The Continental Monthly Vol 6 No 3 September 1864 Devoted To Li
Chapter 4
THE IDEAL.
Stars are around thy head--under thy feet surges the sea--a rainbow forever floats upon the waves before thee--painting the mists, or melting them into light--whatsoever thou lookest upon is thine--the shores, the cities, the men belong to thee--the heavens are thine--it seems as if nothing ever equalled thy glory!
* * * * *
To alien ears thou chantest airs of inconceivable rapture--thou weavest hearts into one with a single touch of thy fairy fingers, and with a breath again dividest them--thou forcest tears--thou driest them with a smile--alas! the next moment thou frightenest the wan smile from the quivering lip for a time--too often, forever!
Tell me, what dost thou thyself feel? Of what dost thou think? What dost thou create?
The living stream of Beauty flows on through thee, but thou thyself art not Beauty!
Woe to thee! woe! the child crying on the lap of its nurse, the field flower unconscious of its gift of perfume, have more merit before the eyes of the Lord than thou!
* * * * *
What has been thy origin, thou empty shadow, bearing witness to the Light, yet knowing not the Light, which thou seest not, and wilt not see!
In anger, or in mockery, wert thou made? Who was thy creator? Who gave thee thy short and mobile life, and taught thee such seductive magic, that thou seemst to glitter for a moment like an angel before thou sinkest into clay, to creep like a worm, and be stifled in thine own corruption?
Thy beginning is one with that of the woman.
* * * * *
Yet, alas! thou sufferest, although thy agony brings nought to the birth, and avails thee nothing.
The groans of the lowest beggar are counted in heaven, compensated amid the music of angels' harps--but thy sighs, thy despair, fall into the bottomless abyss, and Satan gathers them together, and joyfully adds them to the pile of his own lies and delusions--and the Lord will deny and disown them, as they have denied and disowned the Lord!
* * * * *
But not for this do I pity thee, spirit of Poetry, mother of Beauty and Freedom! No. I mourn for the unhappy souls who are forced to remember or divine thee upon chaotic worlds destined to destruction--alas! thou ruinest only those who consecrate themselves to thee, who become the living voices of thy fame!
And yet, blessed is it when thou takest up thine abode in a man, as God dwelt in the world, unseen, unknown, yet everywhere great and mighty, the Lord, before whom all creatures bow and say: 'He is here!'
Such a man will bear thee like a star upon his radiant brow; he will never turn from thee even for the duration of a little word; he will love men, and, like a man, walk with his brethren.
And he who guards thee not, who is willing to betray thee, to devote thee to the idle pleasure of men--from him thou turnest sadly away, scattering in pity a few fading flowers upon his head; he plays with the dying bloom, and weaves his death-wreath all the days of his short life.
Thy beginning is one with that of the woman!
* * * * *
'De toutes les bouffonneries la plus serieuse est le mariage.'--_Figaro._
Of all jests the most serious is marriage.
GUARDIAN ANGEL. Peace be to men of good will!
Blessed is he among the created who has still a heart; he may yet be saved!
Good and true wife, reveal thyself to him; and a child be born to their house!
He flies onward.
CHORUS OF EVIL SPIRITS. Rise! rise, spectres and phantoms! Hover near him! Head them and lead them on, thou, the yesterday-buried idol, the shadow of the dead love of the Poet! Bathe thyself anew in the vapors of the ideal realm; wreathe thy mouldering brow with the fair buds of spring; and float on before him, thou, once the beloved of the Poet!
Rise, Glory, rise! Old eagle, well stuffed and preserved in hell, descend from thy crumbling perch, unfold thy gigantic wings whitened in the rays of the sun, and wave them above the head, until they dazzle the eyes of the Poet!
Come forth from our vaults, thou rotting masterpiece from the pencil of Beelzebub, thou glowing picture of an earthly Eden, which has dizzied the brain of so many philosophers! Get the old rents in thy canvas reglued; the holes and cracks refilled with varnish; wrap thyself in the magic webs of hazy clouds and glittering mists; fly to the Poet, and unroll thyself ever before him!
And thou, Nature! surround him with mountains, cliffs, and seas; lull him with golden dawns and crimson eves; inweave him in thy magic circle of azure days and starry nights; O mother Nature--closely embrace the Poet!
