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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I,
January 1862, by Various
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: Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862
Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Author: Various
Release Date: August 3, 2006 [EBook #18977]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY , VOL I ***
Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections)
THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOLUME I. 1862.
BOSTON:
J. R. GILMORE, 110 TREMONT STREET.
NEW YORK: GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 532 BROADWAY.
ROSS & TOUSEY, AND H. DEXTER AND COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA T. B. PETERSON & BROTHER
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by
JAMES R. GILMORE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
JOHN A. GRAY
PRINTER & STEREOTYPER,
16 and 18 Jacob St.
* * * * *
INDEX TO VOLUME I
Across the Continent. Hon. Horace Greeley, 78
Active Service; or, Campaigning In Western Virginia, 330
Actress Wife, the, 64, 139
Among the Pines. Edmund Kirke, 35, 187, 322, 438, 710
Ante-Norse Discoverers of America, the. C. G. Leland, 389, 531
Beaufort District--Past, Present, and Future. Frederic Kidder, 381
Black Witch, the. J. Warren Newcombe, Jr., 155
BOOKS RECEIVED, 94, 348, 469
Bright, John. George M. Towle, 525
Brown's Lecture Tour. Wm. Wirt Sikes, 118
Cabinet Session, 339
Campbell, The late Lord Chancellor, George M. Towle, 285
Columbia's Safety, 578
Constitution and Slavery, the. Rev. C. E. Lord, 619
Cotton, is it our King? Edward Atkinson, 247
Danger, Our, and its Cause. Hon. Geo.C. Boutwell, 219
Desperation and Colonization. C. G. Leland, 657
EDITORS TABLE, 95-112, 228-240, 349-368
470-492, 605-618, 727-749
Education to be, the. Levi Reuben, M.D., 592, 662
Edwards Family, the. Rev. W. Frothingham, 11
Edwards, Jonathan, and the Old Clergy. Rev. W. Frothingham, 265
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Miss Delia M. Colton, 48
Fairies, 524
Fatal Marriage of Bill the Soundser, the. W. L. Tiffany, 395
Fugitives at the West. Miss S. C. Blackwell, 582
General Lyon. Miss Delia M. Colton, 465
Good Wife, the. A Norwegian Story, 290
Graveyard at Princeton, the. Miss McFarlane, 32
Green Corn Dance, the. John Howard Payne, 17
Guerdon, 601
Hamlet a Fat Man. Carlton Edwards, 571
Heir of Roseton, the. Champion Bissell, 210
Howe's Cave, 422
Huguenot Families in America. Hon. G.P. Disosway, 151, 298, 461
Huguenots of Staten Island. Hon. G.P. Disosway, 683
Irving, Washington, Recollections of, 689
Knights of the Golden Circle, the. Charles G. Leland, 473
LITERARY NOTICES, 91-93, 226-227, 346-348
466-468, 602-604, 724-726
Lowell, James Russell. Miss Delia M. Colton, 176
Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland, 302, 414, 513, 647
Molly O'Molly Papers, the. 449, 502
Motley, John Lothrop. Miss Delia M. Colton, 309
One of my Predecessors. Bayard Taylor, 273
On the Plains. Hon. Horace Greeley, 167
Our War and our Want. C. G. Leland, 113
Patterson's Campaign in Virginia, 257
Philosophic Bankrupt. Henry T. Lee, 496
POETRY:
All Together, 506
Black Flag, the. C. G. Leland, 138
Changed. Mrs. Paul Ackers, 570
Child's Call at Eventide, 289
Columbia to Britannia, 404
En Avant, 656
England, To, C. G. Leland, 209
Freedom's Stars, 166
Game of Fate, the. C. G. Leland, 268
Hemming Cotton. C. G. Leland, 272
Lesson of War, the. Henry Carey Lea, 46
Lessons of the Hour, the. Edward L. Rand, Jr., 320
Monroe to Farragut. C. G. Leland, 709
New-England's Advance. Augusta C. Kimball, 701
Potential Moods, 427
Red, White, and Blue, the. 646
Rosin the Bow. B. B. Foster, 29
Self-Reliance, 149
She Sits Alone. Henry P. Leland, 225
Song of Freedom. Edward L. Rand, Jr., 76
Sonnet. H. T. Tuckerman, 16
Sphinx and OEdipus. T. H. Underwood, 63
Spur of Monmouth, the. Henry Morford, 392
Ten to One on it. C. G. Leland, 465
Watchword, the. 126
Westward, 246
What will you do with us? C. G. Leland, 175
Progress, is it a Truth? Henry P. Leland, 6
Resurgamus. Henry P. Leland, 186
Roanoke Island. Frederic Kidder, 541
Seven Devils. Rev. F. W. Shelton, 171
Seward's, Mr., Published Diplomacy, 199
Situation, the. Richard B. Kimball, 1
Sketches of Edinburgh Literati. Rev. W. Frothingham, 453
Slave-Trade in New-York. Mr. Wilder, 86
Southern Aids to the North. C.G. Leland, 242, 445
State Rights. Sinclair Tousey, 535
Story of Mexican Life, 552, 627
Tints and Tones of Paris. H.T. Tuckerman, 127
Travel-Pictures. Henry T. Lee, 676
True Basis. C. G. Leland, 136
True Interest of Nations, the. C.C. Hazewell, 428
True Story. Miss McFarlane, 507
Ursa Major, 579
War between Freedom and Slavery in Missouri, the. 369
Was he Successful? Richard B. Kimball, 702
What shall we do with it? Hon. John W. Edmonds, 493
What to do with the Darkies. C. G. Leland, 84
THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
DEVOTED TO LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOL. I.--JANUARY, 1862.--NO. I.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Situation, 1
Is Progress a Truth? 6
The Edwards Family, 11
Sonnet, 16
The Green Corn Dance, 17
Rosin the Bow, 29
The Graveyard at Princeton, 32
Among the Pines, 35
The Lesson of War, 46
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 49
Sphinx and OEdipus, 63
The Actress-Wife, 64
Song of Freedom, 76
Across the Continent, 78
What to do with the Darkies, 84
The Slave Trade in New York, 86
Literary Notices, 91
The Rejected Stone;
The Works of Francis Bacon;
The Old Log Schoolhouse;
Songs in Many Keys.
