnumize their +prospective candidate. No _prima donna_ was ever more thoroughly +exploited by her Hebrew _impresario_. The papers swarmed with +anecdotes, incidents, sayings. Nothing was too unimportant, and the new +commander-in-chief pulled on his boots by telegram from Maine to +California, and picked his teeth by special despatch to the Associated +Press. We had him warm for supper in _the very latest_ with three +exclamation marks, and cold for breakfast in _last evening's +telegraphic news_ with none. Nothing but a patent pill was ever so +suddenly famous. + +We are far from blaming General McClellan for all this. He probably +looked upon it as one of the inevitable discomforts of distinction in +America. But we think that it insensibly affected his judgment, led him +to regard himself as the representative of certain opinions, rather +than as a general whose whole duty was limited to the army under his +command, and brought him at last to a temper of mind most unfortunate +for the public interests, in which he could believe the administration +personally hostile to himself because opposed to the political +principles of those who wished to profit by his "availability." It was +only natural, too, that he should gradually come to think himself what +his partisans constantly affirmed that he was,--the sole depositary of +the country's destiny. We form our judgment of General McClellan solely +from his own Report; we believe him to be honest in his opinions, and +patriotic so far as those opinions will allow him to be; we know him to +be capable of attaching those about him in a warm personal friendship, +and we reject with the contempt they deserve the imputations on his +courage and his military honor; but at the same time we consider him a +man like other men, with a head liable to be turned by a fame too +easily won. His great misfortune was that he began his first important +campaign with a reputation to save instead of to earn, so that he was +hampered by the crowning disadvantage of age in a general without the +experience which might neutralize it. Nay, what was still worse, he had +two reputations to keep from damage, the one as soldier, the other as +politician. + +He seems very early to have misapprehended the true relation in which +he stood to the government. By the operation of natural causes, as +politicians would call them, he had become heir presumptive to the +chair of state, and felt called on to exert an influence on the policy +of the war, or at least to express an opinion that might go upon record +for future convenience. He plunged into that Dismal Swamp of +constitutional hermeneutics, in which the wheels of government were +stalled at the outbreak of our rebellion, and from which every +untrained explorer rises with a mouth too full of mud to be +intelligible to Christian men. He appears to have thought it within the +sphere of his duty to take charge of the statesmanship of the President +no less than of the movements of the army, nor was it long before there +were unmistakable symptoms that he began to consider himself quite as +much the chief of an opposition who could dictate terms as the military +subordinate who was to obey orders. Whatever might have been his +capacity as a soldier, this divided allegiance could not fail of +disastrous consequences to the public service, for no mistress exacts +so jealously the entire devotion of her servants as war. A mind +distracted with calculations of future political contingencies was not +to be relied on in the conduct of movements which above all others +demand the constant presence, the undivided energy, of all the +faculties, and the concentration of every personal interest on the one +object of immediate success. A general who is conscious that he has an +army of one hundred and fifty thousand voters at his back will be +always weakened by those personal considerations which are the worst +consequence of the elective system. General McClellan's motions were +encumbered in every direction by a huge train of political baggage. +This misconception of his own position, or rather his confounding the +two characters of possible candidate and actual general, forced the +growth of whatever egotism was latent in his nature. He began erelong +to look at everything from a personal point of view, to judge men and +measures by their presumed relation to his own interests, and at length +fairly persuaded himself that the inevitable results of his own want of +initiative were due to the hostile combination against him of Mr. +Lincoln, Mr. Stanton, and General Halleck. Regarding himself too much +in considering the advantages of success, he regards others too little +in awarding the responsibility of failure. + +The intense self-consciousness of General McClellan and a certain aim +at effect for ulterior and unmilitary purposes show themselves early. +In October, 1861, addressing a memorial to Mr. Cameron, then Secretary +of War, he does not forget the important constituency of Buncombe. "The +unity of this nation," he says, "the preservation of our institutions, +are so dear to me that I have willingly sacrificed my private happiness +with the single object of doing my duty to my country. When the task is +accomplished, I shall be glad to retire to the obscurity from which +events have drawn me. Whatever the determination of the government may +be, I will do the best I can with the Army of the Potomac, and will +share its fate, whatever may be the task imposed upon me." Not to speak +of taste, the utter blindness to the true relations of things shown in +such language is startling. What sacrifice had General McClellan made +which had not been equally made by every one of the hundred and fifty +thousand men of his army? Educated at the expense of the country, his +services were a debt due on demand. And what was the sacrifice of which +a soldier speaks so pathetically? To be raised from the management of a +railway to one of the most conspicuous and inspiring positions of +modern times, to an opportunity such as comes rarely to any man, and +then only as the reward of transcendent ability transcendently +displayed! To step from a captaincy of engineers to the command in +chief of a great nation on fire with angry enthusiasm, spendthrift of +men, money, devotion, to be the chosen champion of order, freedom, and +civilization,--this is indeed a sacrifice such as few men have been +called upon to make by their native land! And of what is General +McClellan thinking when he talks of returning to obscurity? Of what are +men commonly thinking when they talk thus? The newspapers would soon +grow rich, if everybody should take to advertising what he did not +want. And, moreover, to what kind of obscurity can a successful general +return? An obscurity made up of the gratitude and admiration of his +countrymen, a strange obscurity of glory! Nor is this the only occasion +on which the General speaks of his willingness to share the fate of his +army. What corporal could do less? No man thoroughly in earnest, and +with the fate of his country in his hands and no thought but of that, +could have any place in his mind for such footlight phrases as these. + +General McClellan's theory from the first seems to have been that a +large army would make a great general, though all history shows that +the genius, decision, and confidence of a leader are the most powerful +reinforcement of the troops under his command, and that an able captain +makes a small army powerful by recruiting it with his own vigor and +enthusiasm. From the time of his taking the command till his removal, +he was constantly asking for more men, constantly receiving them, and +constantly unable to begin anything with them after he got them. He +could not move without one hundred and fifty thousand pairs of legs, +and when his force had long reached that number, the President was +obliged by the overtaxed impatience of the country to pry him up from +his encampment on the Potomac with a special order. What the army +really needed was an addition of one man, and that at the head of it; +for a general, like an orator, must be moved himself before he can move +others. The larger his army, the more helpless was General McClellan. +Like the magician's _famulus_, who rashly undertook to play the +part of master, and who could evoke powers that he could not control, +he was swamped in his own supplies. With every reinforcement sent him +on the Peninsula, his estimate of the numbers opposed to him increased. +His own imagination faced him in superior numbers at every turn. Since +Don Quixote's enumeration of the armies of the Emperor Alifanfaron and +King Pentapolin of the Naked Arm, there has been nothing like our +General's vision of the Rebel forces, with their ever-lengthening list +of leaders, gathered for the defence of Richmond. His anxiety swells +their muster-roll at last to two hundred thousand. We say his anxiety, +for no man of ordinary judgment can believe that with that number of +men the Rebel leaders would not have divided their forces, with one +army occupying General McClellan, while they attempted the capital he +had left uncovered with the other. + +The first plan proposed by General McClellan covered operations +extending from Virginia to Texas. With a main army of two hundred and +seventy-three thousand he proposes "not only to drive the enemy out of +Virginia and occupy Richmond, but to occupy Charleston, Savannah, +Montgomery, Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans; in other words, to move +into the heart of the enemy's country and crush the rebellion in its +very heart." We do not say that General McClellan's ambition to be the +one man who should crush the rebellion was an unworthy one, but that +his theory that this was possible, and in the way he proposed, shows +him better fitted to state the abstract problems than to apprehend the +complex details of their solution when they lie before him as practical +difficulties. For when we consider the necessary detachments from this +force to guard his communications through an enemy's country, as he +wishes the President to do, in order to justify the largeness of the +force required, we cannot help asking how soon the army for active +operations would be reduced to a hundred and fifty thousand. And how +long would a general be in reaching New Orleans, if he is six months in +making up his mind to advance with an army of that strength on the +insignificant fortifications of Manassas, manned, according to the best +information, with forty thousand troops? At the same time General +McClellan assigns twenty thousand as a force adequate for opening the +Mississippi. This plan, to be sure, was soon abandoned, but it is an +illustration of the want of precision and forethought which +characterizes the mind of its author. A man so vague in his conceptions +is apt to be timid in action, for the same haziness of mind may, +according to circumstances, either soften and obscure the objects of +thought, or make them loom with purely fantastic exaggeration. There is +a vast difference between clearness of head on demand and the power of +framing abstract schemes of action, beautiful in their correctness of +outline and apparent simplicity. It is a perception of this truth, we +believe, which leads practical men always to suspect plans supported by +statistics too exquisitely conclusive. + +It was on precisely such a specious basis of definite misinformation +that General McClellan's next proposal for the campaign by way of the +Peninsula rested,--precise facts before he sets out turning to +something like precise no-facts when he gets there,--beautiful +completeness of conception ending in hesitation, confusion, and +failure. Before starting, "the roads are passable at all seasons of the +year, the country much more favorable for offensive operations than +that in front of Washington, much more level, the woods less dense, the +soil more sandy" (p. 47). After arriving, we find "the roads +impassable," "very dense and extensive forests, the clearings being +small and few;" and "the comparative flatness of the country and the +alertness of the enemy, everywhere in force, rendered thorough +reconnoissances slow, dangerous, and difficult" (p. 79). General +McClellan's mental constitution would seem to be one of those, easily +elated and easily depressed, that exaggerate distant advantages and +dangers near at hand,--minds stronger in conception than perception, +and accordingly, as such always are, wanting that faculty of swift +decision which, catching inspiration from danger, makes opportunity +success. Add to this a kind of adhesiveness (we can hardly call it +obstinacy or pertinacity) of temper, which can make no allowance for +change of circumstances, and we think we have a tolerably clear notion +of the causes of General McClellan's disasters. He can compose a good +campaign beforehand, but he cannot improvise one out of the events of +the moment, as is the wont of great generals. Occasion seldom offers +her forelock twice to the grasp of the same man, and yet General +McClellan, by the admission of the Rebels themselves, had Richmond at +his mercy more than once. + +He seems to attribute his misfortunes mainly to the withdrawal of +General McDowell's division, and its consequent failure to cooperate +with his own forces. But the fact is patent that the campaign was lost +by his sitting down in front of Yorktown, and wasting a whole month in +a series of approaches whose scientific propriety would have delighted +Uncle Toby, to reduce a garrison of eight thousand men. Without that +delay, which gave the Rebels time to send Jackson into the Shenandoah +valley, General McDowell's army would have been enabled to come to his +assistance. General McClellan, it is true, complains that it was not +sent round by water, as he wished; but even if it had been, it could +only have been an addition of helplessness to an army already too +unwieldy for its commander; for he really made the Rebel force double +his own (as he always fancied it) by never bringing more than a quarter +of his army into action at once. Yet during the whole campaign he was +calling for more men, and getting them, till his force reached the +highest limit he himself had ever set. When every available man, and +more, had been sent him, he writes from Harrison's Bar to Mr. Stanton, +"To accomplish the great task of capturing Richmond and putting an end +to this rebellion, reinforcements should be sent to me _rather much +over than less than one hundred thousand men_." This letter General +McClellan has not seen fit to include in his Report. Was the government +to be blamed for pouring no more water into a sieve like this? + +It certainly was a great mistake on Mr. Lincoln's part to order General +McDowell off on a wild-goose chase after Jackson. The cooperation of +this force might have enabled General McClellan even then to retrieve +his campaign, and we do not in the least blame him for feeling bitterly +the disappointment of wanting it. But it seems to us that it was mainly +his own fault that there was anything to retrieve, and the true +occasion to recover his lost ground was offered him after his bloody +repulse of the enemy at Malvern Hill, though he did not turn it to +account. For his retreat we think he would deserve all credit, had he +not been under the necessity of making it. It was conducted with great +judgment and ability, and we do not love that partisan narrowness of +mind that would grudge him the praise so fairly earned. But at the same +time it is not ungenerous to say that the obstinate valor shown by his +army under all the depression of a backward movement, while it proves +how much General McClellan had done to make it an effective force, +makes us regret all the more that he should have wanted the decision to +try its quality under the inspiration of attack. It is impossible that +the spirit of the army should not have been affected by the doubt and +indecision of their general. They fought nobly, but they were always on +the defensive. Had General McClellan put them at once on the +aggressive, we believe his campaign would have been a triumphant one. +With truly great generals resolve is instinctive, a deduction from +premises supplied by the eye, not the memory, and men find out the +science of their achievements afterwards, like the mathematical law in +the Greek column. The stiffness rather than firmness of mind, the +surrender of all spontaneous action in the strait-waistcoat of a +preconceived plan, to which we have before alluded, unfitted him for +that rapid change of combinations on the great chess-board of battle +which enabled General Rosecrans at Murfreesboro to turn defeat into +victory, an achievement without parallel in the history of the war. + +General McClellan seems to have considered the President too careful of +the safety of the capital; but he should measure the value of +Washington by what he himself thought of the importance of taking +Richmond. That, no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a +recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other +traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than +the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to +the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the +Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the +scale against us. So long as we held Washington, we had on our side the +two powerful sentiments of permanence and tradition, some insensible +portions of which the Rebels were winning from us with every day of +repose allowed them by General McClellan. It was a clear sense of this +that both excited and justified the impatience of the people, who saw +that the insurrection was gaining the coherence and prestige of an +established power,--an element of much strength at home and abroad. +That this popular instinct was not at fault, we have the witness of +General Kirby Smith, who told Colonel Fremantle "that McClellan might +probably have destroyed the Southern army with the greatest ease during +the first winter, and without much risk to himself, as the Southerners +were so much over-elated by their easy triumph at Manassas, and their +army had dwindled away." + +We have said that General McClellan's volume is rather a plea in +abatement of judgment than a report. It was perfectly proper that he +should endeavor to put everything in its true light, and he would be +sure of the sympathy of all right-minded men in so doing; but an _ex +parte_ statement at once rouses and justifies adverse criticism. He +has omitted many documents essential to the formation of a just +opinion; and it is only when we have read these also, in the Report of +the Committee on the Conduct of the War, that we feel the full weight +of the cumulative evidence going to show the hearty support in men and +confidence that he received from the Administration, and, when there +were no more men to be sent, and confidence began to yield before +irresistible facts, the prolonged forbearance with which he was still +favored. Nothing can be kinder or more cordial than the despatches and +letters both of the President and Mr. Stanton, down to the time when +General McClellan wrote the following sentences at the end of an +official communication addressed to the latter: "If I save this army +now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you, or to any other +persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this +army." (28th June, 1862.) We shall seek no epithet to characterize +language like this. All but the most bigoted partisans will qualify it +as it deserves. We have here a glaring example of that warping of good +sense and good feeling which the consciousness of having a political +stake at risk will produce in a gallant soldier and a courteous +gentleman. Can General McClellan, after a year to grow cool in, either +himself believe, or expect any one else to believe, that the President +and the Secretary of War would "do their best to sacrifice" an army of +a hundred and fifty thousand brave men, in order to lessen his possible +chances as a candidate for the Presidency? It was of vastly more +importance to them than to him that he should succeed. The dignified +good temper of Mr. Lincoln's answer to this wanton insult does him +honor: "I have not said you were ungenerous for saying you needed +reinforcements; I thought you were ungenerous in assuming that I did +not send them as fast as I could. I feel any misfortune to you and your +army quite as keenly as you feel it yourself." Mr. Stanton could only +be silent; and whatever criticisms may be made on some traits of his +character, he is quite safe in leaving the rebuke of such an imputation +to whoever feels that earnestness, devotion, and unflagging purpose are +high qualities in a public officer. + +If General McClellan had been as prompt in attacking the enemy as he +showed himself in this assault on his superiors, we think his campaign +in the Peninsula would have ended more satisfactorily. We have no doubt +that he would conduct a siege or a defence with all the science and all +the proprieties of warfare, but we think he has proved himself +singularly wanting in the qualities which distinguish the natural +leaders of men. He had every theoretic qualification, but no ardor, no +leap, no inspiration. A defensive general is an earthen redoubt, not an +ensign to rally enthusiasm and inspire devotion. Caution will never +make an army, though it may sometimes save one. We think General +McClellan reduced the efficiency and lowered the tone of his soldiers +by his six months' dose of prudence. With every day he gave the enemy, +he lessened his chances of success, and added months to the duration of +the war. He never knew how to find opportunity, much less to make it. +He was an accomplished soldier, but lacked that downright common sense +which is only another name for genius with its coat off for actual work +in hand. + +Were General McClellan's Report nothing more than a report, were the +General himself nothing more than an officer endeavoring to palliate a +failure, we should not have felt called on to notice his plea, unless +to add publicity to any new facts he might be able to bring forward. +But the Report is a political manifesto, and not only that, but an +attack on the administration which appointed him to the command, +supported him with all its resources, and whose only fault it was not +sooner to discover his incapacity to conduct aggressive movements. +General McClellan is a candidate for the Presidency, and as he has had +no opportunity to show his capacity in any civil function, his claim +must rest on one of two grounds,--either the ability he has shown as a +general, or the specific principles of policy he is supposed to +represent. Whatever may be the success of our operations in the field, +our Chief Magistracy for the next four years will demand a person of +great experience and ability. Questions cannot fail to arise taxing +prudence of the longest forecast and decision of the firmest quality. +How far is General McClellan likely to fulfill these conditions? What +are the qualities of mind of which both his career and his Report give +the most irrefragable evidence? + +General McClellan's mind seems to be equally incapable of appreciating +the value of time as the material of action, and its power in changing +the relations of facts, and thus modifying the basis of opinion. He is +a good maker of almanacs, but no good judge of the weather. Judging by +the political counsel which he more than once felt called upon to offer +the President, and which, as he has included it in his Report, we must +presume to represent his present opinions, he does not seem even yet to +appreciate the fact that this is not a war between two nations, but an +attempt at revolution within ourselves, which can be adequately met +only by revolutionary measures. And yet, if he were at this moment +elevated to the conduct of our affairs, he would find himself +controlled by the same necessities which have guided Mr. Lincoln, and +must either adopt his measures, or submit to a peace dictated by the +South. No side issue as to how the war shall be conducted is any longer +possible. The naked question is one of war or submission, for +compromise means surrender; and if the choice be war, we cannot afford +to give the enemy fifty in the game, by standing upon scruples which he +would be the last to appreciate or to act upon. It is one of the most +terrible features of war that it must be inexorable by its very nature. + +Great statesmanship and great generalship have been more than once +shown by the same man, and, naturally enough, because they both result +from the same qualities of mind, an instant apprehension of the demand +of the moment, and a self-confidence that can as instantly meet it, so +that every energy of the man is gathered to one intense focus. It is +the faculty of being a present man, instead of a prospective one; of +being ready, instead of getting ready. Though we think great injustice +has been done by the public to General McClellan's really high merits +as an officer, yet it seems to us that those very merits show precisely +the character of intellect to unfit him for the task just now demanded +of a statesman. His capacity for organization may be conspicuous; but, +be it what it may, it is one thing to bring order out of the confusion +of mere inexperience, and quite another to retrieve it from a chaos of +elements mutually hostile, which is the problem sure to present itself +to the next administration. This will constantly require precisely that +judgment on the nail, and not to be drawn for at three days' sight, of +which General McClellan has shown least. + +Is our path to be so smooth for the next four years that a man whose +leading characteristic is an exaggeration of difficulties is likely to +be our surest guide? If the war is still to be carried on,--and surely +the nation has shown no symptoms of slackening in its purpose,--what +modifications of it would General McClellan introduce? The only +information that is vouchsafed us is, that he is to be the +"conservative" candidate, a phrase that may mean too little or too +much. As well as we can understand it, it is the convenient formula by +which to express the average want of opinions of all who are out of +place, out of humor, or dislike the dust which blinds and chokes +whoever is behind the times. Sometimes it is used as the rallying-cry +of an amiable class of men, who still believe, in a vague sort of way, +that the rebels can be conciliated by offering them a ruler more +_comme il faut_ than Mr. Lincoln, a country where a flatboat-man +may rise to the top, by virtue of mere manhood, being hardly the place +for people of truly refined sensibilities. Or does it really mean +nothing more nor less than that we are to try to put slavery back again +where it was before (only that it is not quite convenient just now to +say so), on the theory that teleologically the pot of ointment was made +to conserve the dead fly? + +In the providence of God the first thoughtless enthusiasm of the nation +has settled to deep purpose, their anger has been purified by trial +into a conviction of duty, and they are face to face with one of those +rare occasions where duty and advantage are identical. The man who is +fit for the office of President in these times should be one who knows +how to advance, an art which General McClellan has never learned. He +must be one who comprehends that three years of war have made vast +changes in the relative values of things. He must be one who feels to +the very marrow of his bones that this is a war, not to conserve the +forms, but the essence, of free institutions. He must be willing to +sacrifice everything to the single consideration of success, because +success means truth and honor; to use every means, though they may +alarm the fears of men who are loyal with a reservation, or shock the +prejudices of would-be traitors. No middle course is safe in troubled +times, and the only way to escape the dangers of revolution is by +directing its forces and giving it useful work to do. + + + + +THE REBELLION: ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES + +1864 + + +In spite of the popular theory that nothing is so fallacious as +circumstantial evidence, there is no man of observation who would not +deem it more trustworthy than any human testimony, however honest, +which was made up from personal recollection. The actors in great +affairs are seldom to be depended on as witnesses, either to the order +of events or their bearing upon results; for even where selfish +interest is not to be taken into account, the mythic instinct erelong +begins to shape things as they ought to have been, rather than as they +were. This is true even of subjects in which we have no personal +interest, and not only do no two men describe the same street-scene in +the same way, but the same man, unless prosaic to a degree below the +freezing-point of Tupper, will never do it twice in the same way. Few +men, looking into their old diaries, but are astonished at the +contrast, sometimes even the absolute unlikeness, between the matters +of fact recorded there and their own recollection of them. Shortly +after the battle of Lexington it was the interest of the Colonies to +make the British troops not only wanton, but unresisted, aggressors; +and if primitive Christians could be manufactured by affidavit, so +large a body of them ready to turn the other cheek also was never +gathered as in the minute-men before the meeting-house on the 19th of +April, 1775. The Anglo-Saxon could not fight comfortably without the +law on his side. But later, when the battle became a matter of local +pride, the muskets that had been fired at the Redcoats under Pitcairn +almost rivalled in number the pieces of furniture that came over in the +Mayflower. Indeed, whoever has talked much with Revolutionary +pensioners knows that those honored veterans were no less remarkable +for imagination than for patriotism. It should seem that there is, +perhaps, nothing on which so little reliance is to be placed as facts, +especially when related by one who saw them. It is no slight help to +our charity to recollect that, in disputable matters, every man sees +according to his prejudices, and is stone-blind to whatever he did not +expect or did not mean to see. Even where no personal bias can be +suspected, contemporary and popular evidence is to be taken with great +caution, so exceedingly careless are men as to exact truth, and such +poor observers, for the most part, of what goes on under their eyes. +The ballad which was hawked about the streets at the execution of +Captain Kidd, and which was still to be bought at street-stalls within +a few years, affirms three times in a single stanza that the pirate's +name was Robert. Yet he was commissioned, indicted, convicted, and +hanged as William Kidd. Nor was he, as is generally supposed, convicted +of piracy, but of murder. The marvels of Spiritualism are supernatural +to the average observer, who is willing to pay for that dulness from +another world which he might have for nothing in this, while they seem +mere legerdemain, and not of the highest quality, to the trained organs +of scientific men. + +History, we are told, is philosophy teaching by example. But how if the +example does not apply? Le Verrier discovers Neptune when, according to +his own calculations, the planet should not have been in the place +where his telescope found it. Does the example redound to the credit of +luck or of mathematics? The historian may give a thoroughly false view +of an event by simply assuming that _after_ means _in consequence of_, +or even by the felicitous turn of a sentence. Style will find readers +and shape convictions, while mere truth only gathers dust on the shelf. +The memory first, and by degrees the judgment, is enslaved by the +epigrams of Tacitus or Michelet. Our conception of scenes and men is +outlined and colored for us by the pictorial imagination of Carlyle. +Indeed, after reading history, one can only turn round, with Montaigne, +and say, _What know I?_ There was a time when the reputation of Judas +might have been thought past mending, but a German has whitewashed him +as thoroughly as Malone did Shakespeare's bust, and an English poet +made him the hero of a tragedy, as the one among the disciples who +believed too much. Call no one happy till he is dead? Rather call no +one safe, whether in good repute or evil, after he has been dead long +enough to have his effigy done in historical wax-work. Only get the +real clothes, that is, only be careful to envelop him in a sufficiently +probable dressing of facts, and the public will be entirely satisfied. +What's Hecuba to us, or we to Hecuba? Or is Thackeray's way any nearer +the truth, who strips Louis the Great of all his stage-properties, and +shows him to us the miserable forked radish of decrepitude? + +There are many ways of writing what is called history. The earliest and +simplest was to record in the form of annals, without investigating, +whatever the writer could lay hold of, the only thread of connection +being the order of time, so that events have no more relation to each +other than so many beads on a string. Higher then this, because more +picturesque, and because living men take the place of mere names, are +the better class of chronicles, like Froissart's, in which the scenes +sometimes have the minute vividness of illumination, and the page seems +to take life and motion as we read. The annalist still survives, a kind +of literary dodo, in the "standard" historian, respectable, +immitigable,--with his philosophy of history, and his stereotyped +phrase, his one Amurath succeeding another, so very dead, so unlike +anything but historical characters, that we can scarce believe they +ever lived,--and only differing from his ancient congener of the +monastery by his skill in making ten words do the duty of one. His are +the fatal books without which no gentleman's library can be complete; +his the storied pages which ingenuous youth is invited to turn, and is +apt to turn four or five together. With him something is still always +sure to transpire in the course of these negotiations, still the +traditional door is opened to the inroad of democratic innovation, +still it is impossible to interpret the motives which inspired the +conduct of so-and-so in this particular emergency. So little does he +himself conceive of any possible past or future life in his characters +that he periphrases death into a disappearance from the page of +history, as if they were bodiless and soulless creatures of pen and +ink; mere names, not things. Picturesqueness he sternly avoids as the +Delilah of the philosophic mind, liveliness as a snare of the careless +investigator; and so, stopping both ears, he slips safely by those +Sirens, keeping safe that sobriety of style which his fellow-men call +by another name. Unhappy books, which we know by heart before we read +them, and which a mysterious superstition yet compels many unoffending +persons to read! What has not the benevolent reader had to suffer at +the hands of the so-called impartial historian, who, wholly +disinterested and disinteresting, writes with as mechanic an industry +and as little emotion as he would have brought to the weaving of calico +or the digging of potatoes, under other circumstances! Far truer, at +least to nature and to some conceivable theory of an immortal soul in +man, is the method of the poet, who makes his personages luminous from +within by an instinctive sympathy with human motives of action, and a +conception of the essential unity of character through every change of +fate. + +Of late years men have begun to question the prescriptive right of this +"great gyant Asdryasdust, who has choked many men," to choke them also +because he had worked his wicked will on their fathers. It occurred to +an inquiring mind here and there that if the representation of men's +action and passion on the theatre could be made interesting, there was +no good reason why the great drama of history should be dull as a +miracle-play. Need philosophy teaching by example be so tiresome that +the pupils would rather burst in ignorance than go within earshot of +the pedagogue? Hence the historical romance, sometimes honestly called +so, and limited by custom in number of volumes; sometimes not called +so, and without any such limitation. This latter variety admits several +styles of treatment. Sometimes a special epoch is chosen, where one +heroic figure may serve as a centre round which events and subordinate +characters group themselves, with no more sacrifice of truth than is +absolutely demanded by artistic keeping. This may be called the epic +style, of which Carlyle is the acknowledged master. Sometimes a period +is selected, where the facts, by coloring and arrangement, may be made +to support the views of a party, and history becomes a political +pamphlet indefinitely prolonged. Here point is the one thing +needful,--to be attained at all hazards, whether by the turn of a +sentence or the twisting of a motive. Macaulay is preeminent in this +kind, and woe to the party or the man that comes between him and his +epigrammatic necessity! Again, there is the new light, or perhaps, more +properly, the forlorn-hope method, where the author accepts a brief +against the _advocatus diaboli_, and strives to win a reverse of +judgment, as Mr. Froude has done in the case of Henry VIII. The latest +fashion of all is the _a priori_, in which a certain dominant principle +is taken for granted, and everything is deduced from _x_, instead of +serving to prove what _x_ may really be. The weakness of this heroic +treatment, it seems to us, is in allowing too little to human nature as +an element in the problem. This would be a fine world, if facts would +only be as subservient to theory in real life as in the author's +inkstand. Mr. Buckle stands at the head of this school, and has just +found a worthy disciple in M. Taine, who, in his _Histoire de la +Litterature Anglaise_, having first assumed certain ethnological +postulates, seems rather to shape the character of the literature to +the race than to illustrate that of the race by the literature. + +In short, whether we consider the incompetence of men in general as +observers, their carelessness about things at the moment indifferent, +but which may become of consequence hereafter (as, for example, in the +dating of letters), their want of impartiality, both in seeing and +stating occurrences and in tracing or attributing motives, it is plain +that history is not to be depended on in any absolute sense. That +smooth and indifferent quality of mind, without a flaw of prejudice or +a blur of theory, which can reflect passing events as they truly are, +is as rare, if not so precious, as that artistic sense which can hold +the mirror up to nature. The fact that there is so little historical or +political prescience, that no man of experience ventures to prophesy, +is enough to prove, either that it is impossible to know all the terms +of our problem, or that history does not repeat itself with anything +like the exactness of coincidence which is so pleasing to the +imagination. Six months _after_ the _coup d'etat_ of December, 1851, +Mr. Savage Landor, who knew him well, said to us that Louis Napoleon +had ten times the political sagacity of his uncle; but who foresaw or +foretold an Augustus in the dull-eyed frequenter of Lady Blessington's, +the melodramatic hero of Strasburg and Bologne, with his cocked hat and +his eagle from Astley's? What insurance company would have taken the +risk of his hare-brained adventure? Coleridge used to take credit to +himself for certain lucky vaticinations, but his memory was always +inexact, his confounding of what he did and what he thought he meant to +do always to be suspected, and his prophecies, when examined, are +hardly more precise than an ancient oracle or a couplet of Nostradamus. +The almanac-makers took the wisest course, stretching through a whole +month their "about this time expect a change of weather." + +That history repeats itself has become a kind of truism, but of as +little practical value in helping us to form our opinions as other +similar labor-saving expedients to escape thought. Sceptical minds see +in human affairs a regular oscillation, hopeful ones a continual +progress, and both can support their creeds with abundance of pertinent +example. Both seem to admit a law of recurrence, but the former make it +act in a circle, the latter in a spiral. There is, no doubt, one +constant element in the reckoning, namely, human nature, and perhaps +another in human nature itself,--the tendency to reaction from all +extremes; but the way in which these shall operate, and the force they +shall exert, are dependent on a multitude of new and impredicable +circumstances. Coincidences there certainly are, but our records are +hardly yet long enough to furnish the basis for secure induction. Such +parallelisms are merely curious, and entertain the fancy rather than +supply precedent for the judgment. When Tacitus tells us that +gladiators have not so much stomach for fighting as soldiers, we +remember our own roughs and shoulder-hitters at the beginning of the +war, and are inclined to think that Macer and Billy Wilson illustrated +a general truth. But, unfortunately, Octavius found prize-fighters of +another metal, not to speak of Spartacus. Perhaps the objections to our +making use of colored soldiers (_hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, +caveto_) will seem as absurd one of these days as the outcry that Caesar +was degrading the service by enlisting Gauls; but we will not hazard a +prophecy. In the alarm of the Pannonian revolt, his nephew recruited +the army of Italy by a conscription of slaves, who thereby became free, +and this measure seems to have been acquiesced in by the unwarlike +citizens, who preferred that the experiment of death should be made _in +corpore vili_ rather than in their own persons. + +If the analogies between past and present were as precise as they are +sometimes represented to be, if Time really dotes and repeats his old +stories, then ought students of history to be the best statesmen. Yet, +with Guizot for an adviser, Louis Philippe, himself the eyewitness of +two revolutions, became the easy victim of a third. Reasoning from what +has been to what will be is apt to be paralogistic at the best. Much +influence must still be left to chance, much accounted for by what +pagans called Fate, and we Providence. We can only say, _Victrix +causa diis placuit_, and Cato must make the best of it. What is +called poetical justice, that is, an exact subservience of human +fortunes to moral laws, so that the actual becomes the liege vassal of +the ideal, is so seldom seen in the events of real life that even the +gentile world felt the need of a future state of rewards and +punishments to make the scale of Divine justice even, and satisfy the +cravings of the soul. Our sense of right, or of what we believe to be +right, is so pleased with an example of retribution that a single +instance is allowed to outweigh the many in which wrong escapes +unwhipped. It was remarked that sudden death overtook the purchasers of +certain property bequeathed for pious uses in England, and sequestered +at the Reformation. Fuller tells of a Sir Miles Pateridge, who threw +dice with the king for Jesus' bells, and how "the ropes after catched +about his neck," he being hanged in the reign of Edward VI. But at +least a fifth of the land in England was held by suppressed +monasteries, and the metal for the victorious cannon of revolutionary +France once called to the service of the Prince of Peace from +consecrated spires. We err in looking for a visible and material +penalty, as if God imposed