* * * * *
A village. A church. The Guardian Angel is seen floating and swaying to and fro upon it.
GUARDIAN ANGEL. If thou keepest the Holy Vow, thou wilt be my brother forever before the face of our Heavenly Father! Vanishes.
The interior of the church. Wax lights blaze upon the altar--many witnesses are standing round it. A Priest is reading the marriage service.
THE PRIEST. Remember, you have sworn to be true and faithful until death!
The Bride and Groom rise--he presses the hand of the Bride, and conducts her to one of the relatives. All depart except the Groom; he remains alone in the church.
BRIDEGROOM. I have descended to an earthly betrothal, I have found her of whom my spirit dreamed.
Curses be upon my head if I ever cease to love her!
* * * * *
A saloon filled with people. Music, dancing, lights, flowers; the Bride dances--after a few rounds she remains standing--meets the Groom, draws apart from the crowd, and leans her head upon his breast.
BRIDEGROOM. How beautiful thou art, my love, in thy exhaustion, with flowers and pearls falling in soft confusion through the masses of thy wavy hair, glowing with the rapid motion of the dance, and blushing with maiden shame!
Oh, forever and ever thou shalt be my living Poem!
BRIDE. I will be to thee a true wife, as my mother taught me, as my own heart teaches me. But there are so many men here--there is so much noise--and it is so hot--
BRIDEGROOM. Go and join once more the dance. I will stand here, and watch thee as thou floatest on, as I have often gazed in dreams upon the circling angels.
BRIDE. I will go, since it is thy wish--but I am very weary.
BRIDEGROOM. I pray thee, love, go.
Music and dancing.
* * * * *
Midnight. The Evil Spirit appears, flying about in the form of a maiden.
EVIL SPIRIT. It is not long since at this same hour I coursed the earth--the spirits of the lower world now drive me on; they force me to assume a holy part.
He flies over a garden.
Ye perfumed flowers! tear yourselves from your green stems, and fly into my hair!
He flies over a graveyard.
Living bloom and fresh charms of buried maidens, lost here, and floating vainly about above forgotten graves--fly into, and paint my swarthy cheeks with roseate hues of youth and love!
Under this white stone a fair-haired girl moulders and festers into wormy rottenness; shadows of her lustrous curls, come--twine round my burning brow!
Under this fallen cross, two soft eyes of heavenly blue are dying in their sunken sockets--to me! to me! the pure and lambent flame which once lightened and glimmered through them!
Behind those iron bars which guard that vault of kings, a hundred torches burn to light corruption--a princess was buried there to-day: ye white and lustrous robes of costly satin, come! fluttering like snowy, downy doves leave to the worms, undraped, the youthful form--fly through the trellised grating--and softly fall around my scathed and fleshless limbs!
And now, on! on! on!
* * * * *
A sleeping apartment. A night lamp stands upon a table, and shines upon the face of the husband sleeping beside his wife.
THE MAN (_still sleeping_). Ha! whence comest thou? I have neither heard nor seen thee for months--for years.
As water softly flows, so flow thy feet, two white waves!
A holy calm is on thy brow--all that I have ever dreamed--have ever loved--unite in thee!
Awaking suddenly.
Where am I?... Ha! I am sleeping by my wife--yes, that _is_ my wife--
Gazing long upon her.
Ah! I once thought thou wert my early Dream--but thou art it not;--after years of time, it has returned to me--and is not thee, Mary, nor like thee!
Thou art mild, pure, good--but she....
My God! what do I see? Am I really awake?
THE MAIDEN. Thou hast deserted and betrayed me! Vanishes.
THE MAN. Cursed be the hour in which I married a wife, in which I deserted the Love of my youth, the thought of my thought, the soul of my soul....
WIFE (_awaking_). What is it, Henry? Does the day already break? Is the carriage at the door? We have so much to attend to to-day.
THE MAN. No: it is only midnight. Go to sleep--sleep soundly!
WIFE. Have you been taken suddenly ill, my dear? Shall I rise and get anything for you?
THE MAN. Sleep, sleep, I pray.
WIFE. My dearest, tell me what is the matter with you! Your voice trembles, your cheeks burn with fever.
