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diff --git a/34086.txt b/34086.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..379b72e --- /dev/null +++ b/34086.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3348 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Ifs of History, by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin + + +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 Ifs of History + + +Author: Joseph Edgar Chamberlin + + + +Release Date: October 16, 2010 [eBook #34086] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IFS OF HISTORY*** + + +E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Julia12000, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/ifsofhistory00chamuoft + + + + + +THE IFS OF HISTORY + +by + +JOSEPH EDGAR CHAMBERLIN + + + + + + + +Philadelphia +Henry Altemus Company + +Copyright, 1907, +by +Howard E. Altemus + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. IF THEMISTOCLES HAD NOT BEATEN + ARISTIDES IN AN ATHENIAN ELECTION 13 + + II. IF THE MOORS HAD WON THE + BATTLE OF TOURS 21 + + III. IF KING ETHELRED OF ENGLAND + HAD NOT MARRIED THE NORMAN + EMMA 30 + + IV. IF COLUMBUS HAD KEPT HIS + STRAIGHT COURSE WESTWARD 37 + + V. IF QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND + HAD LEFT A SON OR DAUGHTER 47 + + VI. IF THE PHILARMONIA HAD NOT + GIVEN CONCERTS AT VICENZA 56 + + VII. IF THE SPANISH ARMADA HAD + SAILED AT ITS APPOINTED TIME 64 + + VIII. IF CHAMPLAIN HAD TARRIED IN + PLYMOUTH BAY 71 + + IX. IF CHARLES II HAD ACCEPTED THE + KINGSHIP OF VIRGINIA 79 + + X. IF ADMIRAL PENN HAD PERSISTED IN + DISOWNING HIS SON WILLIAM 91 + + XI. IF THE BOY GEORGE WASHINGTON + HAD BECOME A BRITISH MIDSHIPMAN 99 + + XII. IF ALEXANDER HAMILTON HAD NOT + WRITTEN ABOUT THE HURRICANE 107 + + XIII. IF LAFAYETTE HAD HELD THE + FRENCH REIGN OF TERROR IN + CHECK 114 + + XIV. IF GILBERT LIVINGSTON HAD NOT + VOTED NEW YORK INTO THE + UNION 121 + + XV. IF THE PIRATE JEAN LAFITTE HAD + JOINED THE BRITISH AT NEW + ORLEANS 129 + + XVI. IF JAMES MACDONNEL HAD NOT + CLOSED THE GATES OF HUGOMONT + CASTLE 138 + + XVII. IF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER + HAD MOVED SOUTHWARD, NOT + NORTHWARD 150 + + XVIII. IF SKIPPER JENNINGS HAD NOT RESCUED + CERTAIN SHIPWRECKED + JAPANESE 160 + + XIX. IF ORSINI'S BOMB HAD NOT FAILED + TO DESTROY NAPOLEON III 170 + + XX. IF PRESIDENT JAMES BUCHANAN HAD + ENFORCED THE LAW IN NOVEMBER, + 1860 176 + + XXI. IF THE CONFEDERATES HAD MARCHED + ON WASHINGTON AFTER BULL + RUN 185 + + XXII. IF THE CONFEDERATE STATES HAD + PURCHASED THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S + FLEET IN 1861 194 + + + + +PREFACE + + +Whether or not we believe that events are consciously ordered before +their occurrence, we are compelled to admit the importance of +Contingency in human affairs. + +If we believe in such an orderly and predetermined arrangement, the +small circumstance upon which a great event may hinge becomes, in our +view, but the instrumentality by means of which the great plan is +operated. It by no means sets aside the vital influence of chance to +assume that "all chance is but direction which we cannot see." + +For instance, the believer in special providences regards as clearly +providential the flight of the flocks of birds which diverted the +course of Columbus from our shores to those of the West Indies; but it +is none the less true that this trivial circumstance caused the great +navigator to turn his prow. + +Those who, on the other hand, reject the idea of special providences, +and treat history as a sequence of occurrences emerging mechanically +from the relations of men with one another, must admit that causes +forever contend with causes, and that the nice balance of action and +reaction may sometimes be influenced radically by even so small a +circumstance as the cackling of the geese of Rome. It is true that the +evolutionist is apt to become a believer in necessity to an extent which +appears unlikely to the mind of the other. Events, in his view, inhere +in the nature and character of men, these in their turn being the result +of the physical circumstances that differentiate the nations. This view +seems at first to reduce the probability that accident will at any time +sensibly alter the course of affairs. + +But if we take historical action and reaction at their moments of +equilibrium, we see that the tide of affairs may sometimes appear to +follow the drift of a feather. Consider, for instance, the declaration +of the Duke of Wellington that the issue of the battle of Waterloo +turned upon the closing of the gates of Hugomont Castle by the hand of +one man. Wellington was certainly in a position to know if this was +true; and in the light of the tremendous events that depended upon the +trifling act, does it not appear that accident for one moment outweighed +in consequence any necessity that inhered in the character of the French +people or that of the nations arrayed against them at Waterloo? It may +be the function of Contingency to correct the overconfidence of the +evolutionist. + +At all events, we cannot dismiss the "if"; there is, as Touchstone says, +much virtue in it. + + J. E. C. + + + + +THE IFS OF HISTORY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IF THEMISTOCLES HAD NOT BEATEN ARISTIDES IN AN ATHENIAN ELECTION + + +Mithra instead of Jesus! The western world Zoroastrian, not Christian! +The Persian Redeemer, always called the Light of the World in their +scriptures; the helper of Ahura-Mazda, the Almighty, in his warfare with +Ahriman, or Satan; the intercessor for men with the Creator; the Saviour +of humanity; he, Mithra, might have been the central person of the +dominant religion of Europe and modern times, but for certain +developments in Athenian politics in the years between 490 and 480 +B. C. For it is true that in the first three of four centuries of the +Christian era the western world seemed to hesitate between the religion +of Mithra and that of Christ; and if the Persians had completed the +conquest of Greece in the fifth century B. C., Mithra might have so +strengthened his hold upon Europe that the scale would have been turned +forever in his direction. + +What was it that enabled the Greeks, in the crucial test, the ultimate +contingency, to turn back the Persians and maintain their independence? +History says that it was the result of the battles of Marathon and +Salamis, in which the Greeks were triumphant over the Persians. This is +true only in a limited sense. The battle of Marathon, in 490 B. C., did +not save Greece, for the Persians came back again more powerful than +ever. At Thermopylae, Leonidas and his band died vainly, for the hosts of +Xerxes overran all Greece north of the isthmus of Corinth. They took +Athens, and burned the temples on the Acropolis. They were triumphant on +the land. + +But at Salamis, in the narrow channel between the horseshoe-shaped +island and the Attican mainland, Themistocles, on the 20th day of +September, 480 B. C., adroitly led the great Persian fleet of six +hundred vessels into a trap and defeated it in as heroic a fight as ever +the men of the West fought against the men of the East. Seated on his +"throne," or rather his silver-footed chair, on a hilltop overlooking +the scene, Xerxes, the master of the world, beheld the destruction of +his ships, one by one, by the leagued Greeks. When the battle was over +he saw that the escape of his victorious army from the mainland was +imperiled, and while there was yet time, he led his Persian horde in a +wild flight across his bridge of boats over the Hellespont. The field of +Plataea completed the check, and the Persian invasions of Europe were +over forever. + +What was it that enabled Themistocles to win this decisive victory for +Greece after disastrous defeats on land? Simply his skill in the +politics of Athens. Themistocles was a Hellenic imperialist. He was +opposed by Aristides, who was a very just man, and an anti-imperialist +and "mugwump." Greece was at that time terribly menaced by the Persian +power, and threatened with "Medization," or absorption into the Persian +nationality. Themistocles saw that the country's only chance lay in a +union of all the Hellenes, and in the construction of a navy worth the +name. Aristides was a better orator than he, and at first won against +him in the Athenian elections. The Greek spirit was innately hostile to +anything like centralization or imperialism. But when Aegina, which was +the leading Grecian maritime state, and had some good ships, turned +against Athens and defeated it on the sea, the Athenians' eyes began to +open. Themistocles pushed his plan for the construction of a fleet of +two hundred vessels and the addition of twenty new ships every year to +this navy. + +Squarely across his path stood Aristides, with his ridicule of the +attempt of little Athens to become a maritime power, and his warnings +against militarism. But Themistocles, by adroit politics, led the +Athenians to become sick of Aristides, and persuaded them to ostracize +or banish this just man. Aristides went to Aegina. Then Themistocles +rushed forward his plan of naval reform, and carried it through. The two +hundred ships were built, and not a moment too soon. It was this fleet, +brilliantly led by Themistocles and Eurybiades at Salamis, which +entangled the Persians in the narrow waters of Salamis and defeated +them, and saved Europe for the Europeans. + +The victory saved it also for Christ, by keeping alive the worship of +the half-gods of Greece and Rome until a whole-god came from Judaea. The +Persians, too, had a whole-god. Idea for idea, principle for principle, +tenet for tenet, dream for dream, all of later Judaism and all of +medieval Christianity, except the person and story of Jesus, was in the +religion of Persia. Not only the central ideas of formal Christianity, +but many of its dependent and related principles, are found in +Mithraism, which was the translation of the fundamental philosophic +ideas of Zoroastrianism into terms of human life. The parallel is so +striking that many thinkers regard Christianity merely as Mithraism +bodied forth in a story invented by, or at least told to and believed +by, a circle of primitive and uneducated zealots who knew nothing of the +history of the doctrines they were embracing. + +But notwithstanding the philosophic likeness, the acceptance of +Mithraism as it was held and practiced in Persia in Darius's time, +instead of Christianity, which may have been Mithraism first Judaized +and afterward Romanized, would have made a vast difference with the +western world. If Greece had been Persianized before the rise of Rome's +power, Rome, too, would have been Persianized. The influence of Hebrew +thought upon the western world would have been forestalled. Zoroastrian +rites would have prevailed. Over all would have spread the mysticism of +the East. + +Our civilization might have risen as high as it has ever gone, in art, +in the grace of life; but instead of being inspired with the eager +desire of progress, by the restless Hellenic necessity of doing +something better and higher, or at least something other, something +new--instead of this, the spirit of peace and of satisfaction with old +ideals would have permeated our systems and our life. + +Lord Mithra, too, would have been primarily the sun, primarily an +embodiment of the light shining down to us through the sky from that +central essence which alone can say, "I am that I am," and not, as in +the Lord Christ, a humble, suffering, poor and despised man lifted up +into Godhead. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IF THE MOORS HAD WON THE BATTLE OF TOURS + + +The most tremendous contingencies in all history--the determination of +the fate of whole continents, whole civilizations, by a single +incident--are sometimes the occurrences that are most completely and +signally ignored by the ordinary citizen. For instance, it does not +occur to the man on the street that but for a turn in the tide of battle +on a certain October day in the year 732, on a sunny field in +northern-central France, he, the man on the street, would to-day be a +devout Mussulman, listening at evening for the muezzin's call from a +neighboring minaret, abjuring pork and every alcoholic beverage, and +shunning stocks and all kinds of speculation as prohibited forms of +gambling. + +Islamism would to-day, but for a single hard-fought battle and its +issue, probably be the established form of religion in all Europe. Even +England would have been unable to resist the onset of the impetuous +Arabs, once they had established themselves in triumph from the Tagus to +the Vistula; and the conversion of all Europe would have carried with it +the Moslemizing of the new world--supposing, indeed, that America had up +to this time been discovered under Moorish auspices, which is unlikely. + +Europe was certainly nearer to conquest by the Moors in the eighth +century than most people suppose. There are few finer or more heroic +episodes in history than the extraordinary series of conquests by means +of which, a handful of fanatical Arabs, inspired by the prophet +Mohammed, carried, with fire and sword, the faith of Islam over the +world, until, within two hundred years of the date of the prophet's +birth, it reigned from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the +Indus. Horde after horde of impetuous warriors of the Crescent had +arisen. Their purpose, frankly, was to convert the world, and convert it +by force. Cutting themselves off from their bases of supply, and relying +upon an alliance of miracle and rapine to sustain them, their triumphant +campaigns were one continuous and colossal Sherman's march to the sea. + +They struck Europe at the east, and also by way of the west. Greek fire +checked them at the gates of Constantinople in the east, but they +overran all northern Africa, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and +flowed like a torrent over Spain and southern France. By the year 731, +as Gibbon truly says, the whole south of France, from the mouth of the +Garonne to that of the Rhone, had assumed the manners and religion of +Arabia. + +Abd-er-Rahman, the conqueror, reigned supreme in southwestern Europe. +Spain and Portugal had been annexed to Asia, and now the turn of France +had surely come. + +But at this crisis a heroic figure arose in Europe--scarcely an elegant +figure, though a picturesque one. The throne of the Franks had been +seized by an illegitimate son of old King Pepin, a rough and heedless +fighter, whose rule pleased the people better than did that of the +priests and women whom Pepin had left behind him. This bloody-handed +usurper was named Charles, or Karl, and he was destined afterward to be +called Martel, "the Hammer," on account of the iron blows that he struck +upon all who faced him. + +Abd-er-Rahman, the victorious Moor, advanced into northern France, +overthrowing armies with ease, and sacking cities, churches and convents +as he marched. Nothing could stay him, as it appeared. He had planted +the standard of the prophet at the gates of Tours, which is one hundred +and thirty miles, as the crow flies, from Paris. But meantime the +usurping and base-born Charles, in command of a small army mostly +composed of gigantic and well-seasoned German warriors, was sneaking +along, like an Indian, under the shelter of a range of hills, toward the +Saracen camp; and one day, to Abd-er-Rahman's great surprise, Charles +fell upon him like a veritable hammer of red-hot iron. + +Not in one moment, nor in one day, was the issue decided. Six days the +armies fought, and through all Abd-er-Rahman and his fanatical horde +held their own. But on the seventh day Charles led a battalion of his +biggest, fiercest Germans straight against the Moorish center. +Abd-er-Rahman himself was slain; his army, appalled by this +circumstance, was broken and beaten, and faded away toward the South. + +Charles Martel made sure his victory by another successful campaign. The +Moors were driven out of France forever. In their stead Charles himself +reigned. He had saved Europe to Christianity. Yet for his lack of +docility, the church execrated him. + +If Abd-er-Rahman had overrun France, as he would surely have done if a +less redoubtable and terrible antagonist than Charles Martel had faced +him at Tours, he would next have turned his attention to Germany. With +its fall, Italy and Rome would have invited his attention. There he +would have found few but priests to oppose him, and the empire of the +East, attacked in the rear as well as in the front, would speedily have +succumbed. No Saint Cyril would have gone forth to convert the Russians +and Bulgarians, who would promptly have been Tartarized. + +As we have seen, nothing could have saved England or Ireland. The +prophet's world-conquest must have been accomplished. + +What then? Would the western world have remained at the stage of +cultivation in which we see Arabia to-day? There is no reason to suppose +that that would have been quite the case. It was not so in Moorish +Spain, which rose to a high level of culture. Christianity would not +have been suppressed. It was not suppressed in Turkey or Spain. But it +would probably have been ruled, dominated, forced into odd corners, and +to some extent Moslemized. Learning would not have languished, for in +certain important forms it flourished in Spain. The western brain, the +Aryan genius, must have had its way in many intellectual respects. Yet +the cast of European thought would surely have been sicklied over with +oriental contemplativeness. + +The "hustler" never could have existed under Moslem rule. The speculator +never would have risen, because he would not have been tolerated. The +Moslem doctrine forbids censuses and statistics, treating them as a form +of wicked curiosity concerning the rule of God on earth. Pictorial art, +and sculpture, which the Koran regards as idolatrous, would have been +sternly repressed. Literature would have been great along the line of +poetry; science great along the line of mathematics. + +The western woman would have been orientalized. So far from forming +clubs, she would not have been permitted even to pray in the mosques. + +America would have remained undiscovered for centuries; and if at last +accident or search had laid it bare, it would have followed the path of +Europe. The mellifluous tones of the muezzin's cadence, "La ilah 'i il +'Allah," "There is no god but God," would echo now where the shouts and +yells of the Wall Street speculators reverberate. And the abode of the +mighty would have been a House of Quiet, not the home of strenuousness. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +IF KING ETHELRED OF ENGLAND HAD NOT MARRIED THE NORMAN EMMA + + +Not much turns upon the marriage of kings in these days. The German +Kaiser is not the less German assuredly because his mother was an +Englishwoman. Nor did her marriage to the Crown Prince of Prussia give +Prussia or Germany the slightest hold upon England. + +It was altogether different in an earlier day. One royal marriage in +particular, that of King Ethelred the Redeless, the "Unready," of +England, to Emma, the daughter of Richard the Fearless, Duke of +Normandy, in the year 1002, exercised upon Britain and the world the +most tremendous influence. It led to the invasion and subjugation of +England by William, surnamed the Conqueror, and to the reconstruction of +that mother country of ours, politically, socially and racially, upon +new lines. No royal marriage, perhaps, ever had such enduring and +far-reaching consequences; no queen-elect ever took with her to her +adopted country such a lading of fateful changes. + +The marriage was a sufficiently commonplace affair in itself. Ethelred +was a smooth and rather gentle prince, who thought much more of his own +easy fortunes than of anything else. He wanted a wife, and he did not +like the Danes, who were racially and politically the nearest neighbors +of his royal house. He visited Normandy, and must have pleased the Duke, +for Richard, a bold and resourceful man, bestowed this fair-haired Emma, +a lineal descendant of the victorious Norse pirates, but now quite +Frenchified, upon the young Englishman. + +She was not destined to see her progeny long reign over England. But it +did not matter about her descendants. The great change did not come with +them. What she really did was to supply to her nephew, Duke William, +known to history as the Conqueror, who was yet to come to the throne of +Normandy, a pretext to seize the English crown for himself. + +William was of illegitimate birth. His mother was Arvela, a poor girl +whom Duke Robert saw washing clothes in the river one day and +straightway became enamored of. But on his father's side William was, +through Emma's marriage, cousin of King Edward the Confessor, son of the +unready Ethelred. On a lucky day for him he visited England. It was at a +time when Edward was very ill, and William claimed ever after that he +had received from Edward, on his sick bed, a solemn promise that the +Norman duke should succeed him upon the English throne. + +Edward had no son, but it appears quite unlikely that a wise ruler such +as he was should deliberately have given away the throne and country to +a foreigner, especially when his brother-in-law Harold, Earl of Wessex, +a capable man, stood ready to succeed him. The English, at any rate, +took this view of the matter, for they straightway made Harold king, +ignoring the claim of the vilely born Duke William to the throne. + +But as the world knows, William was able to make good his flimsy claim. +Whether Edward gave him the crown or not, Stamford Bridge and Hastings +did give it him. When at last, following the law of the time, he +presented himself to the suffrage of the English nation, the +representatives of the beaten people had no option but to elect him. He +was a part of the baggage that Queen Emma brought with her. + +What was the rest of it? For one thing, union and consolidation, +centralization. England up to that time had been but a broken congeries +of earldoms or tribal territories, and would have gone on thus if it had +not at last found a master. In the next place, William brought the touch +of France, of Rome, of the graceful Latin world, to England. This son of +a hundred pirates passed on to England the torch of a culture that had +been lighted in Greece and relumed in Rome. It was not for nothing that +what had been ox meat with the Saxons now became beef for the English; +what had been calves' flesh became veal, and base swine flesh reappeared +as a more elegant dish called pork. It meant something that the rude +language of Beowulf was to be succeeded by the smoother lilt of +Chaucer--that, in short, the English had a new and bookish tongue. + +It meant, in simple truth, the disappearance of the old England and the +birth of a new and greater nation. "It was in these years of +subjection," says Green, "that England became really England." The +Normans degraded the bulk of the English lords, but they made these +displaced nobles the nucleus of a new middle class. At the same time +their protection led to the elevation into the same middle class of a +race of cultivators who had been peasants. Furthermore, the Norman rule +expanded villages into towns and cities, and these in time began to +stand, as powerful boroughs, for the rights of the people. The conquest, +says Green, "secured for England a new communion with the artistic and +intellectual life of the world without her. To it we owe not merely +English wealth and English freedom, but England herself." + +Edward A. Freeman calls the Norman conquest "the most important event in +English history since the first coming of the English and their +conversion to Christianity." If the succession of native kings had +continued, says the same authority, "freedom might have died out step by +step, as it did in some other lands. As it was, the main effect of the +conquest was to call out the ancient English spirit in a new and +antagonistic shape, to give the English nation new leaders in the +conquerors who were gradually changed into countrymen, and by the union +of the men of both races, to win back the substance of the old +institutions under new forms." + +In other words, the Norman Princess Emma brought with her John Bull as a +part of her dowry, when she came to weak Ethelred as his bride. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IF COLUMBUS HAD KEPT HIS STRAIGHT COURSE WESTWARD + + +On the morning of the 7th day of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus, +sailing unknown seas in quest of "Cipango," the Indies, and the Grand +Khan, still held resolutely to a course which he had laid out due to the +westward. This course he held in spite of the murmurings of his crew, +who wished to turn back, and contrary to the advice of that skilled and +astute navigator, Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who commanded the _Pinta_. +Pinzon had repeatedly advised that the course be altered to the +southwestward. + +Columbus was sailing on a theory. Pinzon, like any other practical +navigator in a strange sea, was feeling his way, and answering the +indications of the waters, the skies, the green grasses that drifted on +the surface of the waves, the flocks of birds that wheeled, and dipped, +and showed their heels to the far-wandered navigators, and seemed to +know their way so well over that remote and uncharted wilderness of the +deep. Columbus had said, "We will sail to the west, and ever to the +west, until the west becomes the east." Which to the men before the mast +was sheer lunacy. But Pinzon had already found strange Afric lands. The +scent of their leaves and flowers seemed to lie in his nostrils. + +Martin Alonzo Pinzon put off in a boat, later on that 7th day of +October, and came back to the _Santa Maria_, in which was the Admiral. +He brought the information that he had seen "a great multitude of birds +passing from the north to the southwest; from which cause he deemed it +reasonable to suppose that they (the birds) were going to sleep on land, +or were perhaps flying from winter which must be approaching in the +countries from which they came." The Admiral knew it was by the aid of +the flight of birds that the Portuguese had discovered the greater part +of the new lands which they had found. Columbus hesitated, wavered. + +Had the heart of the great theorist, sailing obstinately straight west +in obedience to the call of the land whose presence there he had +reasoned out, misgiven him at last? Had the discouragement and +incredulity of his men affected him? We do not know. But we do know that +finally he heeded Pinzon's oft-repeated demand that the course be +altered. + +It looked like common sense to follow the birds. Really it was not. The +theory was his true guide. Columbus betrayed his faith; he resolved, as +his journal recorded, "to turn his prow to the west-southwest, with the +determination of pursuing that course _for two days_." He never resumed +the westward course. He had weakened in his devotion to his own +idea--and had lost a continent for Spain and the Roman Catholic Church. + +For in spite of the conclusion reached by John Boyd Thacher, in his +monumental work on Columbus, that even if the Admiral had held the +westward course his fleet would not have passed the northernmost tip of +the Bahamas, there is sufficient ground for the generally accepted +conclusion that his landfall in that case would have been on the coast +of Florida or South Carolina, or even North Carolina. After the +alteration of his course, Columbus continued to sail for four days in a +general southwesterly direction, before, on the 12th of October, he fell +upon Watling's Island. In that time he had sailed, according to his own +reckoning, one hundred and forty-one leagues. This distance, if +persisted in due to the westward, would have brought him in contact with +drift and real bird-flight indications of the continent. + +Let us see toward what point his course had been laid. Setting sail from +Gomera, in the Canary Islands, Columbus purposed to go straight to the +west until he reached land. Gomera lies in about the latitude of Cape +Canaveral, or the Indian River, Florida. A line drawn from Gomera to +Cape Canaveral passes to the northward of the Bahamas altogether. No +land lay in the Admiral's path to Florida. + +But any supposition that Columbus would not have gone to the northward +of the Indian River ignores the northward drift that the Gulf Stream +would have caused his ships. He had yet, of course, to reach the axis +of that powerful current, which is here comparatively narrow, and runs +very swiftly at the point where the due westward course from Gomera +would have struck it. It is a fair chance that this drift would have +carried Columbus so far north as to land him in the neighborhood of what +is now Charleston, S. C., or even further to the northward, if he had +followed the path he had laid out for himself. + +Amazing the consequences that hung upon the flight of those "multitudes +of birds" that wheeled Bahama-ward on that October day! The Admiral's +landfall on the coast even of Florida would have made all temperate +America Spanish, for it would have focused the might of Ferdinand and +Isabella upon our shores. We know that the islands which lay immediately +to the southward of his "Salvador," in the Bahamas, beckoned Columbus in +that direction, and that the Indians were able by signs to make it +clear to him that a greater land, which was Cuba, and which he called +"Cipango," lay in this southerly direction. That way he laid his course, +"in order," as he wrote in his journal, "to go to this other island +which is very large and where all these men whom I am bringing from the +island of San Salvador make signs that there is a great deal of gold and +that they wear bracelets of it on their arms and legs and in their ears +and in their noses and on their breasts." + +Reason enough! Only it meant that Spain's energy in this hemisphere was +to be directed to the West Indies, and South America, and Mexico, for as +long a time as it was destined to endure, and that the vast continental +North was to be left as the heritage of another race. + +It is true that Florida afterward became Spanish. But it was not a +question of what Florida, merely, was to be. If Columbus had landed +upon the mainland, the northeastward trend of the coast, reaching back +toward Spain by just so much, would have beckoned him northward, not +southward. Even if he had explored southwardly, by some chance, he must +have returned northward when he had reached the point of the Florida +peninsula; and in the northerly direction he would have cruised, +returning Europe-ward. And he would have annexed the land step by step, +as he annexed Cuba, Hispaniola, and all the southern lands as fast as he +touched them. + +The Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, would have been the scenes of the +Spaniards' settlement for a hundred years. Though afterward they took +Florida, that was as a mere side issue; it was unconsidered, neglected, +after Cuba and Mexico; and was passed on at length to the race that came +to the mainland more than a hundred years after the landfall at San +Salvador. + +Who can estimate the consequences of a fate which should have sent +Columbus straight on his way! Who can compass the thought of the +millions of country-loving Americans of our race unborn here, but +nurtured under skies now foreign to their very nature, but for that +glittering flock of tropical birds whirling southwestwardly? It is no +idle conjecture; von Humboldt, one of the wisest of cosmographers, says +that never in the world's history had the flight of birds such momentous +consequences. "It may be said," he avers, "to have determined the first +settlements in the new continent, and its distribution between the Latin +and Germanic races." He believed that the Gulf Stream would have carried +Columbus around Cape Hatteras. It might indeed have done so. + +We of the United States may well believe that the hand of Providence +guided those birds on that October day; but none the less are we +compelled to admit the strange dependence of human events upon +circumstances that are most trifling in themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IF QUEEN ELIZABETH HAD LEFT A SON OR DAUGHTER + + +Never did greater events hinge upon a woman's caprice against marriage +than those which were poised on the will of Elizabeth, Queen of England, +in the long years that lay between the time when, as a young queen, it +was proposed to marry her to the Duke of Anjou, and the sere and yellow +leaf of her womanhood, when her potential maternity was past. + +If Elizabeth had married, as her people often implored her to do, and if +her progeny had sat upon the throne and continued the sway of the +Tudors, half a century of turmoil and bloodshed, under the essentially +foreign rule of the Stuarts, might have been spared to England. The +Revolution doubtless would never have taken place. The material and +intellectual advance of England and all Britain would have been steady +and sure upon the splendid foundation of the Elizabethan structure. + +But, on the other hand, as good is often evolved from evil, much that is +sacred and vital to the whole Anglo-Saxon race might have been missed. +The Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus Act and other guarantees that were +obtained through the Revolution or the Commonwealth would have been +wanting in the English Constitution. Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden +would probably have remained in rustic obscurity. All modern Europe +would have lacked the political incentive, the revolutionary impulse, +the constructive audacity, which it has derived from the Grand +Remonstrance, from the battlefields of Marston Moor and Naseby, where +royalty was overthrown by the arm of the common people, and from the +eternal menace that lay in the death-block of King Charles. + +It was not because of any aversion to the society of men that Elizabeth +remained unmarried. Very far from this; it is likely that her extreme +liking for male society cut a considerable figure in her refusal. She +did not propose to give any man a public right to interfere with her +liberty of choice in this regard. History agrees that there was a sting +of truth in the words of Mary, Queen of Scots, in a letter which she +once sent to Elizabeth: "Your aversion to marriage proceeds from your +not wishing to lose the liberty of compelling people to make love to +you." The queen was fickle and passionate. She had little fear of the +royal Mrs. Grundy. At the tender age of sixteen scandal linked her name +with that of the Lord Admiral Seymour in such a way that an +investigation by the council was necessary. She baffled the lawyers in +the examination by her "very good wit." + +From the time of her accession, at the age of twenty-five, to the time +of her death, Elizabeth was certainly never without a favorite. She had +small conscience, and there can be little doubt that she required the +assassination of poor Amy Robsart in order that her favorite, Dudley, +might be free from his young wife; and when, after the age of sixty, her +young cavalier of that time, the fascinating Essex, wearying of dancing +attendance upon her at court, joined the expedition of Drake against +Portugal, the Queen bade him return instantly at his "uttermost peril." +In the end she signed the unhappy Essex's death warrant for an alleged +rebellion against her. + +But her motive in refusing matrimony was not altogether--perhaps not +even chiefly--one of coquetry. She was avid of power, and could brook no +rival in its exercise. It is probable that considerations of real +patriotism restrained her from marrying a continental prince. She shrank +from introducing foreign influence as instinctively as Americans have at +all times. She shrank from bowing to any yoke of Europe. But there were +also objections to her marrying an Englishman. If she had chosen one she +would have aroused the jealousy of all Englishmen not of his party or +following. She regarded it as the better policy to keep them all hoping. + +The unmarried state suited her arrogant and domineering nature well. She +had none of the docility which made Queen Victoria a model house-wife +and mother, and also a model constitutional sovereign. It was her +purpose to have undivided power or none. To the deputation of the House +of Commons which visited her with a petition that she marry, she +answered: "For me it shall be sufficient that a marble stone declare +that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin." + +The Commons who uttered the petition must have felt a premonition of +what would actually take place if there were no heir of Elizabeth's +body. The next heir to the throne was Mary, Queen of Scots. She was a +zealous Catholic, and England had just fully established its religious +independence. It is true that Mary's son and heir, James, who afterward +became King of England, as well as of Scotland, was a Protestant, but +the loyalty of the adhesion of his house to the new confession might +well have been distrusted. There was no promise of happiness for England +in the accession of a prince or princess of this house to its throne. + +But the Stuarts came--and the troubles of England began in real +earnest. Elizabeth's reign had been, as it then seemed to all +Englishmen, and as in very many respects it was, the golden age of +Britain. Never had art, and literature, and material prosperity, risen +to so high a level. The world seemed opening to a new and glorious life, +like a rose bursting into bloom. In literature it had been the age of +Shakespeare and Bacon. But with the Stuarts, literature and art passed +into a long eclipse. Shakespeare's light may be said to have gone out +for a hundred years, to be lighted again only from the borrowed torch of +German culture. + +Let us suppose that Elizabeth had been able to find a consort as wise +and as harmless as was Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Let +us suppose that the pair had left behind them a thoroughly English +prince, their own son, a man who would have been capable of continuing +Elizabeth's prudent rule and of holding England to its traditions while +maintaining the extraordinary advance that had marked her splendid +reign. Without James's mingled poltroonery and tyranny to nurse and +stimulate it, it is doubtful if Puritanism would have had its spasm of +ascendency. English history would have been spared an epoch of chaos, of +wild experimentation, of political empirics. + +At the same time it would have been deprived of a form of political +genius which was hammered out of the fire of rebellion. English +Whiggism, English liberalism, English nonconformity have made the world +over anew. America, in particular, would have been infinitely poorer +without the Puritan ferment. Should we have had the New England +migration at all, if England had continued its calm and homogeneous +development under Elizabethan influences? Would not rather all America +have been like Virginia, and the new world organized on a roast-beef, +plum-pudding and distinctly Anglican and conformist basis? + +If we can imagine Massachusetts a purely Episcopal colony to-day, ruled +by parochial vestries instead of by town-meeting-parliaments and the +village Gladstone and his responsible cabinet in every hamlet, and the +whole province presided over by some self-sufficient Sir Alexander +Swettenham as the representative of British royalty, we may perhaps +imagine England without the cataclysm of the Stuarts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IF THE PHILARMONIA HAD NOT GIVEN CONCERTS AT VICENZA + + +For the sake of variety, perhaps of diversion, in the midst of more +serious speculations, let us have an "if" of musical history--and one +which, no doubt, musicians may regard as purely fanciful, totally +absurd. It should be stated at the start that this chapter is written by +one who has no knowledge of music, but is capable of a very keen +enjoyment of it, and has in his time heard much professional music--many +concerts, operas and oratorios--and also much of the spontaneous +untrained music of the people, including old New England ballads now +forgotten; the songs of German peasants at the fireside and spinning +wheel; the native corn songs, "wails" and "shouts" of Southern negroes +on the plantations; and the medicine songs, scalp songs, ceremonial +chants and love ditties of the American Indians. + +The contingency which will be presented here is this: If a certain group +of unprofessional