Books Received, 94
Editor's Table, 95
THE FEBRUARY NUMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL
Will be issued about the 15th of January, and will contain contributions
from the following among other eminent writers: HON. HORACE GREELEY,
HENRY T. TUCKERMAN, REV. F. W. SHELTON, RICHARD B. KIMBALL, BAYARD
TAYLOR, J. WARREN NEWCOMB, JR., HENRY P. LELAND, THE AUTHOR OF "THE
COTTON STATES," CHARLES G. LELAND, and CHARLES F. BROWNE.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1801, by JAMES R.
GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 Cornhill, Boston.
* * * * *
THE SITUATION.
In the month of November, 1860, culminated the plot against our National
existence. The conspiracy originated in South Carolina, and had a
growth, more or less checked by circumstances, of over thirty years.
For John C. Calhoun had conceived the idea of an independent position
for that State some time previous to the passage of the 'nullification
ordinance' in November, 1832. This man, although he bore no resemblance
in personal qualities to the Roman conspirator, is chargeable with the
same crime which Cicero urged against Cataline--that of 'corrupting the
youth.' His mind was too logical to adopt the ordinary propositions
about slavery, such as, 'a great but necessary evil;' 'we did not plant
it, and now we have it, we can't get rid of it,' and the like; but,
placing his back to the wall where it was impossible to outflank him, he
defended it, by all the force of his subtle intellect, as a permanent
institution. His followers refined on their master's lessons, and
asserted that it was one of the pillars on which a republic must rest!
Here was the origin of the most wicked and most audacious plot ever
attempted against any government. This plot did not involve any contest
for political power in the administration of public affairs. That, the
Southern leaders already possessed, but with that they were not content.
They were determined to destroy the Republic itself,--to literally blot
it out of existence. And why? What could betray intelligent and educated
men, persons esteemed wise in their generation, into an attempt which
amazes the civilized world, and at which posterity will be appalled? We
answer, it was the old leaven which has worked always industriously in
the breast of man since the creation--AMBITION. Corrupted by
the idea that a model republic must have slavery for its basis, knowing
that the free States could not much longer tolerate the theory, certain
leading individuals decided to dismember the country. They cast their
eyes across Texas to the fertile plains of Mexico, and so southward.
They indulged in the wildest dreams of conquest and of empire. The whole
southern continent would in time be occupied and under their control. An
aristocracy was to be built up, on which possibly a monarchy would be
engrafted. In this way a new feudal system was to be developed, negro
for serf, and a race of noble creatures spring forth, the admirable of
the earth, whose men should be famed as the world's chivalry, and whose
women should be the most beautiful and most accomplished of all the
daughters of Eve. The peaceful drudge and artisan of the North, ox-like
in their character, should serve them as they might require, and the
craven man of commerce should buy and sell for their accommodation. For
the rest, the negro would suffice. This was the extraordinary scheme of
the South Carolina 'aristocrat,' and with which he undertook to infect
certain unscrupulous leaders throughout the cotton and sugar States. It
was no part of the plan of the conspirators to precipitate the border
States into rebellion. O no! On the contrary, it was specially set forth
in the programme entrusted to the exclusive few, that those States were
to remain in the 'Old Union' as a fender between the 'South' and the
free States; always ready in Congress to stand up for a good fugitive
slave law, and various other little privileges, and prepared to threaten
secession if Congress did not yield just what was demanded. In this way
the free States would be perpetually entangled by embarrassing
questions, and the new empire left to pursue unrestricted its dazzling
plans of conquest and occupation.
A comfortable arrangement truly, and one very easy of
accomplishment,--provided the free States would consent.
'Certainly they will consent. Trade, commerce, manufactures and
mechanical pursuits, occupy them exclusively, and these promise better
results under the new order of things than under the old. As to
patriotism or public spirit, the North have neither. The people do not
even resent a personal affront, much less will they go to war for an
idea.'
So reasoned the South.
'It is not possible those fellows down yonder can be in earnest. They
are only playing the game of "brag." In their hearts they are really
devoted to the Union. They have not the least idea of separating from
us.'
So reasoned the North.
Neither side thought the other in earnest. Both were mistaken.
Negro slaves were introduced into Virginia as early as 1620. In the year
1786 England employed in the slave-trade 130 ships, and that year alone
seized and carried from their homes into slavery 42,000 blacks.