THE MAN (_jumping out of bed_). I only want fresh air--for God's sake, stay here; do not follow me! Once more I beg you will not rise!
He leaves hurriedly the chamber.
* * * * *
The Man is seen standing in a garden lighted by the moon. A gothic church is in the distance.
THE MAN. Since the bells rang in my marriage morn, I have dozed away life like a lump of clay, vegetating like a peasant, sleeping like a German boor. The whole world around me seems asleep in my own image. What a monotonous existence! I have visited relations, gone to shops, seen physicians, and when a child was born to me, I went for a nurse.
It strikes two upon the tower clock.
Return to me! return, O my old and misty realm, so safely sheltered in the world of thought! Ye shadowy yet lovely forms, once wont to throng around me through the lonely midnight hours, hear my adjuration, and return! return!
He wrings his hands.
O my God! hast Thou in very truth sanctified the ties which link two bodies into one?
Hast Thou surely said that nothing should avail to break them, even when the two souls repel each other; when to advance at all, they must move on upon opposing pathways, while the two chained bodies stiffen into frozen corpses?
And now that thou art again near me, my all, oh, take me with thee! If thou art but a dream, the creation of an o'erwrought brain, let me too be but a dream, a cloud, a mist, that I may be one with thee!
THE MAIDEN. 'Remember, you have sworn to be true until death.'
Wilt thou follow me, if I fly near to lead thee on?
THE MAN. Stay, and melt not like a dream away! If thou art beautiful above all other beauty; a thought above all other thoughts--why tarriest thou no longer than a wish a fading vision?
The window of the house standing in the garden is opened.
A FEMALE VOICE. The chill of the night air will fall upon your breast, my dear. Come back, Henry; it is fearful to be here alone in this vast dark room.
THE MAN. Yes; in an instant.
The fair spirit has vanished, but she promised to return for me--and then farewell house and garden! and farewell wife! created for the house and garden, but not for me!
FEMALE VOICE. For God's sake, come in! It grows so chill toward morning.
THE MAN. But my child--O God!
He leaves the garden.
* * * * *
A large saloon. Two candles stand upon an open piano. A cradle is near it, in which lies a sleeping child. The Man reclines upon a sofa, covering his face with his hands. The Wife is seated at the piano.
WIFE. I have been to see Father Benjamin; he promised to be here day after to-morrow.
THE MAN. Thank you.
WIFE. I have also sent to the confectioner and ordered cakes and ices, for I suppose you have invited many guests to the baptism of our infant. He is to furnish us with some of those chocolate confections, with the name of our son, George Stanislaus, upon them.
THE MAN. Thank you.
WIFE. God be thanked that the ceremony is so soon to be completed, and that our little George will be made an entire Christian; for although he has been already baptized with water, it always seems to me as if he were wanting something.
She goes to the cradle.
Sleep, darling, sleep! Art thou dreaming, that thou thus tossest about thy white arms, and sufferest no covering to remain around thee? So now--that will keep thee warm--lie so! How very restless my baby is to-day! What can be the matter with him? My darling! my beautiful! sleep! sleep!
THE MAN (_aside_). How hot and sultry it grows! A storm is rising; will not the lightning flash from heaven, and strike me to the heart!
WIFE. Neither yesterday, nor to-day, nor for the last week--O God! it is now almost a whole month since you have, of your own accord, addressed a single word to me--and every one says I am growing so pale and thin!
THE MAN (_aside_). The hour is here--nothing can delay it longer.
(To his wife.)
Indeed, on the contrary, I think you are looking remarkably well.
WIFE. Alas! it is a matter of perfect indifference to you; you never even see me! When I come near you, Henry, you turn your head away; and if I sit down beside you, you cover your face with your hands.
I went to confession yesterday, and carefully thought overall my faults and follies--but I could not remember in what way I had so grievously offended you.
THE MAN. You have not offended me.
WIFE. O God! My God!
THE MAN. I feel it is my duty to love you.
WIFE. You kill me with the words _my duty_! Rather say at once, _I do not love you_--then I would at least know all--the worst!
She runs to the cradle, and holds up the child.
Forsake him not--your son! Let all your anger fall on me alone--love my child! my child! Henry!
She kneels before him with the infant in her arms.