singers and musicians in the highly cultivated Italian +town of Vicenza, about midway of the sixteenth century, had not banded +themselves together in a society called the Philarmonia, and for the +first time in Europe given musical entertainments to which the public +were admitted, the musical institution called the concert might never +have existed, and music in that case would have remained a spontaneous +expression of human emotion, untainted with what is now called +virtuosity--that is, the strife and strain after technical mastery, +which affects the whole character of music, and diverts it from its +original purpose of pleasing the sense and comforting the heart. + +Expert professional music was a thing of very slow growth. The old +chapelmasters or choirmasters were, of course, in a sense professional, +since they lived upon the church. But they had also a sacerdotal +character. At the beginning they were always priests. To make a class of +professional musicians, vying with one another for mere mastery, the +public concert, with paid musicians, had to be developed. + +Though the Philarmonia gave public concerts at Vicenza, as we have said, +in the middle of the sixteenth century, concert music and opera music +had no general existence for as much as a century afterward. The first +opera ever represented was Peri's "Eurydice," written about 1600. Even +that was merely the expression of a group of enthusiasts, a sort of +private attempt to embody a theory of their own about what music should +be. It was not until the year 1672 that the first concert, with a price +for admission, was given in London. The price then charged was a +shilling, and the concert was in a private house. + +By that time the start had been made. Other concerts were given soon +afterward. They became popular. There was a demand for skilled musicians +and soloists. Performers began practicing for the sake of excelling in +technical achievement. By swift and sudden steps a premium was put upon +mechanical perfection in the handling of instruments. The old +spontaneous methods of expression gradually became discredited. + +As a consequence of the new development, two sorts of music grew up in +the world. On the one side stood concert music, professional music, +virtuoso music. This was difficult and complicated, and it was +impossible for ordinary people to sing it or play it. On the other side +was the popular music--folk music, the music of the street, the nursery, +the stable-shed and the taproom. As popular music was regularly deserted +now for the concert school by those who possessed the greatest musical +talent, it began to degenerate until it reached at last the degradation +of "Grandfather's Clock," "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay," "Waiting at the Church" +and the graphophone. + +On the other hand, concert music moved farther and farther away from the +hearts and the comprehension of the people, until it has become a thing +apart from their lives, to be enjoyed almost as much with the eye as +with the ear, the interest lying chiefly in the production, in +succession, of individual masters, each of whom visibly surpasses the +mechanical achievements of his immediate predecessor. + +If those first concerts had not been given by the Philarmonia at +Vicenza, and the idea had not slowly rippled outward thence, like +spreading circles from a stone thrown into the water, until it reached +Vienna, Paris and London, what would have been the state of music +to-day? + +Manifestly the development of church music would have gone on. The +people, no doubt, would have been taking part in magnificent chorals. +The masses of the Catholic Church would have their correspondent feature +in the anthems and hymns sung in the Protestant churches by the +congregations. Every instrument that existed in the sixteenth century +would have been perfected, but not one would have taken on the intricate +development which musical mechanism exacts. + +In other words, the harpsichord would never have become a piano, and the +electrical church organ would not have been heard of. We should all play +some such instrument as the harp, the violin, the viol, the flute, the +pipe or the dulcimer. All might have been composers, as the negroes and +Indians are to-day, but on a higher plane. + +What popular music might be now but for that unlucky Philarmonia +discovery is suggested by an extract from the writings of Thomas Morley, +an Englishman who became a great amateur and introducer of Italian +madrigals in his own country. In the year 1597 he wrote that, on a +certain evening, in England,-- + + supper being ended, and musicke-bookes, according to the + custome, being brought to the table, the mistresse of the house + presented mee with a part, earnestly requesting mee to sing. + But when, after manie excuses, I protested unfainedly that I + could not, euerie one began to wonder. Yea, some whispered unto + others, demanding how I was brought up. So that, upon shame of + mine ignorance, I go now to seek out mine old friende master + Gnorimus, to make myselfe his schollar. + +In those days a person who could not sing, and sing well, was regarded +as a freak, and was required to fit himself to join in the universal +diversion. If we had not turned over our music making to professionals +it would be so now. Instead of going to the concert or the opera after +the evening meal, or playing bridge or talking scandal, people would +have participated in the singing of madrigals, glees or whatever other +sort of popular spontaneous music had been developed, and all would have +been sustained and uplifted by the exalted joy that comes from joining +with others in the production of good music. + +The people would have been joyously and heartily musical. Their taste +would not have been degraded to the point where it is gratified, as in +the graphophone, with a complicated succession of flat and strident +sounds unmusical in themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IF THE SPANISH ARMADA HAD SAILED AT ITS APPOINTED TIME + + +When Philip the Second, son of the great emperor Charles V, came to the +throne of Spain, that country had become the greatest cosmopolitan +empire in the world. The throne of Castile, at one time or another +during Philip's reign, was the throne not only of Spain and Portugal, +but of the Netherlands and Burgundy, the Sicilies, Sardinia, Milan, +Cuba, Hispaniola, Florida, Mexico, California, nearly all of South +America, and the Philippine Islands. The Spanish monarch was the eldest +son of the church; and Philip, strong, ambitious, bigoted and insolent, +expected, as he laid the foundations of his glorious palace, the +Escorial, the eighth wonder of the world, to become master of France and +Britain, and to bequeath to his son the vastest empire that the sun had +ever shone upon. + +By his marriage with Queen Mary he acquired the nominal title of king of +England, though he was never crowned. But his grudge rose against +England after Mary's death and Elizabeth's accession. The country proved +itself a thorn in his side, helping the Dutch rebels and undoing at home +the persecuting work of his late spouse. Philip formed a great project +for the invasion of the country. + +Spain was supreme then on the sea. The English navy had greatly +declined. In 1575 it had but twenty-four vessels of all classes on the +water. Philip knew the cleverness of the English with their ships, +however, and in planning this invasion he proposed to be invincible. +Invincible he sought to make the Armada, or fleet, that he sent against +the country, and invincible not only he, but all Europe, believed it to +be, when, in January of the year 1588, the great flotilla was ready to +sail. + +It consisted of about one hundred and thirty ships, of which sixty-two +were over three hundred tons burden. It was commanded by a brave and +skillful sea fighter, Santa Cruz. The English had bettered their +conditions of seven years before very greatly, but they were at this +moment absolutely unprepared to meet a foreign fleet. Their ships were +scattered far and wide, and many were unequipped. If the Armada had +sailed at that moment it would have found no force ready to meet it. And +it would have escaped the storms that later befell. + +But _manana_ is the curse of all Spain's projects. The Armada lingered. +Santa Cruz, its chief, sickened in port and died. Very likely if he had +sailed no such fate would have overtaken him. This was the first of the +big fleet's misfortunes. Philip looked about for another commander. By a +fatuous favoritism his choice fell upon the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who +was utterly incompetent. + +The months flew past. Meantime the English, fully apprised of the king's +intentions, were getting a fleet together. In those days it was not +necessary to wait five years for a battleship to be constructed. Almost +any big ship could be turned into a fighting craft. In particular, the +English were well off in guns, and the delay of the Armada gave them a +chance to get their artillery on board. + +When--_nombre de Dios!_--does the reader suppose that this invincible +fleet, ready in January, really set sail from Coruna? On the 12th day of +July! It had already been scattered and weakened by a storm off Lisbon. +On the 21st of July Medina Sidonia sailed into Drake's and Hawkins's +"line ahead" formation in the English channel as Rojestvensky sailed +into Togo's lair off Tsu-Shima in 1905, and the result to him somewhat +resembled the subsequent fate of the Russian fleet in the Sea of Japan. +It was not, however, so bad. If Medina Sidonia had gone, with his +surviving ships, after the first onset, to Denmark, and refitted, he +might yet have embarrassed the British. But he sought to make the +passage around the north of Scotland, and a succession of storms wrecked +his whole remaining fleet. + +All authorities agree that in January, 1588, no English force existed +which could have hoped to check Santa Cruz as things then stood. What if +he had come on and landed an army of trained veterans upon England's +undefended shores? He must have won. Queen Elizabeth must have been +overthrown. Ireland would have gladly joined Philip. England was almost +half Catholic, and the people of that faith might eventually have become +reconciled to the foreigner. Philip might have made himself another +Norman William. The Spanish culture would have been imposed upon the +English nation. But unlike William of Normandy, who transferred his +power to Britain, Philip would have remained a Spanish sovereign, and +London would have been ruled from Madrid. + +Philip would never have temporized with English Protestantism. The +chances are that he would have stamped it out utterly and at the start, +as he sought, too late, to do in the Netherlands. If he might have +worked his will, he would also have suppressed English learning and +literature. William Shakespeare, who had just come up to London, had +never produced a play when the Armada sailed, and probably he never +would have produced one if it had conquered. The glorious Elizabethan +culture would have been nipped in the bud. + +All Britain's possessions in the new world, already existent or to be, +would have fallen to Spain or France if Philip had overthrown +Elizabeth--doubtless to Spain, for Philip's ambition to seize the French +throne would have been furthered by his conquest of England. Spanish +viceroys would have borne sway for centuries over all North America. A +hybrid Indian-Latin race would have arisen here, as in Mexico and Peru. +Lacking the inspiration of North American freedom, all Spanish America +to the southward would have remained to this day under the dons. + +Castilian speech, Castilian cultivation, Castilian manners, the +Castilian faith, might have reigned supreme over a dusky race from the +St. Lawrence to the Straits of Magellan. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IF CHAMPLAIN HAD TARRIED IN PLYMOUTH BAY + + +On the 18th of July, in the year 1605, Samuel de Champlain, in command +of a ship of the King of France, and engaged in the search for an +eligible site for a great settlement, anchored in the harbor which was +afterward to be known as the harbor of Plymouth, in New England. Two +days before, he had been in Boston Bay. He mapped both these havens, and +expressed his approval of the physical resources, and also the native +Indian peoples, of the region. + +At that time the coast of New England was really unappropriated, though +soon after it was claimed by both France and England. It was merely a +question which power should first seriously undertake the settlement of +the country. If France planted her colony here, the land was destined to +be French. If England hers, it would be English. + +Champlain carefully studied the advantages of Boston and Plymouth. That +he thought favorably of the latter place is proved by the very decent +map, still extant, which he made of Plymouth and Duxbury waters. "Port +St. Louis," he called the place, after the patron saint of France, and +after his royal master. It looked very much as if he hoped that the spot +he so honored would be made the seat of the French empire in the western +world. + +But Champlain sailed away, bearing with him the blessing of the thickly +settled and sedentary native people. He passed around Cape Cod, and +went westward as far as Nauset harbor, near New Bedford. And then, in +due time, he sailed for France. When, in 1608, he finally laid the +foundations of the city which was to be the capital of France in the new +world, he did not lay them at Plymouth or Boston, but at Quebec, on the +St. Lawrence. + +Why was his choice thus made? Largely, no doubt, because Champlain, +whose accurate information and seemingly always wise observation were +greatly trusted by the King of France, was infatuated with the noble +aspect and vast proportions of the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. He +was first of all a sailor, and he had seen nothing to compare with the +magnificence of this great _embouchure_. Here were scope and refuge for +the greatest of navies! Here, it seemed, was a place designed by the +Almighty to be the seat of an empire! + +Champlain had an excellent eye for harbors, but not so good an eye of +prophecy for the grand constructive events that were to be. He left the +Massachusetts coast unappropriated. First its native inhabitants, so +numerous, so gentle, so industrious, were decimated by a plague that +came to them from the white men. Only a remnant survived. And when, in +1620, their sachem, Samoset, shouted "Welcome, Englishmen!" to the men +of the Mayflower, the Indian king hailed, unconsciously, the advent of +an empire which was to cast the domain of New France into a cold and +waning shadow. For Quebec was too far north, and its hinterland too poor +and restricted, ever to nurse an imperial race. + +What if Champlain had been more sagacious, and had made his stand on the +coast of Massachusetts? In all probability the settlement would have +been definitive. The Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Puritans of Boston, +finding no place for their settlement in the north, would, in 1620, +have gone to Virginia or Georgia. The steely Yankee wedge which, on one +side, was to force the Dutch out of New Amsterdam, and on the other the +French out of Port Royal and Acadia, would never have been driven. New +England would have been French forever, and New York Dutch. + +The principle of the hinterland was asserted so successfully in our +early history that Massachusetts and Connecticut were able to claim +territory as far west as the Mississippi River. It was by means of this +hinterland claim that the young American republic succeeded in rounding +out its northwestern possessions, after the War of the Revolution, and +obtaining Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. All these +would have been French if Champlain had made New England French; and the +English colonies, if they had ever become strong enough to throw off the +British yoke, would have consisted of a restricted section in the +Southeast. + +Indeed, without Sam Adams, Otis, Warren, and Israel Putnam, without the +revolt against the Stamp Act, and without Lexington, Concord and Bunker +Hill, it is impossible to conceive of the American republic at all. + +Supposing it to have been constituted notwithstanding, it would have had +to do without the influence of the New England town meeting, the New +England common free school, the New England college, and the +congregational system of church organization. It would have been +deprived of the work of Franklin, Hancock, the Adamses, Webster, Sumner, +Garrison, Phillips, Grant and the Shermans, in its affairs, and of +Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Hawthorne and Parkman in +its intellectual life. + +What would the New England country and the people have been like, if +Champlain had never turned back from Plymouth Bay? We know from +Benjamin Franklin's account what the progeny of the English settlers had +become even as long ago as 1772. "I thought often," he wrote in that +year, "of the happiness of New England, where every man is a freeholder, +has a vote in public affairs, lives in a tidy, warm house, has plenty of +good food and fuel, with whole clothes from head to foot, the +manufacture perhaps of his own family. Long may they continue in this +situation!" What the Canadian habitant is to-day, we know. Very often he +is unable to read or write, and his material and moral condition very +low. Even as late as 1837 the Canadian provinces were still arbitrarily +ruled by royal governors, with appointed councils or upper houses which +had a veto on all legislation. There was no self-rule, and the mass of +the French people were illiterate and miserably poor. + +Sieur Samuel de Champlain did a good day's work for English-speaking +America, and the great free republic that was to be, when he pointed his +prow northward and sailed away, out of sight of Cape Cod, in the summer +of 1605. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IF CHARLES II HAD ACCEPTED THE KINGSHIP OF VIRGINIA + + +Once at least the New World has furnished to the Old World a reigning, +actual king; once, for thirteen years, a monarch, sitting on a throne in +America, ruled thence an ancient kingdom in Europe. And twice this +singular thing might have happened, with this time an enthroned +sovereign on the banks of the James instead of on the shore of a +Brazilian bay, if a certain king's son and king-to-be had been of a +somewhat more venturing and less indolent disposition. + +The occasion when the thing really happened was when Don John VI, King +of Portugal, removed his royal throne and all the paraphernalia of +government from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1807 (being impelled +thereto by an intrusive movement on the part of one Napoleon Bonaparte), +and turned Portugal (after the withdrawal of the French) into an actual +dependency of Brazil. This it remained until King John recrossed the +Atlantic in 1820. Throughout that period the scepter bore sway from west +to east, from America Europe-ward. + +Very much the same thing would have occurred further north in the +contingency to which I have referred; and if it had, a royalist or +monarchist influence might have been laid upon the English colonies in +America which would have colored their history and institutions in a +marked degree, even if their destiny had not been permanently affected. + +When Charles I, King of England, was arrested, imprisoned, and put to +death by the Parliament party in 1649, Virginia experienced a shock of +shame and indignation. That colony had absolutely no sympathy with +Cromwell and his party. It was in no sense or part Puritan. The Cavalier +sentiment dominated it completely; for though the bulk of its +inhabitants came out very poor, and were as far as possible from being +"gentlemen," they were not at all of the material of which Roundheads +were made; nor had they any influence in the government of the Province. +The General Assembly represented the gentlemen of the colony, who were +royalists to a man. + +It is not surprising, therefore, that upon the receipt of the news of +the execution of Charles I, the General Assembly of Virginia lost no +time in meeting and passing an act in which the dead king's son, Charles +II, was recognized as the rightful and reigning sovereign. Legal +processes, and the machinery of the provincial government, continued to +run in the king's name. In England, Cromwell was installed as Lord +Protector. But Virginia refused to recognize him or his title. At least +one county of Virginia formally proclaimed Charles king, requiring "all +his majesty's liege people to pray God to bless Charles the Second, King +of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Virginia, New England and the +Caribda Islands." This, I believe, was the first appearance of the term +"King of Virginia," a title which was destined to be heard again +somewhat later. + +Nor did the people content themselves with proclaiming Charles king. In +1650, Governor Berkeley sent Colonel Norwood to Holland to invite the +prince to become the ruling sovereign of what Raleigh had called "the +newe Inglishe Nation" on this side the water. Charles did not accept. +Nor did he frankly refuse. He had not the boldness to go to Virginia, +but he was delighted with the chance to put on for a moment the manner +and authority of a ruler. He sent Berkeley a new commission as governor, +signed by himself as king, and gave Colonel Norwood a commission as +treasurer of the colony. Both commissions were honored in Virginia. + +The colony, indeed, with Barbadoes in the West Indies, virtually +constituted itself the Dominion of King Charles the Second; and it is in +memory of that assumption of the whole kingdom's prerogative, as the +Virginians believe, that the state is called the Old Dominion to-day. + +Nor did the people propose that their allegiance should remain merely +nominal. They essayed actually to cut the connection with Cromwell's +Commonwealth and maintain themselves as the sovereign remainder of the +English realm. They succeeded in maintaining this position for a +considerable time--until, that is, 1651, when Cromwell's government +sent three ships of war to reduce the Virginians to submission. As all +the principal settlements were within easy reach of navigable water, and +had not developed sufficient back territory by means of which to support +themselves, it was impracticable for them to hold out long; they were +obliged to submit. Cromwell treated the province oppressively, and +forbade the other colonies to trade with it. + +It is not at all surprising that Virginia, which in the meantime had +become the place of refuge of many more royalists, took steps to throw +off the Puritan allegiance as soon as possible after Cromwell's death, +and sought to anticipate the restoration of the Stuarts. Sir William +Berkeley, whom Cromwell had displaced with a Roundhead governor, was +again called to the head of things by the people. He refused to assume +the governorship at their mandate unless they gave him their solemn and +formal promise to venture their lives and fortunes for King Charles II. +This promise was given him by the unanimous voice of the electors. +Berkeley then proceeded to proclaim Charles "King of England, Scotland, +France, Ireland and Virginia." Virginia was once more the sole existing +segment of the king's dominion. In Virginia, and in Virginia only, +processes and documents were issued in his name. + +Charles was therefore really king in Virginia, though in very fact he +was still living a lazy and rather low life in the Dutch towns, or +eating, as a guest, the bread of the French and Spanish nobility. The +Virginians, however, were not at all content with having set up a mere +paper sovereignty for him. Berkeley had kept in touch, by letter and +through messengers, with Charles, and had sent word to him, in Holland, +before the Commonwealth had fallen, that he would raise his standard in +Virginia if the king would give his consent. Once more he offered him a +Virginian crown. Richard Lee was sent to Holland with a proposition from +Berkeley to take the field for the king. It was even proposed that +Charles should come to Virginia and set up his throne there. + +The king once more sent cordial thanks to the Virginians. But he did not +accept their proposition. We can imagine that along one side of his +nature it appealed to him, and on the other and commanding side it was +quite unwelcome; that is to say, while it must have inflamed somewhat +his ambition to be king once more and have done with the eating of the +bread of others, it was quite in conflict with his natural indolence and +moral cowardice. His first attempt to assert his kingship, when, on the +field of Worcester, he was ignominiously defeated by Cromwell, had +sickened him with all proceedings having the stamp of energy upon them. +As a matter of fact, it would have been perfectly safe for him to raise +his standard and set up his throne in Virginia. But he would not venture +it. He would remain on the Continent and await the turn of events. + +Ere long events made him king in England. The Commonwealth fell to +pieces when there was no longer a strong hand to guide it. Charles +landed shabbily, even squalidly, at Dover, almost sneaking into the +country, instead of coming in triumph from Virginia, with a kingly New +World in his hand, as he might have done if he had accepted Berkeley's +invitation. + +If, after his defeat at Worcester, he had taken advantage of Virginia's +first proffer and of French assistance, and raised his flag in America, +Charles might have affected the world's history very materially. There +was no time when the Puritans were not in a minority in England. They +held down the majority for a time because they had developed a superior +military capacity, and had a splendid, resolute army. But to the nucleus +of a brilliant Cavalier command in the New World, the more vigorous +English royalists might have rallied. A court at Williamsburg, which was +then and for a long time afterward the capital of Virginia, would have +meant a royal court in London much sooner than it really arrived, and +would have caused the Commonwealth to leave a fainter and narrower mark +upon the history of England than in the event it did leave. + +Meantime, what a brilliant court would have assembled around the gay and +talkative monarch at Williamsburg! Already the Lees, the Washingtons, +the Berkeleys, and many others of the "first families," were established +in Virginia. Charles would probably have been happy in the easy, +light-hearted atmosphere of the plantations. There were no Puritans +there to bother him. Virginia had made its own laws against Puritan +practices--and enforced them. + +Never was a monarch who would have been better pleased with having about +him actual slaves--men and women whose bodies he would have owned. His +sway must have spread northward as far as the border of the French +possessions, for though New England was Puritan, it bent reluctantly to +the sway of the Commonwealth, seeming to scent in the Roundhead +sovereignty a kind of rival that threatened to take over its half-won +autonomy. A kingship exercised in America would probably have suited the +men of New England very well. + +In all likelihood the throne would in due time have been transferred to +the mother country. But its erection here, even for a few years, must +have infused into the character of the Americans generally a larger +element of monarchicalism than fell to their lot as it was. Virginia +would hardly have fallen off so readily into colonial republicanism as +it did in 1774-1776. English neglect of a really royalist Virginia sowed +the seed of Virginian rebellion. If Virginia had not supported +Massachusetts, shoulder to shoulder, there could not have been an +American Revolution. Charles did not know how far he let Virginia go +when he rebuffed Berkeley's emissaries. + +The sentiment of personal loyalty to the crown remained strong in the +colonies up to the very outburst of the Revolution. The Americans +dissolved the relation of subject and sovereign with regret. If they had +ever had a king whom they could call their own, the interest enkindled +and perpetuated by his presence might very well have turned the scale in +1776 and prevented the withdrawal of the colonies. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +IF ADMIRAL PENN HAD PERSISTED IN DISOWNING HIS SON WILLIAM + + +When an English father, irascible and opinionated, disowns and turns out +of doors a son who has not only disobeyed him but proved false to the +traditions and obvious interests of the family, he is very apt to adhere +to his action. A very great deal turned upon a case, once, in which an +English father, after making a very firm show of disowning his son, at +last relented and took him back to his heart. + +Pennsylvania, to wit, turned upon it; and all the amazing success of +William Penn's great experiment in colonization. There has never been +anything quite like that success in the world's history, for the great +trek of the already established American population in the nineteenth +century was a readjustment, an extension, rather than a colonization in +the true sense. The planting of Pennsylvania was a true colonization. +Not only did it amount to the creation of a great and model +commonwealth, full-fledged, with a composite new-world population, in +twenty or even ten years' time, but it furnished the keystone to the +arch of states that constituted the American republic in the next +century after Penn's settlement. + +Philadelphia led the American towns in the seven years of the +Revolution. It was their capital commercially as well as politically. It +supplied most of the sinews of war. Without Robert Morris's $1,400,000, +all of which came from Philadelphia, the final and crucial campaign of +the war could not have been fought. More than that, without just the +sort of commonwealth that Pennsylvania had already become, standing in +the center of things--cosmopolitan, independent of royalist or +aristocratic influence, populous, well-to-do, democratic, steady--it is +hard to see how the Revolution could have been undertaken at all. + +But for the incident which permitted Penn's settlement, the vast +territory which afterward constituted Pennsylvania would have become +merely an extension of New York, or of New Jersey, or of Maryland, or of +Virginia, or of all of them. The chances are that its resources would +have been exploited by slave labor. The greater part of the state might +have remained slave territory up to 1861. In any case its development +would have been much more slow, its peopling much less rapid. Not only +must Indian wars have checked growth, but the spectacle of the arrival +of five hundred thousand stalwart Germans, the creation of the largest +city in the colonies within fifty years, and the upbuilding, in that +time, of a trade from the Delaware River that employed more than five +hundred ships and seven thousand sailors, could never have been +presented. + +The part which Pennsylvania began to play from the moment of Penn's +arrival, and which it still plays, in American affairs, was directly +dependent upon Penn's character and genius, and, for a long time, upon +his wealth and social position. Without the wealth which William Penn +inherited from his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, he could not have +organized his Pennsylvania Society, nor bought the site of Philadelphia. +Without the position, as well as the wealth, which he inherited, he +could not, in the first place, have aspired to the acquaintance with and +confidence of King Charles II; and these were absolutely essential to +the extraordinary charter, in behalf of a despised and distrusted +people, which Penn received at the king's hands. + +Had Penn always been in this favorable position? We shall see. The +admiral, his father, was a good churchman and a conservative man. King +Charles held him in very high estimation. The son was brilliant, and of +noble character. He was sent to Oxford University; and what was the +father's astonishment, after the boy had been there some little time, to +hear that he had joined the despised and persecuted sect of the Quakers! +This was very much as if, at the present day, the son and heir of a +great multi-millionaire should join, not merely the Socialists, but the +Anarchists at Paterson! + +Sir William raved and scolded. The son only grew more firm in the faith. +Sir William endured much; but finding the young man actually inclined to +address the king as "thou," he told him that if he committed this +impropriety, or "thee-ed" and "thoued" either him, the admiral, or the +Duke of York, he would disown him, and cut him off without a shilling. +On the very first opportunity after this, young William addressed King +Charles as "thou!" The king, having a more than royal sense of humor, +made a jest of the matter, but Sir William did not. He was as good as +his word. He turned his son out of doors, and bade him begone. The youth +went abroad, and took up for a time a very much discredited existence. +He had already been expelled from the university. + +Here, for a time, the fate of Pennsylvania certainly trembled in the +balance. It was quite within the outraged admiral's power to make the +ban permanent. If he had done so, there would never have been a +Quaker-German commonwealth in America. + +It is known that the son accepted his banishment as permanent. But his +mother did not. She pleaded with the father for his forgiveness. She +reminded him of the boy's great natural goodness, his brilliancy, his +affectionateness. He would, Lady Penn maintained, recover from his +distemper of Quakerism. She begged her husband, before it was too late, +to relent and recall him. + +At length, moved by this appeal and the promptings of his own heart, the +admiral called the young man home. Once or twice afterwards he was on +the point of a more radical banishment of him. But, fortunately for the +New World, Sir William's heart was soft after all. The son was +reestablished in his good graces. After the admiral's death, in 1670, it +was found that he had bequeathed all his wealth to the son, and, owing +to the son's influence, the Quakers improved their position not a +little, and in due time Penn organized and put through the Pennsylvania +experiment. But King Charles took good care to inform him that the name +"Pennsylvania," officially bestowed on the colony, was not in honor of +the founder, but in compliment to the admiral, his father. + +Narrow as this contingency may have been, since so great an event +depended on the impulse of one man, it was after all a moral +contingency, and not due of physical accident, as so many others have +been. It is the more impressive for this reason. It is good to know that +a few heartbeats the more, in the breast of a man who can be kind as +well as hot-tempered, may create a mighty empire. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IF THE BOY GEORGE WASHINGTON HAD BECOME A BRITISH MIDSHIPMAN + + +One summer day, in 1746, a British ship of war lay in the Potomac River +below the place where the city of Washington now stands. The officers of +the ship had been visiting at Mount Vernon, which was the residence of +Major Lawrence Washington, adjutant-general of Virginia. + +No vessel of the royal navy entered the Potomac River without a visit on +the part of its officers to Major Washington's house. He had been in the +king's service at the siege of Cartagena and elsewhere. Admiral Vernon +was his friend; Major Washington's estate on the Potomac had been named +after the admiral. Lawrence Washington's acquaintance with the men of +both army and navy was wide, and his popularity among them great. A +visit to his hospitable residence, where he entertained them with true +Virginian lavishness, was always a bright spot in any naval officer's +life at that day. + +At Lawrence Washington's table, for two or three years prior to 1746, +had sat his younger brother, George by name. This lad, who was a +gentleman and a soldier in miniature, had often listened to stories of +the exploits of the navy--of the capture of Porto Bello, of the +bombardment of Cartagena, and of cruisings and battles along the Spanish +Main. These stories and personal contact with their heroes had inspired +him with an eager desire to enter the naval service. His father was +dead, and his brother, who had virtually taken the father's place, +favored the boy's design. His mother had opposed it. But at last she had +been induced to give her consent. A midshipman's warrant was obtained +for young George Washington, and on the summer day in 1746 of which we +have spoken his luggage had actually been sent on board the ship lying +in the river. + +But at the last moment Mary Washington flatly rebelled. She could not +bear the thought of her boy's going to sea. She foresaw a time when she +would need him at home. She withdrew her consent; and as her signature +was necessary to his enlistment, it was impossible for him to join the +ship, and his luggage was sent back to Mount Vernon. + +So thus it happened that George Washington did not, at the age of +fourteen, enter the British navy, and embark upon a career which would +probably have held him fast all the rest of his life. + +It was a real contingency--that of the possible commitment of George +Washington to the royal cause. Every influence that bore upon him, up to +the date of his brother Lawrence's death, in 1752, was royalist. This +brother was married to the daughter of George William Fairfax, cousin +and manager of the great American estates of Lord Fairfax. Lord Fairfax +himself, removing to Virginia, became the patron, friend and mentor of +young George Washington. The young man was in constant association with +Englishmen, and always more or less under official influence. + +The Fairfaxes remained loyal to the British power when the war of +independence was declared. If Lawrence Washington had lived it is quite +conceivable--aye, probable--that he would have gone with them. If George +Washington had not been thrown much into contact after that with his +Virginian neighbors, among whom the spirit of rebellion had been +propagated from Massachusetts--if he had not himself become a colonial +soldier and commander--there can be little question that he would have +clung to the English side. + +In the meantime, undoubtedly, he would have been advanced to rather high +rank in the naval service, if he had joined it. The years between 1746, +when the midshipman's warrant was obtained for Washington, and 1774, +when the colonies began to flame up into revolt, had been of great +activity at sea. + +The young officer might have participated in the destruction of the +French fleet at Cape Finisterre; in the victory off Lagos; in the great +decisive combat in Quiberon Bay; in the capture of Havana, and in many +other sea fights. He would have fought by the side of Boscawen, Sir +Edward Hawke, Lord Howe, Duff and Rodney, and very likely have won +laurels such as theirs. Nothing colonial could have separated him from +the flag which he had thus served, any more than the influence of his +native state could have separated Farragut from the Stars and Stripes in +1861. + +Is it too much to say that the American republic would have been +fatherless without Washington? Perhaps an arm might have been +found--though that is doubtful--that could have wielded his sword. But +where was the brain, the patience, the tact, the determination, that +would have composed the differences in the American councils, and have +kept the discordant colonies and the jealous commanders together? + +That another man, that any combination of men, could have done what he +did, is inconceivable. In the grandeur of his character and in the +genius with which he accomplished a tremendous work, he is uncompanioned +not only in America, but in the history of the world. Without his +steadying hand in the war, the American army would have followed a +devious course to death, and the young republic one to its destruction. + +As to the decisive part which he played in the formation of the union of +the States after the war, the word of his companions in the Federal +Constituent Convention is conclusive. "Were it not for one great +character in America," said Grayson of Virginia, referring to +Washington, "so many men would not be for this government; we do not +fear while he lives, but who besides him can concentrate the confidence +and affection of all Americans?" No one else ever could have +concentrated them. Monroe reported to Jefferson, "Be assured +Washington's influence carried this government." And Bancroft has put +this judgment on record: "The country was an instrument with thirteen +strings, and the only master who could bring out all their harmonious +thought was Washington. Had the idea prevailed that he would not accept +the Presidency, it would have proved fatal." + +Washington was the pivot upon which all things turned. Lacking such a +pivot, the machinery of the American republic would have tumbled into +ruin. Happy the choice of the Virginian mother who could not spare her +boy on that summer day, and sent aboard the man-of-war in Potomac's +stream for his dunnage! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IF ALEXANDER HAMILTON HAD NOT WRITTEN ABOUT THE HURRICANE + + +"He thought out the Constitution of the United States and the details of +the government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed after the +Revolution raised a fabric every part of which is instinct with his +thought." So said one of his contemporaries, Ambrose Spencer, of +Alexander Hamilton; and another said: "He did the thinking of his time." +The thinking that Hamilton did for the young American republic was of +the most tremendous and vital importance to it. His services as a +financier were not merely of a negative or saving character--they were +positively constructive and permanently enduring; he "created a public +credit and brought the resources of the country into active efficiency." +It was Hamilton who founded the American system of business and finance. + +Yet it is altogether likely that but for an accidental circumstance or +two Alexander Hamilton would never have come to the continental +colonies. He was born on the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies, and +upon that island, and upon St. Christopher and St. Croix, neighboring +islands, his life up to the age of fifteen was spent. His father, James +Hamilton, had proved "feckless and unfortunate," as a British biographer +of Hamilton expresses it, and early ceased to provide for the boy, or, +apparently, to take any interest in his education or welfare. His mother +died early, and left him to the charge of her relatives, and as she +bequeathed to them several other children, they had little thought about +Alexander except to make him of some use and lighten their own burden. +He was sent to school scarcely at all, and at the age of twelve was put +into the shop or store of Nicholas Cruger, a general dealer at St. +Croix, to earn his living as a clerk. + +There he remained for about three years. He has often been described as +phenomenally precocious, and he certainly was, in the sense that his +mind ripened early. But there was nothing of the quality of smart, +self-satisfied immaturity about his genius. He read much, studied +deeply, and received some good training at the hands of Rev. Hugh Knox, +a Presbyterian minister. + +But all at once there occurred the accident which resulted in his going +to the continental colonies. In the late summer of 1772 a fearful +hurricane swept over the Leeward Islands. The boy Hamilton, then +fifteen years old, had his full share in the adventures attending this +calamity, and wrote a long and vivid account of it for a newspaper +published at St. Christopher. By this brilliant piece of news work the +entire West Indies were electrified. The people there had had plenty of +hurricanes before, but none of them had ever been adequately "written +up." Young Hamilton awoke one morning to find himself in the enjoyment +of a fame which extended all the way from Jamaica to Trinidad. + +The immediate result of this notoriety was to convince Alexander's +relatives that they possessed in him a prodigy, and to stimulate them to +find means to educate him. They raised a fund forthwith without any +particular difficulty, and shipped him, armed with a letter of +introduction from Rev. Mr. Knox, to Boston, en route to New York. +Lacking this assistance, it is unlikely that the youth would have found +his way to our shores. Perhaps he would, in spite of everything, have +risen to eminence in the West Indies. Very likely he would one day have +drifted to Scotland or England, and he might have become a famous man +there. But America would have lost him. + +There is still another and vital contingency associated with Hamilton's +removal to the American continent. On its way to Boston, while in the +open ocean, the ship on which he had sailed took fire. For some time it +was in danger of destruction. But with great difficulty the flames were +extinguished. If they had prevailed, the career of the West Indian +genius would doubtless have been cut short by death. + +Thus, by the aid, first, of a tropical hurricane, and, second, through +the efforts of the crew of the ship that bore him, in stifling a fire in +the hold, Alexander Hamilton reached the American colonies just in time +to be swept into the current of the movement for independence; to be +made over anew into an ardent American, and to put his stamp forever +upon the young nation which arose from the smoke of Bunker Hill. The +dark-skinned, dark-eyed, exotic-looking student at King's College, whom +the citizens of New York at first looked at askance as a very "queer +West Indian," became a great leader, a commander, a guide, a magnificent +constructive as well as restraining force. + +What this country would have been without him, or rather, what it must +forever have failed to be, may be inferred from the things which it +became that were owed to him. He was the inventor of American +protection. American industry was founded upon his "report on +manufactures." As the first and greatest of Federalists, he saved the +confederation from disruption by supplying the idea of central +authority. Others might labor for freedom--he labored for security. He +put reason at the bottom of our commonwealth. Without his principles, +the republic would have lacked a balance wheel. The States' rights would +have been everything--the nation's rights nothing. + +All our national expansion was wrapped up in Hamilton's views. McKinley +and Roosevelt have been his continuators. The sentiment which governs +our republic to-day is Hamiltonian; and the war and discord that have +afflicted us, as the result of the looseness of our confederation, must +long since have wrecked the nation but for the balance wheel with which +he supplied us. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +IF LA FAYETTE HAD HELD THE FRENCH REIGN OF TERROR IN CHECK + + +In every age of the world, and in every place, one voice has always +commanded in the affairs of nations, peoples and communities. If +oligarchies, legislatures, groups or cabals have seemed to bear sway, it +has nevertheless been true that in each of these groups, from time to +time, the influence of some individual has been preponderant. The freest +republics are an organization of this principle--a willing submission of +the many to the leadership of chosen men. + +In times of stress and strife and change it is impossible that strong +men should not seize the reins of power, no matter what political system +exists, no matter what anarchy tends to prevail. Change, indeed, makes +the opportunity of the strong; and the fate of nations and continents +depends upon the character of the strong man who is brought forth. If he +is good, as Washington was good, his fellow-countrymen derive lasting +and unmeasured benefit from his grasping of his opportunity. If he is +bad, as Napoleon Bonaparte was bad, the evil harvest of his vices may be +reaped through generations and centuries, as France has reaped, and is +now reaping, an inheritance of strife and national decline. + +When the Revolution of 1789 came to France there were many people, of +all parties and conditions, who believed that the country had its +Washington. He was to be found, they thought, in the person of the +Marquis de La Fayette. This man was Washington's friend. He had +successfully copied many of his virtues. He was unselfishly patriotic. +He believed in the liberty of the people, and wished to see them govern +themselves. Though himself a nobleman, he believed in the abolition of +titles of nobility. In his room, and afterward in his office as a public +servant, he kept two frames hanging on the wall. In one frame was a copy +of the American Declaration of Independence. The other frame was empty, +but it bore the legend, "This space awaits the French Declaration of +Independence." + +When the Revolution broke out, La Fayette was called by the people to +the center of real power--the command of the troops in Paris. Both king +and people trusted him. His power for good was almost absolute. He +prevented anarchy and restored order in Paris after the overthrow of the +Bastile. He gave the country a Bill of Rights and a Constitution founded +on the American models. The quarrels of the warring factions were +stayed by his hand. The mob dared not turn the king out. La Fayette's +moderating influence was the ballast that kept the French nation, in +spite of certain excesses, on a steady keel. + +Even when the Girondists and Jacobins rose and were ready to fly at one +another's throats, the fear of La Fayette kept these factions from +violence. If he had maintained this influence--if he had preserved the +sagacity and boldness to side with the people and lead them--the French +nation might have been saved from anarchy, reaction, the tyrannies of +emperors and of mobs, and the slow degeneration that has followed its +long diet of gunpowder. + +But in the test La Fayette did not exhibit this power. In 1792 he was in +the field, in command of an army, resisting the Prussian invasion. The +nation, aroused, was equal to the task of repelling foreign attack. But +in Paris events were marching. The people rose and overthrew the throne +and the royalist Constitution which La Fayette had made. But they turned +still to La Fayette. They offered him the chief executive power in the +new government. + +This was his opportunity to save France. He was not equal to it. He did +not rise to the emergency. He not only refused the offer of power, but +made his troops renew their oaths of fidelity to the king. Then the +Assembly declared him a traitor; and La Fayette, taking with him a few +followers, deserted his command, made his way to Bouillon, on the +frontier, and rode out of France into a foreign land! + +No man can imagine Washington taking such a step as that. La Fayette +suffered from it, and he afterwards served his country nobly. But the +eternal mischief of his weakness had been done. Girondists and Jacobins, +relieved from the fear of him, turned to mutual destruction and murder. +The Reign of Terror was on. The nation was plunged in an orgy of blood. +Four hundred thousand men and women were put to death. Liberty in France +was assassinated in the house of its friends. + +One man, I have said, always comes to the top of things. With La Fayette +gone, Robespierre, the man of blood, prevailed. Robespierre was the +Terror. And after him, the Terror having appeased its fearful thirst, +and Robespierre's head having gone into the basket with his victims', +there came another man to take advantage of the paralysis the perverted +Revolution had inflicted upon France. That man was Napoleon Bonaparte. + +Bonaparte freed La Fayette from captivity. Bonaparte held him in +contempt, calling him a "noodle." It was not so bad as that. But +Napoleon despised a man who had had his chance and failed to grasp it. + +Had La Fayette proved equal to that opportunity, France would have been +organized as a constitutional republic. The Terror would not have been. +Napoleon's ambition might have been held in check. The balance in Europe +would have been maintained, but the leadership of France would have been +consolidated and become immortal. The nations would have followed her +example. Monarchy would have died of dry rot. The dream of a United +States of Europe might have been realized--perhaps with a city of La +Fayette, the capital of the vast confederation, the European equivalent +city of Washington, smiling down, it may be, from the neutral shores of +the Lake of Constance to east, to west, to north, to south, with a +benediction of peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +IF GILBERT LIVINGSTON HAD NOT VOTED NEW YORK INTO THE UNION + + +How many Americans of the present day realize that the State of New +York, at the time of the adoption of the national Constitution, was +radically and overwhelmingly opposed to entrance into the Union which +the Constitution proposed, and was at last forced into the league of +States only by the demonstration that the State would be isolated and +cut off from its neighbor States if it did not join, with a tariff wall +raised against it? It is indeed hard for New Yorkers to realize, as +they live to-day under the Stars and Stripes, having forgotten what +their State flag is, and being among the most zealous supporters of the +Union, that their State led the opposition to the Constitution, and that +but for the influence of a very few men in two other States, New York +might have prevented the consummation of that "more perfect union." + +The contingency that prevented the State from dismembering the Union at +its start was a narrow one, but it had been provided for. Hamilton and +the Federalists had laid their plans well. They first furnished the +Southern States, and the smallest States in the North, with an +interested reason for joining the Union. They gave the men of the South +representation on their slaves. They made the little States equal with +the great States in the Senate. Then they provided that when nine States +had ratified the Constitution it should become effective, and a +confederation should be formed by those nine States, if there were no +others. + +Then the ratifications began. The game was to get nine States. Little +Delaware said "Yes" first. Franklin and Wilson had a firm hold upon +Pennsylvania, and that State entered next under the pressure they +exerted. New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland and +South Carolina followed. This made eight States. Then things stuck fast. +Would there be a ninth? + +Two thirds of the delegates in the convention of New York were firmly +opposed to ratification. They believed the Constitution meant an end of +the liberties of the States. They saw a royal throne looming up for +America. They feared, they said, a great central power which should +oppress and overtax the people of the States. Governor Clinton led the +opposition to ratification. Hamilton's able arguments had no effect. New +York would not come in. + +All the remaining States were believed to be also opposed. New Hampshire +had refused to comply with the requisitions of the Confederation; why +should it look with more favor on the Constitution? In Virginia, Patrick +Henry led the opposition to ratification with impassioned eloquence. +Richard Henry Lee, William Grayson, George Mason and James Monroe, all +great men in the State, were unalterably opposed to ratification. It +certainly looked black for the Union. + +But in this moment of apparent triumph, while the New York convention +was in session, Governor Clinton and his party in the convention heard +surprising news. New Hampshire, under the influence of Massachusetts and +of the wiser counsels of some of its own leaders, ratified the +Constitution on the 21st of June, 1788--more than nine months after the +adoption of the instrument by the Constitutional Convention at +Philadelphia. + +This event put a new face on the situation in New York. The Union was +now decreed. If New York did not enter it, she must be prepared to stand +alone, as an independent nation. Could she do that? The new +Confederation would hem her in on both sides. To it would belong New +Jersey, which flanked her only seaport on the west, and Connecticut and +Massachusetts, which walled her in on the east. The shape of the State +adapted it very badly indeed for an independent position. Moreover, +influences were known to be at work which would precipitate a hostile +tariff against the States which remained out of the Union. A few months +later such a tariff was actually adopted against Rhode Island, which was +treated as a foreign country in the levying of duties on imports. + +New York could not stand that. Gilbert Livingston and a few others +changed their votes under a distinct announcement that the pressure of +"sister States" had made it impracticable to continue the opposition. +But even at the last, the Constitution was ratified by a majority of +only two in a vote of sixty! Gilbert Livingston held the fate of the +State in his hands, and he, though pledged against the Union, put New +York into the Union by his vote. + +One vote would have kept New York out. + +We have noted the fact that New York's position was unfavorable for an +attempt at independence. But the fact that the voice of but one man +prevented the attempt shows that the other opposing delegates were not +much afraid of making the leap. Supposing Gilbert Livingston had voted +the other way, and the vote had been thirty-one to twenty-nine against +ratification, instead of the same figure in its favor? What would have +resulted? + +Let us see. Two other States were radically opposed to the +Constitution--Rhode Island and North Carolina. Very likely they would +have been glad to form a defensive alliance with New York. Virginia +ratified a few days after New Hampshire, but she might easily have +retracted her ratification, for she had no heart in it. With Virginia, +the malcontent States would have had (census of 1790) a population of +1,550,306, against 2,378,908 for the remaining colonies, including +Vermont, which was not yet in. This would not have been an utterly +hopeless foundation for a new league, constituted on the easy terms upon +which, and upon which only, these States were willing to enter the +Union. The want of contiguity of territory would have been the worst +objection to the formation of the league. + +But the real effect of New York's self-exclusion, so narrowly prevented, +would have been a negative one. It would have prevented all cohesion in +the new Union. It would have driven a wedge straight through the new +republic, from west to east. Worse, it would have erected secession into +a principle from the start. Ere long we should have had at least three +republics instead of one, and probably more. Politically we should have +been what Central and South America are now. Real progress would have +been barred. Wars would have been probable between the States. European +political influences would have penetrated the weaker States, or +alliances of States. + +In short, the "American idea," government of the people by the people +and for the people, would probably have been stillborn. By his change of +vote, Gilbert Livingston signed the death warrant of the principle of +secession. Not only did he set going the unifying influences which +prevailed over State sovereignty, but he decreed the Empire State, +destined to be a bulwark against disunion. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IF THE PIRATE JEAN LAFITTE HAD JOINED THE BRITISH AT NEW ORLEANS + + +After the battle of New Orleans, on the 8th of January, 1814, General +Andrew Jackson, the victorious commander, called before him a certain +officer, of dashing and Frenchy appearance, and publicly thanked him for +the important part which he had borne in the battle. To judge from the +signal honor done to this man, the credit for the victory was in no +inconsiderable part due to him. And, indeed, this was the case. + +The man to whom the victor's thanks had been thus conspicuously awarded +was Jean Lafitte, the Baratarian pirate. That the success of Jackson in +defeating and virtually destroying the army of Pakenham, consisting of +the very flower of the Duke of Wellington's soldiery, hinged, in an +important sense, upon this extraordinary corsair and buccaneer, has +never been adequately acknowledged in American history. + +Jean Lafitte, the foremost of the three pirate brothers of Barataria, +was a man of extraordinary influence and popularity among the French and +other Latin inhabitants of Louisiana and New Orleans. He was a native of +France, and a brave and chivalrous corsair, as corsairs go. A price had +already been put upon his head by the American governor, Claiborne. But +so secure was Lafitte in the affections of the Creole people, whom he +served in many ways, that he frequently attended parties and receptions +in New Orleans. Arriving, on such occasions, in the full splendor of his +outlaw state, and bringing joy to the heart of every lady in the room +by his attractive manners as well as by his fame, the pirate chief would +practically defy the authorities to lay a hand upon him. If agents of +the law were sent to arrest him, he knew of it, through a hundred spies, +long before they reached the place, and withdrew at once to some near-by +hiding place which was well known to him. In New Orleans he had a +hundred safe places of refuge. + +Under his command was a force of pirates who were many or few, according +to the exigencies of the moment; for they could masquerade as peaceful +fishermen if necessary, or they could, upon occasion, muster a force of +several hundred at a word's notice--always perfectly armed, perfectly +drilled, thoroughly redoubtable. + +Lafitte preyed impartially upon all the commerce of the Gulf of Mexico, +and, when pursued, ran into one of the numerous mouths of the +Mississippi or some inlet of the Gulf--into Barataria Lake, into Bayou +Lafourche, or into Bayou Teche. There it was vain to follow him, for the +intricacies of these passages were known only to his men or to the +dwellers along their shores, who were in sympathy with him. + +When the British descended upon New Orleans in the autumn of 1813, they +offered Jean Lafitte a captain's commission in the British naval +service, thirty thousand dollars in money, a full pardon for past +offenses and rewards in money and lands for his followers if he would +join them in making war on the Americans. He could easily have done so. +The French people of Louisiana had no keen loyalty for the Stars and +Stripes at that time. As Lafitte went they might have gone. The British +knew this, and made their bait a rich one. + +But Lafitte, although Claiborne's price was on his head, and his brother +Pierre in prison in New Orleans, refused the offer. Instead, he sent +the letters from Captain Lockyer, of the British navy, making this +proposition, to the Louisiana legislature. Later, after Pierre had +escaped, he actually joined General Jackson's nondescript army with a +force of riflemen. He seems to have acted from a very honest love for +the young American republic. + +Jackson, at first, under a misapprehension of the circumstances, had +refused to accept the aid of these "hellish banditti," as he had called +Lafitte's men in a proclamation on his arrival. But when he found that +the British were upon him, and that a considerable proportion of his +poorly equipped militia were without flints for their muskets, he not +only accepted the flints that Lafitte sent him, but gave the pirate an +important command on his right wing. There Jean and his men performed +signal service. + +If Lafitte had joined the British with his men and ships, there is +little likelihood that the Americans would have had in this fight the +powerful aid of the vessels of war _Carolina_ and _Louisiana_, on the +river. Nor is it likely that they would have had the passive support of +the French population. Nor that they would have found any substitute for +the flints with which Lafitte supplied them. And it is very likely that +the British assault upon Jackson's intrenchments would have been +attended with a different result. + +Jackson, indeed, might have been crushed very much as Windsor had been +crushed at Washington, not long before. + +Such a result at New Orleans would not have affected the outcome of the +war, for a peace favorable to the American arms had already been +declared at Ghent. But how profoundly a defeat would have influenced the +personal and political fortunes of Andrew Jackson and all the events in +American history which hung upon his subsequent career! + +General Jackson won the presidency in 1828 because he was the military +hero of the day. His popularity was due to the brilliant victory that he +won at New Orleans. After his defeat in 1824, a spectacular visit which +he made to the field of the 1814 battle renewed the souvenirs of the +great fight and intensified his popularity; and in 1828 he was +triumphantly elected. If he had been defeated in battle by Pakenham, and +New Orleans had been taken, his fame would have been extinguished then +and there. + +And without Jackson--should we ever have had machine politics? It was he +who introduced these into our government. He was the inventor and +discoverer of the spoils system. "To the victors belong the spoils" was +the maxim of his lieutenant, Marcy, and his own principle of action. We +have never been able quite to shake off the system which he fastened +upon the country. Patronage has been the curse of our politics from that +day to this. + +Then there was his determined and disastrous assault on the United +States Bank. Upon this institution, which was founded by Alexander +Hamilton, and whose position somewhat resembled the present position of +the Bank of England, the financial system of the country depended. +Jackson attacked it as a "wicked monopoly," as a concrete expression of +the "money power." He succeeded in wrecking the bank, in bringing on the +panic of 1837, which wrought untold ruin and disaster to the people, and +in inaugurating in its place the system of wildcat State banks and +currency chaos which lasted up to the Civil War. + +But Jackson attacked more than the United States Bank and the principle +that public office is a public trust. He attacked nullification. +Nullification meant that the States could refuse to recognize or obey +the laws of the United States. He struck that dictum hard, when it made +its appearance in South Carolina, and paralyzed it to such an extent +that the portion of the nation which did not believe in secession was +able to get its preponderant growth, and organize its strength, and +prevent disunion, when the test finally came. + +Jackson saved the Union by stunning the nullification snake until the +republic was big enough and strong enough to trample it under foot. And +that, no doubt, was the greatest event that hung on the contingency of +Lafitte's choice of sides at New Orleans. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IF JAMES MACDONNEL HAD NOT CLOSED THE GATES OF HUGOMONT CASTLE + + +According to the Duke of Wellington himself, the success of the allies +at the Battle of Waterloo turned on an amazingly slight contingency, +namely, the closing of a gate or door of wood in the wall of a building. +This fact was conclusively brought out when, years after the battle, an +English clergyman, Rev. Mr. Narcross of Framlingham, died and left in +his will the sum of five hundred pounds simply "to the bravest man in +England." The executors of the estate were completely nonplussed. Who +was the bravest man in England? Doubtless many would have come forward +gladly to claim the distinction and the legacy, but who was worthy of +them? In their trouble, the executors applied to the Duke of Wellington +for an answer to the question. + +The Iron Duke was not a man to be beaten by any question whatsoever, +least of all by a military one. He went back a little in his +recollections--until he came to the battle of Waterloo. Then he wrote to +the executors of the Framlingham parson that that battle was the +greatest that had been fought in recent times. "The success of it," he +went on to say, "turned upon the closing of the gates of Hugomont; these +gates were closed in the most courageous manner, at the very nick of +time, by Sir James Macdonnel; and he is the man to whom you should pay +the five hundred pounds." + +Thereupon the executors went to Sir James with the money; but he said +to them: "I cannot claim all the credit of closing the gates of +Hugomont. My sergeant, John Graham, seeing with me the importance of the +step, rushed forward to help me; and by your leave I will share the +legacy with him." The request was granted, and the fact was to this +extent judicially established that Sir James Macdonnel and John Graham +had closed the gates of Hugomont Castle, thereby settling the issue of +the battle and the fate of Europe. + +Let us see what events hinged upon this act, and how they depended on +it. The army with which the great Napoleon faced the miscellaneous +assortment of British, Prussians, Hanoverians, Dutch and Belgians at +Waterloo was smaller than that of the Allies, but vastly more efficient +as a whole. Most of the troops of the Allies were raw, and some of them +were poor stuff indeed. Napoleon's soldiers were hardened, practiced, +brave and splendidly commanded. + +Napoleon had forced the Allies back at Quatre Bras. He captured their +position at La Haye Sainte. He perceived that the strategic key to the +whole field of battle was the hill crowned by the old stone _chateau_ of +Hugomont. If that could be taken, Napoleon would be able to attack and +turn Wellington's right flank. That accomplished, a junction of Bluecher +and his Prussians with the English would be prevented; the forces of the +Allies would be split in two, and Napoleon would in all probability +defeat them in detail, according to his time-honored method. The emperor +could easily have finished off the Austrians in their turn, as he +planned to do; and the combined European attempt to oust him would have +been frustrated. Thus the Corsican would have been, probably for so long +as he lived, the master of France at the least, even if the checks he +had already received had restricted his mastery of the rest of the +continent. + +Knowing well that upon this cast his fate was staked, Napoleon hurled +his best troops, under Prince Jerome, against the little old _chateau_ +on the hill. Again and again they assaulted it. Twelve thousand men were +launched against the half-dilapidated castle, which had been pierced +with loopholes for the British riflemen. And now and here came the +crucial incident whose importance was rated so high by Wellington. At a +moment when the chief defence of the _chateau_ was entrusted to the +Coldstream Guards, under Colonel James Macdonnel, the French were within +a hair's breadth of taking it. They pushed against the gate of the +castle, and had actually forced it open, when the Coldstream Guards +charged out with their bayonets, forcing the advance rank of the French +back a little. + +But the French were pouring up, and could no longer be held back at the +point of the bayonet. It was at this instant, when a slight leeway had +been gained, that Colonel Macdonnel and Sergeant Graham, under a galling +fire from the French, stepped forward and with their own hands closed +the _chateau_ gates, barricaded them, and thus enabled the troops to +resume their fierce rifle fire from within. + +After this the French made many more assaults on the heavy gates, but +could not force them open again. Wellington meanwhile commanded a +general advance, following a fresh repulse of the French onset; and the +French line was thrown into confusion. He knew that Bluecher was now at +hand--it was by this time half-past seven in the evening--to support +him. Bluecher, indeed, arrived, and attacked and crushed the broken +French right, forcing Napoleon to retreat in disorder. Thus was +completed the victory which the heroic defence of Hugomont had made +possible. + +The crushing of the British right wing on this occasion, had Napoleon +been able thus to effect it, would have reversed a vast deal of history. +It is not necessary to take an extreme view of the situation to realize +this. On the immediate field, the British, Dutch and Hanoverians must +have been forced back upon Brussels, and Bluecher would have been unable +to maintain a front against the French. Even if the remnants of the +allied armies had escaped, and made another stand, Napoleon must +instantly have regained a degree of prestige and position that would +have enabled him to consolidate his power at home and make excellent +terms abroad. Even after Leipsic, when he had seemed to be utterly +beaten, the powers had been willing to give him France's "natural +frontiers"--namely, the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees. + +It is likely that Leipsic and Elba had already taught the emperor wisdom +which would have deterred him from attempting to carry the boundaries of +his domain once more to the Baltic, or to parcel out the rest of Europe +among his relatives and dependents. But within the frontiers I have +named, and west of the Rhine, he must have remained impregnable; and all +the momentous consequences which resulted from his defeat must have been +thwarted and turned aside. + +Out of the victory of the Allies at Waterloo came, first, the banishment +and early death of Napoleon Bonaparte; the placing of Louis XVIII on the +throne of France; the complete subduing of the Revolution; the creation +of the joint kingdom of Holland and Belgium (which meant the modern +intensely industrialized Belgian state, and Leopold, and the Congo); the +aggrandizement and lasting leadership of Prussia in Germany; the +foundation of the modern Italy through the annexation of the Genoese +republic to the Piedmont kingdom; the enlargement of Switzerland by +three cantons taken from France; the taking of Norway from Denmark and +its bestowal upon Sweden; the absorption of what was left of Poland by +Russia--and some other reparceling of territory in an arbitrary sense +which has nevertheless for the most part endured. There is scarcely a +political articulation in Europe to-day which does not date from +Waterloo; new tendencies still operate which had their inception then! + +Indirectly the consequences were momentous. The aggrandizement of +Prussia prepared the way for the unification of Germany and the gradual +atrophy of Austria as a German state. As I have said, the enlargement of +Piedmont foretokened a united Italy, and built up another power which +has contributed to the enforced shrinkage of Austria. The two great +constructive European statesmen of the nineteenth century, Bismarck and +Cavour, were both the children of Waterloo. + +All these tendencies might have been working just the other way if +Colonel Macdonnel had not succeeded in closing the _chateau_ gates! Yet +more still was in store. Moral and intellectual consequences of greater +moment, perhaps, than the political results, impended. The victory of +the Allies was followed by a period of severe repression of popular +tendencies in Europe. The Holy Alliance, which became a league of +Continental monarchs against liberal ideas, was a direct consequence. It +inaugurated reaction everywhere. And reaction bred in its turn new and +insidious radicalisms. Lassalle, Marx, St. Simon, and Fourier, +Socialists, and Bakunin and Proudhon, first of the Anarchists, were the +offspring of the Holy Alliance, nurtured in the dark corners of +Repression's jail. + +The course of events in Europe would have been far otherwise indeed if +Napoleon's veterans, forcing their way into Hugomont and splitting the +British strength in two, had prepared the way for a long lease of the +power of that adroit and calculating master, who knew so well how to +meet popular demands and still hold his personal sway. In its practical +expression, his system was liberal. Every peasant proprietor in France +to-day holds his acres by virtue of Napoleonic legislation. + +That does not mean that all would have been good in France; far from +that. A strange falsity, a theatric insincerity, lay beneath all the +Napoleonic sentiments and ideals. These qualities color the thought of +France still. Will she ever be able to escape them? These tendencies +would have been many times more powerful if Napoleon had entrenched +himself upon the throne. More than that, they must have passed to other +countries. The shadow of his eagles might lie athwart even our America, +his insidious ideas expressing themselves in our politics and our +intellectual and moral life, if that moment's vast contingency had gone +Napoleon's way at Waterloo. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER HAD MOVED SOUTHWARD, NOT NORTHWARD + + +The two sections in the Civil War in America were led by two men, +Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the one President of the United +States and the other President of the Confederate States, who were born +within about one hundred miles of each other in the State of Kentucky, +and within nine months of each other in point of time. For it was in +June, 1808, that Jefferson Davis first saw the light in Christian +County, Kentucky, and in February, 1809, that Abraham Lincoln was born +in Hardin County, in the same State. + +Samuel Davis, the father of Jefferson Davis, and Thomas Lincoln, the +father of Abraham Lincoln, were men of the same English-American origin, +and the families were originally of virtually the same class, though +Thomas Lincoln, doubtless as the result of the death of his father at +the hands of the Indians, when Thomas was a child, had fallen somewhat +in the social scale. Both men became dissatisfied with material +conditions in Kentucky at about the same time, and both emigrated with +their families. But Samuel Davis went southward into Mississippi, while +Thomas Lincoln went northward into Indiana. + +That the sons of both these Kentuckians had in them the fire of genius, +the history of their country has abundantly proved. Each was destined by +the compelling force of his character and gifts to play a great part. +Like all other men, each was molded by his environment. The illiterate +Thomas Lincoln was credited by his immortal son with the intention, in +emigrating, to escape from a slave State. But is it not probable that +the son, deeply preoccupied as he was in later years with the subject of +the emancipation of the slaves, had projected backward, by a psychologic +habit common to all mankind, this idea from his own mind into that of +his father? In all probability no other motive than that of accident or +convenience--for Thomas Lincoln was a poor and rather "shiftless" +man--impelled Abraham Lincoln's father to go to Indiana instead of +following the trail which so many of the more enterprising Kentuckians +were taking to Mississippi or Louisiana. It was to that section that +enterprise beckoned, for agriculture was carried on in the Southwest +upon a large scale, and broader plantations were open to the adventuring +settler. Indiana, on the other hand, was a "poor man's country." + +What if Thomas Lincoln had possessed a little more energy, and a few +more shillings, and had gone to Mississippi instead of to Indiana and +afterwards to Illinois? What if he had become a plantation and slave +owner, and had thus subjected his boy Abraham to the overmastering +influence of a southern environment? So far as I can recall, Mississippi +never produced an anti-slavery man. + +In this event, there would have been for the national cause, for the +saving of the Union, for the emancipation of the slaves, no Abraham +Lincoln. On the other hand, the tremendous power and patience of +Lincoln's nature, the majesty and greatness of his character, the +resources of his intellect, would in all likelihood have been added to +the sum of the statesmanship which was enlisted on the Southern side. + +It is even conceivable that Lincoln, rather than Davis, would have been +the president of the Southern Confederacy. Only a combination of the +most extraordinary circumstances made him the nominee of the Republican +party for the presidency in 1860. If he had been the leading statesman +and politician of Mississippi, his path to the Confederate presidency, +as the success of Davis proved, would have been comparatively easy. + +Without Lincoln, the anti-slavery agitation would have gone on just the +same. The Republican party would have been constituted just the same. +Everything up to the 18th day of May, 1860, when Lincoln was nominated +for president at the Wigwam in Chicago, would have gone on just the +same. But lacking Lincoln, what a world of things afterward would have +happened differently! + +In the first place, it is probable that Seward would have been nominated +for president. Very likely he would not have been elected; and as it was +Lincoln who "smoked out" Douglas, it is probable that Douglas would +have prevailed over all other Democratic candidates and been nominated +at Charleston and elected president. + +In which case there would have been no secession, and very likely no +war, either at that time or later. Slavery would have become intrenched, +to yield, perhaps, in the end only to economic influences, the operation +of which had already doomed it. + +But if Seward had been nominated and elected, secession would have taken +place and war would have resulted. The sort of leader that the Union +would have had in Seward may be inferred with perfect certainty from the +famous, or rather infamous, proposition entitled, "Some Thoughts for the +President's Consideration," which Seward solemnly laid before Lincoln +less than a month after his inauguration. This extraordinary document, +one of the most senseless and wicked programmes ever prepared by a man +of state, advocated a change of the national issue from slavery to a +foreign war; it advised that war be at once declared against France and +Spain, and "explanations demanded" from Great Britain and Russia! In +order that this brilliant programme might be carried out successfully, +Seward suggested that he himself be made Dictator! + +This scheme, I repeat, illustrated the sort of alternative material that +we should have had, lacking Lincoln. Chase, indeed, who was also a +leading candidate for the presidency, would have been wiser. But in no +position that he ever held, after 1860, did Chase bring forth any of the +fruits of genius. Cameron, of Pennsylvania, was a greater man, but did +not command general support. Neither did Edward Bates, of Missouri, also +a western candidate for the presidency. + +The great soldiers who finally triumphed in the field as the +instruments of Lincoln's policy and fought their way to victory for the +Union--Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Meade, Sheridan--would have been ranged +on the Northern side just the same whether Lincoln or another had been +at the head of affairs. But it is doubtful whether another president +would have found them out. Lincoln made his own grave mistakes regarding +men. But he put forward no general because that general was _his man_. +He observed and waited. A man of the people himself, grandly simple, he +somehow nosed out the men of the same type. All the generals who proved +great were his discoveries. + +The structure of Lincoln's achievements was not, however, the result of +negative circumstances. It did not rise because things were not just so +and so. It was a positive thing--the result of the active operations of +a powerful genius, which the people recognized before the politicians +and the writers did. In the people's mind, the war was "Old Abe's" war. +It was Old Abe who stood at the helm. Congress did not know it, but it +was really working Lincoln's will. The cabinet did not always know it, +but it was Lincoln who really had his way. He kept his own counsel. He +carried out his plans. + +The people were right. It was Old Abe who was doing things. And without +him the most important things would have gone undone. He was an original +creation--as Lowell said, a "new birth of our new soil, the first +American." Nature, for him, threw aside her old-world molds, + + And, choosing sweet clay from the breast + Of the unexhausted West, + With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, + Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. + +Yet what could be clearer than that Abraham Lincoln, who by birth and +inheritance was of the South, not the West, might have turned his +strength to the support of quite a different cause if the accident of +fate had sent him southward, not northward, in his childhood? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IF SKIPPER JENNINGS HAD NOT RESCUED CERTAIN SHIPWRECKED JAPANESE + + +Toward the end of the year 1850, Captain Jennings, of the American bark +_Auckland_, trading in Asiatic waters, picked up the shipwrecked crew of +a Japanese fishing vessel, somewhere off the coast of Japan. The captain +was then bound for the new port of San Francisco, which the California +gold-diggings had already made an important city. He continued on his +course, and in due time--that is to say, very early in the year +1851--landed at San Francisco with his party of refugees. + +Here the bright little Orientals were more than a nine days' wonder. +Few Americans had ever before seen a Japanese. That country was at the +time more a "hermit nation" than Korea herself. Whalers and other +sailors who had been wrecked on the Japanese coast had been put to cruel +deaths. No white men except the Dutch had been permitted to trade with +any of the Japanese cities, and the Dutch trade had fallen into decay. +Japan seemed as far from our lives as is the planet Mars. + +But the Japanese whom Captain Jennings had humanely rescued were kindly +treated by him, and on the homeward voyage they had endeared themselves +to him and his crew. He landed them at San Francisco with very favorable +reports of their character, conduct and intelligence. The free-handed +miners of that town wanted nothing better than somebody or something to +lionize. So for a considerable time the shipwrecked Japanese had the +best of everything in San Francisco, until an opportunity arose to send +them, fat and happy, back to their own country. + +A full account of the incident and of the refugees was published in one +of the San Francisco papers. It fell into the hands of just one man who +was capable of perceiving the momentous possibilities that lay in the +occurrence. This man was a commodore in the United States navy; and his +name was not Perry, as the reader may at first surmise, but John H. +Aulick. He was a Virginian, then in his sixty-second year; he had had a +long and very honorable service, and was keen and statesmanlike in his +ideas. + +What Commodore Aulick saw in the incident was this: The kind and +friendly reception of the Japanese waifs in America, contrasted with the +ordinary treatment of white refugees in Japan, might be taken advantage +of to open friendly relations with Japan. To effect this result, a +naval expedition should be sent to Japan. If properly conducted, the +expedition not only might secure friendly treatment of American whalers +on the Japanese coasts, but might open up trade relations with the +country which would be highly profitable. + +Filled with his idea, which was really a great one, Commodore Aulick +obtained permission to lay it before the secretary of state, who was +none other than Daniel Webster. He had an interview with Mr. Webster at +Washington on the 9th day of May, 1851. + +Webster saw the point at once. At his instance, President Fillmore +ordered the navy department to prepare a small expedition for the voyage +to Japan; and when the ships were ready--they were headed by the sloop +of war _Mississippi_--Commodore Aulick was put in command. He actually +sailed on the voyage; but he was entrusted with the task of taking the +Brazilian minister as far as Rio Janeiro on the way, and some trouble +having arisen with this functionary for which Commodore Aulick was +blamed, he was superseded in command of the expedition by Commodore +Matthew Calbraith Perry, in command of the _Hartford_. + +It was Perry, therefore, who "opened up Japan." His name will be +associated, as long as the story of the two nations is told, with the +event. But it was Aulick's idea, not Perry's; and it all hung upon the +luck which those Japanese fishermen, waifs upon a boundless ocean, had +in being picked up by a generous Yankee skipper, and in finding their +way to so wholehearted and so hospitable a city toward "Mongolian" +wanderers as San Francisco was--then! + +If this incident had not suggested and been followed by the Aulick-Perry +expedition, what then? Russian authorities have claimed that Russia was +preparing a similar expedition at the time when Secretary Webster--"too +zealous," according to their view--sent the United States ships on their +way. There is good reason to believe that the Russian government would +have been slow in making such an infinitely clever move as the Perry +expedition constituted. Yet if the United States had not taken the step, +Russia would have stood next in the line of logical inheritance to the +idea. And if Japan had been opened under Russian auspices, its doors, +instead of standing open toward the East, and consequently toward _our_ +West, would have opened toward the Asiatic continental West, which would +have meant toward St. Petersburg. + +If the Japanese had, under Russian initiative, adopted the material +adjuncts of western civilization, as they finally did under ours, that +civilization would have taken on a distinctly Muscovite color. The +Japanese would never, indeed, have been able, under such auspices, to +organize an effective resistance to Russian arms, for long before they +had acquired the requisite training they must have been held firmly in +the grip of the Russian military system. + +That is to say, Japan would have been, step by step, annexed to the +Russian empire. The Russo-Japanese war would never have been, since +there would have been neither hope nor occasion for it. Most of the rich +fruits of Japanese art and industry would have drifted toward Russia. +The Russian empire would have been enormously enriched by the Japanese +trade, and the importance of that empire immensely magnified in the +history of our epoch. A reflex orientalizing influence would have rolled +over Russia itself, and the course of Russian internal development +altered in a degree now almost incalculable. + +If Russia had not been reasonably prompt to take the step, the eyes of +British statesmen must sooner or later have been opened to the +opportunity. The method by which British intervention proceeds in +Asiatic countries is well known. It has always had but slight regard for +native sovereignty, no matter how high the state of social or artistic +or intellectual development on the part of the native races affected. +British administrators, or, if Japan had retained its nominal +sovereignty, British "residents" or agents, would really have governed +the country through the Tycoon or the Mikado, or both--preferably the +Tycoon, for he was a military ruler, and affairs could have been handled +more readily through him. + +Events in Japan must have anticipated the subsequent history of Egypt, +on a much more magnificent scale. Again, though there would have been a +readier entrance for American and European trade than in the case of +Russian intervention, the best of everything Japanese would certainly +have gone to England. And once again, the free, independent, powerful, +masterful Japanese empire of the present day, thrilling with a new life +in which all the civilization of the Occident is made the handmaid of an +ancient and undaunted Asiatic people, would not have been. + +In the unlikely event that the Japanese, in default of Perry's +expedition, had been left quite alone for another generation or two, +their case would not have been better in the long run. They would simply +have missed the chance they got. Left a "hermit nation," they would +sooner or later have fallen under the influence of one Western country +or another, and been so seriously retarded in the race of civilization +that they could never have caught up. + +America was the only country that could have opened to them the +wonderful career that they have had. The high noon of the nineteenth +century was the golden moment for the commencement of their development +along the line of Western civilization. If the hour had not struck then +for them it would not have struck at all. Time, the helping hand, the +protecting influence of an unselfish friend among the nations, and the +golden gift of destiny, were all represented for Japan in the rescuing +sails of Skipper Jennings's bark, that lucky day in the wide Pacific. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +IF ORSINI'S BOMB HAD NOT FAILED TO DESTROY NAPOLEON III + + +Edward A. Freeman wrote, after the fall of the second Bonaparte empire: +"The work of Richelieu is utterly undone, the work of Henry II and Louis +XIV is partially undone; the Rhine now neither crosses nor waters a +single rood of French ground. As it was in the first beginnings of +northern European history, so it is now; Germany lies on both sides of +the German river." This was not by any means the whole of the work +wrought by that adventurer on an imperial throne, Napoleon III, through +his disastrous war against a united Germany. He accomplished also the +slaughter of five hundred thousand men, and the impoverishment of +millions. He sounded the death knell of monarchical adventuring in +France, which was indeed one good result of the Napoleonic _debacle_, +but he also fastened militarism, in the form of excessive and +progressively increasing peace armaments, upon Europe, and magnified +public debts and taxation to the limit of endurance. + +Every event here mentioned was a direct development, not of Napoleon +III's original seizure of the French throne, but of the final years, and +the eventual overthrow of his power--the overthrow itself due to the +Franco-Prussian war. A single event, criminal in its character, might +have prevented these results. That great benefits sometimes eventuate +from men's crimes is no news, and no longer a marvel, to the +philosopher, who, when good comes of evil, is apt to repeat the words, +"God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." + +The evil deed to which I have here referred, which would have saved the +lives of five hundred thousand people and left the river Rhine still +washing the confines of France, was the aiming of Orsini's bomb on the +evening of the 14th of January, 1858. This bomb was designed to take the +life of the emperor of the French. If the attempt had succeeded, and +Napoleon had died as Alexander II of Russia and King Humbert of Italy +afterward died, there would have been no Franco-German war. The throne +of the baby Napoleon IV, who was then less than two years old, very +likely would not have endured long; but whether the third republic had +immediately arisen, or whether the Orleans Bourbons had been restored to +the throne, it would have been found easy to preserve the peace with +Prussia and Germany. + +For Napoleon III deliberately, and with malignant ingenuity, provoked +war with Germany in 1870. There is now no doubt that Bismarck desired +such a war. He afterward confessed that he deceived the aged King +William in such a way that all chance of peace at Ems was lost. But +nevertheless the provocation of Napoleon was direct and deliberate. + +His grievance was that the Hohenzollern prince, Leopold, had consented +to become a candidate for the vacant throne of Spain. King William +withdrew Prince Leopold's candidature. This really destroyed Napoleon's +pretext for bringing on a war. But he desired a foreign war in order to +forestall revolutionary opposition at home, which threatened to become +irresistible. Napoleon thereupon caused his ambassador, Benedetti, +insolently, and in a manner quite unbearable, to demand personally from +King William a declaration that no Hohenzollern should ever be +permitted to become king of Spain. King William treated this insolence +as it deserved, and France, thereupon, declared war against Prussia. + +What followed, the world knows. The consequences were tremendous. France +was maimed of Alsace and Lorraine. Half a million of the flower of the +manhood of both nations perished. France taxed herself with five +millions of francs of indemnity, and though she has paid the debt to +Germany, she still owes it to her own citizens. The difficulties of +French government and finance were increased prodigiously and +indefinitely by the war and the empire's delinquencies. + +And all as a result contingent upon the failure of a criminal act! +Felice Orsini meant to kill Napoleon III, and he and his two companions +did kill ten innocent persons, and did wound one hundred and fifty +others. Yet the man for whom their bombs were intended--the adventurer +who had once been their comrade as a member of the Italian secret +society, the Carbonari, but who had afterward betrayed the cause of +Italian independence by leading an army into the peninsula and restoring +the papal power--escaped unharmed, to wind the trail of his infamous +conspiracies through European politics for twelve years longer. If the +bomb had done its direful work, one man, utterly without character or +conscience, would have died, and five hundred thousand men, mostly +honest, good and true, would have lived. As it happened, the one man was +spared, to make a vast holocaust of human life twelve years later. + +It is, indeed, strange that the averting of a single crime may sometimes +precipitate a myriad of other crimes. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +IF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN HAD ENFORCED THE LAW IN NOVEMBER, 1860 + + +Speaking of the lighting of the fires of civil war in this country in +the years 1860 and 1861, Charles Francis Adams said, in 1873, "One +single hour of the will displayed by General Jackson would have stifled +the fire in its cradle." The metaphor in the last phrase is peculiar, +and strangely Celtic for a Yankee, but the history is true. + +Montgomery Blair expressed the idea with greater plainness and vividness +in that same year, 1873, in these words, "If we could have held Fort +Sumter, there never would have been a drop of blood shed." Both these +remarks were made by men who had been in some sense actors in the events +to which they referred, and made after years of reflection upon the +circumstances. + +It does not seem to Americans of the present generation that there was +ever a moment, after the election of Abraham Lincoln, when the Civil War +could have been averted. It appears, in retrospect, to have been +absolutely inevitable. Yet there was certainly one moment when, if +President Buchanan had had the courage to apply the general views which +he himself advanced in his annual message to Congress of December 3, +1860, and his special message of January 8, 1861, which explicitly +denied the right of secession, a halt might have been called to the +growing rebellion. + +The secession movement was at first concentrated in the State of South +Carolina. That State, all through the winter of 1860-1861, was +presenting to the rest of the South an object lesson of successful +nullification. + +In 1833 South Carolina had ordained nullification, but its ordinance was +so instantly and heavily repressed by President Andrew Jackson that the +State was absolutely unable to carry it out, or to move hand or foot. +But now, in 1860, it did not merely ordain nullification--it enacted it. +Every Federal judge, every judicial servant, and nearly every Federal +official, in South Carolina, resigned, and the nation was left without +an agent to enforce its laws, for no new ones were sent in. The United +States authority in the State was at an end, save for the custom house +at Charleston and Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor. + +As long as South Carolina was let alone, her case plainly said to all +the other slave States, "You see we can withdraw from the Union; we have +withdrawn from the Union; and the Union takes no step to keep us in; +you can do the same thing." + +At this time North Carolina and Virginia were opposed to secession. +Governor Sam Houston, of Texas, stood like a rock against it. Kentucky, +Maryland, Missouri, never seceded. Other States were wavering. A great +deal depended on the degree of success which South Carolina, the leader +in the revolt, might have. And it was Buchanan who permitted South +Carolina's success to become apparently complete, though in the message +to which I have referred the president declared that secession was +"wholly inconsistent with the Constitution," that "no human power could +absolve him (the president) from his duty to enforce the laws," and that +the danger of national disruption was upon the country. Buchanan, in his +December message, actually quoted Jackson's solemn denunciation of the +doctrine that a State had a right to separate itself from the Union. + +But while he was making these terrible admissions