Wilberforce experienced many defeats through the influence of the
slave-trade interest, but at length carried his point, and the trade was
finally abolished in England in 1807,--not a very remote period
certainly. The same year witnessed the suppression of the slave-trade in
our own country; but, unfortunately, not the abolition of
slave-_holding_. All our readers understand how, when the Constitution
of the United States was adopted, slavery was regarded entirely as a
domestic matter, left to each of the States to manage and dispose of as
each saw fit. But at that period there was no dissenting voice to the
proposition, that, abstractly considered, slave-holding was wrong; yet
the owner of a large number of negroes could honestly declare he was
himself innocent of the first transgression, and ignorant of any
practicable way to get rid of the evil,--for it was counted an evil.
When the rice, cotton and sugar fields demanded larger developments, it
was counted a _necessary_ evil. Congress was called on for more guards
and pledges, and gave them freely. It disclaimed any power to interfere
with what had now become an institution; it had no power to do so. It
went further, and by legislation sought fully to protect the
slave-holding States in the perfect enjoyment of their rights under the
Constitution.
Meanwhile many wise and good men, North and South, who regarded slavery
as a blight and a curse upon the States where it existed, endeavored by
all the means in their power to prepare the way for gradual
emancipation. It seemed at one time that they would succeed in Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky. In Virginia, an emancipation act failed
of passing by a single vote.
About the time that Calhoun was spreading the heresy of his state-rights
doctrine in South Carolina and taking his 'logical ground' on the
slavery question, a class, then almost universally branded as fanatics,
but whose proportions have since very largely swelled, arose at the
North, which were a match for the South Carolina senator with his own
weapons. Each laid hold of an extreme point and maintained it. We refer
to the Abolitionists of thirty years ago, under Garrison, Tappan & Co.
These people seized on a single idea, exclusive of any other, and went
nearly mad over it. Apparently blind to the evils around them, which
were close at hand, within their own doors, swelling perhaps in their
own hearts, they were suddenly 'brought to see' the 'vile enormity' of
slave-holding. Their argument was very simple. 'Slavery is an awful sin
in the sight of God. Slave-holders are awful sinners. We of the North,
having made a covenant with such sinners, are equally guilty of the sin
of slavery with them. Slavery must be immediately abolished. _Fiat
justitia ruat coelum_. Better that the Republic fall than continue in
the unholy league one day.' These men were ready to 'dissolve the
Union,' to disintegrate the nation, to blast the hopes of perhaps
millions of persons over the world, who were watching with anxious
hearts the experiment of our government, trembling lest it should fail.
In South Carolina John C. Calhoun was ready to do the same. And thus
extremes met.
Meanwhile the Southern conspirators pursued their labors. Gathering up
the reports of the meetings of the Abolition Societies, and selecting
the most inflammable extracts from the speeches of the most violent,
they circulated them far and wide, as indications of the hostile spirit
of the North, and as proofs of the impossibility of living under the
same government with people who were determined to destroy their
domestic institutions and stir up servile insurrections. The
Abolitionists saw the alarm of the South, and pressed their advantage.
Thus year after year passed, till the memorable November elections of
1860. The conspirators received the intelligence of the election of
Lincoln with grim satisfaction. The Abolitionists witnessed the progress
of secession in the various States with a joy they did not attempt to
conceal. 'Now we can pursue our grand scheme of empire,' exclaimed the
Southern traitors. 'Now shall we see the end of slavery,' cried the
Abolitionists. Strange that neither gave a thought about the destruction
of the glorious fabric which the wisest and best men, North and South,
their own fathers, had erected. Strange, not one sigh was breathed in
prospect of the death of a nation. Incredible that no misgiving checked
the exultation of either party, lest, in destroying the temple of
Liberty and scattering its fragments, it might never again be
reconstructed. The conspirator, South, saw only the consummation of his
mad projects of ambition. The Abolitionist North, regarded only the
_immediate_ emancipation of a large number of slaves, most of whom,
incapable, through long servitude, of self-control, would be thrown
miserably on the world. Neither party thought or cared a jot about their
common country. Neither regarded the stars and stripes with the least
emotion. To one, it was secondary to the emblem of a sovereign State. To
the other, there was no beauty in its folds, because it waved over a
race in bondage.
The day after the battle of Bull Run found these two extremes still in
sympathy. Both were still rejoicing. The rebel recognized the hand of
Providence in the victory, so did the Abolitionist: one, because it
would secure to the South its claims; the other, because it would rouse
the North to a fiercer prosecution of the war, which had hitherto been
waged with 'brotherly reluctance.' Here we leave these sympathizing
extremes, and proceed to survey the situation.
The first point we note is, that in the South the war did not originate
with the people, but with certain conspirators. In the North, the mighty
armament to conquer rebellion is the work of the people alone, not of a
cabinet. In the South, it was with difficulty the inhabitants were
precipitated into 'secession.' Indeed, in certain States the leaders
dared not risk a popular vote. In the North, the rulers, appalled by
the extraordinary magnitude of the crisis, were timid and hesitating,
until the inhabitants rose in a body to save their national existence.