a fine of mishap for the breach of his +statutes. Seldom, says Horace, has penalty lost the scent of crime, +yet, on second thought, he makes the sleuth-hound lame. Slow seems the +sword of Divine justice, adds Dante, to him who longs to see it smite. +The cry of all generations has been, "How long, O Lord?" Where crime +has its root in weakness of character, that same weakness is likely to +play the avenger; but where it springs from that indifference as to +means and that contempt of consequences which are likely to be felt by +a strong nature, intent upon its end, it would be hardy to reckon on +the same dramatic result. And if we find this difficulty in the cases +of individual men, it is even more rash to personify nations, and deal +out to them our little vials of Divine retribution, as if we were the +general dispensaries of doom. Shall we lay to a nation the sins of a +line of despots whom it cannot shake off? If we accept too blindly the +theory of national responsibility, we ought, by parity of reason, to +admit success as a valid proof of right. The moralists of fifty years +ago, who saw the democratic orgies of France punished with Napoleon, +whose own crimes brought him in turn to the rock of Prometheus, how +would they explain the phenomenon of Napoleon III.? The readiness to +trace a too close and consequent relation between public delinquencies +and temporal judgments seems to us a superstition holding over from the +time when each race, each family even, had its private and tutelary +divinity,--a mere refinement of fetichism. The world has too often seen +"captive good attending captain ill" to believe in a providence that +sets man-traps and spring-guns for the trespassers on its domain, and +Christianity, perhaps, elevated man in no way so much as in making +every one personally, not gregariously, answerable for his doings or +not-doings, and thus inventing conscience, as we understand its +meaning. But just in proportion as the private citizen is enlightened +does he become capable of an influence on that manifold result of +thought, sentiment, reason, impulse, magnanimity, and meanness which, +as Public Opinion, has now so great a share in shaping the destiny of +nations. And in this sense does he become responsible, and out of the +aggregate of such individual responsibilities we can assume a common +complicity in the guilt of common wrongdoing. + +But surely the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth; and though we do not +believe in his so immediate interference in events as would satisfy our +impatience of injustice, yet he achieves his ends and brings about his +compensations by having made Good infinitely and eternally lovely to +the soul of man, while the beauty of Evil is but a brief cheat, which +their own lusts put upon the senses of her victims. And it is surely +fixed as the foundations of the earth that faithfulness to right and +duty, self-sacrifice, loyalty to that service whose visible reward is +often but suffering and baffled hope, draw strength and succor from +exhaustless springs far up in those Delectable Mountains of trial which +the All-knowing has set between us and the achievement of every noble +purpose. History teaches, at least, that wrong can reckon on no +alliance with the diviner part of man, while every high example of +virtue, though it led to the stake or the scaffold, becomes a part of +the reserved force of humanity, and from generation to generation +summons kindred natures to the standard of righteousness as with the +sound of a trumpet. There is no such reinforcement as faith in God, and +that faith is impossible till we have squared our policy and conduct +with our highest instincts. In the loom of time, though the woof be +divinely foreordained, yet man supplies the weft, and the figures of +the endless web are shaped and colored by our own wisdom or folly. Let +no nation think itself safe in being merely right, unless its captains +are inspired and sustained by a sense thereof. + +We do not believe that history supplies any trustworthy data for +casting the horoscope of our war. America is something without +precedent Moreover, such changes have been going on in the social and +moral condition of nations as to make the lessons of even comparatively +recent times of little import in forming conclusions on contemporary +affairs. Formerly a fact, not yet forgetful of its etymology, was a +thing done, a deed, and in a certain sense implied, truly enough, the +predominance of individual actors and prevailing characters. But +powerful personalities are becoming of less and less account, when +facility of communication has given both force and the means of +exerting it to the sentiment of civilized mankind, and when commerce +has made the banker's strong-box a true temple of Janus, the shutting +or opening of which means peace or war. Battles are decisive now not so +much by the destruction of armies as by the defeat of public spirit, +and a something that has actually happened may be a less important +fact, either in conjecturing probabilities or determining policy, than +the indefinable progress of change, not marked on any dial, but +instinctively divined, that is taking place in the general thought. + +The history of no civil war can be written without bias, scarcely +without passionate prejudice. It is always hard for men to conceive the +honesty or intelligence of those who hold other opinions, or indeed to +allow them the _right_ to think for themselves; but in troubled +times the blood mounts to the head, and colors the judgment, giving to +suspicions and fancies the force of realities, and intensifying +personal predilections, till they seem the pith and substance of +national duties. Even where the office of historian is assumed in the +fairest temper, it is impossible that the narrative of events whose +bearing is so momentous should not insensibly take somewhat the form of +an argument,--that the political sympathies of the author should not +affect his judgment of men and measures. And in such conflicts, far +more than in ordinary times, as the stake at issue is more absorbing +and appeals more directly to every private interest and patriotic +sentiment, so men, as they become prominent, and more or less +identified with this or that policy, at last take the place of +principles with the majority of minds. To agree with us is to be a +great commander, a prudent administrator, a politician without private +ends. + +The contrast between the works of Mr. Pollard[2] and Mr. Greeley[3] is +very striking. Though coincident in design, they are the antipodes of +each other in treatment. Mr. Greeley, finding a country beyond measure +prosperous suddenly assailed by rebellion, is naturally led to seek an +adequate cause for so abnormal an effect. Mr. Pollard, formerly an +office-holder under the United States, and now the editor of a Richmond +newspaper, is struck by the same reflection, and, unwilling to state +the true cause, or unable to find a plausible reason, is driven to hunt +up an excuse for what strikes ordinary people as one of the greatest +crimes in history. The difference is instructive. + + [2] _The Southern History of the War. The First Year of the + War._ By Edward A. Pollard. + + [3] _The American Conflict._ By Horace Greeley. Vol. I. + +Mr. Pollard's book, however, is well worth reading by those who wish to +learn something of the motives which originally led the Southern States +into rebellion, and still actuate them in their obstinate resistance. +To any one familiar with the history of the last thirty years, it would +almost seem that Mr. Pollard's object had been to expose the futility +of the pretences set up by the originators of Secession, so utterly +does he fail in showing any adequate grounds for that desperate +measure. As a history, the book is of little value, except as giving us +here and there a hint by which we can guess something of the state of +mind prevailing at the South. In point of style it is a curious jumble +of American sense and Southern _highfaluting_. One might fancy it +written by a schoolmaster, whose boys had got hold of the manuscript, +and inserted here and there passages taken at random from the _Gems +of Irish Oratory_. Mr. Pollard's notions of the "Yankees," and the +condition of things among them, would be creditable to a Chinaman from +pretty well up in the back country. No society could hold together for +a moment in the condition of moral decay which he attributes to the +Northern States. Before writing his next volume he should read Charles +Lamb's advice "to those who have the framing of advertisements for the +apprehension of offenders." We must do him the justice to say, however, +that he writes no nonsense about difference of races, and that, of all +"Yankees," he most thoroughly despises the Northern snob who professes +a sympathy for "Southern institutions" because he believes that a +slaveholder is a better man than himself. + +In narrating the causes which brought about the present state of +things, Mr. Pollard arranges matters to suit his own convenience, +constantly reversing the relations of cause and effect, and forgetting +that the order of events is of every importance in estimating their +moral bearing. The only theoretic reason he gives for Secession is the +desire to escape from the tyranny of a "numerical majority." Yet it was +by precisely such a majority, and that attained by force or fraud, that +the seceding States were taken out of the Union. We entirely agree with +Mr. Pollard that a show of hands is no test of truth; but he seems to +forget that, except under a despotism, a numerical majority of some +sort or other is sure to govern. No man capable of thought, as Mr. +Pollard certainly is, would admit that a majority was any more likely +to be right under a system of limited than under one of universal +suffrage, always provided the said majority did not express his own +opinions. The majority always governs in the long run, because it comes +gradually round to the side of what is just and for the common +interest, and the only dangerous majority is that of a mob unchecked by +the delay for reflection which all constitutional government +interposes. The constitutions of most of the Slave States, so far as +white men are concerned, are of the most intensely democratic type. +Would Mr. Pollard consolidate them all under one strong government, or +does he believe that to be good for a single State which is bad for +many united? It is curious to see, in his own intense antipathy to a +slaveholding aristocracy, how purely American he is in spite of his +theories; and, bitterly hostile as he is to the Davis administration, +he may chance on the reflection that a majority is pretty much the same +thing in one parallel of latitude as another. Of one thing he may be +assured,--that we of the North do not understand by republic a +government of the better and more intelligent class by the worse and +more ignorant, and accordingly are doing our best by education to +abolish the distinction between the two. + +The fact that no adequate reasons for Secession have ever been brought +forward, either by the seceding States at the time, or by their +apologists since, can only be explained on the theory that nothing more +than a _coup d'etat_ was intended, which should put the South in +possession of the government. Owing to the wretched policy (if +supineness deserve the name) largely prevalent in the North, of sending +to the lower house of Congress the men who needed rather than those who +ought to go there,--men without the responsibility or the independence +which only established reputation, social position, long converse with +great questions, or native strength of character can give,--and to the +habit of looking on a seat in the national legislature more as the +reward for partisan activity than as imposing a service of the highest +nature, so that representatives were changed as often as there were new +political debts to pay or cliques to be conciliated,--owing to these +things, the South maintained an easy superiority at Washington, and +learned to measure the Free States by men who represented their +weakest, and sometimes their least honorable, characteristics. We doubt +if the Slave States have sent many men to the Capitol who could be +bought, while it is notorious that from the north of Mason and Dixon's +line many an M.C. has cleared, like a ship, for Washington and a +market. Southern politicians judge the North by men without courage and +without principle, who would consent to any measure if it could be +becomingly draped in generalities, or if they could evade the pillory +of the yeas and nays. The increasing drain of forensic ability toward +the large cities, with the mistaken theory that residence in the +district was a necessary qualification in candidates, tended still more +to bring down the average of Northern representation. The "claims" of a +section of the State, or even part of a district, have been allowed to +have weight, as if square miles or acres were to be weighed against +capacity and experience. We attached too little importance to the +social prestige which the South acquired and maintained at the seat of +government, forgetting the necessary influence it would exert upon the +independence of many of our own members. These in turn brought home the +new impressions they had acquired, till the fallacy gradually became +conviction of a general superiority in the South, though it had only so +much truth in it as this, that the people of that section sent their +men of character and position to Washington, and kept them there till +every year of experience added an efficiency which more than made up +for their numerical inferiority. Meanwhile, our thinking men allowed, +whether from timidity or contempt, certain demagogic fallacies to +become axioms by dint of repetition, chief among which was the notion +that a man was the better representative of the democratic principle +who had contrived to push himself forward to popularity by whatever +means, and who represented the average instead of the highest culture +of the community, thus establishing an aristocracy of mediocrity, nay, +even of vulgarity, in some less intelligent constituencies. The one +great strength of democracy is, that it opens all the highways of power +and station to the better man, that it gives every man the chance of +rising to his natural level; and its great weakness is in its tendency +to urge this principle to a vicious excess, by pushing men forward into +positions for which they are unfit, not so much because they deserve to +rise, or because they have risen by great qualities, as because they +began low. Our quadrennial change of offices, which turns public +service into a matter of bargain and sale instead of the reward of +merit and capacity, which sends men to Congress to represent private +interests in the sharing of plunder, without regard to any claims of +statesmanship or questions of national policy, as if the ship of state +were periodically captured by privateers, has hastened our downward +progress in the evil way. By making the administration prominent at the +cost of the government, and by its constant lesson of scramble and +vicissitude, almost obliterating the idea of orderly permanence, it has +tended in no small measure to make disruption possible, for Mr. +Lincoln's election threw the weight of every office-holder in the South +into the scale of Secession. The war, however, has proved that the core +of Democracy was sound; that the people, if they had been neglectful of +their duties, or had misapprehended them, had not become corrupt. + +Mr. Greeley's volume is a valuable contribution to our political +history. Though for many years well known as an ardent politician, and +associated by popular prejudice with that class of untried social +theories which are known by the name of _isms_, his tone is +singularly calm and dispassionate. Disfigured here and there by a +vulgarism which adds nothing to its point, while it detracts from its +purity, his style is clear, straightforward, and masculine,--a good +business style, at once bare of ornament and undiluted with eloquence. +Mr. Greeley's intimate knowledge of our politics and instinctive +sympathy with the far-reaching scope of our institutions (for, as +Beranger said of himself, he is _tout peuple_) admirably fitted +him for his task. He is clear, concise, and accurate, honestly striving +after the truth, while his judicious Preface shows that he appreciates +fully the difficulties that beset whoever seeks to find it. If none of +his readers will be surprised to find his work that of an able man, +there are many who would not expect it to be, as it is, that of a +fair-minded one. He writes without passion, making due allowance for +human nature in the South as well as the North, and does not waste his +strength, as is the manner of fanatics, in fighting imaginary giants +while a real enemy is in the field. Tracing Secession to its twin +sources in slavery and the doctrine of State Rights, and amply +sustaining his statements of fact by citations from contemporary +documents and speeches, he has made the plainest, and for that very +reason, we think, the strongest, argument that has been put forth on +the national side of the question at issue in our civil war. Above all, +he is ready to allow those virtues in the character of the Southern +people whose existence alone makes reunion desirable or possible. We +should not forget that the Negro is at least no more our brother than +they, for if he have fallen among thieves who have robbed him of his +manhood, they have been equally enslaved by prejudice, ignorance, and +social inferiority. + +It is not a little singular that, while slavery has been for nearly +eighty years the one root of bitterness in our politics, the general +knowledge of its history should be so superficial. Abolitionism has +been so persistently represented as the disturbing element which +threatened the permanence of our Union, that mere repetition has at +last become conviction with that large class of minds with which a +conclusion is valuable exactly in proportion as it saves mental labor. +Mr. Greeley's chronological narrative is an excellent corrective of +this delusion, and his tough little facts, driven firmly home, will +serve to spike this parrot battery, and render it harmless for the +future. A consecutive statement of such of the events in our history as +bear directly on the question of slavery, separated from all secondary +circumstances, shows two things clearly: first, that the doctrine that +there was any national obligation to consider slaves as merely +property, or to hold our tongues about slavery, is of comparatively +recent origin; and, second, that there was a pretty uniform ebb of +anti-slavery sentiment for nearly sixty years after the adoption of the +Constitution, the young flood beginning to set strongly in again after +the full meaning of the annexation of Texas began to be understood at +the North, but not fairly filling up again even its own deserted +channels till the Southern party succeeded in cutting the embankment of +the Missouri Compromise. Then at last it became evident that the real +danger to be guarded against was the abolition of Freedom, and the +reaction was as violent as it was sudden. + +In the early days of the Republic, slavery was admitted to be a social +and moral evil, only to be justified by necessity; and we think it more +than doubtful if South Carolina and Georgia could have procured an +extension of the slave-trade, had there not been a general persuasion +that the whole system could not long maintain itself against the growth +of intelligence and humanity. As early as 1786 a resident of South +Carolina wrote: "In countries where slavery is encouraged, the ideas of +the people are of a peculiar cast; the soul becomes dark and narrow, +and assumes a tone of savage brutality.... The most elevated and +liberal Carolinians abhor slavery; they will not debase themselves by +attempting to vindicate it." In 1789 William Pinckney said, in the +Maryland Assembly: "Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, +no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a +single hour." And he went on to speak of slavery in a way which, fifty +years later, would have earned him a coat of tar and feathers, if not a +halter, in any of the Slave States, and in some of the Free. In 1787 +Delaware passed an act forbidding the importation of "negro or mulatto +slaves into the State for sale or otherwise;" and three years later her +courts declared a slave, hired in Maryland and brought over the border, +free under this statute. In 1790 there were Abolition societies in +Maryland and Virginia. In 1787 the Synod of the Presbyterian Church +(since called the General Assembly), in their pastoral letter, +"strongly recommended the abolition of slavery, with the instruction of +the negroes in literature and religion." We cite these instances to +show that the sacredness of slavery from discussion was a discovery of +much later date. So also was the theory of its divine origin,--a +theological slough in which, we are sorry to say, Northern men have +shown themselves readiest to bemire themselves. It was when slave labor +and slave breeding began to bring large and rapid profits, by the +extension of cotton-culture consequent on the invention of Whitney's +gin, and the purchase of Louisiana, that slavery was found to be +identical with religion, and, like Duty, a "daughter of the voice of +God." Till it became rich, it had been content with claiming the +municipal law for its parent, but now it was easy to find heralds who +could blazon for it a nobler pedigree. Men who looked upon dancing as +sinful could see the very beauty of holiness in a system like this! It +is consoling to think that, even in England, it is little more than a +century since the divine right of kings ceased to be defended in the +same way, by making the narrative portions of Scripture doctrinal. Such +strange things have been found in the Bible that we are not without +hope of the discovery of Christianity there, one of these days. + +The influence of the Southern States in the national politics was due +mainly to the fact of their having a single interest on which they were +all united, and, though fond of contrasting their more chivalric +character with the commercial spirit of the North, it will be found +that profit has been the motive to all the encroachments of slavery. +These encroachments first assumed the offensive with the annexation of +Texas. In the admission of Missouri, though the Free States might +justly claim a right to fix the political destiny of half the +territory, bought with the common money of the nation, and though +events have since proved that the compromise of 1820 was a fatal +mistake, yet, as slavery was already established there, the South +might, with some show of reason, claim to be on the defensive. In one +sense, it is true, every enlargement of the boundaries of slavery has +been an aggression. For it cannot with any fairness be assumed that the +framers of the Constitution intended to foreordain a perpetual balance +of power between the Free and the Slave States. If they had, it is +morally certain that they would not so have arranged the basis of +representation as to secure to the South an unfair preponderance, to be +increased with every addition of territory. It is much more probable +that they expected the Southern States to fall more and more into a +minority of population and wealth, and were willing to strengthen this +minority by yielding it somewhat more than its just share of power in +Congress. Indeed, it was mainly on the ground of the undue advantage +which the South would gain, politically, that the admission of Missouri +was distasteful to the North. + +It was not till after the Southern politicians had firmly established +their system of governing the country by an alliance with the +Democratic party of the Free States, on the basis of a division of +offices, that they dreamed of making their "institution" the chief +concern of the nation. As we follow Mr. Greeley's narrative, we see +them first pleading for the existence of slavery, then for its +equality, and at last claiming for it an absolute dominion. Such had +been the result of uniform concession on the part of the North for the +sake of Union, such the decline of public spirit, that within sixty +years of the time when slaveholders like George Mason of Virginia could +denounce slavery for its inconsistency with the principles on which our +Revolution had triumphed, the leaders of a party at the North claiming +a kind of patent in the rights of man as an expedient for catching +votes were decrying the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence as +visionary and impracticable. Was it the Slave or the Free States that +had just cause to be alarmed for their peculiar institutions? And, +meanwhile, it had been discovered that slavery was conservative! It +would protect a country in which almost every voter was a landholder +from any sudden frenzy of agrarianism! In the South it certainly +conserved a privileged class, and prevented a general debauch of +education; but in the North it preserved nothing but political +corruption, subserviency, cant, and all those baser qualities which +unenviably distinguish man from the brutes. + +The nation had paid ten millions for Texas, an extension of the area of +freedom, as it was shamelessly called, which was to raise the value of +slaves in Virginia, according to Mr. Upshur, and did raise it, fifty +per cent. It was next proposed to purchase Cuba for one hundred +millions, or to take it by force if Spain refused to sell. And all this +for fear of abolition. This was paying rather dearly for our +conservative element, it should seem, especially when it stood in need +of such continual and costly conservation. But it continued to be plain +to a majority of voters that democratic institutions absolutely +demanded a safeguard against democracy, and that the only insurance was +something that must be itself constantly insured at more and more +ruinous rates. It continued to be plain also that slavery was purely a +matter of local concern, though it could help itself to the national +money, force the nation into an unjust war, and stain its reputation in +Europe with the buccaneering principles proclaimed in the Ostend +Manifesto. All these were plainly the results of the ever-increasing +and unprovoked aggressions of Northern fanaticism. To be the victims of +such injustice seemed not unpleasing to the South. Let us sum up the +items of their little bill against us. They demanded Missouri,--we +yielded; they could not get along without Texas,--we _re_-annexed it; +they must have a more stringent fugitive-slave law,--we gulped it; they +must no longer be insulted with the Missouri Compromise,--we repealed +it. Thus far the North had surely been faithful to the terms of the +bond. We had paid our pound of flesh whenever it was asked for, and +with fewer wry faces, inasmuch as Brother Ham underwent the incision. +Not at all. We had only surrendered the principles of the Revolution; +we must give up the theory also, if we would be loyal to the +Constitution. + +We entirely agree with Mr. Greeley that the quibble which would make +the Constitution an anti-slavery document, because the word _slave_ is +not mentioned in it, cannot stand a moment if we consider the speeches +made in Convention, or the ideas by which the action of its members was +guided. But the question of slavery in the Territories stands on wholly +different ground. We know what the opinions of the men were who drafted +the Constitution, by their own procedure in passing the Ordinance of +1787. That the North should yield all claim to the common lands was +certainly a new interpretation of constitutional law. And yet this was +practically insisted on by the South, and its denial was the more +immediate occasion of rupture between the two sections. But, in our +opinion, the real cause which brought the question to the decision of +war was the habit of concession on the part of the North, and the +inability of its representatives to say _No_, when policy as well as +conscience made it imperative. Without that confidence in Northern +pusillanimity into which the South had been educated by their long +experience of this weakness, whatever might have been the secret wish +of the leading plotters, they would never have dared to rush their +fellow-citizens into a position where further compromise became +impossible. + +Inextricably confused with the question of Slavery, and essential to an +understanding of the motives and character of the Southern people as +distinguished from their politicians, is the doctrine of State Rights. +On this topic also Mr. Greeley furnishes all the data requisite to a +full understanding of the matter. The dispute resolves itself +substantially into this: whether the adoption of the Constitution +established a union or a confederacy, a government or a league, a +nation or a committee. This also is a question which can only be +determined by a knowledge of what the Convention of 1787 intended and +accomplished, and the States severally acceded to,--it being of course +understood that no State had a right, or at the time pretended any +right, to accept the Constitution with mental reservations. On this +subject we have ample and unimpeachable testimony in the discussions +which led to the calling of the Convention, and the debates which +followed in the different conventions of the States called together to +decide whether the new frame of government should be accepted or +rejected. The conviction that it was absolutely necessary to remodel +the Articles of Confederation was wrought wholly by an experience of +the inadequacy of the existing plan (under which a single State could +oppose its veto to a law of Congress), from, the looseness of its +cohesion and its want of power to compel obedience. The principle of +coercive authority, which was represented as so oppressively +unconstitutional by the friends of Secession in the North as well as +the South four years ago, was precisely that which, as its absence had +brought the old plan to a dead-lock, was deemed essential to the new. +The formal proposal for a convention, originated by Hamilton, was +seconded by one State after another. Here is a sample of Virginian +public sentiment at that time, from the "instructions to their +representatives," by several constituencies: "Government without +coercion is a proposition at once so absurd and self-contradictory that +the idea creates a confusion of the understanding; it is form without +substance, at best a body without a soul." Oliver Ellsworth, advocating +the adoption of the Constitution in the Convention of Connecticut, +says: "A more energetic system is necessary. The present is merely +advisory. It has no coercive power. Without this, government is +ineffectual, or rather is no government at all." Earlier than this +Madison had claimed "an implied right of coercion" even for the +Confederate Congress, and Jefferson had gone so far as to say that they +possessed it "by the law of nature." The leading objections to the new +Constitution were such as to show the general belief that the State +sovereignties were to be absorbed into the general government in all +matters of national concern. But the unhappy ingenuity of Mr. Jefferson +afterwards devised that theory of strict construction which would +enable any State to profit by the powers of the Constitution so long as +it was for her interest or convenience, and then, by pleading its want +of powers, to resolve the helpless organization once more into the +incoherence of confederacy. By this dexterous legerdemain, the Union +became a string of juggler's rings, which seems a chain while it +pleases the operator, but which, by bringing the strain on the weak +point contrived for the purpose, is made to fall easily asunder and +become separate rings again. An adroit use of this theory enabled the +South to gain one advantage after another by threatening disunion, and +led naturally, on the first effective show of resistance, to secession. +But in order that the threat might serve its purpose without the costly +necessity of putting it in execution, the doctrine of State Rights was +carefully inculcated at the South by the same political party which +made belief in the value of the Union a fanaticism at the North. On one +side of Mason and Dixon's line it was lawful, and even praiseworthy, to +steal the horse; on the other, it was a hanging matter to look over the +fence. + +But in seeking for the cause of the rebellion, with any fairness toward +the Southern people, and any wish to understand their motives and +character, it would be unwise to leave out of view the fact that they +have been carefully educated in the faith that secession is not only +their right, but the only safeguard of their freedom. While it is +perfectly true that the great struggle now going on is intrinsically +between right and privilege, between law and license, and while on the +part of its leaders the Southern revolt was a conspiracy against +popular government, and an attempt to make a great Republic into a mere +convenient drudge for Slavery, yet we should despair of our kind did we +believe that the rank and file of the Confederate armies were +consciously spending so much courage and endurance on behalf of +barbarism. It is more consoling, as it is nearer the truth, to think +that they are fighting for what they have been taught to believe their +rights, and their inheritance as a free people. The high qualities they +have undoubtedly shown in the course of the war, their tenacity, +patience, and discipline, show that, under better influences, they may +become worthy to take their part in advancing the true destinies of +America. + +It is yet too early to speculate with much confidence on the remote +consequences of the war. One of its more immediate results has already +been to disabuse the Southern mind of some of its most fatal +misconceptions as to Northern character. They thought us a trading +people, incapable of lofty sentiment, ready to sacrifice everything for +commercial advantage,--a heterogeneous rabble, fit only to be ruled by +a superior race. They are not likely to make that mistake again, and +must have learned by this time that the best blood is that which has in +it most of the iron of purpose and constancy. War, the sternest and +dearest of teachers, has already made us a soberer and older people on +both sides. It has brought questions of government and policy home to +us as never before, and has made us feel that citizenship is a duty to +whose level we must rise, and not a privilege to which we are born. The +great principles of humanity and politics, which had faded into the +distance of abstraction and history, have been for four years the theme +of earnest thought and discussion at every fireside and wherever two +men met together. They have again become living and operative in the +heart and mind of the nation. What was before a mighty population is +grown a great country, united in one hope, inspired by one thought, and +welded into one power. But have not the same influences produced the +same result in the South, and created there also a nation hopelessly +alien and hostile? To a certain extent this is true, but not in the +unlimited way in which it is stated by enemies in England, or +politicians at home, who would gladly put the people out of heart, +because they themselves are out of office. With the destruction of +slavery, the one object of the war will have been lost by the Rebels, +and its one great advantage gained by the government. Slavery is by no +means dead as yet, whether socially in its relation of man to man, or +morally in its hold on public opinion and its strength as a political +superstition. But there is no party at the North, considerable in +numbers or influence, which could come into power on the platform of +making peace with the Rebels on their own terms. No party can get +possession of the government which is not in sympathy with the temper +of the people, and the people, forced into war against their will by +the unprovoked attack of pro-slavery bigotry, are resolved on pushing +it to its legitimate conclusion. War means now, consciously with many, +unconsciously with most, but inevitably, abolition. Nothing can save +slavery but peace. Let its doom be once accomplished, or its +reconstruction (for reconstruction means nothing more) clearly seen to +be an impossibility, and the bond between the men at the South who were +willing to destroy the Union, and those at the North who only wish to +save it, for the sake of slavery, will be broken. The ambitious in both +sections will prefer their chances as members of a mighty empire to +what would always be secondary places in two rival and hostile nations, +powerless to command respect abroad or secure prosperity at home. The +masses of the Southern people will not feel too keenly the loss of a +kind of property in which they had no share, while it made them +underlings, nor will they find it hard to reconcile themselves with a +government from which they had no real cause of estrangement. If the +war be waged manfully, as becomes a thoughtful people, without insult +or childish triumph in success, if we meet opinion with wiser opinion, +waste no time in badgering prejudice till it become hostility, and +attack slavery as a crime against the nation, and not as individual +sin, it will end, we believe, in making us the most powerful and +prosperous community the world ever saw. Our example and our ideas will +react more powerfully than ever on the Old World, and the consequence +of a rebellion, aimed at the natural equality of all men, will be to +hasten incalculably the progress of equalization over the whole earth. +Above all, Freedom will become the one absorbing interest of the whole +people, making us a nation alive from sea to sea with the consciousness +of a great purpose and a noble destiny, and uniting us as slavery has +hitherto combined and made powerful the most hateful aristocracy known +to man. + + + + +McCLELLAN OR LINCOLN? + +1864 + + +The spectacle of an opposition waiting patiently during several months +for its principles to turn up would be amusing in times less critical +than these. Nor was this the worst. If there might be persons malicious +enough to think that the Democratic party could get along very well +without principles, all would admit that a candidate was among the +necessaries of life. Now, where not only immediate policy, but the very +creed which that policy is to embody, is dependent on circumstances, +and on circumstances so shifting and doubtful as those of a campaign, +it is hard to find a representative man whose name may, in some +possible contingency, mean enough, without, in some other equally +possible contingency, meaning too much. The problem was to hunt up +somebody who, without being anything in particular, might be anything +in general, as occasion demanded. Of course, the professed object of +the party was to save their country, but which _was_ their country, and +which it would be most profitable to save, whether America or Secessia, +was a question that Grant or Sherman might answer one way or the other +in a single battle. If only somebody or something would tell them +whether they were for war or peace! The oracles were dumb, and all +summer long they looked anxiously out, like Sister Anne from her tower, +for the hero who should rescue unhappy Columbia from the Republican +Bluebeard. Did they see a cloud of dust in the direction of Richmond or +Atlanta? Perhaps Grant might be the man, after all, or even Sherman +would answer at a pinch. When at last no great man would come along, it +was debated whether it might not be better to nominate some one without +a record, as it is called, since a nobody was clearly the best exponent +of a party that was under the unhappy necessity of being still +uncertain whether it had any recognizable soul or not. Meanwhile, the +time was getting short and the public impatience peremptory. + + "Under which king, bezonian? Speak, or die!" + +The party found it alike inconvenient to do the one or the other, and +ended by a compromise which might serve to keep them alive till after +election, but which was as far from any distinct utterance as if their +mouths were already full of that official pudding which they hope for +as the reward of their amphibological patriotism. Since it was not safe +to be either for peace or war, they resolved to satisfy every +reasonable expectation by being at the same time both and neither. If +you are warlike, there is General McClellan; if pacific, surely you +must be suited with Mr. Pendleton; if neither, the combination of the +two makes a _tertium quid_ that is neither one thing nor another. As +the politic Frenchman, kissing the foot of St. Peter's statue (recast +out of a Jupiter), while he thus did homage to existing prejudices, +hoped that the Thunderer would remember him if he ever came into power +again, so the Chicago Convention compliments the prevailing warlike +sentiment of the country with a soldier, but holds the civilian quietly +in reserve for the future contingencies of submission. The nomination +is a kind of political _What-is-it?_ and voters are expected, without +asking impertinent questions, to pay their money and make their own +choice as to the natural history of the animal. Looked at from the +Northern side, it is a raven, the bird of carnage, to be sure, but +whitewashed and looking as decorously dove-like as it can; from the +Southern, it is a dove, blackened over for the nonce, but letting the +olive-branch peep from under its wing. + +A more delicate matter for a convention, however, even than the +selection of candidates, is the framing of a platform for them to stand +upon. It was especially delicate for a gathering which represented so +many heterogeneous and almost hostile elements. So incongruous an +assemblage has not been seen since the host of Peter the Hermit, +unanimous in nothing but the hope of plunder and of reconquering the +Holy Land of office. There were War Democrats ready to unite in peace +resolutions, and Peace Democrats eager to move the unanimous nomination +of a war candidate. To make the confusion complete, Mr. Franklin +Pierce, the dragooner of Kansas, writes a letter in favor of free +elections, and the maligners of New England propose a Connecticut +Yankee as their favorite nominee. The Convention was a rag-bag of +dissent, made up of bits so various in hue and texture that the +managers must have been as much puzzled to arrange them in any kind of +harmonious pattern as the thrifty housewife in planning her coverlet +out of the parings of twenty years' dressmaking. All the odds and ends +of personal discontent, every shred of private grudge, every resentful +rag snipped off by official shears, scraps of Rebel gray and leavings +of Union blue,--all had been gathered, as if for the tailoring of +Joseph's coat; and as a Chatham Street broker first carefully removes +all marks of previous ownership from the handkerchiefs which find their +way to his counter, so the temporary chairman advised his hearers, by +way of a preliminary caution, to surrender their convictions. This, +perhaps, was superfluous, for it may be doubted whether anybody +present, except Mr. Fernando Wood, ever legally had one, though Captain +Rynders must have brought many in his following who richly deserved it. +Mr. Belmont, being chosen to represent the Democracy of Mammon, did +little more than paraphrase in prose the speech of that fallen +financier in another rebellious conclave, as reported by Milton:-- + + "How in safety best we may + Compose our present evils, with regard + Of what we are and were, dismissing quite + All thoughts of war." + +But we turn from the momentary elevation of the banker, to follow the +arduous labors of the Committee on Resolutions.