THE MAN (_raising her gently from the ground_). Think not of what I have said. Gloomy moments sometimes come upon me, confusion--faintness--
WIFE. But one word more, I implore! one promise, Henry! that you will never cease to love him!
THE MAN. Neither him, nor you--both shall be dear to me--believe me, Mary!
He kisses her brow, she embraces him. At that moment a loud clap of thunder is heard, followed by strains of music--the chords grow ever wilder and more wild.
WIFE. Hark! What is that?
She presses the child closely to her bosom. The music ceases.
THE MAIDEN (_entering_). O my beloved, I bring thee joy and peace: come, follow me! Throw off the earthly fetters which enchain, thee, O my love, and follow me! I have sought thee from a new world of endless bliss, in which night never comes--ah! I am only thine!
WIFE. Save me, holy Mother of God!
This ghost is ghastly pale--its eyes are dying out--its voice is hollow as the rolling of the death-hearse with the corpse!
THE MAN. Thy white brow glitters; thy fair head is wreathed with flowers, O beloved!
WIFE. A white shroud hangs in tatters from the shoulders to the feet!
THE MAN. Around and from thee rays the light of heaven! but once to hear thy voice--then die!
THE MAIDEN. She who restrains and impedes thee is but an illusion; her life a passing breath; her love a dying leaf, to fall with thousands of its fellows at the first chill breath, lost and withered--but I will endure forever!
WIFE. Henry--Henry! hide me! Oh do not leave me! the air is filled with sulphur, heavy with the breath of the grave!
THE MAN. Envy not, nor slander, O woman of dust and clay! Behold the Ideal in which God created you--His first thought of what you were meant to be. But following the counsel of the serpent, you became what you now are!
WIFE. I will never leave you!
THE MAN. Beloved, I forsake my house, my all, and follow thee!
WIFE. Henry! Henry! Henry!
She falls to the floor in a fainting fit, with the child in her arms; loud and repeated claps of thunder are again heard.
* * * * *
The baptism. Guests. Father Benjamin. The Godfather and Godmother. The nurse with the child in her arms; the Wife seated upon the sofa. Retainers and servants in the background.
FIRST GUEST. I wonder where the count is hiding.
SECOND GUEST. Perhaps he has been accidentally detained, or he may be writing verses.
FIRST GUEST. How pale and tired the countess looks, and as yet she has spoken to no one.
THIRD GUEST. This christening reminds me of a ball which I once attended; the host had just lost his whole estate at cards, and was a complete bankrupt, while he continued to receive his many guests with the courtesy of despair.
FOURTH GUEST. I left my lovely princess, and came here, because I thought to play my part at a gay breakfast; but I am disappointed, for it seems to me that I am, as the Scripture hath it, in the midst of 'wailing and gnashing of teeth.'
FATHER BENJAMIN. George Stanislaus, wilt thou receive holy unction?
GODFATHER AND GODMOTHER. I receive it.
A GUEST. Look! look! the countess rises from the sofa, and comes slowly forward as if in a dream!
ANOTHER GUEST. How she reels and totters--poor thing! She is advancing to the infant--how deadly pale she grows!
THIRD GUEST. Shall I offer her my arm? She looks as if about to faint--
FATHER BENJAMIN. George Stanislaus! wilt thou renounce the devil and all his works?
GODFATHER AND GODMOTHER. I renounce them.
A GUEST. Hush! the countess--look!
WIFE (_laying her hand softly on the head of the infant_). Where is thy father, tell me, George?
FATHER BENJAMIN. I beg that the ceremony may not be interrupted.
WIFE. Bless thee, George! I bless thee, my son! Become a poet, that thy father may love thee, and never desert thee, George!
GODMOTHER. I conjure you, my dear Mary!
WIFE. Become a poet! that thus thou mayst serve thy father, mayst please him, and then he will forgive thy mother, and return--
FATHER BENJAMIN. For the love of God, countess!
WIFE. I curse thee, George, if thou becomest not a poet!
She falls to the ground in a fainting fit--the servants bear her out.
GUESTS (_whispering among themselves_). All this is very extraordinary. What can have happened here? We had better leave the house immediately.
Meanwhile the solemn ceremony is completed--the crying infant is again placed in his cradle.