It is no answer to this assertion, that large armies are arrayed against
us, which engage with animosity in the war. The die cast, the several
States committed to the side of treason, there was no alternative: fight
they must. As the devil is said to betray his victims into situations
where they are compelled to advance from bad to worse, so the
conspirators adroitly hastened the people into overt acts from which
they were told there was no retreat. We believe these facts to have had
great influence with our Government; and in this way we can understand
the generous but mistaken forbearance of the administration in the
earlier stages of the contest,--we say mistaken, because it was entirely
misunderstood by the other side, and placed to the account of cowardice,
imbecility or weakness; and because there can be no middle course in
carrying on a war. We have suffered enough by it already in money and
men; we must suffer no more. Besides, we lose self-respect, and gain
only the contempt of the enemy. When the bearer of General Sherman's
polite proclamation, addressed 'to the _loyal_ citizens of South
Carolina,' communicated it to the two officers near Beaufort, they
replied, with courteous _nonchalance_, 'Your mission is fruitless; there
are no loyal citizens in the State.' The general's action in the
premises reminds us of that of a worthy clergyman who gave notice that
in the morning of the following Sunday he would preach to the young, in
the afternoon to the old, in the evening to sinners. The two first
services were respectably attended; to the last, not a soul came.
There are no 'sinners' in South Carolina, and General Sherman had better
try his hand at something else besides paper persuasions. At all events,
we suggest that future proclamations be addressed to those for whom such
documents are usually framed, to wit, rebels in arms against constituted
authority.[1]
But to our case. We have a rebellion to crush,--a rebellion large in its
proportions, threatening in its aspect, but lacking in elements of real
strength, and liable to collapse at any moment. To put down this
rebellion is the sole object and purpose of the war. We are not fighting
to enrich a certain number of army contractors, nor to give employment
to half a million of soldiers, or promotion to the officers who command
them. Neither are we fighting to emancipate the slaves. It is true the
army contractors do get rich, the half million of soldiers are employed,
the officers who command them receive advancement, and the slaves _may_
be liberated. But this is not what we fight _for_. On this head the
people have made no mistake. In the outset they proclaimed that this war
was to decide the question of government or no government, country or no
country, national existence or no national existence. And we must go
straight to this mark. We have nothing to do with any issue except how
to save the nation. If this shall require the emancipation of every
negro in the Southern States, then every negro must be emancipated. And
this brings us to another proposition, to wit, that the day is past for
discussing this slave question in a corner. This bug-bear of
politicians, this ancient annoyance to the Northern Democrat and the
Southern old-line Whig, this colored Banquo, will no longer 'down.' We
can no longer affect ignorance of the spectre's presence. It is forced
on us in the house and by the way. It follows the march of our armies.
It is present at the occupation of our Southern ports and towns and
villages. Martial law is impotent to deal with it. It frightens by its
ugly shadow our Secretary of War; in vain our good President tries to
avoid it; in vain we adopt new terms, talk about contrabands, and the
like; the inevitable African will present himself, and we are compelled
to recognize him.
Notwithstanding we fight for no other end than to save the Republic, we
are absolutely driven into the consideration of the slave question,
because it involves the very existence of any republic. This question is
not whether bondage is to cease throughout the world; but whether it is
compatible with a free government, such as we claim our own to be. In
other words, is Slavery in the United States to-day on trial? We must
_all_ abandon our morbid sensitiveness and come squarely to the
consideration of the vital point, to wit, can this great Republic be
held together while the 'peculiar system' exists in a part of it? No
matter who first posed this ugly query,--Calhoun or Garrison. We have
now to answer it. We dare not, we can not, we will not give up our
country to disunion and severance. To save it has already cost us an eye
and a hand, and now this unhappy subject must be disposed of, disposed
of honestly, conscientiously, with the temper of men who feel that the
_principle_ of our government is soon to fail or triumph. If to fail,
the cause would seem to be lost forever. What then? Why only a monarchy
on our Southern border, insolent provinces on our Northern; Spain
strengthened in her position, and recovering her lost ground; Mexico an
empire; England audacious and overbearing as of yore, and France joining
to fill our waters with mighty naval armaments. _We_, having witnessed
the dismemberment of our country, and possessing no longer a
nationality, but broken into fragments, to become the jest and
laughingstock of the world, which would point to us and say, 'These
people began to build, and were not able to finish!'
How do you fancy the picture? Do you think any morbid delicacy, any fear
of giving offense to our 'loyal Southern brethren,' should prevent our
examining this slave question? We raise, be it understood, no foregone
conclusion, we do not even pronounce on the result of the examination;
but examine it we must. Not the President, with his honest desire to
preserve every guaranteed right to the South; not the Secretary of
State, who unites the qualities of a timid man with those of a radical,
and who is therefore by instinct temporizing and 'diplomatic;' not any
other member of the cabinet, dare longer attempt to slide over or around
it. We observe, we venture on no conclusion in advance. We are not
prepared to say, if the South in a body should seek now to return to
their allegiance, that they could not hedge in and save their
'institution.' But we should still desire to discuss the subject
carefully.
So long as slavery was tolerated as a domestic custom long established
and difficult to deal with, it stood in the list of permitted evils
which all condemn, yet which it seems impossible to get rid of. But it
is one thing to _tolerate_ an evil, quite another to adopt it as a good.
And we declare that never in the world's history was there an attempt so
shameless and audacious as that to found a government on slavery as a
cornerstone! Is it possible to conceive of more ungoverned depravity or
a madness more complete?[2]
There have been contests innumerable on the earth. We read of wars for
conquest, to avenge national insults, about disputed territory, against
revolted provinces, and between dynasties; civil wars, religious wars,
wars for the succession, to preserve the balance of power, and so forth.