[4] The single end to +be served by the platform they were to construct was that of a bridge +over which their candidate might make his way into the White House. +But it must be so built as to satisfy the somewhat exacting theory +of construction held by the Rebel emissaries at Niagara, while at the +same time no apprehensions as to its soundness must be awakened in the +loyal voters of the party. The war plank would offend the one, the +State Rights plank excite the suspicion of the other. The poor fellow +in AEsop, with his two wives, one pulling out the black hairs and the +other the white, was not in a more desperate situation than the +Committee,--MacHeath, between his two doxies, not more embarrassed. The +result of their labors was, accordingly, as narrow as the pathway of +the faithful into the Mahometan paradise,--so slender, indeed, that +Blondin should have been selected as the only candidate who could hope +to keep his balance on it, with the torrent of events rushing ever +swifter and louder below. It might sustain the somewhat light Unionism +of Mr. Pendleton, but would General McClellan dare to trust its fragile +footing, with his Report and his West Point oration, with his record, +in short, under his arm? Without these documents General McClellan is a +nobody; with them, before he can step on a peace platform, he must eat +an amount of leek that would have turned the stomach of Ancient Pistol +himself. It remained to be seen whether he was more in favor of being +President than of his own honor and that of the country. + + [4] The _Platform of the Chicago Convention_ was published + in the public journals 30th August. + +The Resolutions of the Chicago Convention, though they denounce various +wrongs and evils, some of them merely imaginary, and all the necessary +results of civil war, propose only one thing,--surrender. Disguise it +as you will, flavor it as you will, call it what you will, umble-pie is +umble-pie, and nothing else. The people instinctively so understood it. +They rejected with disgust a plan whose mere proposal took their +pusillanimity for granted, and whose acceptance assured their +self-contempt. At a moment when the Rebels would be checkmated in +another move, we are advised to give them a knight and begin the game +over again. If they are not desperate, what chance of their accepting +offers which they rejected with scorn before the war began? If they are +not desperate, why is their interest more intense in the result of our +next Presidential election than even in the campaign at their very +door? If they were not desperate, would two respectable men like +Messrs. Clay and Holcomb endure the society of George Saunders? General +McClellan himself admitted the righteousness of the war by volunteering +in it, and, the war once begun, the only real question has been whether +the principle of legitimate authority or that of wanton insurrection +against it should prevail,--whether we should have for the future a +government of opinion or of brute force. When the rebellion began, its +leaders had no intention to dissolve the Union, but to reconstruct it, +to make the Montgomery Constitution and Jefferson Davis supreme over +the whole country, and not over a feeble fragment of it. They knew, as +we knew, the weakness of a divided country, and our experience of +foreign governments during the last four years has not been such as to +lessen the apprehension on that score, or to make the consciousness of +it less pungent in either of the contending sections. Even now, +Jefferson Davis is said to be in favor of a confederation between the +Free and the Slave States. But what confederation could give us back +the power and prestige of the old Union? The experience of Germany +surely does not tempt to imitation. And in making overtures for peace, +with whom are we to treat? Talking vaguely about "the South," "the +Confederate States," or "the Southern people," does not help the +matter; for the cat under all this meal is always the _government_ +at Richmond, men with everything to expect from independence, with much +to hope from reconstruction, and sure of nothing but ruin from reunion. +And these men, who were arrogant as equals and partners, are to be +moderate in dictating terms as conquerors! If the people understood +less clearly the vital principle which is at hazard in this contest, if +they were not fully persuaded that Slavery and State Eights are merely +the counters, and that free institutions are the real stake, they might +be deluded with the hope of compromise. But there are things that are +not subjects of compromise. The honor, the conscience, the very soul of +a nation, cannot be compromised without ceasing to exist. When you +propose to yield a part of them, there is already nothing left to +yield. + +And yet this is all that the party calling itself Democratic, after +months of deliberation, after four years in which to study the popular +mind, have to offer in the way of policy. It is neither more nor less +than to confess that they have no real faith in popular +self-government, for it is to assume that the people have neither +common nor moral sense. General McClellan is to be put in command of +the national citadel, on condition that he immediately offers to +capitulate. To accept the nomination on these terms was to lose, not +only his election, but his self-respect. Accordingly, no sooner was the +damaging effect of the platform evident than it was rumored that he +would consent to the candidacy, but reject the conditions on which +alone it was offered. The singular uniform, half Union-blue and half +Confederate--gray, in which it was proposed by the managers at Chicago +to array the Democratic party, while it might be no novelty to some +camp-followers of the New York delegation familiar with the rules of +certain of our public institutions, could hardly be agreeable to one +who had worn the livery of his country with distinction. It was the +scene of Petruchio and the tailor over again:-- + + _Gen. McC._ "Why, what, i' th' Devil's name, tailor, call'st + thou this?" + + _Committee._ "You bid me make it orderly and well, + According to the fashion and the time." + + _Gen. McC._ "Marry, I did; but, if you be remembered, + _I did not bid you mar it to the time._" + +Between the nomination and acceptance came the taking of Atlanta, +marring the coat to the time with a vengeance, and suggesting the +necessity of turning it,--a sudden cure which should rank among the +first in future testimonials to the efficacy of Sherman's lozenges. Had +General McClellan thrust the resolutions away from him with an honest +scorn, we should have nothing to say save in commendation. But to +accept them with his own interpretation, to put upon them a meaning +utterly averse from their plain intention, and from that understanding +of them which the journals of his own faction clearly indicated by +their exultation or their silence, according as they favored +Confederacy or Union, is to prepare a deception for one of the parties +to the bargain. In such cases, which is commonly cheated, the +candidate, or the people who vote for him? If the solemn and deliberate +language of resolutions is to be interpreted by contraries, what rule +of hermeneutics shall we apply to the letter of a candidate? If the +Convention meant precisely what they did not say, have we any assurance +that the aspirant has not said precisely what he did not mean? Two +negatives may constitute an affirmative, but surely the affirmation of +two contradictory propositions by parties to the same bargain assures +nothing but misunderstanding. + +The resolutions were adopted with but four dissenting votes; their +meaning was obvious, and the whole country understood it to be peace on +any conditions that would be condescended to at Richmond. If a nation +were only a contrivance to protect men in gathering gear, if territory +meant only so many acres for the raising of crops, if power were of +worth only as a police to prevent or punish crimes against person and +property, then peace for the mere sake of peace were the one desirable +thing for a people whose only history would be written in its +cash-book. But if a nation be a living unity, leaning on the past by +tradition, and reaching toward the future by continued aspiration and +achievement,--if territory be of value for the raising of men formed to +high aims and inspired to noble deeds by that common impulse which, +springing from a national ideal, gradually takes authentic shape in a +national character,--if power be but a gross and earthy bulk till it be +ensouled with thought and purpose, and of worth only as the guardian +and promoter of truth and justice among men,--then there are +misfortunes worse than war and blessings greater than peace. At this +moment, not the Democratic party only, but the whole country, longs for +peace, and the difference is merely as to the price that shall be paid +for it. Shall we pay in degradation, and sue for a cessation of +hostilities which would make chaos the rule and order the exception, +which would not be peace, but toleration, not the repose of manly +security, but the helpless quiet of political death? Or shall we pay, +in a little more present suffering, self-sacrifice, and earnestness of +purpose, for a peace that shall be as lasting as honorable, won as it +will be by the victory of right over wrong, and resting on the promise +of God and the hope of man? We believe the country has already made up +its mind as to the answer, and will prove that a democracy may have as +clear a conception of its interests and duties, as fixed a purpose in +defending the one and fulfilling the other, a will as united and +prompt, as have hitherto been supposed to characterize forms of +government where the interests were more personal and the power less +diffused. + +Fortunately, though some of General McClellan's indiscreet friends +would make the coming election to turn upon his personal quarrel with +the administration, the question at issue between the two parties which +seek to shape the policy of the country is one which manifestly +transcends all lesser considerations, and must be discussed in the +higher atmosphere of principle, by appeals to the reason, and not the +passions, of the people. However incongruous with each other in opinion +the candidates of the Democratic party may be, in point of +respectability they are unexceptionable. It is true, as one of the +candidates represents war and the other peace, and "when two men ride +on one horse, one must ride behind," that it is of some consequence to +know which is to be in the saddle and which on the croup; but we will +take it for granted that General McClellan will have no more delicacy +about the opinions of Mr. Pendleton than he has shown for those of the +Convention. Still, we should remember that the General may be imprudent +enough to die, as General Harrison and General Taylor did before him, +and that Providence may again make "of our pleasant vices whips to +scourge us." We shall say nothing of the sectional aspect of the +nomination, for we do not believe that what we deemed a pitiful +electioneering clamor, when raised against our own candidates four +years ago, becomes reasonable argument in opposing those of our +adversaries now. The point of interest, then, is simply this: What can +General McClellan accomplish for the country which Mr. Lincoln has +failed to accomplish? In what respect would their policies differ? And, +supposing them to differ, which would be most consistent with the honor +and permanent well-being of the nation? + +General McClellan, in his letter of acceptance,[5] assumes that, in +nominating him, "the record of his public life was kept in view" by the +Convention. This will enable us to define with some certainty the +points on which his policy would be likely to differ from that of Mr. +Lincoln. He agrees with him that the war was a matter of necessity, not +of choice. He agrees with him in assuming a right to emancipate slaves +as a matter of military expediency, differing only as to the method and +extent of its application,--a mere question of judgment. He agrees +with, him as to the propriety of drafting men for the public service, +having, indeed, been the first to recommend a draft of men whom he was +to command himself. He agrees with him that it is not only lawful, but +politic, to make arrests without the ordinary forms of law where the +public safety requires it, and himself both advised and accomplished +the seizure of an entire Legislature. So far there is no essential +difference, and beyond this we find very little, except that Mr. +Lincoln was in a position where he was called on to act with a view to +the public welfare, and General McClellan in one where he could express +abstract opinions, without the responsibility of trial, to be used +hereafter for partisan purposes as a part of his "record." For example, +just after his failure to coerce the State of Virginia, he took +occasion to instruct his superiors in their duty, and, among other +things, stated his opinion that the war "should not be a war looking to +the subjugation of the people of any State," but "should be against +armed forces and political organizations." The whole question of the +right to "coerce a sovereign State" appears to have arisen from a +confusion of the relations of a State to its own internal policy and to +the general government. But a State is certainly a "political +organization," and, if we understand General McClellan rightly, he +would coerce a State, but not the people of it,--a distinction which we +hope he appreciates better than its victims would be likely to do. We +find here also no diversity in principle between the two men, only that +Mr. Lincoln has been compelled to do, while General McClellan has had +the easier task of telling us what he would do. After the Peninsular +campaign, we cannot but think that even the latter would have been +inclined to say, with the wisest man that ever spoke in our tongue, "If +to do were as easy as to know what 'twere good to do, chapels had been +churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." + + [5] This letter was published in the public journals 9 September. + +The single question of policy on which General McClellan differs from +Mr. Lincoln, stripped of the conventional phrases in which he drapes +it, is Slavery. He can mean nothing else when he talks of "conciliation +and compromise," of receiving back any State that may choose to return +"with a full guaranty of all its constitutional rights." If it be true +that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet, it is equally true +that there is a certain species of toadstool that would be none the +less disgusting under whatever _alias_. Compromise and conciliation +are both excellent things in their own way, and in the fitting time and +place, but right cannot be compromised without surrendering it, and to +attempt conciliation by showing the white feather ends, not in +reconcilement, but subjection. The combined ignorance of the Seven +Sleepers of Ephesus as to what had been going on while they were in +their cavern would hardly equal that of General McClellan alone as to +the political history of the country. In the few months between Mr. +Lincoln's election and the attack on Fort Sumter we tried conciliation +in every form, carrying it almost to the verge of ignominy. The +Southern leaders would have none of it. They saw in it only a +confession of weakness, and were but the more arrogant in their demand +of all or nothing. Compromise we tried for three quarters of a century, +and it brought us to where we are, for it was only a fine name for +cowardice, and invited aggression. And now that the patient is dying of +this drench of lukewarm water, Doctor Sangrado McClellan gravely +prescribes another gallon. If that fail to finish him, why, give him a +gallon more. + +We wish it were as easy to restore General McClellan's army to what it +was before the Peninsular campaign as he seems to think it is to put +the country back where it was at the beginning of the war. The war, it +is true, was undertaken to assert the sovereignty of the Constitution, +but the true cause of quarrel was, not that the South denied the +supremacy of that instrument, but that they claimed the sole right to +interpret it, and to interpret it in a sense hostile to the true ideal +of the country, and the clear interests of the people. But +circumstances have changed, and what was at first a struggle to +maintain the outward form of our government has become a contest to +preserve the life and assert the supreme will of the nation. Even in +April, 1861, underneath that desire for legal sanction common to our +race, which expressed itself in loyalty to the Constitution, there was +an instinctive feeling that the very germinating principle of our +nationality was at stake, and that unity of territory was but another +name for unity of idea; nay, was impossible without it, and undesirable +if it were possible. It was not against the Constitution that the +Rebels declared war, but against free institutions; and if they are +beaten, they must submit to the triumph of those institutions. Their +only chance of constitutional victory was at the polls. They rejected +it, though it was in their grasp, and now it is for us, and not them, +to dictate terms. After all the priceless blood they have shed, General +McClellan would say to them, "Come back and rule us." Mr. Lincoln says, +"Come back as equals, with every avenue of power open to you that is +open to us; but the advantage which the slaveholding interest wrung +from the weakness of the fathers your own madness has forfeited to the +sons." + +General McClellan tells us that if the war had been conducted "in +accordance with those principles which he took occasion to declare when +in active service, reconciliation would have been easy." We suppose he +refers to his despatch of July 7th, 1862, when, having just +demonstrated his incapacity in the profession for which he had been +educated, he kindly offered to take the civil policy of the country +under his direction, expecting, perhaps, to be more successful in a +task for which he was fitted neither by training nor experience. It is +true he had already been spoken of as a possible candidate for the +Presidency, and that despatch was probably written to be referred to +afterwards as part of the "record" to which he alludes in his recent +letter. Indeed, he could have had no other conceivable object in so +impertinent a proceeding, for, up to that time, the war had been +conducted on the very principles he recommended; nay, was so conducted +for six months longer, till it was demonstrated that reconciliation was +not to be had on those terms, and that victory was incompatible with +them. Mr. Lincoln was forced into what General McClellan calls a +radical policy by the necessity of the case. The Rebels themselves +insisted on convincing him that his choice was between that and +failure. They boasted that slavery was their bulwark and arsenal; that, +while every Northern soldier withdrew so much from the productive +industry of the Union, every fighting-man at the South could be brought +into the field, so long as the negroes were left to do the work that +was to feed and clothe him. Were these negroes property? The laws of +war justified us in appropriating them to our own use. Were they +population? The laws of war equally justified us in appealing to them +for aid in a cause which was their own more than it was ours. It was so +much the worse for the South that its property was of a kind that could +be converted from chattels into men, and from men into soldiers, by the +scratch of a pen. The dragon's teeth were not of our sowing, but, so +far from our being under any obligation not to take into our service +the army that sprang from them, it would have been the extreme of +weakness and folly not to do it. If there be no provision in the +Constitution for emancipating the negroes, neither is there any for +taking Richmond; and we give General McClellan too much credit for +intelligence and patriotism to suppose that if, when he asked for a +hundred thousand more men at Harrison's Bar, he had been told that he +could have black ones, he would have refused them. + +But supposing the very improbable chance of General McClellan's +election to the Presidency, how would he set about his policy of +conciliation? Would he disarm the colored troops? In favor of +prosecuting the war, as he declares himself to be, this would only +necessitate the draft of just so many white ones in their stead. Would +he recall the proclamation of freedom? This would only be to incite a +servile insurrection. The people have already suffered too much by +General McClellan's genius for retreat, to follow him in another even +more disastrous. But it is idle to suppose that the Rebels are to be +appeased by any exhibition of weakness. Like other men, they would take +fresh courage from it. Force is the only argument to which they are in +a condition to listen, and, like other men, they will yield to it at +last, if it prove irresistible. We cannot think that General McClellan +would wish to go down to posterity as the President who tried to +restore the Union by the reenslaving of men who had fought in its +defence, and had failed in the attempt. We doubt if he had any very +clear conception of what he meant by conciliation and compromise, +except as a gloss to make the unconditional surrender doctrine of the +Chicago Convention a little less odious. If he meant more, if he hoped +to gain political strength by an appeal to the old pro-slavery +prejudices of the country, he merely shows the same unfortunate +unconsciousness of the passage of time, and the changes it brings with +it, that kept him in the trenches at Yorktown till his own defeat +became inevitable. Perhaps he believes that the Rebels would accept +from him what they rejected with contempt when offered by Mr. +Lincoln,--that they would do in compliment to him what they refused to +do from the interest of self-preservation. If they did, it would simply +prove that they were in a condition to submit to terms, and not to +dictate them. If they listened to his advances, their cause must be so +hopeless that it would be a betrayal of his trust to make them. If they +were obstinate, he would be left with the same war on his hands which +has forced Mr. Lincoln into all his measures, and which would not be +less exacting on himself. As a peace candidate he might solicit votes +with some show of reason, but on a war platform we see no good reason +for displacing Mr. Lincoln in his favor except on personal grounds; and +we fear that our campaigns would hardly be conducted with vigor under a +President whom the people should have invested with the office by way +of poultice for his bruised sensibilities as a defeated commander. Once +in the Presidential chair, with a country behind him insisting on a +re-establishment of the Union, and a rebellion before him deaf to all +offers from a government that faltered in its purposes, we do not see +what form of conciliation he would hit upon by which to persuade a +refractory "political organization," except that practised by Hood's +butcher when he was advised to try it on a drove of sheep. + + "He seized upon the foremost wether, + And hugged and lugged and tugged him neck and crop, + Just _nolens volens_ through the open shop + (If tails came off he did not care a feather); + Then, walking to the door and smiling grim, + He rubbed his forehead and his sleeve together,-- + There! I've _con_ciliated him!'" + +It is idle, however, to think of allaying angry feeling or appeasing +resentment while the war lasts, and idler to hope for any permanent +settlement, except in the complete subjugation of the rebellion. There +are persons who profess to be so much shocked at the _word_ subjugation +as to be willing that we should have immediate experience of the +_thing_, by receiving back the Rebels on their own conditions. Mr. +Lincoln has already proclaimed an amnesty wide enough to satisfy the +demands of the most exacting humanity, and they must reckon on a +singular stupidity in their hearers who impute ferocious designs to a +man who cannot nerve his mind to the shooting of a deserter or the +hanging of a spy. Mr. Lincoln, in our judgment, has shown from the +first the considerate wisdom of a practical statesman. If he has been +sometimes slow in making up his mind, it has saved him the necessity of +being hasty to change it when once made up, and he has waited till the +gradual movement of the popular sentiment should help him to his +conclusions and sustain him in them. To be moderate and unimpassioned +in revolutionary times that kindle natures of more flimsy texture to a +blaze may not be a romantic quality, but it is a rare one, and goes +with those massive understandings on which a solid structure of +achievement may be reared. Mr. Lincoln is a long-headed and +long-purposed man, who knows when he is ready,--a secret General +McClellan never learned. That he should be accused of playing Cromwell +by the Opposition, and reproached with not being Cromwellian enough by +the more ardent of his own supporters, is proof enough that his action +has been of that firm but deliberate temper best suited to troublous +times and to constitutional precedents. One of these accusations is the +unworthy fetch of a party at a loss for argument, and the other springs +from that exaggerated notion of the power of some exceptional +characters upon events which Carlyle has made fashionable, but which +was never even approximately true except in times when there was no +such thing as public opinion, and of which there is no record personal +enough to assure us what we are to believe. A more sincere man than +Cromwell never lived, yet they know little of his history who do not +know that his policy was forced to trim between Independents and +Presbyterians, and that he so far healed the wounds of civil war as to +make England dreaded without satisfying either. We have seen no reason +to change our opinion of Mr. Lincoln since his wary scrupulousness won +him the applause of one party, or his decided action, when he was at +last convinced of its necessity, made him the momentary idol of the +other. We will not call him a great man, for over-hasty praise is too +apt to sour at last into satire, and greatness may be trusted safely to +history and the future; but an honest one we believe him to be, and +with no aim save to repair the glory and greatness of his country. + +But fortunately it is no trial of the personal merits of opposing +candidates on which the next election is to pronounce a verdict. The +men set up by the two parties represent principles utterly +antagonistic, and so far-reaching in their consequences that all +personal considerations and contemporary squabbles become as +contemptible in appearance as they always are in reality. However +General McClellan may equivocate and strive to hide himself in a cloud +of ink, the man who represents the party that deliberately and +unanimously adopted the Chicago Platform is the practical embodiment of +the principles contained in it. By ignoring the platform, he seems, it +is true, to nominate himself; but this, though it may be good evidence +of his own presumption, affords no tittle of proof that he could have +been successful at Chicago without some distinct previous pledges of +what his policy would be. If no such pledges were given, then the +Convention nominated him with a clear persuasion that he was the sort +of timber out of which tools are made. If they were not given, does not +the acceptance of the nomination under false pretences imply a certain +sacrifice of personal honor? And will the honor of the country be safe +in the hands of a man who is careless of his own? General McClellan's +election will be understood by the South and by the whole country as an +acknowledgment of the right of secession,--an acknowledgment which will +resolve the United States into an association for insurance against any +risk of national strength and greatness by land or sea. Mr. Lincoln, on +the other hand, is the exponent of principles vital to our peace, +dignity, and renown,--of all that can save America from becoming +Mexico, and insure popular freedom for centuries to come. + +It is the merest electioneering trick to say that the war has been +turned from its original intention, as if this implied that a cheat had +thereby been put upon the country. The truth is, that the popular +understanding has been gradually enlightened as to the real causes of +the war, and, in consequence of that enlightenment, a purpose has grown +up, defining itself slowly into clearer consciousness, to finish the +war in the only way that will keep it finished, by rooting out the evil +principle from which it sprang. The country has been convinced that a +settlement which should stop short of this would be nothing more than a +truce favorable only to the weaker party in the struggle, to the very +criminals who forced it upon us. The single question is, Shall we have +peace by submission or by victory? General McClellan's election insures +the one, Mr. Lincoln's gives us our only chance of the other. It is +Slavery, and not the Southern people, that is our enemy; we must +conquer this to be at peace with them. With the relations of the +several States of the Rebel Confederacy to the Richmond government we +have nothing to do; but to say that, after being beaten as foreign +enemies, they are to resume their previous relations to our own +government as if nothing had happened, seems to us a manifest +absurdity. From whom would General McClellan, if elected under his plan +of conciliation, exact the penalties of rebellion? The States cannot be +punished, and the only merciful way in which we can reach the real +criminals is by that very policy of emancipation whose efficacy is +proved by the bitter opposition of all the allies of the Rebellion in +the North. This is a punishment which will not affect the independence +of individual States, which will improve the condition of the mass of +the Southern population, and which alone will remove the rock of +offence from the pathway of democratic institutions. So long as slavery +is left, there is antipathy between the two halves of the country, and +the recurrence of actual war will be only a question of time. It is the +nature of evil to be aggressive. Without moral force in itself, it is +driven, by the necessity of things, to seek material props. It cannot +make peace with truth, if it would. Good, on the other hand, is by its +very nature peaceful. Strong in itself, strong in the will of God and +the sympathy of man, its conquests are silent and beneficent as those +of summer, warming into life, and bringing to blossom and fruitage, +whatever is wholesome in men and the institutions of men. + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + +1864-1865. + + +There have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity of South +Carolina hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into a crime whose +assured retribution was to leave them either at the mercy of the nation +they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had summoned but could not +control, when no thoughtful American opened his morning paper without +dreading to find that he had no longer a country to love and honor. +Whatever the result of the convulsion whose first shocks were beginning +to be felt, there would still be enough square miles of earth for +elbow-room; but that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope, of +instinct and tradition, which swells every man's heart and shapes his +thought, though perhaps never present to his consciousness, would be +gone from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. Men might +gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of priceless +associations would be reaped no longer; that fine virtue which sent up +messages of courage and security from every sod of it would have +evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably cut off from our +past, and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives upon +whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us. + +We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism of +our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the proportions +of national peril. We felt an only too natural distrust of immense +public meetings and enthusiastic cheers. + +That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusiasm with which the war +was entered on, that it should follow soon, and that the slackening of +public spirit should be proportionate to the previous over-tension, +might well be foreseen by all who had studied human nature or history. +Men acting gregariously are always in extremes. As they are one moment +capable of higher courage, so they are liable, the next, to baser +depression, and it is often a matter of chance whether numbers shall +multiply confidence or discouragement. Nor does deception lead more +surely to distrust of men than self-deception to suspicion of +principles. The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all +weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp +mordant of experience. Enthusiasm is good material for the orator, but +the statesman needs something more durable to work in,--must be able to +rely on the deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, +without which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of +moral than of material peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. +Would this fervor of the Free States hold out? Was it kindled by a just +feeling of the value of constitutional liberty? Had it body enough to +withstand the inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, delays? Had our +population intelligence enough to comprehend that the choice was +between order and anarchy, between the equilibrium of a government by +law and the tussle of misrule by _pronunciamiento_? Could a war be +maintained without the ordinary stimulus of hatred and plunder, and +with the impersonal loyalty of principle? These were serious questions, +and with no precedent to aid in answering them. + +[Illustration: _Abraham Lincoln_] + +At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, occasion for the most +anxious apprehension. A President known to be infected with the +political heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the treason, of the +Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reins, we will not say +of power, but of chaos, to a successor known only as the representative +of a party whose leaders, with long training in opposition, had none in +the conduct of affairs; an empty treasury was called on to supply +resources beyond precedent in the history of finance; the trees were +yet growing and the iron unmined with, which a navy was to be built and +armored; officers without discipline were to make a mob into an army; +and, above all, the public opinion of Europe, echoed and reinforced +with every vague hint and every specious argument of despondency by a +powerful faction at home, was either contemptuously sceptical or +actively hostile. It would be hard to over-estimate the force of this +latter element of disintegration and discouragement among a people +where every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a +reader of newspapers. The pedlers of rumor in the North were the most +effective allies of the rebellion. A nation can be liable to no more +insidious treachery than that of the telegraph, sending hourly its +electric thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the community, +till the excited imagination makes every real danger loom heightened +with its unreal double. + +And even if we look only at more palpable difficulties, the problem to +be solved by our civil war was so vast, both in its immediate relations +and its future consequences; the conditions of its solution were so +intricate and so greatly dependent on incalculable and uncontrollable +contingencies; so many of the data, whether for hope or fear, were, +from their novelty, incapable of arrangement under any of the +categories of historical precedent, that there were moments of crisis +when the firmest believer in the strength and sufficiency of the +democratic theory of government might well hold his breath in vague +apprehension of disaster. Our teachers of political philosophy, +solemnly arguing from the precedent of some petty Grecian, Italian, or +Flemish city, whose long periods of aristocracy were broken now and +then by awkward parentheses of mob, had always taught us that +democracies were incapable of the sentiment of loyalty, of concentrated +and prolonged effort, of far-reaching conceptions; were absorbed in +material interests; impatient of regular, and much more of exceptional +restraint; had no natural nucleus of gravitation, nor any forces but +centrifugal; were always on the verge of civil war, and slunk at last +into the natural almshouse of bankrupt popular government, a military +despotism. Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew +democracy, not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong, but merely from +books, and America only by the report of some fellow-Briton, who, +having eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had written to the +"Times" demanding redress, and drawing a mournful inference of +democratic instability. Nor were men wanting among ourselves who had so +steeped their brains in London literature as to mistake Cockneyism for +European culture, and contempt of their country for cosmopolitan +breadth of view, and who, owing all they had and all they were to +democracy, thought it had an air of high-breeding to join in the +shallow epicedium that our bubble had burst. + +But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the timid or +the despondent, there were reasons enough of settled gravity against +any over-confidence of hope. A war--which, whether we consider the +expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts brought into the field, or +the reach of the principles involved, may fairly be reckoned the most +momentous of modern times--was to be waged by a people divided at home, +unnerved by fifty years of peace, under a chief magistrate without +experience and without reputation, whose every measure was sure to be +cunningly hampered by a jealous and unscrupulous minority, and who, +while dealing with unheard-of complications at home, must soothe a +hostile neutrality abroad, waiting only a pretext to become war. All +this was to be done without warning and without preparation, while at +the same time a social revolution was to be accomplished in the +political condition of four millions of people, by softening the +prejudices, allaying the fears, and gradually obtaining the +cooperation, of their unwilling liberators. Surely, if ever there were +an occasion when the heightened imagination of the historian might see +Destiny visibly intervening in human affairs, here was a knot worthy of +her shears. Never, perhaps, was any system of government tried by so +continuous and searching a strain as ours during the last three years; +never has any shown itself stronger; and never could that strength be +so directly traced to the virtue and intelligence of the people,--to +that general enlightenment and prompt efficiency of public opinion +possible only under the influence of a political framework like our +own. We find it hard to understand how even a foreigner should be blind +to the grandeur of the combat of ideas that has been going on here,--to +the heroic energy, persistency, and self-reliance of a nation proving +that it knows how much dearer greatness is than mere power; and we own +that it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral condition +of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by +being even a spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a +steady purpose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring forces +which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the discussion +of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war +was over; that a popular excitement has been slowly intensified into an +earnest national will; that a somewhat impracticable moral sentiment +has been made the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end; that +the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal +of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even +useful for good; that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the +horrors of civil conflict has been prevented from complicating a +domestic with a foreign war;--all these results, any one of which might +suffice to prove greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good +sense, the good-humor, the sagacity, the large--mindedness, and the +unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it +seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult +eminence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in untried +emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested; it is by the +sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of truth +there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly to +expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoner at length +gains for his mere statement of a fact the force of argument; it is by +a wise forecast which allows hostile combinations to go so far as by +the inevitable reaction to become elements of his own power, that a +politician proves his genius for state-craft; and especially it is by +so gently guiding public sentiment that he seems to follow it, by so +yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate +in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of compromise without +the weakness of concession; by so instinctively comprehending the +temper and prejudices of a people as to make them gradually conscious +of the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and prejudice,--it is +by qualities such as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be +chief in a commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such as +these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the +most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish +to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in +which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one been +chosen in his stead. + +"Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it"; +and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary +ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible +resources of _prestige_, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent +interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these +out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, +by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular +tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. +Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long +habit had accustomed the American people to the notion of a party in +power, and of a President as its creature and organ, while the more +vital fact, that the executive for the time being represents the +abstract idea of government as a permanent principle superior to all +party and all private interest, had gradually become unfamiliar. They +had so long seen the public policy more or less directed by views of +party, and often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect +the motives of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our +history, to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to +act upon the fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the +first duty of a government is to defend and maintain its own existence. +Accordingly, a powerful weapon seemed to be put into the hands of the +opposition by the necessity under which the administration found itself +of applying this old truth to new relations. Nor were the opposition +his only nor his most dangerous opponents. + +The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which ethics +were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than usual. Their +leaders were trained to a method of oratory which relied for its effect +rather on the moral sense than the understanding. Their arguments were +drawn, not so much from experience as from general principles of right +and wrong. When the war came, their system continued to be applicable +and effective, for here again the reason of the people was to be +reached and kindled through their sentiments. It was one of those +periods of excitement, gathering, contagious, universal, which, while +they last, exalt and clarify the minds of men, giving to the mere words +_country_, _human rights_, _democracy_, a meaning and a force beyond +that of sober and logical argument. They were convictions, maintained +and defended by the supreme logic of passion. That penetrating fire ran +in and roused those primary instincts that make their lair in the dens +and caverns of the mind. What is called the great popular heart was +awakened, that indefinable something which may be, according to +circumstances, the highest reason or the most brutish unreason. But +enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into anything better +than cant,--and phrases, when once the inspiration that filled them +with beneficent power has ebbed away, retain only that semblance of +meaning which enables them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among the +lessons taught by the French Revolution there is none sadder or more +striking than this, that you may make everything else out of the +passions of men except a political system that will work, and that +there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity +formulated into dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain +of sentiment over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction; +and perhaps the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a +tendency of his own supporters which chimed with his own private +desires, while wholly opposed to his convictions of what would be wise +policy. + +The change which three years have brought about is too remarkable to be +passed over without comment, too weighty in its lesson not to be laid +to heart. Never did a President enter upon office with less means at +his command, outside his own strength of heart and steadiness of +understanding, for inspiring confidence in the people, and so winning +it for himself, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known of him was that he +was a good stump-speaker, nominated for his _availability_,--that is, +because he had no history,--and chosen by a party with whose more +extreme opinions he was not in sympathy. It might well be feared that a +man past fifty, against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could +rake up no accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, in +decision of principle, in strength of will; that a man who was at best +only the representative of a party, and who yet did not fairly +represent even that, would fail of political, much more of popular, +support. And certainly no one ever entered upon office with so few +resources of power in the past, and so many materials of weakness in +the present, as Mr. Lincoln. Even in that half of the Union which +acknowledged him as President, there was a large and at that time +dangerous minority, that hardly admitted his claim to the office, and +even in the party that elected him there was also a large minority that +suspected him of being secretly a communicant with the church of +Laodicea. All that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra +by one side; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of +lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile, he was to carry +on a truly colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the +country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril +undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the +crowning dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the +people, the means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do +it, and perhaps none of our Presidents since Washington has stood so +firm in the confidence of the people as he does after three years of +stormy administration. + +Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He laid down +no programme which must compel him to be either inconsistent or unwise, +no cast-iron theorem to which circumstances must be fitted as they +rose, or else be useless to his ends. He seemed to have chosen +Mazarin's motto, _Le temps et moi_. The _moi_ to be sure, was not very +prominent at first; but it has grown more and more so, till the world +is beginning to be persuaded that it stands for a character of marked +individuality and capacity for affairs. Time was his prime-minister, +and, we began to think, at one period, his general-in-chief also. At +first he was so slow that he tired out all those who see no evidence of +progress but in blowing up the engine; then he was so fast, that he +took the breath away from those who think there is no getting on safely +while there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only being +who has time enough; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize +occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. Mr. +Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we have +sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has always waited, as a +wise man should, till the right moment brought up all his reserves. +_Semper nocuit differre paratis_ is a sound axiom, but the really +efficacious man will also be sure to know when he is _not_ ready, and +be firm against all persuasion and reproach till he is. + +One would be apt to think, from some of the criticisms made on Mr. +Lincoln's course by those who mainly agree with him in principle, that +the chief object of a statesman should be rather to proclaim his +adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their triumph by quietly +accomplishing his ends. In our opinion, there is no more unsafe +politician than a conscientiously rigid _doctrinaire_, nothing more +sure to end in disaster than a theoretic scheme of policy that admits +of no pliability for contingencies. True, there is a popular image of +an impossible He, in whose plastic hands the submissive destinies of +mankind become as wax, and to whose commanding necessity the toughest +facts yield with the graceful pliancy of fiction; but in real life we +commonly find that the men who control circumstances, as it is called, +are those who have learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, +and have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy instant. Mr. +Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through +the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch +opportunity, and the country is to be congratulated that he did not +think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to +assure himself with his setting-pole where the main current was, and +keep steadily to that. He is still in wild water, but we have faith +that his skill and sureness of eye will bring him out right at last. + +A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel might be drawn between +Mr. Lincoln and one of the most striking figures in modern +history,--Henry IV. of France. The career of the latter may be more +picturesque, as that of a daring captain always is; but in all its +vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than that sudden change, as +by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, from the attorney's office in a country +town of Illinois to the helm of a great nation in times like these. The +analogy between the characters and circumstances of the two men is in +many respects singularly close. Succeeding to a rebellion rather than a +crown, Henry's chief material dependence was the Huguenot party, whose +doctrines sat upon him with a looseness distasteful certainly, if not +suspicious, to the more fanatical among them. King only in name over +the greater part of France, and with his capital barred against him, it +yet gradually became clear to the more far-seeing even of the Catholic +party that he was the only centre of order and legitimate authority +round which France could reorganize itself. While preachers who held +the divine right of kings made the churches of Paris ring with +declamations in favor of democracy rather than submit to the heretic +dog of a Bearnois,--much as our _soi-disant_ Democrats have lately been +preaching the divine right of slavery, and denouncing the heresies of +the Declaration of Independence,--Henry bore both parties in hand till +he was convinced that only one course of action could possibly combine +his own interests and those of France. Meanwhile the Protestants +believed somewhat doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped +somewhat doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned +aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a jest or a +proverb (if a little _high_, he liked them none the worse), joking +continually as his manner was. We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously +compared to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of +the deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance ever written; +namely, that, while Don Quixote was incomparable in theoretic and ideal +statesmanship, Sancho, with his stock of proverbs, the ready money of +human experience, made the best possible practical governor. Henry IV. +was as full of wise saws and modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but +beneath all this was the thoughtful, practical, humane, and thoroughly +earnest man, around whom the fragments of France were to gather +themselves till she took her place again as a planet of the first +magnitude in the European system. In one respect Mr. Lincoln was more +fortunate than Henry. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the +most fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his, nor +can the most bitter charge him with being influenced by motives of +personal interest. The leading distinction between the policies of the +two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the nation; Mr. Lincoln +has steadily drawn the nation over to him. One left a united France; +the other, we hope and believe, will leave a reunited America. We leave +our readers to trace the further points of difference and resemblance +for themselves, merely suggesting a general similarity which has often +occurred to us. One only point of melancholy interest we will allow +ourselves to touch upon. That Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant, +we learn from certain English tourists who would consider similar +revelations in regard to Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in their +want of _bienseance_. It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his +fitness for the high place he so worthily occupies; but he is certainly +as fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, if we may trust +contemporary evidence. Mr. Lincoln has also been reproached with +Americanism by some not unfriendly British critics; but, with all +deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse for it, or see +in it any reason why he should govern Americans the less wisely. + +People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are glad +that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us forever +from the Old World, we have had at the head of our affairs a man whom +America made, as God made Adam, out of the very earth, unancestried, +unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much truth, how much magnanimity, +and how much state-craft await the call of opportunity in simple +manhood when it believes in the justice of God and the worth of man. +Conventionalities are all very well in their proper place, but they +shrivel at the touch of nature like stubble in the fire. The genius +that sways a nation by its arbitrary will seems less august to us than +that which multiplies and reinforces itself in the instincts and +convictions of an entire people. Autocracy may have something in it +more melodramatic than this, but falls far short of it in human value +and interest. + +Experience would have bred in us a rooted distrust of improvised +statesmanship, even if we did not believe politics to be a science, +which, if it cannot always command men of special aptitude and great +powers, at least demands the long and steady application of the best +powers of such men as it can command to master even its first +principles. It is curious, that, in a country which boasts of its +intelligence, the theory should be so generally held that the most +complicated of human contrivances, and one which every day becomes more +complicated, can be worked at sight by any man able to talk for an hour +or two without stopping to think. + +Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of a ready-made ruler. +But no case could well be less in point; for, besides that he was a man +of such fair-mindedness as is always the raw material of wisdom, he had +in his profession a training precisely the opposite of that to which a +partisan is subjected. His experience as a lawyer compelled him not +only to see that there is a principle underlying every phenomenon in +human affairs, but that there are always two sides to every question, +both of which must be fully understood in order to understand either, +and that it is of greater advantage to an advocate to appreciate the +strength than the weakness of his antagonist's position. Nothing is +more remarkable than the unerring tact with which, in his debate with +Mr. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the question; nor have +we ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, +that, opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice +and bigotry to his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to +those baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of +barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the +people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu +politician. His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as +of men; his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest +acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the only +durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any abstract +right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable at any given +moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance of mutual +concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal of a +practical statesman,--to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if +he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singularly +masculine, intelligence taught him that precedent is only another name +for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in the +guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual life. He +was not a man who held it good public economy to pull down on the mere +chance of rebuilding better. Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified +by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was +his want of self-confidence that more than anything else won him the +unlimited confidence of the people, for they felt that there would be +no need of retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. The +cautious, but steady, advance of his policy during the war was like +that of a Roman army. He left behind him a firm road on which public +confidence could follow; he took America with him where he went; what +he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts became colonies. The very +homeliness of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was +conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as he, +nor so little conscious of it; for he was the incarnate common-sense of +the people. With all that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness +touched whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, there was no +trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. He seems to have had +but one rule of conduct, always that of practical and successful +politics, to let himself be guided by events, when they were sure to +bring him out where he wished to go, though by what seemed to +unpractical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at the desirable, +a longer road. + +Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship is by degrees to +accommodate the conduct of communities to ethical laws, and to +subordinate the conflicting self-interests of the day to higher and +more permanent concerns. But it is on the understanding, and not on the +sentiment, of a nation that all safe legislation must be based. +Voltaire's saying, that "a consideration of petty circumstances is the +tomb of great things," may be true of individual men, but it certainly +is not true of governments. It is by a multitude of such +considerations, each in itself trifling, but all together weighty, that +the framers of policy can alone divine what is practicable and +therefore wise. The imputation of inconsistency is one to which every +sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject +himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. The +course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, +avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking +the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest +dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of +national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always +recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths +of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal +barriers of both. It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to +combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish +them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, +which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by +it,--that we demand in public men, and not obstinacy in prejudice, +sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is +impracticable. For the impracticable, however theoretically enticing, +is always politically unwise, sound statesmanship being the application +of that prudence to the public business which is the safest guide in +that of private men. + +No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrassing question with +which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which no man in +his position, whatever his opinions, could evade; for, though he might +withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner or later yield to the +persistent importunacy of circumstances, which thrust the problem upon +him at every turn and in every shape. + +It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad, and repeated +here by people who measure their country rather by what is thought of +it than by what it is, that our war has not been distinctly and +avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather for the +preservation of our national power and greatness, in which the +emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circumstances and +accepted as a necessity. We are very far from denying this; nay, we +admit that it is so far true that we were slow to renounce our +constitutional obligations even toward those who had absolved us by +their own act from the letter of our duty. We are speaking of the +government which, legally installed for the whole country, was bound, +so long as it was possible, not to overstep the limits of orderly +prescription, and could not, without abnegating its own very nature, +take the lead in making rebellion an excuse for resolution. There were, +no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who seemed to think this as +simple a thing to do as to lead off a Virginia reel. They forgot what +should be forgotten least of all in a system like ours, that the +administration for the time being represents not only the majority +which elects it, but the minority as well,--a minority in this case +powerful, and so little ready for emancipation that it was opposed even +to war. Mr. Lincoln had not been chosen as general agent of an +antislavery society, but President of the United States, to perform +certain functions exactly defined by law. Whatever were his wishes, it +was no less duty than policy to mark out for himself a line of action +that would not further distract the country, by raising before their +time questions which plainly would soon enough compel attention, and +for which every day was making the answer more easy. + +Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new Sphinx, or be devoured. +Though Mr. Lincoln's policy in this critical affair has not been such +as to satisfy those who demand an heroic treatment for even the most +trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat according to their +cloth, unless they can borrow the scissors of Atropos, it has been at +least not unworthy of the long-headed king of Ithaca. Mr. Lincoln had +the choice of Bassanio offered him. Which of the three caskets held the +prize that was to redeem the fortunes of the country? There was the +golden one whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain man; the +silver of compromise, which might have decided the choice of a merely +acute one; and the leaden,--dull and homely looking, as prudence always +is,--yet with something about it sure to attract the eye of practical +wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied with his decision perhaps longer than +seemed needful to those on whom its awful responsibility was not to +rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of his cautious but +sure-footed understanding. The moral of the Sphinx-riddle, and it is a +deep one, lies in the childish simplicity of the solution. Those who +fail in guessing it, fail because they are over ingenious, and cast +about for an answer that shall suit their own notion of the gravity of +the occasion and of their own dignity, rather than the occasion itself. + +In a matter which must be finally settled by public opinion, and in +regard to which the ferment of prejudice and passion on both sides has +not yet subsided to that equilibrium of compromise from which alone a +sound public opinion can result, it is proper enough for the private +citizen to press his own convictions with all possible force of +argument and persuasion; but the popular magistrate, whose judgment +must become action, and whose action involves the whole country, is +bound to wait till the sentiment of the people is so far advanced +toward his own point of view, that what he does shall find support in +it, instead of merely confusing it with new elements of division. It +was not unnatural that men earnestly devoted to the saving of their +country, and profoundly convinced that slavery was its only real enemy, +should demand a decided policy round which all patriots might +rally,--and this might have been the wisest course for an absolute +ruler. But in the then unsettled state of the public mind, with a large +party decrying even resistance to the slaveholders' rebellion as not +only unwise, but even unlawful; with a majority, perhaps, even of the +would-be loyal so long accustomed to regard the Constitution as a deed +of gift conveying to the South their own judgment as to policy and +instinct as to right, that they were in doubt at first whether their +loyalty were due to the country or to slavery; and with a respectable +body of honest and influential men who still believed in the +possibility of conciliation,--Mr. Lincoln judged wisely, that, in +laying down a policy in deference to one party, he should be giving to +the other the very fulcrum for which their disloyalty had been waiting. + +It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield so far to +an honest indignation against the brokers of treason in the North as to +lose sight of the materials for misleading which were their stock in +trade, and to forget that it is not the falsehood of sophistry which is +to be feared, but the grain of truth mingled with it to make it +specious,--that it is not the knavery of the leaders so much as the +honesty of the followers they may seduce, that gives them power for +evil. It was especially his duty to do nothing which might help the +people to forget the true cause of the war in fruitless disputes about +its inevitable consequences. + +The doctrine of state rights can be so handled by an adroit demagogue +as easily to confound the distinction between liberty and lawlessness +in the minds of ignorant persons, accustomed always to be influenced by +the sound of certain words, rather than to reflect upon the principles +which give them meaning. For, though Secession involves the manifest +absurdity of denying to a State the right of making war against any +foreign power while permitting it against the United States; though it +supposes a compact of mutual concessions and guaranties among States +without any arbiter in case of dissension; though it contradicts +common-sense in assuming that the men who framed our government did not +know what they meant when they substituted Union for Confederation; +though it falsifies history, which shows that the main opposition to +the adoption of the Constitution was based on the argument that it did +not allow that independence in the several States which alone would +justify them in seceding;--yet, as slavery was universally admitted to +be a reserved right, an inference could be drawn from any direct attack +upon it (though only in self-defence) to a natural right of resistance, +logical enough to satisfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, as the +majority of men always are, and now too much disturbed by the disorder +of the times to consider that the order of events had any legitimate +bearing on the argument. Though Mr. Lincoln was too sagacious to give +the Northern allies of the Rebels the occasion they desired and even +strove to provoke, yet from the beginning of the war the most +persistent efforts have been made to confuse the public mind as to its +origin and motives, and to drag the people of the loyal States down +from the national position they had instinctively taken to the old +level of party squabbles and antipathies. The wholly unprovoked +rebellion of an oligarchy proclaiming negro slavery the corner-stone of +free institutions, and in the first flush of over-hasty confidence +venturing to parade the logical sequence of their leading dogma, "that +slavery is right in principle, and has nothing to do with difference of +complexion," has been represented as a legitimate and gallant attempt +to maintain the true principles of democracy. The rightful endeavor of +an established government, the least onerous that ever existed, to +defend itself against a treacherous attack on its very existence, has +been cunningly made to seem the wicked effort of a fanatical clique to +force its doctrines on an oppressed population. + +Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet convinced of the danger +and magnitude of the crisis, was endeavoring to persuade himself of +Union majorities at the South, and to carry on a war that was half +peace in the hope of a peace that would have been all war,--while he +was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, under some theory that +Secession, however it might absolve States from their obligations, +could not escheat them of their claims under the Constitution, and that +slaveholders in rebellion had alone among mortals the privilege of +having their cake and eating it at the same time,--the enemies of free +government were striving to persuade the people that the war was an +Abolition crusade. To rebel without reason was proclaimed as one of the +rights of man, while it was carefully kept out of sight that to +suppress rebellion is the first duty of government. All the evils that +have come upon the country have been attributed to the Abolitionists, +though it is hard to see how any party can become permanently powerful +except in one of two ways,--either by the greater truth of its +principles, or the extravagance of the party opposed to it. To fancy +the ship of state, riding safe at her constitutional moorings, suddenly +engulfed by a huge kraken of Abolitionism, rising from unknown depths +and grasping it with slimy tentacles, is to look at the natural history +of the matter with the eyes of Pontoppidan. To believe that the leaders +in the Southern treason feared any danger from Abolitionism would be to +deny them ordinary intelligence, though there can be little doubt that +they made use of it to stir the passions and excite the fears of their +deluded accomplices. They rebelled, not because they thought slavery +weak, but because they believed it strong enough, not to overthrow the +government, but to get possession of it; for it becomes daily clearer +that they used rebellion only as a means of revolution, and if they got +revolution, though not in the shape they looked for, is the American +people to save them from its consequences at the cost of its own +existence? The election of Mr. Lincoln, which it was clearly in their +power to prevent had they wished, was the occasion merely, and not the +cause, of their revolt. Abolitionism, till within a year or two, was +the despised heresy of a few earnest persons, without political weight +enough to carry the election of a parish constable; and their cardinal +principle was disunion, because they were convinced that within the +Union the position of slavery was impregnable. In spite of the proverb, +great effects do not follow from small causes,--that is, +disproportionately small,--but from adequate causes acting under +certain required conditions. To contrast the size of the oak with that +of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its +slender strong-box, may serve for a child's wonder; but the real +miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the forces of nature +to the service of the tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny. Everything +has been at work for the past ten years in the cause of anti-slavery, +but Garrison and Phillips have been far less successful propagandists +than the slaveholders themselves, with the constantly growing arrogance +of their pretensions and encroachments. They have forced the question +upon the attention of every voter in the Free States, by defiantly +putting freedom and democracy on the defensive. But, even after the +Kansas outrages, there was no wide-spread desire on the part of the +North to commit aggressions, though there was a growing determination +to resist them. The popular unanimity in favor of the war three years +ago was but in small measure the result of anti-slavery sentiment, far +less of any zeal for abolition. But every month of the war, every +movement of the allies of slavery in the Free States, has been making +Abolitionists by the thousand. The masses of any people, however +intelligent, are very little moved by abstract principles of humanity +and justice, until those principles are interpreted for them by the +stinging commentary of some infringement upon their own rights, and +then their instincts and passions, once aroused, do indeed derive an +incalculable reinforcement of impulse and intensity from those higher +ideas, those sublime traditions, which have no motive political force +till they are allied with a sense of immediate personal wrong or +imminent peril. Then at last the stars in their courses begin to fight +against Sisera. Had any one doubted before that the rights of human +nature are unitary, that oppression is of one hue the world over, no +matter what the color of the oppressed,--had any one failed to see what +the real essence of the contest was,--the efforts of the advocates of +slavery among ourselves to throw discredit upon the fundamental axioms +of the Declaration of Independence and the radical doctrines of +Christianity could not fail to sharpen his eyes. + +While every day was bringing the people nearer to the conclusion which +all thinking men saw to be inevitable from the beginning, it was wise +in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this +country, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure +at last to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the +best genius for statesmanship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's +measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted +in more firmly uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly +admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain +tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult +attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal +character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective +ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without +forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through +the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason +and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment +was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside +plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the +reason of the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who +grounded himself on the assumption that a democracy can think. "Come, +let us reason together about this matter," has been the tone of all his +addresses to the people; and accordingly we have never had a chief +magistrate who so won to himself the love and at the same time the +judgment of his countrymen. To us, that simple confidence of his in the +right-mindedness of his fellow-men is very touching, and its success is +as strong an argument as we have ever seen in favor of the theory that +men can govern themselves. He never appeals to any vulgar sentiment, he +never alludes to the humbleness of his origin; it probably never +occurred to him, indeed, that there was anything higher to start from +than manhood; and he put himself on a level with those he addressed, +not by going down to them, but only by taking it for granted that they +had brains and would come up to a common ground of reason. In an +article lately printed in "The Nation," Mr. Bayard Taylor mentions the +striking fact, that in the foulest dens of the Five Points he found the +portrait of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes its hive there +threw all its votes and more against him, and yet paid this instinctive +tribute to the sweet humanity of his nature. Their ignorance sold its +vote and took its money, but all that was left of manhood in them +recognized its saint and martyr. + +Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying, "This is _my_ opinion, or +_my_ theory," but, "This is the conclusion to which, in my judgment, +the time has come, and to which, accordingly, the sooner we come the +better for us." His policy has been the policy of public opinion based +on adequate discussion and on a timely recognition of the influence of +passing events in shaping the features of events to come. + +One secret of Mr. Lincoln's remarkable success in captivating the +popular mind is undoubtedly an unconsciousness of self which enables +him, though under the necessity of constantly using the capital _I_, to +do it without any suggestion of egotism. There is no single vowel which +men's mouths can pronounce with such difference of effect. That which +one shall hide away, as it were, behind the substance of his discourse, +or, if he bring it to the front, shall use merely to give an agreeable +accent of individuality to what he says, another shall make an +offensive challenge to the self-satisfaction of all his hearers, and an +unwarranted intrusion upon each man's sense of personal importance, +irritating every pore of his vanity, like a dry northeast wind, to a +goose-flesh of opposition and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied +Quinctilian; but he has, in the earnest simplicity and unaffected +Americanism of his own character, one art of oratory worth all the +rest. He forgets himself so entirely in his object as to give his _I_ +the sympathetic and persuasive effect of _We_ with the great body of +his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all the rough-edged +process of his thought as it goes along, yet arriving at his +conclusions with an honest kind of every-day logic, he is so eminently +our representative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people +were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dignity of his thought +owes nothing to any ceremonial garb of words, but to the manly movement +that comes of settled purpose and an energy of reason that knows not +what rhetoric means. There has been nothing of Cleon, still less of +Strepsiades striving to underbid him in demagogism, to be found in the +public utterances of Mr. Lincoln. He has always addressed the +intelligence of men, never their prejudice, their passion, or their +ignorance. + + * * * * * * * + +On the day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who according to +one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the _doctrinaires_ among +his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, +was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold +his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of +his countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn the +great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, +to his side. So strong and so persuasive is honest manliness without a +single quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it! A civilian +during times of the most captivating military achievement, awkward, +with no skill in the lower technicalities of manners, he left behind +him a fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace higher +than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanliness deeper than mere +breeding. Never before that startled April morning did such multitudes +of men shed tears for the death of one they had never seen, as if with +him a friendly presence had been taken away from their lives, leaving +them colder and darker. Never was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the +silent look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they met on that +day. Their common manhood had lost a kinsman. + + + + +RECONSTRUCTION + +1865 + + +In the glare of our civil war, certain truths, hitherto unobserved or +guessed at merely, have been brought out with extraordinary sharpness +of relief; and two of them have been specially impressive, the one for +European observers, the other for ourselves. The first, and perhaps the +most startling to the Old World watcher of the political skies, upon +whose field of vision the flaming sword of our western heavens grew +from a misty speck to its full comet-like proportions, perplexing them +with fear of change, has been the amazing strength and no less amazing +steadiness of democratic institutions. An army twice larger than +England, with the help of bounties, drafts, and the purchase of foreign +vagabonds, ever set in the field during the direst stress of her +struggle with Napoleon has been raised in a single year by voluntary +enlistment. A people untrained to bear the burden of heavy taxes not +only devotes to the public service sums gathered by private +subscription that in any other country would be deemed fabulous, but by +sheer force of public opinion compels its legislators to the utmost +ingenuity and searchingness of taxation. What was uttered as a sarcasm +on the want of public spirit in Florence is here only literally true:-- + + "Many refuse to bear the common burden; + But thy solicitous people answereth + Unasked, and cries, 'I bend my back to it.'" + +And that the contrast may be felt in its fullest completeness, we must +consider that no private soldier is tempted into the ranks by hopes of +plunder, or driven into them by want of fair wages for fair work,--that +no officer can look forward to the splendid prizes of hereditary wealth +and title. Love of their country was the only incentive, its gratitude +their only reward. And in the matter of taxation also, a willingness to +help bear the common burden has more of generosity in it where the +wealth of the people is in great part the daily result of their daily +toil, and not a hoard inherited without merit, as without industry. + +Nor have the qualities which lead to such striking results been +exhibited only by the North. The same public spirit, though misled by +wicked men for selfish ends, has shown itself in almost equal strength +at the South. And in both cases it has been unmistakably owing to that +living and active devotion of the people to institutions in whose +excellence they share, and their habit of obedience to laws of their +own making. If we have not hitherto had that conscious feeling of +nationality, the ideal abstract of history and tradition, which belongs +to older countries, compacted, by frequent war and united by memories +of common danger and common triumph, it has been simply because our +national existence has never been in such peril as to force upon us the +conviction that it was both the title-deed of our greatness and its +only safeguard. But what splendid possibilities has not our trial +revealed even to ourselves! What costly stuff whereof to make a nation! +Here at last is a state whose life is not narrowly concentred in a +despot or a class, but feels itself in every limb; a government which +is not a mere application of force from without, but dwells as a vital +principle in the will of every citizen. Our enemies--and wherever a man +is to be found bribed by an abuse, or who profits by a political +superstition, we have a natural enemy--have striven to laugh and sneer +and lie this apparition of royal manhood out of existence. They +conspired our murder; but in this vision is the prophecy of a dominion +which is to push them from their stools, and whose crown doth sear +their eyeballs. America lay asleep, like the princess of the fairy +tale, enchanted by prosperity; but at the first fiery kiss of war the +spell is broken, the blood tingles along her veins again, and she +awakes conscious of her beauty and her sovereignty. + +It is true that, by the side of the self-devotion and public spirit, +the vices and meannesses of troubled times have shown themselves, as +they will and must. We have had shoddy, we have had contracts, we have +had substitute-brokerage, we have had speculators in patriotism, and, +still worse, in military notoriety. Men have striven to make the blood +of our martyrs the seed of wealth or office. But in times of public and +universal extremity, when habitual standards of action no longer serve, +and ordinary currents of thought are swamped in the flood of enthusiasm +or excitement, it always happens that the evil passions of some men are +stimulated by what serves only to exalt the nobler qualities of others. +In such epochs, evil as well as good is exaggerated. A great social +convulsion shakes up the lees which underlie society, forgotten because +quiescent, and the stimulus of calamity brings out the extremes of +human nature, whether for good or evil. + +What is especially instructive in the events we have been witnessing +for the past four years is the fact that the people have been the chief +actors in