GODFATHER (_standing by the cradle_). George Stanislaus! you have just been made a Christian, and entered into the pale of human society; in after years you will also be a citizen, and, through the grace of God and the wise training of your parents, you may become a great statesman: remember that you must love your native land; that it is noble and beautiful to die for your country!
Exit all.
* * * * *
A beautiful landscape, diversified with hills and forests; a mountain in the distance.
THE MAN. That for which I have so long striven, for which I have so ardently prayed, is at last almost within my grasp!
The world of men lies far below me; the human pismires there may throng their ant-hills, and struggle on for crumbs and flies--may burst with rage if they fail to find them, or die with despair if they should lose them. I have left all to....
VOICE OF THE MAIDEN. Here--this way--through--
She glides rapidly on.
* * * * *
Hills and mountains overhanging the sea. Clouds, mist, wind, storm.
THE MAN. Where is she gone? The morning breeze dies suddenly away, the thick mists gather, and the sky grows dark.
There! I have gained at last the very top of this steep peak;--heavens, what a frightful abyss yawns before me! How moaningly the wind howls up this rocky pass!
VOICE OF THE MAIDEN (_from a distance_). Come! to me! to me! beloved!
THE MAN. Where art thou? thy voice is almost lost in the distance. How can I follow thee through this abyss?
A VOICE (_in his ear_). Where are thy wings?
THE MAN. Evil spirit, why dost thou mock and torture me? I scorn thee!
ANOTHER VOICE. What! a great, immortal soul, which in a single moment should be able to traverse the boundless space of heaven, to faint and perish at a cliff on the side of a hill! Stout heart! sublime soul, shuddering, and imploring thy feet to go no farther! poor things!
THE MAN. Appear! Take forms with which I may contend, which may be overthrown! If I start or quail before you, may _she_ never again be mine!
THE MAIDEN (_from the other side of the abyss_). Seize my hand, and swing thyself over to me!
THE MAN. What strange change is coming over thee!...
The flowers start from thy temples, tear themselves loose from thy hair, and when thou touchest them, they crawl like lizards, and writhe and hiss like adders!
THE MAIDEN. My beloved!
THE MAN. Merciful God! the wind has twisted and torn off thy floating drapery; it hangs in squalid rags about thee!
THE MAIDEN. Why dost thou linger?
THE MAN. The rain drops from thy heart, and freezes as it falls;--skeleton bones look forth from thy bosom!
THE MAIDEN. Thou hast promised, hast sworn!
THE MAN. The lightning has burned out the apples of thine eyes!
CHORUS OF EVIL SPIRITS. Old Satan, welcome back to hell! Thou hast seduced and ruined a mighty spirit, admired by men, a marvel to itself.
Sublime soul, haughty heart--follow thy beloved!
THE MAN. Wilt thou then damn me, O my God! because I have believed that Thy Beauty far surpassed the loveliness of earth; because I have left all to follow it; and have suffered for it until I have grown the very jest of devils?
EVIL SPIRIT. Hear, brothers, hear!
THE MAN. The last hour strikes! the storm whirls in black and ever-widening circles--the sea is breaking and dashing higher and higher against the rocks, and as it mounts them, draws me on--an invisible power urges me forward--nearer--ever nearer--bands of men advance from behind upon me--mount my neck--and plunge me into the abyss!
EVIL SPIRIT. Rejoice, brothers, rejoice! He comes!
THE MAN. It is vain to struggle; useless to combat! the giddy bliss of the abyss draws me on--my head is dizzy--the plunge is inevitable--my brain whirls!--O God!--Thy fiend has conquered!
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL (_floating over the sea_). Peace, ye waves! Be still!
At this very moment of time the holy water of baptism is poured upon the head of the infant, George Stanislaus.
GUARDIAN ANGEL. Return to thy house: and sin no more!
Return to thy house: and love thy child!
* * * * *
The saloon with the piano. The Man enters, and a servant follows with a light.
THE MAN. Where is the countess?
SERVANT. My lady is ill.
THE MAN. She is not in her chamber; I have been there, and found it empty.
SERVANT. The countess is not here, my lord.
THE MAN. Has she left the castle? Where is she to be found?
SERVANT. They came for my lady yesterday, and carried her away.