But never before was a war inaugurated to _establish_ slavery as a
principle of the government. We can predict no other fate for the
leaders in this diabolical plot than discomfiture and defeat. We have
an unwavering faith that the Republic will come out of this contest
stronger than ever before; that it will become a light to lighten the
nations, the hope of the lovers of liberty everywhere. But we will not
anticipate.
In periods like the present, circumstances appear to be charged with
vital and intelligent properties, working out and solving problems which
have disturbed and puzzled the wisest and most astute. At such times
impertinent intermeddlers abound, who claim to interpret the oracles,
and who would hasten the birth of events by acting as midwife. It is
impossible to dispose of or silence such people. We should be careful
that we are not misled by their egregious pretensions. The fact is, the
whole history of our race should teach us a lesson of profound humility.
We do not accomplish half so much for ourselves as is accomplished for
us. True, we have something to do. The seed will not grow if it be not
planted; but all our skill and cunning can not make it spring up and
blossom, and bear fruit in perfection. Neither can man work out events
after a plan of his own. He is made, in the grand drama of this world,
to work out the designs of the Almighty. We must accept this or accept
nothing. In this light how futile are the intemperate ravings of one
class, the unreasonable complaints of another, the cunning plots of a
third. We see no escape from a threatening danger, we perceive no path
out of a labyrinthine maze of evil; when, lo! through some apparently
trifling incident, by some slight and insignificant occurrence, the
whole order of things is changed, the impending danger vanishes, and we
thread the labyrinth with ease.
We believe God will provide us a way out of our present troubles. Only
we must do our duty, which is to maintain our common country, our flag,
the Republic ENTIRE.
Thus much at present. Where this war is to carry us, what shall be its
effect on us as a people, what great changes are in progress, and what
may result from them, we will discuss at the proper time, in a future
number.
IS PROGRESS A TRUTH?
'Human nature has been the same in all ages.'
'Men are pretty much the same wherever you find them.'
If there be anything in this world from which it would be desirable to
see men delivered, it is from a certain small, cheap wisdom which
expresses itself in general verdicts on all humanity, and enables the
fribbler or dolt who can not see beyond his nose to give an offhand
summary of the infinite. There is 'an aping of the devil' in this
flippant assumption of our immutability, which strangely combines the
pitiful and painful. Oh! if the _ne plus ultra_ which antique Ignorance
complacently inscribes on the gates of its world should ever be worn
away, let it be replaced by this owlish _credo_ in the unchangeableness
of man.
The refutation of these sayings has been the history of humanity, and
yet no argument on political or social topics fails to contain them in
one form or another. Even now, in the tremendous debate maintained by
common logic and 'fist law' between our North and South, we find them
enunciated with a clearness and precision unequaled in any state paper,
unless we except that in which William the Conqueror coolly styled
himself king 'by the right of the sword.' Science, which modestly
announces itself as incomplete the nearer it approaches completion, has
been assumed to be perfect by those most ignorant of it, in order that
its mere observations as to climate and races may be found to prove
that as man is, so he was in all ages, and so must be, 'forever and
forever as we rove.' Races now vanished in the twilight of time have
been boldly declared to be the prototypes of others, now themselves
changing into new forms, and we, unconsciously, like the old Hebrew in
Heine's Italy, repeat curses over the ancient graves of long-departed
foes--ignorant that those curses were long since fulfilled by the
unconquerable and terrible laws which ever hurry us onward and upward,
from everlasting to everlasting, from the first Darkness to the infinite
word of Light.
The assumption that mankind always has been and will be the same,
involves the conclusion that the elements of slavery and scoundrelism,
of suffering and of disorder, are immutable in essence and in
proportion, and that human exertion wastes itself in vain when it
aspires to anything save a rank in the upper ten millions. As for the
mass,--'tis a great pity,--_mais, que voulez vous?_ It is the fortune of
life's war; and then who knows? Perhaps they are as happy in their
sphere as anybody. Only see how they dance! And then they
drink--gracious goodness, how they swig it off! the gay creatures!
Oh,'tis a very fine world, gentlemen, especially if you whitewash it
well, and keep up a plenty of Potemkin card cottages along the road
which winds through the wilderness. But above all--never forget that
they--drink.
It was well enough for a stormy past, but it may not be so well for the
future, that man is prone to hero-worship. Under circumstances, varying,
however, immensely, be it observed, humanity has produced Menus,
Confuciuses, Platos, Ciceros, Sidneys, Spinozas, scholars and gentlemen,
and the ordinary student, seeing them all through a Claude Lorraine
glass of modern tinting, thinks them on the whole wonderfully like
himself. Horace chaffs with Caesar and Maecenas, Martial quizzes the world
and the reader very much as modern club-men and poets would do. It is
very convenient to forget how much they have been imitated; still more
so to ignore that in both are stores of recondite mode and feeling as
yet unpenetrated by any scholar of these days. You think, my brave
_Artium Baccalaureus_, that you feel all that Hafiz felt,--surely he
toped and bussed like a good fellow of all times,--and yet for seven
centuries the most embracing of scholars have folioed and disputed over
the real meaning of that Song of Solomon which is now first beginning to
be understood from Hafiz. Man, I tell you that in the old morning of
history there were races whose life-blood glowed hotter than ever yours
did, with a burning faith, such as you never felt, that all which you
now believe to be most execrably infamous was intensely holy. Your
wisest scholars lose themselves in trying to unthread the mazes and
mysteries of those incomprehensible depths of diabolical worship and
intertwined beauty and honor, now known only from trebly diminished
mythologic reflection. Perhaps some of those undecipherable hieroglyphs
of the East are not so unintelligible to you now as they would be if
translated. Do you, for that matter, fully understand why a Hindu yoghi
torments himself for thirty years? I observe that the great majority of
our good, kind missionaries have no glimmering of an idea why it is
done. Brother Zeal, of the first part, says it is superstition. Father
Squeal, of the second part, says it is the devil. Very good indeed--so
far as it goes.