the drama. They have not been the led, but the leaders. They +have not been involved in war by the passions or interests of their +rulers, but deliberately accepted the ordeal of battle in defence of +institutions which were the work of their own hands, and of whose +beneficence experience had satisfied them. Loyalty has hitherto been a +sentiment rather than a virtue; it has been more often a superstition +or a prejudice than a conviction of the conscience or of the +understanding. Now for the first time it is identical with patriotism, +and has its seat in the brain, and not the blood. It has before been +picturesque, devoted, beautiful, as forgetfulness of self always is, +but now it is something more than all these,--it is logical. Here we +have testimony that cannot be gainsaid to the universal vitality and +intelligence which our system diffuses with healthy pulse through all +its members. Every man feels himself a part, and not a subject, of the +government, and can say in a truer and higher sense than Louis XIV., "I +am the state." But we have produced no Cromwell, no Napoleon. Let us be +thankful that we have passed beyond that period of political +development when such productions are necessary, or even possible. It +is but another evidence of the excellence of the democratic principle. +Where power is the privilege of a class or of a single person, it may +be usurped; but where it is the expression of the common will, it can +no more be monopolized than air or light. The ignorant and unreasoning +force of a populace, sure of losing nothing and with a chance of +gaining something by any change, that restless material out of which +violent revolutions are made, if it exist here at all, is to be found +only in our great cities, among a class who have learned in other +countries to look upon all law as their natural enemy. Nor is it by any +fault of American training, but by the want of it, that these people +are what they are. When Lord Derby says that the government of this +country is at the mercy of an excited mob, he proves either that the +demagogue is no exclusive product of a democracy, or that England would +be in less danger of war if her governing class knew something less of +ancient Greece and a little more of modern America. + +Whether or no there be any truth in the assertion that democracy tends +to bring men down to a common level (as it surely brings them up to +one), we shall not stop to inquire, for the world has not yet had a +long enough experience of it to warrant any safe conclusion. During our +revolutionary struggle, it seems to us that both our civil and military +leaders compare very well in point of ability with the British product +of the same period, and the same thing may very well be true at the +present time. But while it may be the glory, it can hardly be called +the duty of a country to produce great men; and if forms of polity have +anything to do in the matter, we should incline to prefer that which +could make a great nation felt to be such and loved as such by every +human fibre in it, to one which stunted the many that a few favored +specimens might grow the taller and fairer. + +While the attitude of the government was by the necessity of the case +expectant so far as slavery was concerned, it is also true that the +people ran before it, and were moved by a deeper impulse than the mere +instinct of self-preservation. The public conscience gave energy and +intention to the public will, and the bounty which drew our best +soldiers to the ranks was an idea. The game was the ordinary game of +war, and they but the unreasoning pieces on the board; but they felt +that a higher reason was moving them in a game where the stake was the +life not merely of their country, but of a principle whose rescue was +to make America in very deed a New World, the cradle of a fairer +manhood. Weakness was to be no longer the tyrant's opportunity, but the +victim's claim; labor should never henceforth be degraded as a curse, +but honored as that salt of the earth which keeps life sweet, and gives +its savor to duty. To be of good family should mean being a child of +the one Father of us all; and good birth, the being born into God's +world, and not into a fool's paradise of man's invention. But even had +this moral leaven been wanting, had the popular impulse been merely one +of patriotism, we should have been well content to claim as the result +of democracy that for the first time in the history of the world it had +mustered an army that knew for what it was fighting. Nationality is no +dead abstraction, no unreal sentiment, but a living and operative +virtue in the heart and moral nature of men. It enlivens the dullest +soul with an ideal out of and beyond itself, lifting every faculty to a +higher level of vision and action. It enlarges the narrowest intellect +with a fealty to something better than self. It emancipates men from +petty and personal interests, to make them conscious of sympathies +whose society ennobles. Life has a deeper meaning when its throb beats +time to a common impulse and catches its motion from the general heart. + +But while the experience of the last four years has been such, with all +its sorrows, as to make us proud of our strength and grateful for the +sources of it, we cannot but feel that peace will put to the test those +higher qualities which war leaves in reserve. What are we to do with +the country our arms have regained? It is by our conduct in this +stewardship, and not by our rights under the original compact of the +States, that our policy is to be justified. The glory of conquest is +trifling and barren, unless victory clear the way to a higher +civilization, a more solid prosperity, and a Union based upon +reciprocal benefits. In what precise manner the seceding States shall +return, whether by inherent right, or with some preliminary penance and +ceremony of readoption, is of less consequence than what they shall be +after their return. Dependent provinces, sullenly submitting to a +destiny which they loathe, would be a burden to us, rather than an +increase of strength or an element of prosperity. War would have won us +a peace stripped of all the advantages that make peace a blessing. We +should have so much more territory, and so much less substantial +greatness. We did not enter upon war to open a new market, or fresh +fields for speculators, or an outlet for redundant population, but to +save the experiment of democracy from destruction, and put it in a +fairer way of success by removing the single disturbing element. Our +business now is not to allow ourselves to be turned aside from a +purpose which our experience thus far has demonstrated to have been as +wise as it was necessary, and to see to it that, whatever be the other +conditions of reconstruction, democracy, which is our real strength, +receive no detriment. + +We would not be understood to mean that Congress should lay down in +advance a fixed rule not to be departed from to suit the circumstances +of special cases as they arise. What may do very well for Tennessee may +not be as good for South Carolina. Wise statesmanship does not so much +consist in the agreement of its forms with any abstract ideal, however +perfect, as in its adaptation to the wants of the governed and its +capacity of shaping itself to the demands of the time. It is not to be +judged by its intention, but by its results, and those will be +proportioned to its practical, and not its theoretic, excellence. The +Anglo-Saxon soundness of understanding has shown itself in nothing more +clearly than in allowing institutions to be formulated gradually by +custom, convenience, or necessity, and in preferring the practical +comfort of a system that works, to the French method of a scientific +machinery of perpetual motion, demonstrably perfect in all its parts, +and yet refusing to go. We do not wish to see scientific treatment, +however admirable, applied to the details of reconstruction, if that is +to be, as now seems probable, the next problem that is to try our +intelligence and firmness. But there are certain points, it seems to +us, on which it is important that public opinion should come to some +sort of understanding in advance. + +The peace negotiations have been of service in demonstrating that it is +not any ill blood engendered by war, any diversity of interests +properly national, any supposed antagonism of race, but simply the +slaveholding class, that now stands between us and peace, as four years +ago it forced us into war. Precisely as the principle of Divine right +could make no lasting truce with the French Revolution, the Satanic +right of the stronger to enslave the weaker can come to no +understanding with democracy. The conflict is in the things, not in the +men, and one or the other must abdicate. Of course the leaders, to whom +submission would be ruin, and a few sincere believers in the doctrine +of State rights, are willing to sacrifice even slavery for +independence, a word which has a double meaning for some of them; but +there can be no doubt that an offer to receive the seceding States back +to their old position under the Constitution would have put the war +party in a hopeless minority at the South. We think there are manifest +symptoms that the chinks made by the four years' struggle have let in +new light to the Southern people, however it may be with their ruling +faction, and that they begin to suspect a diversity of interest between +themselves, who chiefly suffer by the war, and the small class who +bullied them into it for selfish purposes of their own. However that +may be, the late proposal of Davis and Lee for the arming of slaves, +though they certainly did not so intend it, has removed a very serious +obstacle from our path. It is true that the emancipating clause was +struck out of the act as finally passed by the shadowy Congress at +Richmond. But this was only for the sake of appearances. Once arm and +drill the negroes, and they can never be slaves again. This is admitted +on all hands, and accordingly, whatever the words of the act may be, it +practically at once promotes the negro to manhood by brevet, as it +were, but at any rate to manhood. For the offer of emancipation as a +bounty implies reason in him to whom it is offered; nay, more, implies +a capacity for progress and a wish, for it, which are in themselves +valid titles to freedom. This at a step puts the South back to the +position held by her greatest men in regard to slavery. All the +Scriptural arguments, all the fitness of things, all the physiological +demonstrations, all Mr. Stephens's corner-stones, Ham, Onesimus, heels, +hair, and facial angle,--all are swept out, by one flirt of the besom +of Fate, into the inexorable limbo of things that were and never should +have been. How is Truth wounded to death in the house of her friends! +The highest authority of the South has deliberately renounced its +vested interest in the curse of Noah, and its right to make beasts of +black men because St. Paul sent back a white one to his master. Never +was there a more exact verification of the Spanish proverb, that he who +went out for wool may come back shorn. Alas for Nott and Gliddon! +Thrice alas for Bishop Hopkins! With slavery they lose their hold on +the last clue by which human reason could find its way to a direct +proof of the benevolence of God and the plenary inspiration of +Scripture. + +All that we have learned of the blacks during the war makes the plan of +arming a part of them to help maintain the master's tyranny over the +rest seem so futile, and the arguments urged against it by Mr. Gholson +and Mr. Hunter are so convincing, that we can hardly persuade ourselves +that the authors of it did not intend it to make the way easier, not to +independence, but to reunion. It is said to argue desperation on the +part of the chief conspirators at Richmond, and it undoubtedly does; +but we see in what we believe to be the causes of their despair +something more hopeful than the mere exhaustion it indicates. It is +simply incredible that the losses of a four years' war should have +drained the fighting men of a population of five millions, or anything +like it; and the impossibility of any longer filling the Rebel armies +even by the most elaborate system of press-gangs proves to our mind +that the poorer class of whites have for some reason or other deserted +the cause of the wealthy planters. The men are certainly there, but +they have lost all stomach for fighting. Here again we see something +which is likely to make a final settlement more easy than it would have +been even a year ago. Though the fact that so large a proportion of the +Southern people cannot read makes it harder to reach them, yet our +soldiers have circulated among them like so many Northern newspapers, +and it is impossible that this intercourse, which has been constant, +should not have suggested to them many ideas of a kind which their +treacherous guides would gladly keep from them. The frantic rage of +Southern members of Congress against such books as Helper's can be +explained only by their fear lest their poorer constituents should be +set a-thinking, for the notion of corrupting a field-hand by an +Abolition document is too absurd even for a Wigfall or a Charleston +editor. + +Here, then, are two elements of a favorable horoscope for our future; +an acknowledgment of the human nature of the negro by the very +Sanhedrim of the South, thus removing his case from the court of ethics +to that of political economy; and a suspicion on the part of the +Southern majority that something has been wrong, which makes them +readier to see and accept what is right. We do not mean to say that +there is any very large amount of even latent Unionism at the South, +but we believe there is plenty of material in solution there which +waits only to be precipitated into whatever form of crystal we desire. +We must not forget that the main elements of Southern regeneration are +to be sought in the South itself, and that such elements are abundant. +A people that has shown so much courage and constancy in a bad cause, +because they believed it a good one, is worth winning even by the +sacrifice of our natural feeling of resentment. If we forgive the negro +for his degradation and his ignorance, in consideration of the system +of which he has been the sacrifice, we ought also to make every +allowance for the evil influence of that system upon the poor whites. +It is the fatal necessity of all wrong to revenge itself upon those who +are guilty of it, or even accessory to it. The oppressor is dragged +down by the victim of his tyranny. The eternal justice makes the +balance even; and as the sufferer by unjust laws is lifted above his +physical abasement by spiritual compensations and that nearness to God +which only suffering is capable of, in like measure are the material +advantages of the wrong-doer counterpoised by a moral impoverishment. +Our duty is not to punish, but to repair; and the cure must work both +ways, emancipating the master from the slave, as well as the slave from +the master. Once rid of slavery, which was the real criminal, let us +have no more reproaches, justifiable only while the Southern sin made +us its forced accomplices; and while we bind up the wounds of our black +brother who had fallen among thieves that robbed him of his rights as a +man, let us not harden our hearts against our white brethren, from whom +interest and custom, those slyer knaves, whose fingers we have felt +about our own pockets, had stolen away their conscience and their sense +of human brotherhood. + +The first question that arises in the mind of everybody in thinking of +reconstruction is, What is to be done about the negro? After the war is +over, there will be our Old Man of the Sea, as ready to ride us as +ever. If we only emancipate him, he will not let us go free. We must do +something more than merely this. While the suffering from them is still +sharp, we should fix it in our minds as a principle, that the evils +which have come upon us are the direct and logical consequence of our +forefathers having dealt with a question of man as they would with one +of trade or territory,--as if the rights of others were something +susceptible of compromise,--as if the laws that govern the moral, and, +through it, the material world, would stay their operation for our +convenience. It is well to keep this present in the mind, because in +the general joy and hurry of peace we shall be likely to forget it +again, and to make concessions, or to leave things at loose ends for +time to settle,--as time has settled the blunders of our ancestors. Let +us concede everything except what does not belong to us, but is only a +trust-property, namely, the principle of democracy and the prosperity +of the future involved in the normal development of that principle. + +We take it for granted at the outset, that the mind of the country is +made up as to making no terms with slavery in any way, large or +limited, open or covert. Not a single good quality traceable to this +system has been brought to light in the white race at the South by the +searching test of war. In the black it may have engendered that +touching piety of which we have had so many proofs, and it has +certainly given them the unity of interest and the sympathy of +intelligence which make them everywhere our friends, and which have +saved them from compromising their advantage, and still further +complicating the difficulties of civil war by insurrection. But what +have been its effects upon the ruling class, which is, after all, the +supreme test of institutions? It has made them boastful, selfish, +cruel, and false, to a degree unparalleled in history. So far from +having given them any special fitness for rule, it has made them +incapable of any but violent methods of government, and unable to deal +with the simplest problems of political economy. An utter ignorance of +their own countrymen at the North led them to begin the war, and an +equal misconception of Europe encouraged them to continue it. That +they have shown courage is true, but that is no exclusive property of +theirs, and the military advantage they seemed to possess is due less +to any superiority of their own than to the extent of their territory +and the roadless wildernesses which are at once the reproach and the +fortification of their wasteful system of agriculture. Their advantages +in war have been in proportion to their disadvantages in peace, and it +is peace which most convincingly tries both the vigor of a nation and +the wisdom of its polity. It is with this class that we shall have to +deal in arranging the conditions of settlement; and we must do it with +a broad view of the interests of the whole country and of the great +mass of the Southern people, whose ignorance and the prejudices +consequent from it made it so easy to use them as the instruments of +their own ruin. No immediate advantage must blind us to the real +objects of the war,--the securing our external power and our internal +tranquillity, and the making them inherent and indestructible by +founding them upon the common welfare. + +The first condition of permanent peace is to render those who were the +great slaveholders when the war began, and who will be the great +landholders after it is over, powerless for mischief. What punishment +should be inflicted on the chief criminals is a matter of little +moment. The South has received a lesson of suffering which satisfies +all the legitimate ends of punishment, and as for vengeance, it is +contrary to our national temper and the spirit of our government. Our +great object should be, not to weaken, but to strengthen the South,--to +make it richer, and not poorer. We must not repeat the stupid and fatal +blunder of slaveholding publicists, that the wealth and power of one +portion of the country are a drain upon the resources of the rest, +instead of being their natural feeders and invigorators. Any general +confiscation of Rebel property, therefore, seems to us unthrifty +housekeeping, for it is really a levying on our own estate, and a +lessening of our own resources. The people of the Southern States will +be called upon to bear their part of the grievous burden of taxation +which the war will leave upon our shoulders, and that is the fairest as +well as the most prudent way of making them contribute to our national +solvency. All irregular modes of levying contributions, however +just,--and exactly just they can seldom be,--leave discontent behind +them, while a uniform system, where every man knows what he is to pay +and why he is to pay it, tends to restore stability by the very +evenness of its operation, by its making national interests familiar to +all, and by removing any sense of injustice. Any sweeping confiscation, +such as has sometimes been proposed in Congress with more heat than +judgment, would render the South less available for revenue, would +retard the return of industry to its legitimate channels, by lessening +its means, and would not destroy the influence of the misgoverning +aristocracy. On the contrary, it would give them that prestige of +misfortune whose power over the sentiments of mankind is the moral of +the story of Stuarts and Bourbons and Bonapartes. Retribution they +should have, but let them have it in the only way worthy of a great +people to inflict. Let it come in a sense of their own folly and sin, +brought about by the magnanimity of their conquerors, by the return of +a more substantial prosperity born of the new order of things, so as to +convince, instead of alienating. We should remember that it is our +country which we have regained, and not merely a rebellious faction +which we have subdued. + +Whether it would not be good policy for the general government to +assume all the wild lands in the rebellious States, and to devote the +proceeds of their sale to actual settlers to the payment of the +national debt, is worth consideration. Texas alone, on whose public +lands our assumption of her indebtedness gives us an equitable claim, +would suffice to secure our liabilities and to lighten our taxation, +and in all cases of land granted to freedmen no title should vest till +a fair price had been paid,--a principle no less essential to their +true interests than our own. That these people, who are to be the +peasantry of the future Southern States, should be made landholders, is +the main condition of a healthy regeneration of that part of the +country, and the one warranty of our rightful repossession of it. The +wealth that makes a nation really strong, and not merely rich, is the +opportunity for industry, intelligence, and well-being of its laboring +population. This is the real country of poor men, as the great majority +must always be. No glories of war or art, no luxurious refinement of +the few, can give them a sense of nationality where this is wanting. If +we free the slave without giving him a right in the soil, and the +inducement to industry which this offers, we reproduce only a more +specious form of all the old abuses. We leave all political power in +the hands of the wealthy landholders, where it was before. We leave the +poorer whites unemancipated, for we leave labor still at the mercy of +capital, and with its old stigma of degradation. Blind to the lessons +of all experience, we deliberately make the South what Ireland was when +Arthur Young travelled there, the country richest in the world by +nature, reduced to irredeemable poverty and hopeless weakness by an +upper class who would not, and a lower class who could not, improve. We +have no right to purchase dominion, no right to purchase even +abolition, at such a price as that. No _uti possidetis_ conveys any +legitimate title, except on the condition of wise administration and +mutual benefit. + +But will it be enough to make the freedmen landholders merely? Must we +not make them voters also, that they may have that power of +self-protection which no interference of government can so safely, +cheaply, and surely exercise in their behalf? We answer this question +in the affirmative, for reasons both of expediency and justice. At +best, the difficulty, if not settled now, will come up again for +settlement hereafter, when it may not be so easy of solution. As a +matter of expediency, it is always wisest to shape a system of policy +with a view to permanence, much more than to immediate convenience. +When things are put upon a right footing at first,--and the only right +footing is one which will meet the inevitable demands of the future as +well as the more noisy ones of the present,--all subsidiary relations +will of necessity arrange themselves by mutual adaptation, without +constantly calling for the clumsy interference of authority. We must +leave behind us no expectation and no fear of change, to unsettle men's +minds and dishearten their industry. Both the late master and the late +slave should begin on the new order of things with a sense of its +permanence on the one hand and its rightfulness on the other. They will +soon learn that neither intelligence can do without labor, nor labor +without intelligence, and that wealth will result only from a clearly +understood and reciprocally beneficial dependence of each upon the +other. Unless we make the black a citizen, we take away from the white +the strongest inducement to educate and enlighten him. As a mere +proletary, his ignorance is a temptation to the stronger race; as a +voter, it is a danger to them which it becomes their interest to +remove. It is easy to manage the mob of New York for the time with +grape-shot, but it is the power for evil which their suffrage gives +them that will at last interest all classes, by reform and education, +to make it a power for good. + +Under the head of expediency comes also this other +consideration,--that, unless made citizens, the emancipated blacks, +reckoned as they must be in the basis of representation, and yet +without power to modify the character of the representatives chosen, +will throw so much more power into the hands of men certain to turn it +to their disadvantage, and only too probably to our own. This mass, if +we leave it inert, may, in any near balance of parties, be enough to +crush us; while, if we endow it with life and volition, if we put it in +the way of rising in intelligence and profiting by self-exertion, it +will be the best garrison for maintaining the supremacy of our ideas, +till they have had time to justify themselves by experience. Have we +endured and prosecuted this war for the sake of bringing back our old +enemies to legislate for us, stronger than ever, with all the +resentment and none of the instruction of defeat? + +But as a measure of justice also, which is always the highest +expediency, we are in favor of giving the ballot to the freedmen. Our +answer to the question, What are we to do with the negro? is short and +simple. Give him a fair chance. We must get rid of the delusion that +right is in any way dependent on the skin, and not on an inward virtue. +Our war has been carried on for the principles of democracy, and a +cardinal point of those principles is, that the only way in which to +fit men for freedom is to make them free, the only way to teach them +how to use political power is to give it them. Both South and North +have at last conceded the manhood of the negro, and the question now is +how we shall make that manhood available and profitable to him and to +us. Democracy does not mean, to any intelligent person, an attempt at +the impossibility of making one man as good as another. But it +certainly does mean the making of one man's manhood as good as +another's and the giving to every human being the right of unlimited +free trade in all his faculties and acquirements. We believe the white +race, by their intellectual and traditional superiority, will retain +sufficient ascendency to prevent any serious mischief from the new +order of things. We admit that the whole subject bristles with +difficulties, and we would by no means discuss or decide it on +sentimental grounds. But our choice would seem to be between +unqualified citizenship, to depend on the ability to read and write, if +you will, and setting the blacks apart in some territory by themselves. +There are, we think, insuperable objections to this last plan. It would +put them beyond the reach of all good influence from the higher +civilization of the whites, without which they might relapse into +barbarism like the Maroons of Surinam, and it would deprive the whole +Southern country of the very labor it needs. As to any prejudices which +should prevent the two races from living together, it would soon yield +to interest and necessity. The mere antipathy of color is not so strong +there as here, and the blacks would form so very large a majority of +the laboring class as not to excite the jealousy of rivalry. We can +remember when the prejudice against the Celt was as strong in many of +the Free States as that against the African could ever be at the South. +It is not very long since this prejudice nearly gave a new direction to +the politics of the country. Yet, like all prejudices, it had not +coherence enough to keep any considerable party long together. + +The objections to the plan are, of course, the same which lie against +any theory of universal suffrage. These are many and strong, if +considered abstractly; but we assume that theory to be admitted now as +the rule of our political practice, and its evils as a working system +have not been found so great, taking the country at large, as nearly to +outweigh, its advantages. Moreover, as we have said before, it compels +the redress of its own abuses, and the remedy is one which is a benefit +to the whole community, for it is simply to raise the general standard +of intelligence. It is superior, certainly, to the English system, in +which the body of the nation is alienated from its highest intellect +and culture. We think the objections are quite as strong to any +elective plan of government, for a select majority is as liable to be +governed by its interests and passions as any popular one. Witness the +elections at Oxford. Is the average wisdom or unselfishness of mankind +so high that there should be no narrow minds and no selfish hearts in +any body of electors, however carefully selected? The only infallible +sovereign on earth is chosen by the majority of a body in which passion +and intrigue and the influence (sometimes none of the purest) of +conflicting courts are certainly not inoperative. Man is perhaps not +the wisest of animals, but he has at least as keen a sense of his own +advantage in a hovel as in a palace, and what is for the interest of +the masses of the people is not very far from being for that of the +country. It is said, to be sure, that we are inadequately represented +in Congress; but a representative is apt to be a tolerably exact +exponent of the merits of his constituency, and we must look for relief +to the general improvement of our people in morals, manners, and +culture. We doubt if the freedmen would send worse members to Congress +than some in whose election merchants and bankers and even doctors of +divinity have been accomplices. + +With the end of the war the real trial of our statesmanship, our +patriotism, and our patience will begin. The passions excited by it +will, no doubt, subside in due time, but meanwhile it behooves the +party in possession of the government to conciliate patriotic men of +all shades of opinion by a liberal, manly and unpartisan policy. +Republicans must learn to acknowledge that all criticisms of their +measures have not been dictated by passion or disloyalty, that many +moderate and honest men, many enlightened ones, have really found +reason for apprehension in certain arbitrary stretches of authority, +nay, may even have been opposed to the war itself, without being in +love with slavery, and without deserving to be called Copperheads. Many +have doubted the wisdom of our financial policy, without being +unpatriotic. It is precisely this class, dispassionate and moderate in +their opinions, whose help we shall need in healing the wounds of war +and giving equanimity to our counsels. We hope to see a course of +action entered upon which shall draw them to its support. In peace, +governments cannot, as in war, find strength in the enthusiasm and even +the passions of the people, but must seek it in the approval of their +judgment and convictions. During war, all the measures of the dominant +party have a certain tincture of patriotism; declamation serves very +well the purposes of eloquence, and fervor of persuasion passes muster +as reason; but in peaceful times everything must come back to a +specific standard, and stand or fall on its own merits. Our faith is +not unmixed with apprehension when we think of the immediate future, +yet it is an abiding faith nevertheless; and with the experience of the +last four years to sustain us, we are willing to believe almost +anything good of the American people, and to say with the saint, +_Credimus quia impossibile est_. We see no good reason why, if we +use our victory with the moderation becoming men who profess themselves +capable of self-government, conceding all that can be conceded without +danger to the great principle which has been at stake, the North and +the South should not live more harmoniously together in the future than +in the past, now that the one rock of offence has been blasted out of +the way. We do not believe that the war has tended to lessen their +respect for each other, or that it has left scars which will take to +aching again with every change of the political weather. We must bind +the recovered communities to us with hooks of interest, by convincing +them that we desire their prosperity as an integral part of our own. +For a long while yet there will be a latent disaffection, even when the +outward show may be fair, as in spring the ground often stiffens when +the thermometer is above the freezing point. But we believe, in spite +of this, that all this untowardness will yield to the gradual wooing of +circumstances, and that it is to May, and not December, that we are to +look forward. Even in our finances, which are confessedly our weakest +point, we doubt if the experience of any other nation will enable us to +form a true conception of our future. We shall have, beyond question, +the ordinary collapse of speculation that follows a sudden expansion of +paper currency. We shall have that shivering and expectant period when +the sails flap and the ship trembles ere it takes the wind on the new +tack. But it is no idle boast to say that there never was a country +with such resources as ours. In Europe the question about a man always +is, What _is_ he? Here it is as invariably, What does he _do_? And in +that little difference lies the security of our national debt for +whoever has eyes. In America there is no idle class supported at the +expense of the nation, there is no splendid poor-house of rank or +office, but every man is at work adding his share to the wealth, and to +that extent insuring the solvency, of the country. Our farm, indeed, is +mortgaged, but it is a mortgage which the yearly profits will pay off. + +Those who look upon the war as a wicked crusade of the North against +the divinely sanctioned institutions of the South, and those who hope +even yet to reknit the monstrous league between slavery and a party +calling itself Democratic, will of course be willing to take back the +seceding States without conditions. Neither of these classes is any +longer formidable, either by its numbers or the character of its +leaders. But there is yet a third class, who seem to have confused +their minds with some fancied distinction between civil and foreign +war. Holding the States to be indestructible, they seem to think that, +by the mere cessation of hostilities, they are to resume their places +as if nothing had happened, or rather as if this had been a mere +political contest which we had carried. But it is with the people of +the States, and not with any abstract sovereignty, that we have been at +war, and it is of them that we are to exact conditions, and not of some +convenient quasi-entity, which is not there when the battle is raging, +and is there when the terms of capitulation are to be settled. No, it +is slavery which made this war, and slavery which must pay the damages. +While we should not by any unseemly exultation remind the Southern +people that they have been conquered, we should also not be weak enough +to forget that we have won the right of the victor. And what is that +right, if it be not to exact indemnity for the past and security for +the future? And what more nobly and satisfactorily fulfils both those +conditions, than utterly to extinguish the cause of quarrel? What we +fear is the foolish and weak good-nature inherent in popular +government, but against which monarchies and aristocracies are insured +by self-interest, which the prospect of peace is sure to arouse, and +which may make our settlement a stage-reconciliation, where everybody +rushes into the arms of everybody else with a fervor which has nothing +to do with the living relations of the actors. We believe that the +public mind should be made up as to what are the essential conditions +of real and lasting peace, before it is subjected to the sentimental +delusions of the inevitable era of good feeling, in which the stronger +brother is so apt to play the part of Esau. If we are to try the +experiment of democracy fairly, it must be tried in its fullest extent, +and not half-way. The theory which grants political power to the +ignorant white foreigner need not be squeamish about granting it to the +ignorant black native, for the gist of the matter is in the dark mind, +and not the more or less dusky skin. Of course we shall be met by the +usual fallacy,--Would you confer equality on the blacks? But the answer +is a very simple one. Equality cannot be conferred on any man, be he +white or black. If he be capable of it, his title is from God, and not +from us. The opinion of the North is made up on the subject of +emancipation, and Mr. Lincoln has announced it as the one essential +preliminary to the readmission of the insurgent States. To our mind, +citizenship is the necessary consequence, as it is the only effectual +warranty, of freedom; and accordingly we are in favor of distinctly +settling beforehand some conditional right of admission to it. We have +purposely avoided any discussion on gradualism as an element in +emancipation, because we consider its evil results to have been +demonstrated in the British West Indies. True conservative policy is +not an anodyne hiding away our evil from us in a brief forgetfulness. +It looks to the long future of a nation, and dares the heroic remedy +where it is scientifically sure of the nature of the disease. The only +desperate case for a people is where its moral sense is paralyzed, and +the first symptom is a readiness to accept an easy expedient at the +sacrifice of a difficult justice. The relation which is to be final and +permanent cannot be too soon decided on and put in working order, +whether for the true interest of master or slave; and the only safe +relation is one that shall be fearlessly true to the principles in +virtue of which we asserted our own claim to autonomy, and our right to +compel obedience to the government so established. Anything short of +that has the weakness of an expedient which will erelong compel us to +reconstruct our reconstruction, and the worse weakness of hypocrisy, +which will sooner or later again lay us open to the retribution of that +eternal sincerity which brings all things at last to the test of its +own unswerving standard. + + + + +SCOTCH THE SNAKE, OR KILL IT? + +1865 + + +It has been said that the American people are less apt than others to +profit by experience, because the bustle of their lives keeps breaking +the thread of that attention which is the material of memory, till no +one has patience or leisure to spin from it a continuous thread of +thought. We suspect that this is not more true of us than of other +nations,--than it is of all people who read newspapers. Great events +are perhaps not more common than they used to be, but a vastly greater +number of trivial incidents are now recorded, and this dust of time +gets in our eyes. The telegraph strips history of everything down to +the bare fact, but it does not observe the true proportions of things, +and we must make an effort to recover them. In brevity and cynicism it +is a mechanical Tacitus, giving no less space to the movements of Sala +than of Sherman, as impartial a leveller as death. It announces with +equal _sangfroid_ the surrender of Kirby Smith and the capture of a +fresh rebel governor, reducing us to the stature at which posterity +shall reckon us. Eminent contemporaneousness may see here how much +space will be allotted to it in the historical compends and biographical +dictionaries of the next generation. In artless irony the telegraph is +unequalled among the satirists of this generation. But this short-hand +diarist confounds all distinctions of great and little, and roils the +memory with minute particles of what is oddly enough called intelligence. +We read in successive paragraphs the appointment of a Provisional +Governor of North Carolina, whose fitness or want of it may be the +turning-point of our future history, and the nomination of a minister, +who will at most only bewilder some foreign court with a more +desperately helpless French than his predecessor. The conspiracy trial +at Washington, whose result will have absolutely no effect on the real +affairs of the nation, occupies for the moment more of the public mind +and thought than the question of reconstruction, which involves the +life or death of the very principle we have been fighting for these +four years. + +Undoubtedly the event of the day, whatever it may be, is apt to become +unduly prominent, and to thrust itself obscuringly between us and the +perhaps more important event of yesterday, where the public appetite +demands fresh gossip rather than real news, and the press accordingly +keeps its spies everywhere on the lookout for trifles that become +important by being later than the last. And yet this minuteness of +triviality has its value also. Our sensitive sheet gives us every +morning the photograph of yesterday, and enables us to detect and to +study at leisure that fleeting expression of the time which betrays its +character, and which might altogether escape us in the idealized +historical portrait. We cannot estimate the value of the _items_ in our +daily newspaper, because the world to which they relate is too familiar +and prosaic; but a hundred years hence some Thackeray will find them +full of picturesque life and spirit. The "Chronicle" of the Annual +Register makes the England of the last century more vividly real to us +than any history. The jests which Pompeian idlers scribbled on the +walls, while Vesuvius was brooding its fiery conspiracy under their +feet, bring the scene nearer home to us than the letter of Pliny, and +deepen the tragedy by their trifling contrast, like the grave-diggers' +unseemly gabble in Hamlet. Perhaps our judgment of history is made +sounder, and our view of it more lifelike, when we are so constantly +reminded how the little things of life assert their place alongside the +great ones, and how healthy the constitution of the race is, how sound +its digestion, how gay its humor, that can take the world so easily +while our continent is racked with fever and struggling for life +against the doctors. + + "Let Hercules himself do what he may, + The cat will mew, the dog must have his day." + +It is always pleasant to meet Dame Clio over the tea-table, as it were, +where she is often more entertaining, if not more instructive, than +when she puts on the loftier port and more ceremonious habit of a Muse. +These inadvertences of history are pleasing. We are no longer +foreigners, in any age of the world, but feel that in a few days we +could have accommodated ourselves there, and that, wherever men are, we +are not far from home. The more we can individualize and personify, the +more lively our sympathy. Man interests us scientifically, but men +claim us through all that we have made a part of our nature by +education and custom. We would give more to know what Xenophon's +soldiers gossiped about round their camp-fires, than for all the +particulars of their retreat. Sparta becomes human to us when we think +of Agesilaus on his hobby-horse. Finding that those heroic figures +romped with their children, we begin for the first time to suspect that +they ever really existed as much as Robinson Crusoe. Without these +personal traits, antiquity seems as unreal to us as Sir Thomas More's +Utopia. It is, indeed, surprising how little of real life what is +reckoned solid literature has preserved to us, voluminous as it is. +Where does chivalry at last become something more than a mere +procession of plumes and armor, to be lamented by Burke, except in some +of the less ambitious verses of the Trouveres, where we hear the +canakin clink too emphatically, perhaps, but which at least paint +living men and possible manners? Tennyson's knights are cloudy, +gigantic, of no age or country, like the heroes of Ossian. They are +creatures without stomachs. Homer is more condescending, and though we +might not be able to draw the bow of Ulysses, we feel quite at home +with him and Eumaeus over their roast pork. + +We cannot deny that the poetical view of any period is higher, and in +the deepest sense truer, than all others; but we are thankful also for +the penny-a-liner, whether ancient or modern, who reflects the whims +and humors, the enthusiasms and weaknesses, of the public in unguarded +moments. Is it so certain, after all, that we should not be interesting +ourselves in other quite as nugatory matters if these were denied us? +In one respect, and no unimportant one, the instantaneous dispersion of +news and the universal interest in it have affected the national +thought and character. The whole people have acquired a certain +metropolitan temper; they feel everything at once and in common; a +single pulse sends anger, grief, or triumph through the whole country; +one man sitting at the keyboard of the telegraph in Washington sets the +chords vibrating to the same tune from sea to sea; and this +simultaneousness, this unanimity, deepens national consciousness and +intensifies popular emotion. Every man feels himself a part, sensitive +and sympathetic, of this vast organism, a partner in its life or death. +The sentiment of patriotism is etherealized and ennobled by it, is +kindled by the more or less conscious presence of an ideal element; and +the instinctive love of a few familiar hills and fields widens, till +Country is no longer an abstraction, but a living presence, felt in the +heart and operative in the conscience, like that of an absent mother. +It is no trifling matter that thirty millions of men should be thinking +the same thought and feeling the same pang at a single moment of time, +and that these vast parallels of latitude should become a neighborhood +more intimate than many a country village. The dream of Human +Brotherhood seems to be coming true at last. The peasant who dipped his +net in the Danube, or trapped the beaver on its banks, perhaps never +heard of Caesar or of Caesar's murder; but the shot that shattered the +forecasting brain, and curdled the warm, sweet heart of the most +American of Americans, echoed along the wires through the length and +breadth of a continent, swelling all eyes at once with tears of +indignant sorrow. Here was a tragedy fulfilling the demands of +Aristotle, and purifying with an instantaneous throb of pity and terror +a theatre of such proportions as the world never saw. We doubt if +history ever recorded an event so touching and awful as this sympathy, +so wholly emancipated from the toils of space and time that it might +seem as if earth were really sentient, as some have dreamed, or the +great god Pan alive again to make the hearts of nations stand still +with his shout. What is Beethoven's "Funeral March for the Death of a +Hero" to the symphony of love, pity, and wrathful resolve which the +telegraph of that April morning played on the pulses of a nation? + +It has been said that our system of town meetings made our Revolution +possible, by educating the people in self-government. But this was at +most of partial efficacy, while the newspaper and telegraph, gather the +whole nation into a vast town-meeting, where every one hears the +affairs of the country discussed, and where the better judgment is +pretty sure to make itself valid at last. No memorable thing is said or +done, no invention or discovery is made, that some mention of it does +not sooner or later reach the ears of a majority of Americans. It is +this constant mental and moral stimulus which gives them the alertness +and vivacity, the wide-awakeness of temperament, characteristic of +dwellers in great cities, and which has been remarked on by English +tourists as if it were a kind of physiological transformation. They +seem to think we have lost something of that solidity of character +which (with all other good qualities) they consider the peculiar +inheritance of the British race, though inherited in an elder brother's +proportion by the favored dwellers in the British Isles. We doubt if +any substantial excellence is lost by this suppling of the intellectual +faculties, and bringing the nervous system nearer the surface by the +absorption of superfluous fat. What is lost in bulk may be gained in +spring. It is true that the clown, with his parochial horizon, his diet +inconveniently thin, and his head conveniently thick, whose notion of +greatness is a prize pig, and whose patriotism rises or falls with the +strength of his beer, is a creature as little likely to be met with +here as the dodo, his only rival in the qualities that make up a good +citizen; but this is no result of climatic influences. Such creatures +are the contemporaries of an earlier period of civilization than ours. +Nor is it so clear that solidity is always a virtue, and lightness a +vice in character, any more than in bread, or that the leaven of our +institutions works anything else than a wholesome ferment and aeration. +The experience of the last four years is enough to prove that +sensibility may consist with tenacity of purpose, and that enthusiasm +may become a permanent motive where the conviction of the worth of its +object is profound and logical. There are things in this universe +deeper and higher, more solid even, than the English Constitution. If +that is the perfection of human wisdom and a sufficing object of faith +and worship for our cousins over the water, on the other hand God's +dealing with this chosen people is preparing them to conceive of a +perfection of divine wisdom, of a constitution in the framing of which +man's wit had no share, and which shall yet be supreme, as it is +continually more or less plainly influential in the government of the +world. We may need even sterner teaching than any we have yet had, but +we have faith that the lesson will be learned at last. + +If the assertion which we alluded to at the outset were true, if we, +more than others, are apt to forget; the past in the present, the work +of Mr. Moore[6] would do much in helping us to recover what we have +lost. Had its execution been as complete as its plan was excellent, it +would have left nothing to be desired. Its want of order may be charged +upon the necessity of monthly publication; but there are other defects +which this will hardly excuse. The editor seems to have become +gradually helpless before the mass of material that heaped itself about +him, and to have shovelled from sheer despair of selection. In the +documentary part he is sufficiently, sometimes even depressingly full, +and he has preserved a great deal of fugitive poetry from both sides, +much of it spirited, and some of it vigorously original;[7] but he has +frequently neglected to give his authorities. His extracts from the +newspapers of the day, especially from Southern and foreign ones, are +provokingly few, and his department of "incidents and rumors," the true +mirror of the time, inadequate both in quantity and quality. In spite +of these defects, however, there is enough to recall vividly the +features of the time at any marked period during the war, to renew the +phases of feeling, to trace the slowly gathering current of opinion, +and to see a definite purpose gradually orbing itself out of the chaos +of plans and motives, hopes, fears, enthusiasms, and despondencies. We +do not propose to review the book,--we might, indeed, almost as well +undertake to review the works of Father Time himself,--but, relying +chiefly on its help in piecing out our materials, shall try to freshen +the memory of certain facts and experiences worth bearing in mind +either for example or warning. + + [6] _The Rebellion Record._ Edited by Frank Moore. Six vols. + + [7] See especially _The Old Sergeant_, a remarkable poem by + Forseythe Willson, in the sixth volume. + +It is of importance, especially considering the part which what are +called the "leading minds" of the South are expected to play in +reconstruction, to keep clearly before our eyes the motives and the +manner of the Rebellion. Perhaps we should say inducements rather than +motives, for of these there was but a single one put forward by the +seceding States, namely, the obtaining security, permanence, and +extension for the system of slavery. We do not use the qualifying +epithet "African," because the franker propagandists of Southern +principles affirmed the divine institution of slavery pure and simple, +without regard to color or the curse of Canaan. This being the single +motive of the Rebellion, what was its real object? Primarily, to +possess itself of the government by a sudden _coup d'etat_; or that +failing, then, secondarily, by a peaceful secession, which should +paralyze the commerce and manufactures of the Free States, to bring +them to terms of submission. Whatever may have been the opinion of some +of the more far-sighted, it is clear that a vast majority of the +Southern people, including their public men, believed that their +revolution would be peaceful. Their inducements to moving precisely +when they did were several. At home the treasury was empty; faithless +ministers had supplied the Southern arsenals with arms, and so disposed +the army and navy as to render them useless for any sudden need; but +above all, they could reckon on several months of an administration +which, if not friendly, was so feeble as to be more dangerous to the +country than to its betrayers, and there was a great party at the North +hitherto their subservient allies, and now sharing with them in the +bitterness of a common political defeat.[8] Abroad there was peace, +with the prospect of its continuance; the two great maritime powers +were also the great consumers of cotton, were both deadly enemies, like +themselves, to the democratic principle, and, if not actively +interfering, would at least throw all the moral weight of their +sympathy and encouragement on the Southern side. They were not +altogether mistaken in their reckoning. The imbecility of Mr. Buchanan +bedded the ship of state in an ooze of helpless inaction, where none of +her guns could be brought to bear, and whence nothing but the tide of +indignation which followed the attack on Sumter could have set her +afloat again, while prominent men and journals of the Democratic party +hastened to assure the Rebels, not only of approval, but of active +physical assistance. England, with indecent eagerness, proclaimed a +neutrality which secured belligerent rights to a conspiracy that was +never to become a nation, and thus enabled members of Parliament to fit +out privateers to prey with impunity on the commerce of a friendly +power. The wily Napoleon followed, after an interval long enough to +throw all responsibility for the measure, and to direct all the natural +irritation it excited in this country, upon his neighbor over the way. +England is now endeavoring to evade the consequences of her hasty +proclamation and her jaunty indifference to the enforcement of it upon +her own subjects. The principle of international law involved is a most +important one; but it was not so much the act itself, or the pecuniary +damage resulting from it, as the _animus_ that so plainly prompted it, +which Americans find it hard to forgive. + + [8] Mr. A. H. Stephens, Vice-President of the late Confederacy, + attributed the Secession movement to disappointed ambition. + +It would be unwise in us to forget that independence was a merely +secondary and incidental consideration with the Southern conspirators +at the beginning of the Rebellion, however they may have thought it +wise to put it in the front, both for the sake of their foreign +abettors who were squeamish about seeming, though quite indifferent +about being, false to their own professions and the higher interests of +their country, and also for the sake of its traditionary influence +among the Southern people. Some, it is true, were bold enough or +logical enough to advocate barbarism as a good in itself; and in +estimating the influences which have rendered some minds, if not +friendly to the Rebellion, at least indifferent to the success of the +Union, we should not forget that reaction against the softening and +humanizing effect of modern civilization, led by such men as Carlyle, +and joined in by a multitude whose intellectual and moral fibre is too +much unstrung to be excited by anything less pungent than paradox. +Protestants against the religion which sacrifices to the polished idol +of Decorum and translates Jehovah by _Comme-il-faut_, they find even +the divine manhood of Christ too tame for them, and transfer their +allegiance to the shaggy Thor with his mallet of brute force. This is +hardly to be wondered at when we hear England called prosperous for the +strange reason that she no longer dares to act from a noble impulse, +and when, at whatever page of her recent history one opens, he finds +her statesmanship to consist of one Noble Lord or Honorable Member +asking a question, and another Noble Lord or Honorable Member +endeavoring to dodge it, amid cries of _Hear! Hear!_ enthusiastic in +proportion to the fruitlessness of listening. After all, we are +inclined to think there is more real prosperity, more that posterity +will find to have a deep meaning and reality, in a democracy spending +itself for a principle, and, in spite of the remonstrances, protests, +and sneers of a world busy in the eternal seesaw of the balance of +Europe, persisting in a belief that life and property are mere +counters, of no value except as representatives of a higher idea. May +it be long ere government become in the New World, as in the Old, an +armed police and fire-department, to protect property as it grows more +worthless by being selfishly clutched in fewer hands, and keep God's +fire of manhood from reaching that gunpowder of the dangerous classes +which underlies all institutions based only on the wisdom of our +ancestors. + +As we look back to the beginnings of the Rebellion, we are struck with +the thoughtlessness with which both parties entered upon a war of whose +vast proportions and results neither was even dimly conscious. But a +manifest difference is to be remarked. In the South this +thoughtlessness was the result of an ignorant self-confidence, in the +North of inexperience and good humor. It was long before either side +could believe that the other was in earnest: the one in attacking a +government which they knew only by their lion's share in its offices +and influence, the other in resisting the unprovoked assault of a race +born in the saddle, incapable of subjugation, and unable to die +comfortably except in the last ditch of jubilant oratory. When at last +each was convinced of the other's sincerity, the moods of both might +have been predicted by any observer of human nature. The side which +felt that it was not only in the wrong, but that it had made a blunder, +lost all control of its temper, all regard for truth and honor. It +betook itself forthwith to lies, bluster, and cowardly abuse of its +antagonist. But beneath every other expression of Southern sentiment, +and seeming to be the base of it, was a ferocity not to be accounted +for by thwarted calculations or by any resentment at injuries received, +but only by the influence of slavery on the character and manners. +"Scratch a Russian," said Napoleon, "and you come to the Tartar +beneath." Scratch a slaveholder, and beneath the varnish of +conventionalism you come upon something akin to the man-hunter of +Dahomey. Nay, the selfishness engendered by any system which rests on +the right of the strongest is more irritable and resentful in the +civilized than the savage man, as it is enhanced by a consciousness of +guilt. In the first flush of over-confidence, when the Rebels reckoned +on taking Washington, the air was to be darkened with the gibbeted +carcasses of dogs and caitiffs. Pollard, in the first volume of his +_Southern History of the War_, prints without comment the letter +of a ruffian who helped butcher our wounded in Sudley Church after the +first battle of Manassas, in which he says that he had resolved to give +no quarter. In Missouri the Rebels took scalps as trophies, and that +they made personal ornaments of the bones of our unburied dead, and +that women wore them, though seeming incredible, has been proved beyond +question. Later in the war, they literally starved our prisoners in a +country where Sherman's army of a hundred thousand men found supplies +so abundant that they could dispense with their provision train. Yet +these were the "gentry" of the country, in whose struggle to escape +from the contamination of mob-government the better classes of England +so keenly sympathized. Our experience is thrown away unless it teach us +that every form of conventionalized injustice is instinctively in +league with every other, the world over, and that all institutions safe +only in law, but forever in danger from reason and conscience, beget +first selfishness, next fear, and then cruelty, by an incurable +degeneration. Having been thus taught that a rebellion against justice +and mercy has certain natural confederates, we must be blind indeed not +to see whose alliance at the South is to give meaning and permanence to +our victory over it. + +In the North, on the other hand, nothing is more striking than the +persistence in good nature, the tenacity with which the theories of the +erring brother and the prodigal son were clung to, despite all evidence +of facts to the contrary. There was a kind of boyishness in the rumors +which the newspapers circulated (not seldom with intent to dispirit), +and the people believed on the authority of reliable gentlemen from +Richmond, or Union refugees whose information could be trusted. At one +time the Rebels had mined eleven acres in the neighborhood of Bull Bun; +at another, there were regiments of giants on their way from Texas, +who, first paralyzing our batteries by a yell, would rush unscathed +upon the guns, and rip up the unresisting artillerymen with +bowie-knives three feet long, made for that precise service, and the +only weapon to which these Berserkers would condescend; again, for the +fiftieth time, France and England had definitely agreed upon a forcible +intervention; finally, in order to sap the growing confidence of the +people in President Lincoln, one of his family was accused of +communicating our plans to the Rebels, and this at a time when the +favorite charge against his administration was the having no plan at +all. The public mind, as the public folly is generally called, was kept +in a fidget by these marvels and others like them. But the point to +which we would especially call attention is this: that while the war +slowly educated the North, it has had comparatively little effect in +shaking the old nonsense out of the South. Nothing is more striking, as +we trace Northern opinion through those four years that seemed so long +and seem so short, than to see how the minds of men were sobered, +braced, and matured as the greatness of the principles at stake became +more and more manifest; how their purpose, instead of relaxing, was +strained tighter by disappointment, and by the growing sense of a +guidance wiser than their own. Nor should we forget how slow the great +body of the people were in being persuaded of the expediency of +directly attacking slavery, and after that of enlisting colored troops; +of the fact, in short, that it must always be legal to preserve the +source of the law's authority, and constitutional to save the country. +The prudence of those measures is now acknowledged by all, and +justified by the result; but we must not be blind to the deeper moral, +that justice is always and only politic, that it needs no precedent, +and that we were prosperous in proportion as we were willing to be true +to our nobler judgment. In one respect only the popular understanding +seems always to have been, and still to remain, confused. Our notion of +treason is a purely traditional one, derived from countries where the +question at issue has not been the life of the nation, but the +conflicting titles of this or that family to govern it. Many people +appear to consider civil war as merely a more earnest kind of political +contest, which leaves the relative position of the parties as they +would be after a Presidential election. But no treason was ever so +wicked as that of Davis and his fellow-conspirators, for it had no +apology of injury or even of disputed right, and it was aimed against +the fairest hope and promise of the world. They did not attempt to put +one king in place of another, but to dethrone human nature and discrown +the very manhood of the race. And in what respect does a civil war +differ from any other in the discretion which it leaves to the victor +of exacting indemnity for the past and security for the future? A +contest begun for such ends and maintained by such expedients as this +has been, is not to be concluded by merely crying _quits_ and shaking +hands. The slaveholding States chose to make themselves a foreign +people to us, and they must take the consequences. We surely cannot be +expected to take them back as if nothing had happened, as if victory +rendered us helpless to promote good or prevent evil, and took from us +all title to insist on the admission of the very principle for which we +have sacrificed so much. The war has established the unity of the +government, but no peace will be anything more than a pretence unless +it rest upon the unity of the nation, and that can only be secured by +making everywhere supreme the national idea that freedom is a right +inherent in man himself, and not a creature of the law, to be granted +to one class of men or withheld from it at the option of another. + +What have we conquered? The Southern States? The Southern people? A +cessation of present war? Surely not these or any one of these merely. +The fruit of our victory, as it was always the object of our warfare, +is the everlasting validity of the theory of the Declaration of +Independence in these United States, and the obligation before God and +man to make it the rule of our practice. It was in that only that we +were stronger than our enemies, stronger than the public opinion of the +world; and it is from that alone that we derive our right of the +strongest, for it is wisdom, justice, and the manifest will of Him who +made of one blood all the nations of the earth. It were a childish view +of the matter to think this is a mere trial of strength or struggle for +supremacy between the North and South. The war sprang from the inherent +antipathy between two forms of political organization radically hostile +to each other. Is the war over, will it ever be over, if we allow the +incompatibility to remain, childishly satisfied with a mere change of +shape? This has been the grapple of two brothers that already struggled +with each other even in the womb. One of them has fallen under the +other; but let simple, good-natured Esau beware how he slacken his grip +till he has got back his inheritance, for Jacob is cunninger with the +tongue than he. + +We have said that the war has given the North a higher conception of +its manhood and its duties, and of the vital force of ideas. But do we +find any parallel change in the South? We confess we look for it in +vain. There is the same arrogance, the same materialistic mode of +thought, which reckons the strength and value of a country by the +amount of its crops rather than by the depth of political principle +which inspires its people, the same boyish conceit on which even defeat +wastes its lesson. Here is a clear case for the interference of +authority. The people have done their part by settling the fact that we +have a government; and it is for the government now to do its duty +toward the people by seeing to it that their blood and treasure shall +not have been squandered in a meaningless conflict. We must not let +ourselves be misled by the terms North and South, as if those names +implied any essential diversity of interest, or the claim to any +separate share in the future destiny of the country. Let us concede +every right to the several States except that of mischief, and never +again be deceived by the fallacy that a moral wrong can be local in its +evil influence, or that a principle alien to the instincts of the +nation can be consistent either with its prosperity or its peace. We +must not be confused into a belief that it is with States that we are +dealing in this matter. The very problem is how to reconstitute safely +a certain territory or population as States. It is not we that take +anything from them. The war has left them nothing that they can fairly +call their own politically but helplessness and confusion. We propose +only to admit them for the first time into a real union with us, and to +give them an equal share in privileges, our belief in whose value we +have proved by our sacrifices in asserting them. There is always a time +for doing what is fit to be done; and if it be done wisely, +temperately, and firmly, it need appeal for its legality to no higher +test than success. It is the nation and not a section, which is +victorious, and it is only on principles of purely national advantage +that any permanent settlement can be based. + +The South will come back to the Union intent on saving whatever +fragments it can from the wreck of the evil element in its social +structure, which it clings to with that servile constancy which men +often show for the vice that is making them its victims. If they must +lose slavery, they will make a shift to be comfortable on the best +substitute they can find in a system of caste. The question for a wise +government in such a case seems to us not to be, Have we the right to +interfere? but much rather, Have we the right to let them alone? If we +are entitled, as conquerors,--and it is only as such that we are so +entitled,--to stipulate for the abolition of slavery, what is there to +prevent our exacting further conditions no less essential to our safety +and the prosperity of the South? The national unity we have paid so +dearly for will turn out a pinchbeck counterfeit, without that sympathy +of interests and ideas, that unity of the people, which can spring only +from homogeneousness of institutions. The successive advances toward +justice which we made during the war, and which looked so difficult and +doubtful before they were made, the proclamation of freedom and the +arming of the blacks, seem now to have been measures of the simplest +expediency, as the highest always turns out to be the simplest when we +have the wit to try it. The heavens were to have come crashing down +after both those measures; yet the pillars of the universe not only +stood firm on their divinely laid foundations, but held us up also, +and, to the amazement of many, God did not frown on an experiment of +righteousness. People are not yet agreed whether these things were +constitutional; we believe, indeed, that the weight of legal opinion is +against them, but nevertheless events are tolerably unanimous that +without them we should have had a fine Constitution left on our hands +with no body politic for it to animate. + +Laws of the wisest human device are, after all, but the sheath of the +sword of Power, which must not be allowed to rust in them till it +cannot be drawn swiftly in time of need. President Lincoln had many +scruples to overcome ere he could overstep the limits of precedent into +the divine air of moral greatness. Like most men, he was reluctant to +be the bearer of that message of God with which his name will be linked +in the grateful memory of mankind. If he won an immortality of fame by +consenting to ally himself with the eternal justice, and to reinforce +his armies by the inspiration of their own nobler instincts, an equal +choice of renown is offered to his successor in applying the same +loyalty to conscience in the establishment of peace. We could not live +together half slave and half free; shall we succeed better in trying a +second left-handed marriage between democracy and another form of +aristocracy, less gross, but not less uncongenial? They who before +misled the country into a policy false and deadly to the very truth +which was its life and strength, by the fear of abolitionism, are +making ready to misrule it again by the meaner prejudice of color. We +can have no permanent peace with the South but by Americanizing it, by +compelling it, if need be, to accept the idea, and with it the safety +of democracy. At present we seem on the brink of contracting to protect +from insurrection States in which a majority of the population, many of +them now trained to arms, and all of them conscious of a claim upon us +to make their freedom strong enough to protect them, are to be left at +the mercy of laws which they have had no share in enacting. + +The gravity of this consideration alone should make us pause. The more +thought we bestow upon the matter, the more thoroughly are we persuaded +that the only way to get rid of the negro is to do him justice. +Democracy is safe because it is just, and safe only when it is just to +all. Here is no question of white or black, but simply of man. We have +hitherto been strong in proportion as we dared be true to the sublime +thought of our own Declaration of Independence, which for the first +time proposed to embody Christianity in human laws, and announced the +discovery that the security of the state is based on the moral +instincts and the manhood of its members. In the very midnight of the +war, when we were compassed round with despondency and the fear of man, +that peerless utterance of human policy rang like a trumpet announcing +heavenly succor, and lifted us out of the darkness of our doubts into +that courage which comes of the fear of God. Now, if ever, may a +statesman depend upon the people sustaining him in doing what is simply +right, for they have found out the infinite worth of freedom, and how +much they love it, by being called on to defend it. We have seen how +our contest has been watched by a breathless world; how every humane +and generous heart, every intellect bold enough to believe that men may +be safely trusted with government as well as with any other of their +concerns, has wished us God-speed. And we have felt as never before the +meaning of those awful words, "Hell beneath is stirred for thee," as we +saw all that was mean and timid and selfish and wicked, by a horrible +impulsion of nature, gathering to the help of our enemies. Why should +we shrink from embodying our own idea as if it would turn out a +Frankenstein? Why should we let the vanquished dictate terms of peace? +A choice is offered that may never come again, unless after another +war. We should sin against our own light, if we allowed mongrel +republics to grow up again at the South, and deliberately organized +anarchy, as if it were better than war. Let the law be made equal for +all men. If the power does not exist in the Constitution, find it +somewhere else, or confess that democracy, strongest of all governments +for war, is the weakest of all in the statesmanship that shall save us +from it. There is no doubt what the wishes of the administration are. +Let them act up to their own convictions and the emergency of the hour, +sure of the support of the people; for it is one of the chief merits of +our form of polity that the public reason, which gives our Constitution +all its force, is always a reserve of power to the magistrate, open to +the appeal of justice, and ready to ratify the decisions of conscience. +There is no need of hurry in readmitting the States that locked +themselves out of the old homestead. It is not enough to conquer unless +we convert them, and time, the best means of quiet persuasion, is in +our own hands. Shall we hasten to cover with the thin ashes of another +compromise that smouldering war which we called peace for seventy +years, only to have it flame up again when the wind of Southern +doctrine has set long enough in the old quarter? It is not the absence +of war, but of its causes, that is in our grasp. That is what we fought +for, and there must be a right somewhere to enforce what all see to be +essential. To quibble away such an opportunity would be as cowardly as +unwise. + + + + +THE PRESIDENT ON THE STUMP + +1866 + + +Mr. Johnson is the first of our Presidents who has descended to the +stump, and spoken to the people as if they were a mob. We do not care +to waste words in criticising the taste of this proceeding, but deem it +our duty to comment on some of its graver aspects. We shall leave +entirely aside whatever was personal in the extraordinary diatribe of +the 22d of February, merely remarking that we believe the majority of +Americans have too much good sense to be flattered by an allusion to +the humbleness of their chief magistrate's origin; the matter of +interest for them being rather to ascertain what he has arrived at than +where he started from,--we do not mean in station, but in character, +intelligence, and fitness for the place he occupies. We have reason to +suspect, indeed, that pride of origin, whether high or low, springs +from the same principle in human nature, and that one is but the +positive, the other the negative, pole of a single weakness. The people +do not take it as a compliment to be told that they have chosen a +plebeian to the highest office, for they are not fond of a plebeian +tone of mind or manners. What they do like, we believe, is to be +represented by their foremost man, their highest type of courage, +sense, and patriotism, no matter what his origin. For, after all, no +one in this country incurs any natal disadvantage unless he be born to +an ease which robs him of the necessity of exerting, and so of +increasing and maturing, his natural powers. It is of very little +consequence to know what our President was; of the very highest, to +ascertain what he is, and to make the best of him. We may say, in +passing, that the bearing of Congress, under the temptations of the +last few weeks, has been most encouraging, though we must except from +our commendation the recent speech of Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania. +There is a pride of patriotism that should make all personal pique seem +trifling; and Mr. Stevens ought to have remembered that it was not so +much the nakedness of an antagonist that he was uncovering as that of +his country. + +[Illustration: _Andrew Johnson_] + +The dangers of popular oratory are always great, and unhappily ours is +nearly all of this kind. Even a speaker in Congress addresses his real +hearers through the reporters and the post-office. The merits of the +question at issue concern him less than what _he_ shall say about +it so as not to ruin his own chance of reelection, or that of some +fourth cousin to a tidewaitership. Few men have any great amount of +gathered wisdom, still fewer of extemporary, while there are unhappily +many who have a large stock of accumulated phrases, and hold their +parts of speech subject to immediate draft. In a country where the +party newspapers and speakers have done their best to make us believe +that consistency is of so much more importance than statesmanship, and +where every public man is more or less in the habit of considering what +he calls his "record" as the one thing to be saved in the general +deluge, a hasty speech, if the speaker be in a position to make his +words things, may, by this binding force which is superstitiously +attributed to the word once uttered, prove to be of public detriment. +It would be well for us if we could shake off this baleful system of +requiring that a man who has once made a fool of himself shall always +thereafter persevere in being one. Unhappily it is something more easy +of accomplishment than the final perseverance of the saints. Let us +learn to be more careful in distinguishing between betrayal of +principle, and breaking loose from a stupid consistency that compels +its victims to break their heads against the wall instead of going a +few steps round to the door. To eat our own words would seem to bear +some analogy to that diet of east-wind which is sometimes attributed to +the wild ass, and might therefore be wholesome for the tame variety of +that noble and necessary animal, which, like the poor, we are sure to +have always with us. If the words have been foolish, we can conceive of +no food likely to be more nutritious, and could almost wish that we +might have public establishments at the common charge, like those at +which the Spartans ate black broth, where we might all sit down +together to a meal of this cheaply beneficial kind. Among other +amendments of the Constitution, since every Senator seems to carry half +a dozen in his pocket nowadays, a sort of legislative six-shooter, +might we not have one to the effect that a public character might +change his mind as circumstances changed theirs, say once in five +years, without forfeiting the confidence of his fellow-citizens? + +We trust that Mr. Johnson may not be so often reminded of his late +harangue as to be provoked into maintaining it as part of his settled +policy, and that every opportunity will be given him for forgetting it, +as we are sure his better sense will make him wish to do. For the more +we reflect upon it, the more it seems to us to contain, either directly +or by implication, principles of very dangerous consequence to the +well-being of the Republic. We are by no means disposed to forget Mr. +Johnson's loyalty when it was hard to be loyal, nor the many evidences +he has given of a sincere desire to accomplish what seemed to him best +for the future of the whole country; but, at the same time, we cannot +help thinking that some of his over-frank confidences of late have +shown alarming misconceptions, both of the position he holds either in +the public sentiment or by virtue of his office, and of the duty +thereby devolved upon him. We do not mean to indulge ourselves in any +nonsensical rhetoric about usurpations like those which cost an English +king his head, for we consider the matter in too serious a light, and +no crowded galleries invite us to thrill them with Bulwerian +commonplace; but we have a conviction that the exceptional +circumstances of the last five years, which gave a necessary +predominance to the executive part of our government, have left behind +them a false impression of the prerogative of a President in ordinary +times. The balance-wheel of our system has insensibly come to think +itself the motive power, whereas that, to be properly effective, should +always be generated by the deliberate public opinion of the country. +Already the Democratic party, anxious to profit by any chance at +resuscitation,--for it is extremely inconvenient to be dead so +long,--is more than hinting that the right of veto was given to the +President that he might bother and baffle a refractory Congress into +concession, not to his reasons, but to his whim. There seemed to be a +plan, at one time of forming a President's party, with no principle but +that of general opposition to the policy of that great majority which +carried him into power. Such a scheme might have had some chance of +success in the good old times when it seemed to the people as if there +was nothing more important at stake than who should be in and who out; +but it would be sure of failure now that the public mind is +intelligently made up as to the vital meaning of whatever policy we +adopt, and the necessity of establishing our institutions, once for +all, on a basis as permanent as human prudence can make it. + +Congress is sometimes complained of for wasting time in discussion, and +for not having, after a four months' session, arrived at any definite +plan of settlement. There has been, perhaps, a little eagerness on the +part of honorable members to associate their names with the particular +nostrum that is to build up our national system again. In a country +where, unhappily, any man may be President, it is natural that a means +of advertising so efficacious as this should not be neglected. But +really, we do not see how Congress can be blamed for not being ready +with a plan definite and precise upon every point of possible +application, when it is not yet in possession of the facts according to +whose varying complexion the plan must be good or bad. The question +with us is much more whether another branch of the government,--to +which, from its position and its opportunity for a wider view, the +country naturally looks for initiative suggestion, and in which a few +months ago even decisive action would have been pardoned,--whether this +did not let the lucky moment go by without using it. That moment was +immediately after Mr. Lincoln's murder, when the victorious nation was +ready to apply, and the conquered faction would have submitted without +a murmur to that bold and comprehensive policy which is the only wise +as it is the only safe one for great occasions. To let that moment slip +was to descend irrecoverably from the vantage ground where +statesmanship is an exact science to the experimental level of +tentative politics. We cannot often venture to set our own house on +fire with civil war, in order to heat our iron up to that point of easy +forging at which it glowed, longing for the hammer of the master-smith, +less than a year ago. That Occasion is swift we learned long ago from +the adage; but this volatility is meant only of moments where force of +personal character is decisive, where the fame or fortune of a single +man is at stake. The life of nations can afford to take less strict +account of time, and in their affairs there may always be a hope that +the slow old tortoise, Prudence, may overtake again the opportunity +that seemed flown by so irrecoverably. Our people have shown so much of +this hard-shelled virtue during the last five years, that we look with +more confidence than apprehension to the result of our present +difficulties. Never was the common-sense of a nation more often and +directly appealed to, never was it readier in coming to its conclusion +and making it operative in public affairs, than during the war whose +wounds we are now endeavoring to stanch. It is the duty of patriotic +men to keep this great popular faculty always in view, to satisfy its +natural demand for clearness and practicality