THE MAN. Answer at once, and tell me where they have taken the countess!
SERVANT. To the madhouse!
He rushes out.
THE MAN. Hear me, answer me, Mary!
Ah, I know you are only hiding for a moment to punish me for my desertion; but I suffer, Mary!
Mary, my own Mary, in pity speak!
No--it is not so. She is not here, or she would answer to my cries.
John! Caroline! nurse!
The whole house seems deaf and dumb!
But what he has just told me, is not, cannot be true; it would be too horrible!
Ah! I have never wished to wrong any human being; I would have made the whole world happy; yet I have plunged the woman who trusted herself to me, the innocent creature whom I swore to love and guard, into the hell of those already damned on earth!
I blast all upon whom I breathe; and am doomed to destroy myself also! Hell has only released me for a few hours, that I might present to men its living image upon earth!
Upon what a pillow of horror will she lay to-night her helpless head! with what harmonies have I surrounded her in the darkness?--the wild shrieks and howls of madmen in their cells!
I see her there! that brow so calm, so innocent, upon which no harsh thought ever rests, is sunk and buried in her little hands. Her pure thoughts wander idly now through space; they rove in search of the husband who deserted her--and the unfortunate weeps--and is mad! mad!
A VOICE. Poet! thou chant'st a Drama!
THE MAN. Ha! the voice of my evil spirit!
He hurries to the door of the saloon and tears it open.
Haste! saddle my Arabian, and bring me my cloak and pistols!
* * * * *
A hilly country. An asylum for the insane, surrounded by a garden.
THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. (_She is seen opening a barred door, and wears a great bunch of keys at her girdle._) Are you a relation of the countess?
THE MAN. I am a friend of the count's; he sent me here.
THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. We have indeed but little hope of her recovery. I am sorry my husband is not at home; he could have explained the whole case to you. She was brought here in convulsions yesterday--how very hot it is to-day!
Wiping the perspiration from her face.
We have a great many patients here, but none so ill as the countess.
Only think of it--this asylum costs us two hundred thousand--but you are growing impatient--tell me, is it true that the Jacobins seized her husband at midnight, and thus drove her mad?
I beg you....
* * * * *
A room with a grated window. A bed, a chair. The Wife is lying upon a sofa, supported by pillows.
THE MAN (entering). I wish to be left alone with the countess.
THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN (_without_). My husband will be very angry if....
THE MAN (_closing the door_). Leave us in peace!
Approaches his wife.
VOICE (_from the ceiling_). You have chained and fettered God himself! You have already put one God to death on the cross; I am the second, and you have given me into the hands of the headsman.
VOICE (_under the floor_). Kneel down before the King, your Lord!
VOICE (_from the wall on the left_). The comet tracks its way in fire across the sky; the day of wrath already breaks--the trump of Judgment sounds!
THE MAN. Mary--do you know me?
WIFE. I have sworn to be true to you until death.
THE MAN. Give me your hand, Mary. Let us quit this dreadful place!
WIFE. Yes, but I cannot stand up--my soul has left my body, and is all burning, blazing, in my brain.
THE MAN. I can carry you in my arms to the carriage, which is waiting for you at the door; I want to take you home, Mary!
WIFE. Yes, we will go home. But you must wait for me; leave me for a little while, and I will become worthy of you, Henry!
THE MAN. I do not understand you, Mary.
WIFE. Ah! I have prayed through weary days and endless nights; at last God heard me, and smiled upon me!
THE MAN. I know not what you mean, Mary!
WIFE. Listen, Henry! After you left me, a great change came upon my spirit, and I felt what was wanting to make you love me. I cried to God unceasingly; I struck my breast; I placed a blessed candle on my bosom; I did penance; I said: 'Lord God be merciful unto me! Oh send down upon me the spirit of Poetry, that I may be loved!'
And on the third day I was a Poet!
THE MAN. Mary!
WIFE. You will no more despise me; no longer leave me to my lonely evenings; for I am full of inspiration, a Poet, Henry!
THE MAN. Never! never!