But look to later ages, and see whether man has been so strikingly
similar to us of the present day. There are manias and mysteries of the
Middle Ages whose history is smothered in darkness; lost to us out of
sheer incapacity to be understood from any modern standpoint of sense or
feeling whatever. What do you make out of that crusade of scores of
thousands of unarmed, delirious Christians, who started eastward to
redeem the holy sepulchre; all their faith and hope of safety being in a
goose and a pig which they bore with them? And they all died, those
earnest Goose-and-Pigites; died in untold misery and murder--unhappy
'superstition again.' That bolt is soon shot; but I have my misgivings
whether it reaches the mark.
Or what do you make of untold and unutterable horrors, or crimes, as
they were deemed, which to us seem bewildering nonsense? What of
were-wolf manias, of districts made horrible by nightmare and
vampyreism, urged to literal and incredible reality; of abominations
which no modern wickedness dare hint at, but which raged like epidemics?
Or what of the Sieur de Gilles, with his thousand or two of girl
children elaborately tortured to death--and he a type and not a sporad?
'But,' we are told, 'men would do all this over again, if they dared.
The vice is all here, safely housed away snug as ever, only waiting its
time.' I grant it--just as I grant that the same atoms and elements
which once formed mastodons and trilobites are here--and with about as
much chance of reappearing as mastodons as humanity has of reproducing
those antique horrors. The fragments of witch-madness and star-faith may
be still raked in tolerably perfect lumps out of the mire or chaff of
mankind; but I do not think, young lady, that you will ever be accused
of riding on a broom, though you unquestionably had an ancestress,
somewhere before or after Hengist, who enjoyed the reputation of
understanding that unpopular mode of volatility. _Pommade Dupuytren_ and
_Eau de toilette_ have taken the place of the witch-ointments; and if
the spice-powder of the old alchemist Mutio di Frangipani has risen from
the recipes of the Middle Ages into modern fashion, rest assured that it
will never work wonder more, save in connection with bright eyes,
rustling fans, and Valenciennes-edged pocket-handkerchiefs.
To the student to whom all battles of the past are not like the dishes
of certain Southern hotels,--all served in the same gravy, possessing
the same agrarian, muttony flavor,--and to whom Zoroaster and Spurgeon
are not merely clergymen, differing only in dress and language, it must
appear plain enough that as there are now on earth races physically
differing from one another almost as much as from other mammalia, just
so in the course of ages have been developed in the same single descent
even greater mental and moral differences. In fact, when we remember
that the same lust, avarice, ambition and warfare have mingled with our
blood at all times, it becomes wonderful when we reflect how marvelously
the mind has been molded to such myriad varieties. It has in full
consciousness of its power sacrificed all earthly happiness, toiled and
died for rulers, for ideas of which it had no idea, for vague
war-cries--it has existed only for sensuality, or beauty, or food--for
religion or for ostentation, according to different climate or age or
soil--it has groveled for ages in misery or roamed free and proud--and
between the degraded slave and the proud free-man there is, as I think,
a very terrible difference indeed. But, quitting the vast variety of
mental developments, faiths, and _feelings_, let us cast a glance on the
general change which history has witnessed in man's physical condition.
First let us premise with certain general laws, that intelligence,
physical well-being and freedom have a decided affinity, and are most
copiously unfolded in manufacturing countries. That as labor is
developed and elaborated, it becomes allied to science and art, and, in
a word, 'respectable.' That as these advance it becomes constantly more
evident that he who strives to accomplish his labor in the most perfect
manner is continually becoming a man of science and an artist, and
rising to a well deserved intellectual equality with the 'higher
classes.' That, in fine, the tendency of industry--which in this age is
only a synonym for the action of capital--is towards Republicanism.
I have already remarked to the effect that so far as the welfare of man
in the future is concerned, it is to be regretted that hero-worship
should still influence men so largely. When Mr. Smith runs over his
scanty historical knowledge, things do not seem so bad on the whole with
anybody. Mark Antony and Coriolanus and Francis the First, the plumed
barons of the feudal days, and their embroidered and belaced ladies,
with the whole merrie companie of pages, fools, troubadours and heralds,
seem on the whole to have had fine times of it. 'Bloweth seed and
groweth mead'--assuredly the sun shone then as now, people wassailed or
wailed--oh, 'twas pretty much the same in all ages. But when we come to
the most unmistakable _facts_, all this sheen of gilded armor and
egret-plumes, of gemmed goblet and altar-lace, lute, mandolin, and lay,
is cloth of gold over the ghastly, shrunken limbs of a leper. Pass over
the glory of knight and dame and see how it was then with the
multitude--with the millions. Almost at the first glance, in fact, your
knight and dame turn out unwashed, scantily linened, living amid scents
and sounds which no modern private soldier would endure. The venison
pasty of high festival becomes the daily pork and mustard of home life,
with such an array of scrofula and cutaneous disorders as are horrible
to think on. The household books of expenditure of the noblest families
in England in the fourteenth century scarcely show as much linen used
annually among a hundred people as would serve now for one mechanic.