of his own duty, what +was Buchanan doing? Instead of holding up the hands of the nation's +representatives in South Carolina, he was weakening them. Instead of +strengthening the Federal garrison in Charleston harbor, he permitted +it to dwindle until it was powerless to take a single step. Not one act, +indeed, did he perform, but contented himself with calling on Congress +for legislation to meet the emergency. And out of Congress, of course, +he could get nothing, for the Southern representatives would vote for no +such legislation, and the Republican members were bent upon waiting +until Lincoln, who had been elected president, came in in March, and the +northern Democrats were paralyzed with pusillanimity. + +So South Carolina went on proving to the other slave States that it +could "go it alone." One after another these other States seceded from +the Union. Northern arsenals were stripped of arms. Southern officers +went out of the army one by one, and made ready to organize the army of +the new Confederacy which was forming under the president's nose. + +It was a time for the strong arm, and for quick, decisive, Jacksonian, +and not at all squeamish, action. But no such action was taken. The +golden moment was lost, and when, three months afterward, Lincoln came +in at last, war, with all its horrors, was upon the country. + +If the young rebellion had been truly nipped in the bud, as it might +have been, by a rigid enforcement, in November and December, 1860, of +Federal judicial processes in South Carolina; if the laws of the United +States had been enforced in that State at the point of the bayonet, if +need be; if a Federal functionary, sustained by an ample force of United +States troops, had torn South Carolina's ordinance of secession into +shreds on the steps of the capitol at Columbia, with no tender regard +for South Carolina's interpretation of the Constitution, is it likely +that South Carolina's sister States would have been so prompt at +seceding? + +Very likely it might not have been necessary to do any of these things. +If Buchanan had merely stood up and said, as Jackson did in 1833, "I +shall enforce the laws of the United States in spite of any and all +resistance that may be made," there might well have been no more of +secession in 1860 or 1861 than there had been of real nullification in +1833. + +And if this step had been taken, and there had been no war, what then? +What about slavery? it may be asked. Is it conceivable that northern +sentiment would have permitted chattel slavery to continue? Was not war +inevitable on that main question alone? Let us see. The sentiment for +absolute and sudden emancipation was the product of the war. Lincoln +was not an Abolitionist. The Republican party was not Abolitionist. + +Without war, but with the Southern States held within the Union, +sentiment in the North would have been favorable to a compromise which +would have prevented the extension of slavery; and events would surely +have brought about a gradual liberation of the blacks in the South, as +events soon ended slavery in Brazil and Cuba. The institution was +doomed, morally and economically. + +But there would have been no negro suffrage. That was enforced by +conditions which grew out of the war. The South would not have been +impoverished, and it could have afforded a gradual education of the +negro in such a way as to fit him for free industry, and, in a limited +way, for the exercise of the suffrage. There would have been no +disturbing reversal of the position of the two races, to be followed by +a violent restoration of white supremacy and an accompanying +development of inveterate hostility between whites and blacks. The +sections would not have drifted apart in industrial conditions and +social constitution as they did under the influence of the war; we +should not have had, perhaps, a money-mad North to counterbalance a +ruined, desolated, disheartened South. + +And where, at Antietam, at Gettysburg, at Fredericksburg, at +Chattanooga, and on many humbler fields, the flags wave over the even +ranks of myriads of soldier graves, the mocking-birds would sing in +thickets which the bullet's hiss and the shriek of the shell had never +profaned, while their teeming populations of dead men would either be +alive to-day or entombed among their loved ones after lives of peaceful +usefulness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +IF THE CONFEDERATES HAD MARCHED ON WASHINGTON AFTER BULL RUN + + +There have been a great many attempts to excuse or minimize the failure +of General Joseph E. Johnston to follow up the tremendous Confederate +victory won by his second in command, General G. T. Beauregard, at Bull +Run, July 21, 1861. That the Federal army was beaten literally to a pulp +there can be no doubt. General Irwin McDowell, who commanded the Union +forces, officially reported, after the battle, that all his troops were +in flight "in a state of utter disorganization." "They could not," he +wired on July 22d, "be prepared for action by to-morrow morning even +were they willing. The larger part of the men are a confused mob, +entirely demoralized." They were actually running away in such a state +of panic that they could not get away, for commissary and ammunition +wagons, congressmen's and other spectators' horses and carriages, +artillery and sutlers' wagons were blocking the road, and panicstricken +soldiers were falling over one another. When General McClellan came to +take command after McDowell had been superseded, he reported this state +of affairs: "I found no army to command--a mere collection of regiments +cowering on the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others +dispirited by defeat." + +To reach the spot where the beaten raw recruits were thus cowering, +General Johnston and General Beauregard had to advance only twenty +miles, over a road every foot of which was well known to them. That the +Federal army was in ignominious flight they were well aware, for they +reported it joyfully to the government at Richmond. Why did they settle +down into utter inaction and allow McClellan to fortify the capital and +organize, drill and inspire with hope and confidence a great army? + +There are a good many "ifs" in connection with the actual fighting of +the battle of Bull Run, but this "if" that comes after it--if the elated +and triumphant Confederate army had immediately advanced to the Potomac, +invested the intrenchments at Arlington Heights and, very likely, +effected a crossing above or near the Great Falls of the river, and +flanked the capital of the Union--is the greatest and most interesting +of them all. + +General Beauregard actually commanded at the battle on the 21st, because +General Johnston, who ranked him, had but just arrived on the scene and +was unfamiliar with the ground and the disposition of the troops. But +he, Johnston, became responsible for the further prosecution of the +campaign, once the battle was won. It was in large measure his fault +that the fruits of victory were not reaped. + +The commonly accepted explanation of the matter is that the Confederates +were "almost as much disorganized by victory as the Federals were by +defeat;" that they had no fresh troops and no cavalry with which to +pursue, and that Arlington Heights were too well fortified to be +attacked. + +But General Beauregard, sore at the attempt to rob him of the laurels of +victory, has been able to show that all of the Confederate brigades of +Ewell, Holmes, D. R. Jones and Longstreet, and two regiments of Bonham's +brigade, were perfectly fresh and unharmed after the fight; that Early's +brigade had hardly been under fire; that new regiments had come up +during the day; that the fresh troops in all numbered at least fifteen +thousand; that more than half the Confederate army, in fact, had not +been engaged--a very unusual proportion after an important battle. "The +remaining forces, after a night's rest," says Beauregard himself, "would +have been instantly reorganized and found thoroughly safe to join the +advance." + +Apparently nothing but shame on the Northern side, and an unwillingness +on the Southern side to discredit their great generals, has prevented a +full acknowledgment of the fatal tactics which prevented an advance on +the Potomac after Bull Run. + +Now let us see what would have resulted from a Confederate investment of +Washington in the summer of 1861. Federal troops had already been +attacked in the streets of Baltimore. That city was preponderantly +disloyal, and had to be garrisoned with Union troops. Missouri had not +yet been won to the Union. Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky, all of +which were necessary to the maintenance of the Northern position, were +slave States, and their loyalty was doubtful. If the capital of the +Union had been taken, all these States, in spite of their previous +unwillingness to join the secession movement, would probably have been +impelled by strong self-interest to range themselves on the side of the +other slave States; and the Confederacy would have been strengthened by +the addition of at least four States. + +There was an important party among the Confederates from the western +Southern States--it was led by Postmaster-General John H. Reagan and +included General Albert Sidney Johnston--who believed in advancing at +the very outset into Kentucky and making the Ohio River the first line +of Southern defense. The plan was rejected by Davis and his advisers. It +was an unfortunate rejection. The Confederacy was finally beaten +because it was flanked in the west and cut in two at Vicksburg. But if +Washington had been captured or invested after Bull Run, it is certain +that the Confederate line would have been pushed to the Ohio, and it +would probably have been held there. The advantage gained by McClellan +in West Virginia would have been lost, for he would practically have +found himself within the Confederate lines and would have been compelled +to withdraw into Pennsylvania. + +Even as matters were, the position of the Union was highly precarious +all through the summer and autumn of 1861. There were signs of a demand +for peace in the North. Lincoln's own party was turning against him. The +sympathy of Europe was rapidly passing over to the Confederacy. But so +long as Lincoln stood firm in the White House and Congress sat at the +capital, "the government at Washington still lived," and the people +felt it. The truce so kindly, so inexplicably permitted by Davis and Lee +and Johnston enabled McClellan to organize and drill a great army, to +fortify the capital, to spread renewed confidence in the North, and, in +short, to establish a fulcrum for future victory. + +This was not the last time that opportunity knocked at the door of the +Confederacy. It knocked again, and loudly, as will be shown in the next +chapter, the same year. Either event, taken alone, appears decisive. For +as we contemplate the events of the 21st of July, 1861, it quite appears +as if the flag of two republics--three, perhaps, and conceivably +four--might have been flying over this great American domain to-day if +Johnston had pressed his advance down the Warrenton turnpike early +Monday morning, July 22d. Wars, divisions, European intrusion, +retrogression and darkness would have been America's fate, instead of +that imperial advance, with liberty and union, which has dazzled and +heartened the whole world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +IF THE CONFEDERATE STATES HAD PURCHASED THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S FLEET +IN 1861 + + +In the preceding chapter I have noted the disastrous consequences of the +rejection of John H. Reagan's plan, urged at Montgomery at the very +foundation of the Confederacy, for the prompt occupation of the south +bank of the Ohio River as the advanced line of defense, and the equally +unfavorable result of the failure of Johnston to press on to the Potomac +after the great success at Manassas. Gettysburg was a pivotal combat, +also; for if Lee had been supported by Stuart's cavalry on that +occasion, there is at least a possibility that the war's tide might have +been turned then and there. + +But there was a narrower contingency than either one of these. To a +positively decisive extent, the success of the National forces in +subjugating the Southern States turned on the sea power. The conquest of +the Confederacy was in fact a matter of supreme difficulty as it was; +and if the South had possessed a respectable navy, and had been able to +keep its ports open and steadily exchange its cotton in Europe for the +materials and munitions of war, the conquest would not have been +possible at all. + +The chance for the establishment of such a navy lay within the grasp of +the Confederate statesmen, and was by them let slip. Neither they, nor +any one else at the time, realized how easy the thing would have been. + +It is first necessary to explain in what situation the National +government was, at the outset of the war, in the matter of a naval +force. Nominally the United States navy consisted of ninety vessels, but +of these fifty were utterly obsolete and unusable except as supply +ships. Of the other forty, twenty were in a state of hopeless +unreadiness. Several of the best ships were in the remotest corners of +the world. The home squadron was composed of twelve ships, of which only +seven were steamers! Nearly fifty years after the invention of steam +navigation, the United States depended principally upon sailing vessels +for its defense. Only three trustworthy warships were left in Northern +waters for the defense of such ports as New York, Boston and +Philadelphia. + +As between the North and the South, the chance to wield the sea power +lay with the one of the two rival governments which should first put on +the water even a very small fleet of ironclad, steam-driven vessels. The +Confederacy proved afterward what power could be exerted in this +direction with but one single ironclad, when the _Merrimac_ destroyed or +scattered all the ships in Hampton Roads, for a moment threatened +Washington and the Northern cities with ravage, and was checked at last +only by the almost providential appearance of another ironclad, +Ericsson's little _Monitor_, on the scene. And the _Alabama's_ armor of +chains made her for a time almost a match for the United States navy. + +By what means could the Confederacy have forestalled the North in the +provision of a really effective navy? The chance, as I have said, was +offered, and declined, with fatal want of foresight. It lay in the ten +steamships of the English East India Company, which in 1861 was winding +up its affairs. These ships were offered to the Confederacy at a fair +valuation. They were very good vessels, and capable of prompt armoring +in at least as effective a style as that in which the _Alabama_ was +afterwards armored. The East India Company was prepared to make such +terms as the Confederate government could have met. + +British outfitters were perfectly willing to trust the Southern +statesmen. The ships could have been armed in a few weeks; there was +nothing to prevent their entrance into Southern ports, for the blockade +was not made effective until one year after the war broke out. The +_Otero_, renamed by the Confederates the _Florida_, had no difficulty in +taking on her men and guns in the Bahamas. + +Possessed of ten good steam vessels, commanded by such men as Maury, +Maffitt of the _Florida_, and Semmes of the _Alabama_, the Confederacy +could have quickly overcome its lack of mechanics and workshops by +importation from Europe. It was the command of the Mississippi, the +Cumberland and the Tennessee rivers which "broke the back of the +Confederacy"; and does any one imagine that the wooden ships of +Farragut could have entered the Mississippi, compelled the abandonment +of New Orleans, and secured the possession of not only the seacoast but +the inland river waters which commanded the Confederacy from the rear, +if there had been any good ships to resist him? + +The start which these ten ships would have given a Confederate navy +would have more than put the South even with the North on the sea. It +must be remembered that up to 1862, even as it was, the South could do +better in the courts and exchanges of Europe than the Union could. Why? +Because the South had the cotton, upon which the mills of Europe +depended. The continued chance to market cotton would have saved the +situation for the South. _Alabamas_ in any requisite number would have +issued from British shipyards. + +As it was, several powerful rams were under construction for the +Confederacy in 1861 and 1862 in the yards of the Lairds. But the +continued insistence of Minister Adams on the unlawfulness of this +proceeding, joined with the fact that the Confederates had no +recognizable navy to back up their purchases, at last compelled the +British government to take these rams over and add them to its own sea +power. + +President Jefferson Davis declined the offer of the East India ships for +the apparent reason that the military necessities of the Confederacy +pressed hard upon the financial resources of the new government. Every +member of his government was quite thoroughly convinced that the +National power could not successfully invade the South, provided a +strong army were quickly put into the field. The ready material for good +soldiers was much more abundant in the South than in the North; nearly +all Southern men were horsemen, hunters, marksmen, out-of-door men. On +the other hand, the first levies from the North were mostly city men, +unaccustomed to firearms, strangers to exposure, flabby of physique. +Manassas amply illustrated the great superiority as soldiers of the +first comers from the South over the first comers from the North. + +The Confederate leaders counted upon making permanent the advantage +which they were confident of gaining in the field at the outset. To +purchase out of hand ten steamships, from resources that were yet to be +created, and with the manhood of seven States demanding to be armed, +looked, indeed, like madness. And yet this was the very card which, if +played, would have saved the Confederacy's game. + +Conceive for a moment the Union navy debarred from entrance into the +James or any of the navigable waters of Virginia, to support military +operations in the direction of Richmond. Conceive Wilmington, N. C., +which was an easily defensible port, and which really remained open to +the blockade runners for almost two years after the beginning of the +war, rendered a fairly safe point of departure for European trade +throughout the war. Conceive the Mississippi, from Cairo southward to +its mouth, continuously under the power of the Confederacy, with a fleet +of river gunboats backed up by a Gulf squadron. Does any one imagine +that in that case the North could have made either any warlike or +commercial use of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, or even the +Mississippi from Cairo up to St. Louis? + +Freed from the unceasing coast menace and from the danger of being cut +in two along the rivers, the effectiveness of the land forces would have +been more than doubled. Leaving out of the account the possibility of +offensive operations against Washington and the cities of the North, +the defense of the seceded States could have been made so secure that +the people of the North would have called loudly for peace; the border +slave States would have cast in their lot with the Confederacy, and +England and France would have openly sided with the South; secession +would have triumphed definitely before the end of the year 1863. + +With the English East India Company, it was a case of "take our ships or +leave them." The South left them, and with them it left its chance for +independence and for putting two mediocre American republics in the +place where one great one, after that decisive moment, was bound to +stand forever. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Obvious punctuation errors were corrected. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IFS OF HISTORY*** + + +******* This file should be named 34086.txt or 34086.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/0/8/34086 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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