WIFE. Look upon me! have I not grown like yourself? I understand everything now; I can explain and describe all that is: I chant the sea, the stars, the clouds, battles--yes, stars--seas--storms--but battles? No, I have never seen a battle. You must take me to see a battle, Henry. I must watch men die! I must see and describe a corpse--a shroud--the night dew--the moon--a cradle--a coffin:
Endless space will spread around me, I will seek the farthest star, Cleaving swift the air around me, Searching beauty near and far. Like an eagle onward cleaving, All the Past behind me leaving, Chaos dark around me lying, Through its dimness lightly flying, Through its infinite abysses, On through darker worlds than this is, Farther--farther--ringing--ringing-- Sounds the curse my soul is singing....
THE MAN. Horrible! horrible!
WIFE (_throwing her arms round him, and resting her head on his bosom_). My Henry! my Henry! I am so, so happy!
VOICE (_from below_). I have murdered three kings with my own hand; ten are still left for the block: a hundred priests still sing mass--
VOICE (_from the left_). The sun has lost the half of its glory; its light is dying; the stars have lost their way, and hurtle each other from their paths--woe! woe!
THE MAN. The Day of Judgment has already come upon me!
WIFE. Do not look so sad, Henry. Cheer up, you make me again unhappy! What is the matter? I can tell you something will make you so glad.
THE MAN. Tell me what it is. I will do everything you wish me to do,
WIFE. Listen! _Your son will be a Poet!_
THE MAN. What are you saying, Mary?
WIFE. The priest, when he baptized him, gave him _first_ the name: Poet; and then: George Stanislaus.
It is I who have done this; first I blessed him--then I affixed a curse to the blessing: I know he will be a Poet!
VOICE (_from above_). Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!
WIFE. There is some one above us, suffering from strange and incurable madness; is it not so?
THE MAN. Very strange.
WIFE. He does not know what he is saying; but I can tell you how it would all be if God should go mad.
She seizes him by the hand.
All the worlds would go flying about, up and down, and crash against one another: every worm would cry out: 'I am God!' and then some of them would die every moment; they would all perish one after the other!
All the comets and suns would go out in the sky! Christ would redeem us no longer; He would tear His bleeding hands away from the nails, and pitch the cross into the bottomless abyss. It falls!
Listen! how this cross, the hope of millions, goes crashing and hurtling against the stars! Hark! it breaks! it flies asunder! the sky grows dark with the ruined fragments--they fall like hail, deeper, deeper--a wild storm surges from them--dreadful!
The holy Mother of God alone continues to pray, and the faithful stars, her servants, which have not yet deserted her:--but she too will plunge where all created things are storming down, for God is mad--and Christ has thrown away His Cross!
THE MAN. Mary, will you not come home with me to see our child?
WIFE. I have given wings to our son, and dipped him under the waves of the sea, that he might take into his soul all that is beautiful, sublime, and terrible. He will return to you a poet, and you will rejoice in him.
Ah me! ah me!
THE MAN. Do you suffer, Mary?
WIFE. Some one has hung up a lamp in my brain--and the light sways and flickers--I cannot bear it!
THE MAN. My beloved Mary, be calm and tranquil, as you were wont to be!
WIFE. Poets never live long.
She faints.
THE MAN. Help! Save her! Help!
Several women rush in.
THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. Pills--powders--no. She can swallow nothing solid; a fluid potion is the best.
Margaret, run for the apothecary!
Speaking to the Count.
This is all your fault, and my husband will be very angry.
WIFE. Henry, my Henry, farewell!
THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. You are then the count!
THE MAN. Mary! Mary!
Takes her in his arms.
WIFE. I am well--happy! I die near thee!
Her head sinks upon his breast.
THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. Her face grows crimson--the blood is rushing to her brain.
THE MAN. Her pure heart breaks--nor love nor wrong can ever reach her more! O Mary! Mary!
The Physician enters and approaches the sofa.
PHYSICIAN. It is all over now: she is dead!
SOUND REFLECTIONS.
A TORCHER.
What of the common lot of woman in the state hymeneal? Echo: High menial!
BRIDAL.
What does the world consider a proper tie? Echo: Property!
THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
On Wednesday, the fifteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, the following resolution, which had already passed the Senate, was put upon its final passage in the House of Representatives as a joint resolution of Congress, to be proposed to the people of the United States for an amendment to the Constitution:
'SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
'SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.'