People of the highest rank slept naked to save night-clothes. If in
Flanders or in Italy we find during their high prosperity some
exceptions to this knightly and chivalric piggishness and penury, it is
none the less true that they outbalanced it by sundry and peculiar
vices. And yet, bad as life then was, it is impossible for us to guess
at, or realize, all its foulness. We know it mostly from poets, and the
poet and historian, like the artist, have in every age lived quite out
of the actual, and with all the tact of repulsion avoided common facts.
But it is with the multitude that truth and common sense and humanity
have to deal. And here, whether in Greece or in England, in Italy or in
France, lies in the past an abyss of horror whose greatest wonder is,
that we, who are only some three centuries distant, know so little of
it. There is a favorite compensative theory that man is miraculously
self-adaptive to all circumstances, and that deprived of modern comforts
and luxuries he would only become more vigorous and independent--that in
fact he was on the whole considerably happier under a feudal baron than
he has been since. I will believe in this when I find that a man who has
exchanged a stinging gout for a mere rheumatism finds himself entirely
free from pain. No, the serfs of the Middle Ages were in no sense happy.
Stifled moans of misery, a sense of their unutterable agonies, steal up
from proverb and by-corners of history--we feel that they were more
miserable than jail prisoners at the present day--for then, as now, man
groaned at being an inferior, and he had much more than that to groan
over in those days of strifes and dirt. And yet every one of those serfs
was God's child, as well as the baron who enslaved him. To himself he
was a world with an eternity, and of as much importance as all other
men. Through what strange heresies and insurrections, based either on
innate passion or religious conviction, do we not find Republicanism
bursting out in every age, from remote Etruscan rebellions down to
Peasants' wars, Anabaptist uprisings, and Jack Cade out-flamings. It was
always there, that sense of political equality and right--it always
goaded and tormented man, in the silent darkness of ignorance as in the
broad light of learning.
So long as European society consisted in a great measure of war tempered
by agriculture, there could be but little progress towards a better
state of things. But the germ of industry sprouted and grew, though
slowly. Merchants bought social privileges for money; even law was
grudgingly sold them, and they continued to buy. Against the old
idealism, against bugbears and mythology, fairy tales and astrology,
dreams, spells, charms, muttered exorcisms, commandments to obey master,
ship and serfdom, _de jure divino_, clouds, mists, and lies infinite;
slowly rose that stupendous power of truth and of Nature which had
hitherto in humanity only visited the world in broken gleams. We may
assume different eras for this dividing point between immutability and
progress, between slavery and freedom. In religion, Christianity appears
as first offering future happiness for the people and for all. The
revival of letters and the Reformation were glorious storms, battering
down thousands of old barriers. But in a temporal and worldly point of
view the name of Bacon, perhaps, since a name is still necessary, best
distinguishes between the old and the new. From him--or his age--dates
that grappling with facts, that classifying of all knowledge so soon as
obtained, that _Wissenschaft_ or _Science_ which never goes backward; in
fine, that information which by its dissemination continually equalizes
men and renders rank futile. With science, labor and the laboring man
began at once to rise. Comfort and cleanliness and health for the many
took the place of ancient deprivation and dirt--whether of body or of
soul. Humanity began to improve--for, with all the legends of the
bravery of the Middle Ages, it is apparent enough that their heroes or
soldiers were not so strong or large as the men of the present day. And
through all, amid struggles and strivings and subtle drawbacks and
deceits, worked and won its way the great power of Republicanism or of
Progress, destroying, one by one, illusions, and building up in their
stead fair and enduring realities.
It is but a few decades since the greater portion of all intellectual or
inventive effort was devoted to setting off rank, to exalting the
exalted, and, by contrast, still further degrading the lowly. What were
the glorious works of those mediaeval artists in stone and canvas, in
orfevery and silver, in marble and bronze, nielloed salvers, golden
chasing, laces as from fairy-land, canopies, garments and gems? All
beautiful patents of rank, marks to honor wealthy rank--nothing more,
save that and the imperishable proof of genius, which is ever lovely, as
a slave or free. But where goes the inventive talent now? Beaumarchais
worked for a year to make a watch which only 'the king' could buy. Had
he lived to-day he would have striven to invent some improvement which
should be found in every man's watch. It 'pays better,' in a word, to
invent for the poor many than for the rich few--and invention has found
this out. Something which must be had in every cottage,--soap for the
million, medicine for the masses, cheap churns, cheap clocks, always
something of which one can sell many and much,--such are the objects
which claim the labor of genius now. Fools grieve that Art is dead;
'lives at best only in imitation;' and that we have chanced on a
godless, humdrum, steam and leather age--one of prose and dust, facts
and factories. Sometimes come gasping efforts--sickly self-persuasions
that all is not so bad as it seems. Mr. Slasher of the Sunday paper is
quite certain that the Creek Indian Girl statue is far superior to
anything antique, while Crasher, just back from Europe, shakes his head,
and assures the younger hadjis--expectant that the old masters are old
humbugs, and that it is generally understood to be so now in France--you
can get better pictures at half price any day in the shops. It will not
do. The art of small details, the art of pieces and bits, went out with
the last architecture. It went over to the people, and from them a
higher Art will yet bloom again in a beauty, a freshness, and grandeur
never before dreamed of. It will live again in Nature. For it is towards
Nature that progress tends--towards real beauty, and not towards the
false 'ideal.'