in the measures proposed, +and not to distract it and render it nugatory by the insubstantial +metaphysics of abstract policy. From the splitting of heads to the +splitting of hairs would seem to be a long journey, and yet some are +already well on their way to the end of it, who should be the leaders +of public opinion and not the skirmishing harassers of its march. It +would be well if some of our public men would consider that Providence +has saved their modesty the trial of an experiment in cosmogony, and +that their task is the difficult, no doubt, but much simpler and less +ambitious one, of bringing back the confused material which lies ready +to their hand, always with a divinely implanted instinct of order in +it, to as near an agreement with the providential intention as their +best wisdom can discern. The aggregate opinion of a nation moves +slowly. Like those old migrations of entire tribes, it is encumbered +with much household stuff; a thousand unforeseen things may divert or +impede it; a hostile check or the temptation of present convenience may +lead it to settle far short of its original aim; the want of some +guiding intellect and central will may disperse it; but experience +shows one constant element of its progress, which those who aspire to +be its leaders should keep in mind, namely, that the place of a wise +general should be oftener in the rear or the centre than the extreme +front. The secret of permanent leadership is to know how to be +moderate. The rashness of conception that makes opportunity, the +gallantry that heads the advance, may win admiration, may possibly +achieve a desultory and indecisive exploit; but it is the slow +steadiness of temper, bent always on the main design and the general +movement, that gains by degrees a confidence as unshakable as its own, +the only basis for permanent power over the minds of men. It was the +surest proof of Mr. Lincoln's sagacity and the deliberate reach of his +understanding, that he never thought time wasted while he waited for +the wagon that brought his supplies. The very immovability of his +purpose, fixed always on what was attainable, laid him open to the +shallow criticism of having none,--for a shooting star draws more eyes, +and seems for the moment to have a more definite aim, than a +planet,--but it gained him at last such a following as made him +irresistible. It lays a much lighter tax on the intellect, and proves +its resources less, to suggest a number of plans, than to devise and +carry through a single one. + +Mr. Johnson has an undoubted constitutional right to choose any, or to +reject all, of the schemes of settlement proposed by Congress, though +the wisdom of his action in any case is a perfectly proper subject of +discussion among those who put him where he is, who are therefore +responsible for his power of good or evil, and to whom the consequences +of his decision must come home at last. He has an undoubted personal +right to propose any scheme of settlement himself, and to advocate it +with whatever energy of reason or argument he possesses, but is liable, +in our judgment, to very grave reprehension if he appeal to the body of +the people against those who are more immediately its representatives +than himself in any case of doubtful expediency, before discussion is +exhausted, and where the difference may well seem one of personal pique +rather than of considerate judgment. This is to degrade us from a +republic, in whose fore-ordered periodicity of submission to popular +judgment democracy has guarded itself against its own passions, to a +mass meeting, where momentary interest, panic, or persuasive +sophistry--all of them gregarious influences, and all of them +contagious--may decide by a shout what years of afterthought may find +it hard, or even impossible, to undo. There have been some things in +the deportment of the President of late that have suggested to +thoughtful men rather the pettish foible of wilfulness than the +strength of well-trained and conscientious will. It is by the objects +for whose sake the force of volition is called into play that we decide +whether it is childish or manly, whether we are to call it obstinacy or +firmness. Our own judgment can draw no favorable augury from meetings +gathered "to sustain the President," as it is called, especially if we +consider the previous character of those who are prominent in them, nor +from the ill-considered gossip about a "President's party;" and they +would excite our apprehension of evil to come, did we not believe that +the experience of the last five years had settled into convictions in +the mind of the people. The practical result to which all benevolent +men finally come is that it is idle to try to sustain any man who has +not force of character enough to sustain himself without their help, +and the only party which has any chance now before the people is that +of resolute good sense. What is now demanded of Congress is unanimity +in the best course that is feasible. They should recollect that Wisdom +is more likely to be wounded in the division of those who should be her +friends, than either of the parties to the quarrel. Our difficulties +are by no means so great as timid or interested people would represent +them to be. We are to decide, it is true, for posterity; but the +question presented to us is precisely that which every man has to +decide in making his will,--neither greater nor less than that, nor +demanding a wisdom above what that demands. The power is in our own +hands, so long as it is prudent for us to keep it there; and we are +justified, not in doing simply what we will with our own, but what is +best to be done. The great danger in the present posture of affairs +seems to be lest the influence which in Mr. Lincoln's case was inherent +in the occasion and the man should have held over in the popular mind +as if it were entailed upon the office. To our minds more is to be +apprehended in such a conjuncture from the weakness than from the +strength of the President's character. + +There is another topic which we feel obliged to comment on, regretting +deeply, as we do, that the President has given us occasion for it, and +believing, as we would fain do, that his own better judgment will lead +him to abstain from it in the future. He has most unfortunately +permitted himself to assume a sectional ground. Geography is learned to +little purpose in Tennessee, if it does not teach that the Northeast as +well as the Southwest is an integral and necessary part of the United +States. By the very necessity of his high office, a President becomes +an American, whose concern is with the outward boundaries of his +country, and not its internal subdivisions. One great object of the +war, we had supposed, was to abolish all fallacies of sectional +distinction in a patriotism that could embrace something wider than a +township, a county, or even a State. But Mr. Johnson has chosen to +revive the paltry party-cries from before that deluge which we hoped +had washed everything clean, and to talk of treason at both ends of the +Union, as if there were no difference between men who attempted the +life of their country, and those who differ from him in their judgment +of what is best for her future safety and greatness. We have heard +enough of New England radicalism, as if that part of the country where +there is the most education and the greatest accumulation of property +in the hands of the most holders were the most likely to be carried +away by what are called agrarian theories. All that New England and the +West demand is that America should be American; that every relic of a +barbarism more archaic than any institution of the Old World should be +absolutely and irrecoverably destroyed; that there should be no longer +two peoples here, but one, homogeneous and powerful by a sympathy in +idea. Does Mr. Johnson desire anything more? Does he, alas! desire +anything less? If so, it may be the worse for his future fame, but it +will not and cannot hinder the irresistible march of that national +instinct which forced us into war, brought us out of it victorious, and +will not now be cheated of its fruits. If we may trust those who have +studied the matter, it is moderate to say that more than half the +entire population of the Free States is of New England descent, much +more than half the native population. It is by the votes of these men +that Mr. Johnson holds his office; it was as the exponent of their +convictions of duty and policy that he was chosen to it. Not a vote did +he or could he get in a single one of the States in rebellion. If they +were the American people when they elected him to execute their will, +are they less the American people now? It seems to us the idlest of all +possible abstractions now to discuss the question whether the +rebellious States were ever out of the Union or not, as if that settled +the right of secession. The victory of superior strength settled it, +and nothing else. For four years they were practically as much out of +the Union as Japan; had they been strong enough, they would have +continued out of it; and what matters it where they were theoretically? +Why, until Queen Victoria, every English sovereign assumed the style of +King of France. The King of Sardinia was, and the King of Italy, we +suppose, is still titular King of Jerusalem. Did either monarch ever +exercise sovereignty or levy taxes in those imaginary dominions? What +the war accomplished for us was the reduction of an insurgent +population; and what it settled was, not the right of secession, for +that must always depend on will and strength, but that every inhabitant +of every State was a subject as well as a citizen of the United +States,--in short, that the theory of freedom was limited by the +equally necessary theory of authority. We hoped to hear less in future +of the possible interpretations by which the Constitution may be made +to mean this or that, and more of what will help the present need and +conduce to the future strength and greatness of the whole country. It +was by precisely such constitutional quibbles, educating men to believe +they had a right to claim whatever they could sophistically demonstrate +to their own satisfaction,--and self-interest is the most cunning of +sophists,--that we were interpreted, in spite of ourselves, into civil +war. It was by just such a misunderstanding of one part of the country +by another as that to which Mr. Johnson has lent the weight of his name +and the authority of his place, that rendered a hearty national +sympathy, and may render a lasting reorganization, impossible. + +If history were still written as it was till within two centuries, and +the author put into the mouth of his speakers such words as his +conception of the character and the situation made probable and +fitting, we could conceive an historian writing a hundred years hence +to imagine some such speech as this for Mr. Johnson in an interview +with a Southern delegation. + +"Gentlemen, I am glad to meet you once more as friends, I wish I might +say as fellow-citizens. How soon we may again stand in that relation to +each other depends wholly upon yourselves. You have been pleased to say +that my birth and lifelong associations gave you confidence that I +would be friendly to the South. In so saying, you do no more than +justice to my heart and my intentions; but you must allow me to tell +you frankly, that, if you use the word South in any other than a purely +geographical sense, the sooner you convince yourselves of its +impropriety as addressed to an American President, the better. The +South as a political entity was Slavery, and went out of existence with +it. And let me also, as naturally connected with this topic, entreat +you to disabuse your minds of the fatally mistaken theory that you have +been conquered by the North. It is the American people who are victors +in this conflict, and who intend to inflict no worse penalty on you +than that of admitting you to an entire equality with themselves. They +are resolved, by God's grace, to Americanize you, and America means +education, equality before the law, and every upward avenue of life +made as free to one man as another. You urge upon me, with great force +and variety of argument, the manifold evils of the present unsettled +state of things, the propriety and advantage of your being represented +in both houses of Congress, the injustice of taxation without +representation. I admit the importance of every one of these +considerations, but I think you are laboring under some misapprehension +of the actual state of affairs. I know not if any of you have been in +America since the spring of 1861, or whether (as I rather suspect) you +have all been busy in Europe endeavoring to--but I beg pardon, I did +not intend to say anything that should recall old animosities. But +intelligence is slow to arrive in any part of the world, and +intelligence from America painfully so in reaching Europe. You do not +seem to be aware that _something has happened here during the last +four years_, something that has made a very painful and lasting +impression on the memory of the American people, whose voice on this +occasion I have the honor to be. They feel constrained to demand that +you shall enter into bonds to keep the peace. They do not, I regret to +say, agree with you in looking upon what has happened here of late as +only a more emphatic way of settling a Presidential election, the +result of which leaves both parties entirely free to try again. They +seem to take the matter much more seriously. Nor do they, so far as I +can see, agree with you in your estimate of the importance of +conserving your several state sovereignties, as you continue to call +them, insisting much rather on the conservation of America and of +American ideas. They say that the only thing which can individualize or +perpetuate a commonwealth is to have a history; and they ask which of +the States lately in rebellion, except Virginia and South Carolina, had +anything of the kind? In spite of my natural sympathies, gentlemen, my +reason compels me to agree with them. Your strength, such as it was, +was due less to the fertility of your brains than to that of your soil +and to the invention of the Yankee Whitney which you used and never +paid for. You tell me it is hard to put you on a level with your +negroes. As a believer in the superiority of the white race, I cannot +admit the necessity of enforcing that superiority by law. A Roman +emperor once said that gold never retained the unpleasant odor of its +source, and I must say to you that loyalty is sweet to me, whether it +throb under a black skin or a white. The American people has learned of +late to set a greater value on the color of ideas than on shades of +complexion. As to the injustice of taxation without representation, +that is an idea derived from our English ancestors, and is liable, like +all rules, to the exceptions of necessity. I see no reason why a State +may not as well be disfranchised as a borough for an illegal abuse of +its privileges; nor do I quite feel the parity of the reason which +should enable you to do that with a loyal black which we may not do +with a disloyal white. Remember that this government is bound by every +obligation, ethical and political, to protect these people because they +are weak, and to reward them (if the common privilege of manhood may be +called a reward) because they are faithful. We are not fanatics, but a +nation that has neither faith in itself nor faith toward others must +soon crumble to pieces by moral dry-rot. If we may conquer you, +gentlemen, (and you forced the necessity upon us,) we may surely impose +terms upon you; for it is an old principle of law that _cui liceat +majus, ei licet etiam minus_. + +"In your part of the country, gentlemen, that which we should naturally +appeal to as the friend of order and stability--property--is blindly +against us; prejudice is also against us; and we have nothing left to +which we can appeal but human nature and the common privilege of +manhood. You seem to have entertained some hope that I would gather +about myself a 'President's party,' which should be more friendly to +you and those animosities which you mistake for interests. But you +grossly deceive yourselves; I have nor sympathy but with my whole +country, and there is nothing out of which such a party as you dream of +could be constructed, except the broken remnant of those who deserted +you when for the first time you needed their help and not their +subserviency, and those feathery characters who are drawn hither and +thither by the chances of office. I need not say to you that I am and +can be nothing in this matter but the voice of the nation's deliberate +resolve. The recent past is too painful, the immediate future too +momentous, to tolerate any personal considerations. You throw +yourselves upon our magnanimity, and I must be frank with you. My +predecessor, Mr. Buchanan, taught us the impolicy of weakness and +concession. The people are magnanimous, but they understand by +magnanimity a courageous steadiness in principle. They do not think it +possible that a large heart should consist with a narrow brain; and +they would consider it pusillanimous in them to consent to the weakness +of their country by admitting you to a share in its government before +you have given evidence of sincere loyalty to its principles, or, at +least, of wholesome fear of its power. They believe, and I heartily +agree with them, that a strong nation begets strong citizens, and a +weak one weak,--that the powers of the private man are invigorated and +enlarged by his confidence in the power of the body politic; and they +see no possible means of attaining or securing this needed strength but +in that homogeneousness of laws and institutions which breeds unanimity +of ideas and sentiments, no way of arriving at that homogeneousness but +the straightforward path of perfect confidence in freedom. All nations +have a right to security, ours to greatness; and must have the one as +an essential preliminary to the other. If your prejudices stand in the +way, and you are too weak to rid yourselves of them, it will be for the +American people to consider whether the plain duty of conquering them +for you will be, after all, so difficult a conquest as some they have +already achieved. By yourselves or us they must be conquered. +Gentlemen, in bidding you farewell, I ask you to consider whether you +have not forgotten that, in order to men's living peacefully together +in communities, the idea of government must precede that of liberty, +and that the one is as much the child of necessity as the other is a +slow concession to civilization, which itself mainly consists in the +habit of obedience to something more refined than force." + + + + +THE SEWARD-JOHNSON REACTION + +1866 + + +The late Philadelphia experiment at making a party out of nullities +reminds us of nothing so much as of the Irishman's undertaking to +produce a very palatable soup out of no more costly material than a +pebble. Of course he was to be furnished with a kettle as his field of +operations, and after that he asked only for just the least bit of beef +in the world to give his culinary miracle a flavor, and a pinch of salt +by way of relish. As nothing could be more hollow and empty than the +pretence on which the new movement was founded, nothing more coppery +than the material out of which it was mainly composed, we need look no +further for the likeness of a kettle wherewith to justify our +comparison; as for the stone, nothing could be more like that than the +Northern disunion faction, which was to be the chief ingredient in the +newfangled pottage, and whose leading characteristic for the last five +years has been a uniform alacrity in going under; the offices in the +gift of the President might very well be reckoned on to supply the beef +which should lead by their noses the weary expectants whose hunger +might be too strong for their nicety of stomach; and the pinch of +salt,--why could not that be found in the handful of Republicans who +might be drawn over by love of notoriety, private disgusts, or that +mixture of motives which has none of the substance of opinion, much +less of the tenacity of principle, but which is largely operative in +the action of illogical minds? But the people? Would they be likely to +have their appetite aroused by the fumes of this thin decoction? Where +a Chinaman is cook, one is apt to be a little suspicious; and if the +Address in which the Convention advertised their ingenious mess had not +a little in its verbiage to remind one of the flowery kingdom, there +was something in that part of the assemblage which could claim any +bygone merit of Republicanism calculated to stimulate rather than to +allay any dreadful surmise of the sagacious rodent which our antipodes +are said to find savory. And as for the people, it is a curious fact, +that the party which has always been loudest to profess its faith in +their capacity of self-government has been the last to conceive it +possible that they should apprehend a principle, arrive at a logical +conclusion, or be influenced by any other than a mean motive. The +_cordons bleus_ of the political cooks at Philadelphia were men +admirably adapted for the petty intrigues of a local caucus, but by +defect of nature profoundly unconscious of that simple process of +generalization from a few plain premises by which the popular mind is +guided in times like these, and upon questions which appeal to the +moral instincts of men. + +The Convention was well managed, we freely admit,--and why not, when +all those who were allowed to have any leading part in it belonged +exclusively to that class of men who are known as party managers, and +who, like the director of a theatre or a circus, look upon the mass of +mankind as creatures to be influenced by a taking title, by amplitude +of posters, and by a thrilling sensation or two, no matter how coarse? +As for the title, nothing could be better than that of the "Devoted +Unionists,"--and were not the actors, no less than the scenery and +decorations, for the most part entirely new,--at least in that +particular play? Advertisement they did not lack, with the whole +Democratic press and the Department of State at their service, not to +speak of the real clown being allowed to exhibit himself at short +intervals upon the highest platform in this or any other country. And +if we ask for sensation, never were so many performers exhibited +together in their grand act of riding two horses at once, or leaping +through a hoop with nothing more substantial to resist them than the +tissue-paper of former professions, nay, of recent pledges. And yet the +skill of the managers had something greater still behind, in +Massachusetts linked arm in arm with South Carolina. To be sure, a +thoughtful mind might find something like a false syllogism in pairing +off a Commonwealth whose greatest sin it has been to lead the van in +freedom of opinion, and in those public methods of enlightenment which +make it a safeguard of popular government, with an Oligarchy whose +leadership has been in precisely the opposite direction, as if both had +equally sinned against American ideas. But such incongruities are +trifles no greater than those of costume so common on every stage; and +perhaps the only person to be pitied in the exhibition was Governor +Orr, who had once uttered a hope that his own State might one day walk +abreast with the daughter of Puritan forethought in the nobler +procession of prosperous industry, and who must have felt a slight +shock of surprise, if nothing more, at the form in which Massachusetts +had chosen to incarnate herself on that particular occasion. We cannot +congratulate the Convention on the name of its chairman, for there is +something ominously suggestive in it. But, on the other hand it is to +be remembered that Mr. Doolittle has a remarkably powerful voice, which +is certainly one element in the manufacture of sound opinions. A little +too much latitude was allowed to Mr. Raymond in the Address, though on +the whole perhaps it was prudent to make that document so long as to +insure it against being read. In their treatment of Mr. Vallandigham +the managers were prudent. He was allowed to appear just enough not +quite to alienate his party, on whom the new movement counts largely +for support, and just not enough to compromise the Convention with the +new recruits it had made among those who would follow the name +Conservative into anything short of downright anarchy. The Convention, +it must be confessed, had a rather hard problem to solve,--nothing less +than to make their patent reconciliation cement out of fire and +gunpowder, both useful things in themselves, but liable in concert to +bring about some odd results in the way of harmonious action. It is +generally thought wiser to keep them apart, and accordingly Mr. +Vallandigham was excluded from the Convention altogether, and the +Southern delegates were not allowed any share in the Address or +Resolutions. Indeed, as the Northern members were there to see what +they could make, and the Southern to find out how much they could save, +and whatever could be made or saved was to come out of the North, it +was more prudent to leave all matters of policy in the hands of those +who were supposed to understand best the weak side of the intended +victim. The South was really playing the game, and is to have the +lion's share of the winnings; but it is only as a disinterested +bystander, who looks over the cards of one of the parties, and guides +his confederate by hints so adroitly managed as not to alarm the +pigeon. The Convention avoided the reef where the wreck of the Chicago +lies bleaching; but we are not so sure that they did not ground +themselves fast upon the equally dangerous mud-bank that lies on the +opposite side of the honest channel. At Chicago they were so precisely +frank as to arouse indignation; at Philadelphia they are so careful of +generalities that they make us doubtful, if not suspicious. Does the +expectation or even the mere hope of pudding make the utterance as +thick as if the mouth were already full of it? As to the greater part +of the Resolutions, they were political truisms in which everybody +would agree as so harmless that the Convention might almost as well +have resolved the multiplication table article by article. The Address +was far less explicit; and where there is so very much meal, it is +perhaps not altogether uncharitable to suspect that there may be +something under it. There is surely a suspicious bulge here and there, +that has the look of the old Democratic cat. But, after all, of what +consequence are the principles of the party, when President Johnson +covers them all when he puts on his hat, and may change them between +dinner and tea, as he has done several times already? The real +principle of the party, its seminal and vital principle alike, is the +power of the President, and its policy is every moment at the mercy of +his discretion. That power has too often been the plaything of whim, +and that discretion the victim of ill-temper or vanity, for us to have +any other feeling left than regret for the one and distrust of the +other. + +The new party does not seem to have drawn to itself any great accession +of strength from the Republican side, or indeed to have made many +converts that were not already theirs in fact, though not in name. It +was joined, of course, at once by the little platoon of gentlemen +calling themselves, for some mystical reason, Conservatives, who have +for some time been acting with the Democratic faction, carefully +keeping their handkerchiefs to their noses all the while. But these +involuntary Catos are sure, as if by instinct, to choose that side +which is doomed not to please the gods, and their adhesion is as good +as a warranty of defeat. During the President's progress they must +often have been driven to their handkerchiefs again. It was a great +blunder of Mr. Seward to allow him to assume the apostolate of the new +creed in person, for every word he has uttered must have convinced +many, even of those unwilling to make the admission, that a doctrine +could hardly be sound which had its origin and derives its power from a +source so impure. For so much of Mr. Johnson's harangues as is not +positively shocking, we know of no parallel so close as in his Imperial +Majesty Kobes I.:-- + + "Er ruehmte dass er nie studirt + Auf Universitaeten + Und Reden sprachi aus sich selbst heraus, + Ganz ohne Facultaeten." + +And when we consider his power of tears; when we remember Mr. Reverdy +Johnson and Mr. Andrew Johnson confronting each other like two augurs, +the one trying not to laugh while he saw the other trying to cry; when +we recall the touching scene at Canandaigua, where the President was +overpowered by hearing the pathetic announcement that Stephen A. +Douglas had for two years attended the academy in what will doubtless +henceforward be dubbed that "classic locality," we cannot help thinking +of + + "In seinem schoenen Auge glaenzt + Die Thraene, die Stereotype." + +Indeed, if the exhibition of himself were not so profoundly sad, when +we think of the high place he occupies and the great man he succeeded +in it, nothing could well be so comic as some of the incidents of Mr. +Johnson's tour. No satirist could have conceived anything so +bewitchingly absurd as the cheers which greeted the name of Simeon at +the dinner in New York, whether we suppose the audience to have thought +him some eminent member of their party of whom they had never heard, or +whom they had forgotten as thoroughly as they had Mr. Douglas, or if we +consider that they were involuntarily giving vent to their delight at +the pleasing prospect opened by their "illustrious guest's" allusion to +his speedy departure. Nor could anything have been imagined beforehand +so ludicrously ominous as Mr. Seward's fears lest the platform should +break down under them at Niagara. They were groundless fears, it is +true, for the Johnson platform gave way irreparably on the 22d of +February; but they at least luckily prevented Nicholas Bottom Cromwell +from uttering his after-dinner threat against the people's immediate +representatives, against the very body whose vote supplies the funds of +his party, and whose money, it seems, is constitutional, even if its +own existence as a Congress be not. We pity Mr. Seward in his new +office of bear-leader. How he must hate his Bruin when it turns out +that his tricks do not even please the crowd! + +But the ostensible object of this indecent orgy seems to us almost as +discreditable as the purpose it veiled so thinly. Who was Stephen A. +Douglas, that the President, with his Cabinet and the two highest +officers of the army and navy, should add their official dignity to the +raising of his monument, and make the whole country an accomplice in +consecrating his memory? His name is not associated with a single +measure of national importance, unless upon the wrong side. So far was +he from being a statesman that, even on the lower ground of politics, +both his principles and his expression of them were tainted with the +reek of vulgar associations. A man of naturally great abilities he +certainly was, but wholly without that instinct for the higher +atmosphere of thought or ethics which alone makes them of value to any +but their possessor, and without which they are more often dangerous +than serviceable to the commonwealth. He habitually courted those +weaknesses in the people which tend to degrade them into a populace, +instead of appealing to the virtues that grow by use, and whose mere +acknowledgment in a man in some sort ennobles him. And by doing this he +proved that he despised the very masses whose sweet breaths he wooed, +and had no faith in the system under which alone such a one as he could +have been able to climb so high. He never deserted the South to take +side with the country till the South had both betrayed and deserted +him. If such a man were the fairest outcome of Democracy, then is it +indeed a wretched failure. But for the factitious importance given to +his name by the necessity of furnishing the President with a pretext +for stumping the West in the interest of Congress, Mr. Douglas would be +wellnigh as utterly forgotten as Cass or Tyler, or Buchanan or +Fillmore; nor should we have alluded to him now but that the recent +pilgrimage has made his name once more public property, and because we +think it a common misfortune when such men are made into saints, though +for any one's advantage but their own. We certainly have no wish to +play the part of _advocatus diaboli_ on such an occasion, even were it +necessary at a canonization where the office of Pontifex Maximus is so +appropriately filled by Mr. Johnson. + +In speaking of the late unhappy exposure of the unseemly side of +democratic institutions, we have been far from desirous of insisting on +Mr. Seward's share in it. We endeavored to account for it at first by +supposing that the Secretary of State, seeing into the hands of how +vain and weak a man the reins of administration had fallen, was +willing, by flattering his vanity, to control his weakness for the +public good. But we are forced against our will to give up any such +theory, and to confess that Mr. Seward's nature has been "subdued to +what it works in." We see it with sincere sorrow, and are far from +adding our voice to the popular outcry against a man the long and +honorable services of whose prime we are not willing to forget in the +decline of his abilities and that dry-rot of the mind's nobler temper +which so often results from the possession of power. Long contact with +the meaner qualities of men, to whose infection place and patronage are +so unhappily exposed, could not fail of forcing to a disproportionate +growth any germs of that cynicism always latent in temperaments so +exclusively intellectual and unmitigated by any kindly lenitive of +humor. Timid by nature, the war which he had prophesied, but had not +foreseen, and which invigorated bolder men, unbraced him; and while the +spendthrift verbosity of his despatches was the nightmare of foreign +ministries, his uncertain and temporizing counsels were the perpetual +discouragement of his party at home. More than any minister with whose +official correspondence we are acquainted, he carried the principle of +paper money into diplomacy, and bewildered Earl Russell and M. Drouyn +de Lhuys with a horrible doubt as to the real value of the verbal +currency they were obliged to receive. But, unfortunately, his own +countrymen were also unprovided with a price-current of the latest +quotation in phrases, and the same gift of groping and inconclusive +generalities which perhaps was useful as a bewilderment to would-be +hostile governments abroad was often equally effective in disheartening +the defenders of nationality at home. We cannot join with those who +accuse Mr. Seward of betraying his party, for we think ourselves +justified by recent events in believing that he has always looked upon +parties as the mere ladders of ambitious men; and when his own broke +under him at Chicago in 1860, he forthwith began to cast about for +another, the rounds of which might be firmer under his feet. He is not +the first, and we fear will not be the last, of our public men who have +thought to climb into the White House by a back window, and have come +ignominiously to the ground in attempting it. Mr. Seward's view of the +matter probably is that the Republican party deserted him six years +ago, and that he was thus absolved of all obligations to it. But might +there not have been such a thing as fidelity to its principles? Or was +Mr. Seward drawn insensibly into the acceptance of them by the drift of +political necessity, and did he take them up as if they were but the +hand that had been dealt him in the game, not from any conviction of +their moral permanence and power, perhaps with no perception of it, but +from a mere intellectual persuasion of the use that might be made of +them politically and for the nonce by a skilful gamester? We should be +very unwilling to admit such a theory of his character; but surely what +we have just seen would seem to justify it, for we can hardly conceive +that any one should suddenly descend from real statesmanship to the use +of such catch-rabble devices as those with which he has lately +disgusted the country. A small politician cannot be made out of a great +statesman, for there is an oppugnancy of nature between the two things, +and we may fairly suspect the former winnings of a man who has been +once caught with loaded dice in his pocket. However firm may be Mr. +Seward's faith in the new doctrine of Johnsonian infallibility, surely +he need not have made himself a partner in its vulgarity. And yet he +has attempted to vie with the Jack-pudding tricks of the unrivalled +performer whose man-of-business he is, in attempting a _populacity_ +(we must coin a new word for a new thing) for which he was exquisitely +unfitted. What more stiffly awkward than his essays at easy +familiarity? What more painfully remote from drollery than his efforts +to be droll? In the case of a man who descends so far as Mr. Seward, +such feats can be characterized by no other word so aptly as by +tumbling. The thing would be sad enough in any prominent man, but in +him it becomes a public shame, for in the eyes of the world it is the +nation that tumbles in its Prime Minister. The Secretary of State's +place may be dependent on the President, but the dignity of it belongs +to the country, and neither of them has any right to trifle with it. +Mr. Seward might stand on his head in front of what Jenkins calls his +"park gate," at Auburn, and we should be the last to question his +perfect right as a private citizen to amuse himself in his own way, but +in a great officer of the government such pranks are no longer +harmless. They are a national scandal, and not merely so, but a +national detriment, inasmuch as they serve to foster in foreign +statesman a profound misapprehension of the American people and of the +motives which influence them in questions of public policy. Never was +so great a wrong done to democracy, nor so great an insult offered to +it, as in this professional circuit of the presidential Punch and his +ministerial showman. + +Fortunately, the exhibitions of this unlucky pair, and their passing +round the hat without catching even the greasy pence they courted, +have very little to do with the great question to be decided at the +next elections, except in so far as we may be justified in suspecting +their purity of motive who could consent to such impurity of means, +and the soundness of their judgment in great things who in small ones +show such want of sagacity. The crowds they have drawn are no index of +popular approval. We remember seeing the prodigious nose of Mr. Tyler +(for the person behind it had been added by nature merely as the handle +to so fine a hatchet) drawn by six white horses through the streets, +and followed by an eager multitude, nine tenths of whom thought the +man belonging to it a traitor to the party which had chosen him. But +then the effigy at least of a grandiose, if not a great man, sat beside +him, and the display was saved from contempt by the massive shape of +Webster, beneath which he showed like a swallow against a thunder-cloud. +Even Mr. Fillmore, to whom the Fugitive Slave Law denies the complete +boon of an otherwise justly earned oblivion, had some dignity given to +his administration by the presence of Everett. But in this late +advertising-tour of a policy in want of a party, Cleon and Agoracritus +seem to have joined partnership, and the manners of the man match those +of the master. Mr. Johnson cannot so much as hope for the success in +escaping memory achieved by the last of those small Virginians whom the +traditionary fame of a State once fertile in statesmen lifted to four +years of imperial pillory, where his own littleness seemed to heighten +rather than lower the grandeur of his station; his name will not be +associated with the accomplishment of a great wrong against humanity, +let us hope not with the futile attempt at one; but he will be +indignantly remembered as the first, and we trust the last, of our +chief magistrates who believed in the brutality of the people, and gave +to the White House the ill-savor of a corner-grocery. _He_ a tribune of +the people? A lord of misrule, an abbot of unreason, much rather! + +No one can object more strongly than we to the mixing of politics with +personal character; but they are here inextricably entangled together, +and we hold it to be the duty of every journal in the country to join +in condemning a spectacle which silence might seem to justify as a +common event in our politics. We turn gladly from the vulgarity of the +President and his minister to consider the force of their arguments. +Mr. Johnson seems to claim that he has not betrayed the trust to which +he was elected, mainly because the Union party have always affirmed +that the rebellious States could not secede, and therefore _ex vi +termini_ are still in the Union. The corollary drawn from this is, +that they have therefore a manifest right to immediate representation +in Congress. What we have always understood the Union party as meaning +to affirm was, that a State had no right to secede; and it was upon +that question, which is a very different thing from the other, that the +whole controversy hinged. To assert that a State or States could not +secede, if they were strong enough, would be an absurdity. In point of +fact, all but three of the Slave States did secede, and for four years +it would have been treason throughout their whole territory, and death +on the nearest tree, to assert the contrary. The law forbids a man to +steal, but he may steal, nevertheless; and then, if he had Mr. +Johnson's power as a logician, he might claim to escape all penalty by +pleading that when the law said _should not_ it meant _could +not_, and therefore he _had not_. If a four years' war, if a +half million lives, and if a debt which is counted by the thousand +million are not satisfactory proofs that somebody did contrive to +secede practically, whatever the theoretic right may have been, then +nothing that ought not to be done ever has been done. We do not, +however, consider the question as to whether the Rebel States were +constitutionally, or in the opinion of any political organization, out +of the Union or not as of the least practical importance; for we have +never known an instance in which any party has retreated into the +thickets and swamps of constitutional interpretation, where it had the +least chance of maintaining its ground in the open field of common +sense or against the pressure of popular will. The practical fact is, +that the will of the majority, or the national necessity for the time +being, has always been constitutional; which is only as much as to say +that the Convention of 1787 was not wholly made up of inspired +prophets, who could provide beforehand for every possible contingency. +The doctrine of a strict and even pettifogging interpretation of the +Constitution had its rise among men who looked upon that instrument as +a treaty, and at a time when the conception of a national power which +should receive that of the States into its stream as tributary was +something which had entered the head of only here and there a dreamer. +The theorists of the Virginia school would have dammed up and diverted +the force of each State into a narrow channel of its own, with its +little saw-mill and its little grist-mill for local needs, instead of +letting it follow the slopes of the continental water-shed to swell the +volume of one great current ample for the larger uses and needful for +the