Yet so clearly and beautifully as social progress is defined for us in
history--so indisputably distinct as are the outlines in which it rises
before us, there are no lack of men to believe that humanity was never
so agonized as at present, never so wicked. 'Our cities are more badly
governed than were ever cities before,'--'look at the Lobby'--everything
is bad. Ah, it moves slowly, no doubt, this progress--and yet it does
move. Across rumors and lies and discouraging truths it ever
moves,--moves with the worlds through seas of light, but, unlike the
worlds, goes not back again to the point of starting. And why should it
not be slow, this progress, when an Egypt could lie four thousand years
in one type of civilization, when an India could believe itself millions
of ages old? Slowly the locomotive gets under way. Long are the first
intervals of its piston, long the wheezing sounds of its first breaths.
But puff, puff, they come, and ever a little faster. Do we not 'make
history rapidly in these days,' since England and France have entered on
their modern career? What place has the nineteenth century in the long
list of ages?
Everywhere the action of capital, the ringing of the plane, now and
then, as in those times, the sound of arms, but all tending to far other
ends than the welfare of a reigning family, or to satisfy the revengeful
whim of a royal mistress, or the bigotry of a monarch. Public opinion
has its say now in all things. Even the rascality of which the
conservative complains is individual rascality for private aims,
tempered by public opinion, and no longer the sublimely organized
rascality of all power and government. Do these things prove nothing? Do
they not show that WORK--good, hard, steady, unflinching
work--is enlarging man's destiny, and freeing itself step by step from
the primeval curse?
It is only during the present century and within the memory of man that
in France and Russia the welfare of the people has become the steady
object of diplomacy, and this because any other object would now be
ruinous. But it is chiefly in America that the most wonderful advance
has been made, and it is here, and at the present moment, that the most
tremendous struggle has arisen between the adherents of the old faith
and the new. In the South, the old feudal baron under a new name, in the
North the man of labor and of science, fight again the battle of might
and right--the one strong in ignorance, the other stronger in knowledge.
Who can doubt what the end thereof shall be? Amid storms and darkness,
through death and hell-carnivals, the great truth has ever held its way
onwards, slowly, for its heritage is eternal Time, but oh! how surely.
And yet there be those who doubt the end and the issue! Doubt--oh, never
doubt! For this faith all martyrs have died, in this battle all men
have, knowingly or unknowingly, lived--they who fought against it fought
for it--for of a verity there was never yet on earth one active deed
done which tended not towards the great advance, and to bring on the
great jubilee of Freedom.
THE EDWARDS FAMILY.
Among the surviving octogenarians of New York and its vicinity, there
are few of such interesting reminiscence as one who is passing an
honored old age at his residence on Staten Island. Those who live in
Port Richmond will have anticipated his name, and will perceive at once
that we refer to the Hon. Ogden Edwards. Judge Edwards is of an ancient
and noble stock, being grandson of the author of the treatise on the
_Freedom of the Will_. The family emigrated from England with the first
colony of the Puritans, having previously to this suffered persecution
in one of its members. This man--a minister--had an only son, who became
the founder of a line illustrious for genius and piety. The latter of
these traits was illustrated in the lives of both Daniel Edwards, of
Hartford, and his son Timothy, who was for sixty years pastor of the
church at Windsor, but in the person of Jonathan Edwards we see the
outcropping of genius. He was the son of Timothy, and followed his
father's profession in an obscure New England village, whose meadows
were washed by the waters of the Connecticut.
Jonathan Edwards, during a life of close study, developed one of the
clearest and most powerful intellects which was ever united to so rare a
degree of patience and humility. In that day of small things it could
hardly have been dreamed that the Puritan preacher, who for a quarter of
a century filled the Northampton pulpit, would ever rank among the
giants of intellect. At the distance of one hundred years no name is
more powerfully felt in the theology of America than his, while in
metaphysics, and in the sphere of pure thought, his position, like that
of Shakspeare in literature, is one of enviable greatness. This man is
not to be confounded with his son of the same name, who, though of
distinguished ability, was far from equaling his father; both, however,
were academic presidents, the one of Nassau Hall, at Princeton, the
other of Union College; to which it may be added that Dwight, grandson
of the first, was for many years the honored president of Yale. Judge
Edwards is the son of Pierrepont Edwards, who was bred at Stockbridge,
among the Indians. Here his father labored as missionary, having been
driven from his parish by an ill-disposed people, many of whom were, it
may be, like the Athenian of old, who was tired of hearing Aristides
called 'the Just.'
While laboring at Stockbridge, in the midst of poverty and privation,
Jonathan Edwards wrote the treatise on the Freedom of the Will, the
greatest of all existing polemics. A portion of the old parsonage
remains in the village, and there are still shown marks and scratches on
the wall, made by him, as it is said, in the night, to recall by
daylight the abstruse meditations of his wakeful hours.
The children learned the Indian tongue, and when Pierrepont Edwards was
established at New Haven, the old sachems used to visit the
boy-companion of their early days, when the pipe of peace was smoked in
his kitchen in ancient form.
Having studied law with Judge Reeve of Litchfield, who married Edwards's
niece, the only sister of Aaron Burr, he became highly distinguished in