higher civilization of all. That there should always be a school +who interpret the Constitution by its letter is a good thing, as +interposing a check to hasty or partial action, and gaining time for +ample discussion; but that in the end we should be governed by its +spirit, living and operative in the energies of an advancing people, is +a still better thing; since the levels and shore-lines of politics are +no more stationary than those of continents, and the ship of state +would in time be left aground far inland, to long in vain for that open +sea which is the only pathway to fortune and to glory. + +Equally idle with the claim that the Union party is foreclosed from now +dealing with the Rebel States as seceded, because four years ago it +declared that they had no right to secede, is the assertion that the +object of the war was proclaimed to be for the restoration of the Union +and the Constitution as they were. Even were we to admit that 1861 is +the same thing as 1866, the question comes back again to precisely the +point that is at issue between the President and Congress, namely, What +is the wisest way of restoring the Union? for which both profess +themselves equally anxious. As for the Constitution, we cannot have +that as it was, but only as its framers hoped it would be, with its one +weak and wicked element excluded. But as to Union, are we in favor of a +Union in form or in fact? of a Union on the map and in our national +style merely, or one of ideas, interests, and aspirations? If we cannot +have the latter, the former is a delusion and a snare; and the strength +of the nation would be continually called away from prosperous toil to +be wasted in holding a wolf by the ears, which would still be a wolf, +and known by all our enemies for such, though we called heaven and +earth to witness, in no matter how many messages or resolves, that the +innocent creature was a lamb. That somebody has a right to dictate some +kind of terms is admitted by Mr. Johnson's own repeated action in the +matter; but who that somebody should be, whether a single man, of whose +discretion even his own partisans are daily becoming more doubtful, or +the immediate representatives of that large majority of the States and +of the people who for the last five years have been forced against +their will to represent and to be the United States, is certainly too +grave an affair to be settled by that single man himself. + +We have seen to what extremes the party calling itself Conservative has +hinted its willingness to go, under the plea of restored Union, but +with the object of regained power. At Philadelphia, they went as far as +they publicly dared in insinuating that the South would be justified in +another rebellion, and their journals have more than once prompted the +President to violent measures, which would as certainly be his ruin as +they would lead to incalculable public disaster. The President himself +has openly announced something like a design of forcibly suppressing a +Congress elected by the same votes and secured by the same guaranties +that elected him to his place and secure him in it,--a Congress whose +validity he has acknowledged by sending in his messages to it, by +signing its bills, and by drawing his pay under its vote; and yet +thinking men are not to be allowed to doubt the propriety of leaving +the gravest measure that ever yet came up for settlement by the country +to a party and a man so reckless as these have shown themselves to be. +Mr. Johnson talks of the danger of centralization, and repeats the old +despotic fallacy of many tyrants being worse than one,--a fallacy +originally invented, and ever since repeated, as a slur upon democracy, +but which is a palpable absurdity when the people who are to be +tyrannized over have the right of displacing their tyrants every two +years. The true many-headed tyrant is the Mob, that part of the +deliberative body of a nation which Mr. Johnson, with his Southern +notions of popular government, has been vainly seeking, that he might +pay court to it, from the seaboard to St. Louis, but which hardly +exists, we are thankful to say, as a constituent body, in any part of +the Northern States outside the city of New York. + +Mr. Seward, with that playfulness which sits upon him so gracefully, +and which draws its resources from a reading so extensive that not even +_John Gilpin_ has escaped its research, puts his argument to the people +in a form where the Socratic and arithmetic methods are neatly +combined, and asks, "How many States are there in the Union?" He +himself answers his own question for an audience among whom it might +have been difficult to find any political adherent capable of so +arduous a solution, by asking another, "Thirty-six?" Then he goes on to +say that there is a certain party which insists that the number shall +be less by ten, and ends by the clincher, "Now how many stars do you +wish to see in your flag?" The result of some of Mr. Johnson's +harangues was so often a personal collision, in which the more ardent +on both sides had an opportunity to see any number of new +constellations, that this astronomical view of the case must have +struck the audience rather by its pertinence than its novelty. But in +the argument of the Secretary, as in that of the President, there is a +manifest confusion of logic, and something very like a _petitio +principii_. We might answer Mr. Seward's question with, "As many fixed +stars as you please, but no more shooting stars with any consent of +ours." But really this matter is of more interest to heralds of arms +than to practical men. The difference between Congress and the +President is not, as Mr. Seward would insinuate, that Congress or +anybody else wishes to keep the ten States out, but that the Radical +party (we cheerfully accept our share in the opprobrium of the name) +insists that they shall come in on a footing of perfect equality with +the rest; while the President would reward them for rebellion by giving +them an additional weight of nearly one half in the national councils. +The cry of "Taxation without representation" is foolish enough as +raised by the Philadelphia Convention, for do we not tax every +foreigner that comes to us while he is in process of becoming a citizen +and a voter? But under the Johnsonian theory of reconstruction, we +shall leave a population which is now four millions not only taxed +without representation, but doomed to be so forever without any +reasonable hope of relief. The true point is not as to the abstract +merits of universal suffrage (though we believe it the only way toward +an enlightened democracy and the only safeguard of popular government), +but as to whether we shall leave the freedmen without the only adequate +means of self-defence. And however it may be now, the twenty-six States +certainly _were_ the Union when they accepted the aid of these people +and pledged the faith of the government to their protection. Jamaica, +at the end of nearly thirty years since emancipation, shows us how +competent former masters are to accomplish the elevation of their +liberated slaves, even though their own interests would prompt them to +it. Surely it is a strange plea to be effective in a democratic +country, that we owe these people nothing because they cannot help +themselves; as if governments were instituted for the care of the +strong only. The argument against their voting which is based upon +their ignorance strikes us oddly in the mouths of those whose own hope +of votes lies in the ignorance, or, what is often worse, the prejudice, +of the voters. Besides, we do not demand that the seceding States +should at once confer the right of suffrage on the blacks, but only +that they should give them the same chance to attain it, and the same +inducement to make themselves worthy of it, as to every one else. The +answer that they have not the right in some of the Northern States may +be a reproach to the intelligence of those States, but has no relevancy +if made to the general government. It is not with these States that we +are making terms or claim any right to make them, nor is the number of +their non-voting population so large as to make them dangerous, or the +prejudice against them so great that it may not safely be left to time +and common sense. It was not till all men were made equal before the +law, and the fact recognized that government is something that does not +merely preside over, but reside in, the rights of all, that even white +peasants were enabled to rise out of their degradation, and to become +the strength instead of the danger of France. Nothing short of such a +reform could have conquered the contempt and aversion with which the +higher classes looked upon the emancipated serf. Norman-French +literature reeks with the outbreak of this feeling toward the +ancestors, whether Jews or villeins, of the very men who are now the +aristocracy of South Carolina,--a feeling as intense, as nauseous in +its expression, and as utterly groundless, as that against the negro +now. We are apt, it would seem, a little to confound the meaning of the +two terms _government_ and _self-government_, and the principles on +which they respectively rest. If the latter has its rights, the former +has quite as plainly its duties; and one of them certainly is to see +that no freedom should be allowed to the parts which would endanger the +safety of the whole. An occasion calling for the exercise of this duty +is forced upon us now, and we must be equal to it. Self-government, in +any rightful definition of it, can hardly be stretched so far that it +will cover, as the late Rebels and their Northern advocates contend, +the right to dispose absolutely of the destinies of four millions of +people, the allies and hearty friends of the United States, without +allowing them any voice in the matter. + +[Illustration: _William H. Seward_] + +It is alleged by reckless party orators that those who ask for +guaranties before readmitting the seceded States wish to treat them +with harshness, if not with cruelty. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens is +triumphantly quoted, as if his foolish violence fairly represented the +political opinions of the Union party. They might as well be made +responsible for his notions of finance. We are quite willing to let Mr. +Stevens be paired off with Mr. Vallandigham, and to believe that +neither is a fair exponent of the average sentiment of his party. +Calling names should be left to children, with whom, as with too large +a class of our political speakers, it seems to pass for argument. We +believe it never does so with the people; certainly not with the +intelligent, who make a majority among them, unless (as in the case of +"Copperhead") there be one of those hardly-to-be-defined realities +behind the name which they are so quick to detect. We cannot say that +we have any great sympathy for the particular form of mildness which +discovers either a "martyr," or a "pure-hearted patriot," or even a +"lofty statesman," in Mr. Jefferson Davis, the latter qualification of +him having been among the discoveries of the London _Times_ when +it thought his side was going to win; but we can say that nothing has +surprised us more, or seemed to us a more striking evidence of the +humanizing influence of democracy, than the entire absence of any +temper that could be called revengeful in the people of the North +toward their late enemies. If it be a part of that inconsistent mixture +of purely personal motives and more than legitimate executive action +which Mr. Johnson is pleased to call his "policy,"--if it be a part of +that to treat the South with all the leniency that is short of folly +and all the conciliation that is short of meanness,--then we were +advocates of it before Mr. Johnson. While he was yet only ruminating in +his vindictive mind, sore with such rancor as none but a "plebeian," as +he used to call himself, can feel against his social superiors, the +only really agrarian proclamation ever put forth by any legitimate +ruler, and which was countersigned by the now suddenly "conservative" +Secretary of State, we were in favor of measures that should look to +governing the South by such means as the South itself afforded, or +could be made to afford. It is true that, as a part of the South, we +reckoned the colored people bound to us by every tie of honor, justice, +and principle, but we never wished to wink out of sight the natural +feelings of men suddenly deprived of what they conceived to be their +property,--of men, too, whom we respected for their courage and +endurance even in a bad cause. But we believed then, as we believe now, +and as events have justified us in believing, that there could be no +graver error than to flatter our own feebleness and uncertainty by +calling it magnanimity,--a virtue which does not scorn the society of +patience and prudence, but which cannot subsist apart from courage and +fidelity to principle. A people so boyish and conceited as the +Southerners have always shown themselves to be, unwilling ever to deal +with facts, but only with their own imagination of them, would be sure +to interpret indecision as cowardice, if not as an unwilling tribute to +that superiority of which men who really possess it are the last to +boast. They have learned nothing from the war but to hate the men who +subdued them, and to misinterpret and misrepresent the causes of their +subduing; and even now, when a feeling has been steadily growing in the +rest of the country for the last nine months deeper and more intense +than any during the war, because mixed with an angry sense of +unexpected and treacherous disappointment, instead of setting their +strength to the rebuilding of their shattered social fabric, they are +waiting, as they waited four years ago, for a division in the North +which will never come, and hailing in Andrew Johnson a scourge of God +who is to avenge them in the desolation of our cities! Is it not time +that these men were transplanted at least into the nineteenth century, +and, if they cannot be suddenly Americanized, made to understand +something of the country which was too good for them, even though at +the cost of a rude shock to their childish self-conceit? Is that a +properly reconstructed Union in the Southern half of which no Northern +man's life is safe except at the sacrifice of his conscience, his +freedom of speech, of everything but his love of money? To our minds +the providential purpose of this intervention of Mr. Johnson in our +affairs is to warn us of the solemn duty that lies upon us in this +single crisis of our history, when the chance is offered us of stamping +our future with greatness or contempt, and which requires something +like statesmanship in the people themselves, as well as in those who +act for them. The South insisted upon war, and has had enough of it; it +is now our turn to insist that the peace we have conquered shall be so +settled as to make war impossible for the future. + +But how is this to be done? The road to it is a very plain one. We +shall gain all we want if we make the South really prosperous; for with +prosperity will come roads, schools, churches, printing presses, +industry, thrift, intelligence, and security of life and property. +Hitherto the prosperity of the South has been factitious; it has been a +prosperity of the Middle Ages, keeping the many poor that a few might +show their wealth in the barbarism of showy equipages and numerous +servants, and spend in foreign cities the wealth that should have built +up civilization and made way for refinement at home. There were no +public libraries, no colleges worthy of the name; there was no art, no +science,--still worse, no literature but Simms's: there was no desire +for them. We do not say it in reproach; we are simply stating a fact, +and are quite aware that the North is far behind Europe in these +things. But we are not behind her in the value we set upon them; are +even before her in the price we are willing to pay for them, and are in +the way to get them. The South was not in that way; could not get into +it, indeed, so long as the labor that made wealth was cut off from any +interest in its expenditure, nor had any goal for such hopes as soared +away from the dreary level of its lifelong drudgery but in the grave +and the world beyond it. We are not blind to what may be said on the +other side, nor to that fatal picturesqueness, so attractive to +sentimental minds and so melancholy to thoughtful ones, which threw a +charm over certain exceptional modes of Southern life among the older +families in Virginia and South Carolina. But there are higher and +manlier kinds of beauty,--barer and sterner, some would call +them,--with less softly rounded edges, certainly, than the Wolf's Crag +picturesqueness, which carries the mind with pensive indolence toward +the past, instead of stirring it with a sense of present life, or +bracing it with the hope of future opportunity, and which at once veils +and betrays the decay of ancient civilizations. Unless life is arranged +for the mere benefit of the novelist, what right had these bits of +last-century Europe here? Even the virtues of the South were some of +them anachronisms; and even those that were not existed side by side +with an obtuseness of moral sense that could make a hero of Semmes, and +a barbarism that could starve prisoners by the thousand. + +Some philosophers, to be sure, plead with us that the Southerners are +remarkable for their smaller hands and feet, though so good an observer +as Thackeray pronounced this to be true of the whole American people; +but really we cannot think such arguments as this will give any pause +to the inevitable advance of that democracy, somewhat rude and raw as +yet, a clumsy boy-giant, and not too well mannered, whose office it +nevertheless is to make the world ready for the true second coming of +Christ in the practical supremacy of his doctrine, and its incarnation, +after so many centuries of burial, in the daily lives of men. We have +been but dimly, if at all, conscious of the greatness of our errand, +while we have already accomplished a part of it in bringing together +the people of all nations to see each other no longer as aliens or +enemies, but as equal partakers of the highest earthly dignity,--a +common manhood. We have been forced, whether we would or no, first to +endure, then to tolerate, and at last to like men from all the four +corners of the world, and to see that each added a certain virtue of +his own to that precious amalgam of which we are in due time to fashion +a great nation. We are now brought face to face with our duty toward +one of those dusky races that have long sat in the shadow of the world; +we are to be taught to see the Christ disguised also in these, and to +find at last that a part of our salvation is inextricably knit up with +the necessity of doing them justice and leading them to the light. This +is no sentimental fancy; it is written in plain characters upon the +very surface of things. We have done everything to get rid of the +negro; and the more we did, the more he was thrust upon us in every +possible relation of life and aspect of thought. One thing we have not +tried,--a spell before which he would vanish away from us at once, by +taking quietly the place, whatever it be, to which Nature has assigned +him. We have not acknowledged him as our brother. Till we have done so +he will be always at our elbow, a perpetual discomfort to himself and +us. Now this one thing that will give us rest is precisely what the +South, if we leave the work of reconstruction in their hands, will make +it impossible for us to do; and yet it must be done ere America can +penetrate the Southern States. It is for this reason, and not with any +desire of establishing a standing garrison of four hundred thousand +loyal voters in the South, that we insist on the absolute necessity of +justice to the black man. Not that we have not a perfect right to +demand the reception of such a garrison, but we wish the South to +govern itself; and this it will never be able to do, it will be +governed as heretofore by its circumstances, if we allow it to replace +slavery by the disenfranchisement of color, and to make an Ireland out +of what should be the most productive, populous, and happy part of the +Union. We may evade this manifest duty of ours from indolence, or +indifference, or selfish haste; but if there is one truth truer than +another, it is that no man or nation ever neglected a duty that was not +sooner or later laid upon them in a heavier form, to be done at a +dearer rate. Neither man nor nation can find rest short of their +highest convictions. + +This is something that altogether transcends any partisan politics. It +is of comparatively little consequence to us whether Congress or the +President carry the day, provided only that America triumph. That is, +after all, the real question. On which side is the future of the +country,--the future that we cannot escape if we would, but which our +action may embarrass and retard? If we had looked upon the war as a +mere trial of physical strength between two rival sections of the +country, we should have been the first to oppose it, as a wicked waste +of treasure and blood. But it was something much deeper than this, and +so the people of the North instinctively recognized it to be from the +first,--instinctively, we say, and not deliberately at first; but +before it was over, their understandings had grasped its true meaning, +as an effort of the ideal America, which was to them half a dream and +half a reality, to cast off an alien element. It was this ideal +something, not the less strongly felt because vaguely defined, that +made them eager, as only what is above sordid motives can, to sacrifice +all that they had and all that they were rather than fail in its +attainment. And it is to men not yet cooled from the white-heat of this +passionate mood that Mr. Johnson comes with his paltry offer of "my +policy," in exchange for the logical consequences of all this devotion +and this sacrifice. What is any one man's policy, and especially any +one weak man's policy, against the settled drift of a nation's +conviction, conscience, and instinct? The American people had made up +not only their minds, but their hearts, and no man who knows anything +of human nature could doubt what their decision would be. They wanted +only a sufficient obstacle to awaken them to a full consciousness of +what was at stake, and that obstacle the obstinate vanity of the +President and the blindness or resentment of his prime minister have +supplied. They are fully resolved to have the great stake they played +for and won, and that stake was the Americanization of all America, +nothing more and nothing less. Mr. Johnson told us in New York, with so +profound a misconception of the feeling of the Northern States as was +only possible to a vulgar mind, and that mind a Southern one, that the +South had set up slavery as its stake, and lost, and that now the North +was in danger of losing the stake it had risked on reconstruction in +the national debt. Mr. Johnson is still, it would seem, under that +delusion which led the South into the war; namely, that it was that +section of the country which was the chief element in its wealth and +greatness. But no Northern man, who, so long as he lives, will be +obliged to pay his fine of taxes for the abolition of slavery which was +forced upon us by the South, is likely to think it very hard that the +South should be compelled to furnish its share toward the common +burden, or will be afraid that the loyal States, whose urgent demands +compelled a timid Congress at last to impose direct taxes, will be +unable to meet their obligations in the future, as in the past. + +We say again that the questions before the country are not to be +decided on any grounds of personal prejudice or partiality. We are far +from thinking that Congress has in all respects acted as became the +dignity of its position, or seized all the advantage of the +opportunity. They have seemed to us sometimes afraid of coming before +the people with a direct, frank, and simple statement of what was not +only the best thing that could be done, but the one thing that must be +done. They were afraid of the people, and did not count securely, as +they should have done, on that precious seeing which four years of +gradually wakening moral sense had lent to the people's eyes. They +should not have shrunk from taking upon themselves and their party all +the odium of being in the right; of being on the side of justice, +humanity, and of the America which is yet to be, whoever may fear to +help and whoever may try to hinder. The vulgar cry would be against +them, at any rate, and they might reckon on being accused of principles +which they thought it prudent to conceal, whether they committed their +party to them or not. With those who have the strong side, as they +always do who have conscience for an ally, a bold policy is the only +prosperous one. It is always wisest to accept in advance all the +logical consequences that can be drawn from the principles we profess, +and to make a stand on the extremest limits of our position. It will be +time enough to fall back when we are driven out. In taking a half-way +position at first, we expose ourselves to all the disadvantage and +discouragement of seeming to fight on a retreat, and cut ourselves off +from our supplies. For the supplies of a party which is contending for +a clear principle, and not for its own immediate success, are always +drawn from the highest moral ground included in its lines. We are not +speaking here of abstractions or wire-drawn corollaries, but of those +plain ethical axioms which every man may apprehend, and which are so +closely involved in the question now before the country for decision. +We at least could lose nothing by letting the people know exactly what +we meant; for we meant nothing that could not claim the suffrage of +sincere democracy, of prudent statesmanship, or of jealousy for the +nation's honor and safety. That the Republican party should be broken +up is of comparatively little consequence; for it would be merged in +the stronger party of those who are resolved that no by-questions, no +fallacies of generosity to the vanquished, shall turn it aside from the +one fixed purpose it has at heart; that the war shall not have been in +vain; and that the Rebel States, when they return to the Union, shall +return to it as an addition of power, and under such terms as that they +_must_, and not merely _may_, be fixed there. Let us call things by +their right names, and keep clearly in view both the nature of the +thing vanquished and of the war in which we were victors. When men talk +of generosity toward a suppliant foe, they entirely forget what that +foe really was. To the people of the South no one thinks of being +unmerciful. But they were only the blind force wielded by our real +enemy,--an enemy, prophesy what smooth things you will, with whom we +can never be reconciled and whom it would be madness to spare. And this +enemy was not any body of kindred people, but that principle of evil +fatally repugnant to our institutions, which, flinging away the hilt of +its broken weapon, is now cheating itself with the hope that it can +forge a new one of the soft and treacherous metal of Northern +disloyalty. The war can in no respect be called a civil war, though +that was what the South, in its rash ignorance, threatened the North +with. It was as much a war between two different nations, and the +geographical line was as distinctly drawn between them, as in the late +war between North and South Germany. They had been living, it is true, +under the same government, but the South regarded this as implying no +tie more intimate than that which brought the representatives of +Prussia and Austria together in the Frankfort Diet. We have the same +right to impose terms and to demand guaranties that Prussia has, that +the victor always has. + +Many people are led to favor Mr. Johnson's policy because they dislike +those whom they please to call the "Republican leaders." If ever a +party existed that had no recognized leaders, it is the Republican +party. Composed for the last five years, at least, of men who, +themselves professing all shades of opinion, were agreed only in a +determination to sustain the honor and preserve the existence of the +nation, it has been rather a majority than a party, employing the +legislative machine to carry out the purposes of public opinion. The +people were the true inspirers of all its measures, and accordingly it +was left without a definite policy the moment the mere politicians in +its ranks became doubtful as to what direction the popular mind would +take. It had no recognized leader either in the House or Senate just at +the time when it first stood in need of such. The majority of its +representatives there tried in vain to cast any political horoscope by +which it would be safe for them individually to be guided. They showed +the same distrust of the sound judgment of the people and their power +to grasp principles that they showed at the beginning of the war, and +at every discouraging moment while it was going on. Now that the signs +of the times show unmistakably to what the popular mind is making +itself up, they have once more a policy, if we may call that so which +is only a calculation of what it would be "safe to go before the people +with," as they call it. It is always safe to go before them with plain +principles of right, and with the conclusions that must be drawn from +them by common sense, though this is what too many of our public men +can never understand. Now joining a Know-Nothing "lodge," now hanging +on the outskirts of a Fenian "circle," they mistake the momentary +eddies of popular whimsy for the great current that sets always +strongly in one direction through the life and history of the nation. +Is it, as foreigners assert, the fatal defect of our system to fill our +highest offices with men whose views in politics are bounded by the +next district election? When we consider how noble the science +is,--nobler even than astronomy, for it deals with the mutual +repulsions and attractions, not of inert masses, but of bodies endowed +with thought and will, calculates moral forces, and reckons the orbits +of God's purposes toward mankind,--we feel sure that it is to find +nobler teachers and students, and to find them even here. + +There is another class of men who are honestly drawn toward the policy +of what we are fain, for want of a more definite name, to call the +Presidential Opposition party, by their approval of the lenient +measures which they suppose to be peculiar to it. But our objection to +the measures advocated by the Philadelphia Convention, so far as we can +trace any definite shape amid the dust-cloud of words, is, not they +would treat the Rebel States with moderation, but that they propose to +take them back on trust. We freely admit that we should have been +inclined to see more reasonableness in this course if we had not the +examples of Jamaica and New Orleans before our eyes; if we had not seen +both there and in other instances with which history supplies us, that +it is not safe to leave the settlement of such matters in the hands of +men who would be more than human if they had not the prejudices and the +resentments of caste. Here is just one of those cases of public concern +which call for the arbitrament of a cool and impartial third +party,--the very office expected of a popular government,--which should +as carefully abstain from meddling in matters that may be safely left +to be decided by natural laws as it should be prompt to interfere where +those laws would to the general detriment be inoperative. It should be +remembered that self-interest, though its requirements may seem plain +and imperative to an unprejudiced bystander, is something which men, +and even communities, are often ready to sacrifice at the bidding of +their passions, and of none so readily as their pride. As for the +attachment between master and slave, whose existence is sometimes +asseverated in the face of so many glaring facts to the contrary, and +on which we are asked to depend as something stronger than written law, +we have very little faith in it. The system of clanship in the Scottish +Highlands is the strongest case to which we can appeal in modern times +of a truly patriarchal social order. In that, the pride of the chief +was answered by the willing devotion of the sept, and the two were +bound together as closely as kindred blood, immemorial tradition, and +mutual dependence could link them; and yet, the moment it became for +the interest of the chieftain, in whom alone was the landed title, to +convert the mountain slopes into sheep-walks, farewell to all +considerations of ancestral legend and ideal picturesqueness! The +clansmen were dispossessed of their little holdings, and shipped off to +the colonies like cattle, by the very men for whom they would have +given their lives without question. The relation, just like that of +master and slave, or the proposed one of superior and dependent, in the +South, had become an anachronism, to preserve which would have been a +vain struggle against that power of Necessity which the Greeks revered +as something god-like. In our own case, so far from making it for the +interest of the ruling classes at the South to elevate the condition of +the black man, the policy of Mr. Johnson offers them a bribe to keep +him in a state of hopeless dependency and subjection. It gives them +more members of Congress in proportion as they have more unrepresented +inhabitants. Mr. Beecher asks us (and we see no possible reason for +doubting the honesty of his opinions, whatever may be their soundness) +whether we are afraid of the South, and tells us that, if we allow them +to govern us, we shall richly deserve it. It is not that we are afraid +of, nor are we in the habit of forming our opinions on any such +imaginary grounds; but we confess that we are afraid of committing an +act of national injustice, of national dishonor, of national breach of +faith, and therefore of national unwisdom and weakness. Moderation is +an excellent thing; but taking things for granted is not moderation, +and there may be such a thing as being immoderate in concession and +confidence. Aristotle taught us long ago that true moderation was as +far from the too-much of blind passion on the one hand as from that of +equally blind lukewarmness on the other. We have an example of wise +reconstructive policy in that measure of the Bourbon-restoration +ministry, which compensated the returned emigrants for their +confiscated estates by a grant from the public treasury. And the +measure was wise, for the reason that it enabled the new proprietors +and the ousted ones to live as citizens of the same country together +without mutual hatred and distrust. We do not propose to compensate the +slaveholder for the loss of his chattels, because the cases are not +parallel, and because Mr. Johnson no less than we acknowledges the +justice and validity of their emancipation. But the situation of the +negro is strikingly parallel with that of the new holders of land in +France. As they were entitled to security, so he has a right not only +to be secured in his freedom, but in the consequences which +legitimately flow from it. For it is only so that he can be insured +against that feeling of distrust and uncertainty of the future which +will prevent him from being profitable to himself, his former master, +and the country. If we sought a parallel for Mr. Johnson's "policy," we +should find it in James II., thinking his prerogative strong enough to +overcome the instincts, convictions, and fears of England. + +However much fair-minded men may have been wearied with the backing and +filling of Congress, and their uncertainty of action on some of the +most important questions that have come before them,--however the +dignity, and even propriety, of their attitude toward Mr. Johnson may +be in some respects honestly called in question,--no one who has looked +fairly at the matter can pronounce the terms they have imposed on the +South as conditions of restoration harsh ones. The character of +Congress is not before the country, but simply the character of the +plan they propose. For ourselves, we should frankly express our disgust +at the demagogism which courted the Fenians; for, however much we may +sympathize with the real wrongs of Ireland, it was not for an American +Congress to declare itself in favor of a movement which based itself on +the claim of every Irish voter in the country to a double citizenship, +in which the adopted country was made secondary, and which, directed as +it was against a province where Irishmen are put on equal terms with +every other inhabitant, and where their own Church is the privileged +one, was nothing better than burglary and murder. Whatever may be Mr. +Seward's faults, he was certainly right in his dealing with that +matter, unless he is to be blamed for slowness. But as regards the +terms offered by Congress to the South, they are very far from harsh or +unreasonable; they are lamb-like compared to what we had reason to fear +from Mr. Johnson, if we might judge by his speeches and declarations of +a year or two ago. But for the unhappy hallucination which led Mr. +Johnson first to fancy himself the people of the United States, and +then to quarrel with the party which elected him for not granting that +he was so, they would not have found a man in the North to question +their justice and propriety, unless among those who from the outset +would have been willing to accept Mr. Jefferson Davis as the legitimate +President of the whole country. The terms imposed by Congress really +demand nothing more than that the South should put in practice at home +that Monroe Doctrine of which it has always been so clamorous a +supporter when it could be used for party purposes. The system of +privileged classes which the South proposes to establish is a relic of +old Europe which we think it bad policy to introduce again on this +continent, after our so fresh experience in the war of the evil +consequences that may spring from it. Aristocracy can form no more +intimate and hearty union with democracy under one form than under +another; and unless such a union be accomplished, or we can see some +reasonable hope of its future accomplishment, we are as far from our +object as ever. + +The plan proposed disfranchises no one, does not even interfere with +the right of the States to settle the conditions of the franchise. It +merely asks that the privilege shall be alike within reach of all, +attainable on the same terms by those who have shown themselves our +friends as by those whose hands were so lately red with the blood of +our nearest and dearest. We have nothing to do with the number of +actual loyalists at the South, but with the number of possible ones. +The question is not how many now exist there, and what are their +rights, but how many may be made to exist there, and by what means. The +duty of the country to itself transcends all private claims or class +interests. And when people speak of "the South," do they very clearly +define to themselves what they mean by the words? Do they not really +mean, without knowing it, the small body of dangerous men who have +misguided that part of the country to its own ruin, and almost to that +of the Republic? In the mind of our government the South should have no +such narrow meaning. It should see behind the conspirators of yesterday +an innumerable throng of dusky faces, with their dumb appeal, not to +its mercy, its generosity, or even its gratitude, but to its plighted +faith, to the solemn engagement of its chief magistrate and their +martyr. Any theory of the South which leaves out the negro is a scandal +and reproach to our honesty; any attempt at another of those fatal +compromises which ignore his claims upon us, but cannot ignore his +claims upon nature and God and that inevitable future which we may hope +to put far from us, but which is even now at our door, would be an +imputation on our judgment, and an acknowledgment that we were unworthy +to measure our strength with a great occasion when it met us face to +face. + +We are very far from joining in the unfeeling outcry which is sometimes +raised by thoughtless persons against the Southern people, because they +decorate with flowers the graves of their dead soldiers, and cherish +the memory of those who fell in the defence of a cause which they could +not see to be already fallen before they entered its service. They have +won our respect, the people of Virginia especially, by their devotion +and endurance in sustaining what they believed to be their righteous +quarrel. They would rather deserve our reprobation, if they were +wanting in these tributes to natural and human feeling. They are as +harmless as the monument to the memory of those who fell for the +Pretender, which McDonald of Glenaladale raised after the last of the +Stuarts was in his grave. Let us sympathize with and respect all such +exhibitions of natural feeling. But at the same time let us take care +that it shall not be at the risk of his life that the poor black shall +fling his tribute on the turf of those who died, with equal sacrifice +of self, in a better cause. Let us see to it that the Union men of the +South shall be safe in declaring and advocating the reasons of their +faith in a cause which we believe to be sacred. Let us secure such +opportunities of education to the masses of the Southern people, +whether white or black, as shall make any future rebellion +impracticable, and render it possible for the dead of both sides to +sleep peaceably together under the safeguard of a common humanity, +while the living dwell under the protection of a nationality which both +shall value alike. Let us put it out of the power of a few ambitious +madmen to shake, though they could not endanger, the foundations of a +structure which enshrines the better hope of mankind. When Congress +shall again come together, strong in the sympathy of a united people, +let them show a dignity equal to the importance of the crisis. Let them +give the President a proof of their patriotism, not only by allowing +him the opportunity, but by making it easy for him, to return to the +national position he once occupied. Let them not lower their own +dignity and that of the nation by any bandying of reproaches with the +Executive. The cause which we all have at heart is vulgarized by any +littleness or show of personal resentment in its representatives, and +is of too serious import to admit of any childishness or trifling. Let +there be no more foolish talk of impeachment for what is at best a poor +infirmity of nature, and could only be raised into a harmful importance +by being invested with the dignity of a crime against the state. +Nothing could be more unwise than to entangle in legal quibbles a cause +so strong in its moral grounds, so transparent in its equity, and so +plain to the humblest apprehension in its political justice and +necessity. We have already one criminal half turned martyr at Fortress +Monroe; we should be in no hurry to make another out of even more +vulgar material,--for unhappily martyrs are not Mercuries. We have only +to be unswervingly faithful to what is the true America of our hope and +belief, and whatever is American will rise from one end of the country +to the other instinctively to our side, with more than ample means of +present succor and of final triumph. It is only by being loyal and +helpful to Truth that men learn at last how loyal and helpful she can +be to them. + + +THE RIVERSIDE PRESS + +Electrotyped and printed by H. O. 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