The resolution was rejected for failure of the two-thirds vote required by the Constitution on a question of amendment; the vote standing, yeas ninety-four, nays sixty-five. Which vote has definitely determined two things: first, that the party which calls itself Democratic is afraid to trust this question to the people, and so belies its honored name; and secondly, that there is a political element in our country whose attachment to the slaveholding interest survives the attachment of the slaveholding interest to the Union. Is this the best evidence of patriotism?
Three years ago this summer of 1864, even after the treason of Southern leaders had precipitated the flagrant Southern rebellion, ay, and even after treason had dared the loyal army of the nation and flaunted its defiant banner on the field of battle, the sentiment of a forbearing people declared that no interference with the local establishments of the treason-infected South would be permitted. So faithful were we to the compromises of our fathers; so loth to believe in the wicked purpose that had moved the rebellion. Three years of desperate resistance to the nation's authority, three years of war, with its lessons of bitterness, and grief, and death, and agony worse than death, have convinced us that no further compromise is possible. Men told us so before, but we were too devoted to the Union to believe in a treason that would not stop short of the nation's complete dishonor. God be thanked that we know the issue at last! Our conviction has gradually, but how immovably, established itself! And now the sentiment of the people, no longer forbearing, but not less just, and based upon the same unalterable devotion to the Union, withdraws the pledges of the past and dictates an amendment to the Constitution that shall leave no possibility of slaveholding treason hereafter. That sentiment has found expression in two mass conventions, representing the undoubted overwhelming majority of the people, and it remains now to show the justice of it. It is accordingly the purpose of this paper to discuss the nature of the proposed amendment, and to state some controlling reasons in favor of it.
The question, plainly stated, is: Ought the Constitution to be amended so as to abolish slavery throughout the United States? Or, in other words, Ought liberty to become part of the supreme law of the land? Ought the idea of the nation to be now, at last, incorporated into the law of the nation, and so made a fixed fact of the nation's history?
It should seem that the mere statement of the question suggests the basis and positive force of the affirmative of it. For it reminds us at once of the mighty revolution that has agitated and aroused it. The progress of a century has been crowded into less than a decade of years. The statesmanship of 1850 (profound and patriotic, as alas! it is to be feared, too much of what we call statesmanship to-day is not) has been outgrown. Let us not be startled by the statement. The highest art of politics is to recognize existing facts. No thinking person will deny that the policies of the past are powerless to-day. We cannot, if we would, unmake the history of the last ten years. _Tempora mutantur, et mutamur in illis_. Or, as a distinguished and eloquent son of Tennessee lately paraphrased this old maxim: 'The world moves, and takes us along with it, whether we will or not.'
Our discussion naturally divides itself into two branches: first, as to the right, or constitutional power, to adopt the proposed amendment; and secondly, as to the expediency and necessity of it.
I. THE RIGHT, UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, TO ADOPT THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.
No characteristic of the American people is more marked than their regard for law; and in nothing is that characteristic more striking than in their respect for the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Whatever seems to come in conflict with that supreme law must encounter an irresistible odium. And herein appears the splendid fruit of the teachings of our great legists and statesmen, enforced, as they are, by the hereditary traditions of our Anglo-Saxon birthright. It is, moreover, a standing proof that democracy is not necessarily radical and destructive; and so furnishes us with a complete answer to the assumptions of English Tories, as in Alison's 'History of Europe,' that democracy is but the organized exponent of the self-willed passions of the multitude. What thing, indeed, is more wonderful than the tenacity with which conscientious men still cling to the doctrine (that had once some reason for it) of constitutional guaranties in behalf of slavery--an institution that has inspired the most monstrous treason of all history! What people but the American would still be hesitating, after the solemn experience of these three years, to strike down every possible support to slavery!
Surely the lesson of the French Revolution, in its trumpet-toned warning to the nations against a destructive radicalism, has not been lost upon us. How ought we to adore the Providence, guided by whose inspiration (as with becoming reverence we may believe) Washington and his supporters directed our infant republic in the track of English conservatism, fearful of the vagaries of the Red Republicanism of France! This prudent policy justifies itself more and more in our experience; and to-day the great heart of the people beats in unison with those Providential leadings. Therefore it is that the question, in reference to any measure, Is it constitutional? far from exciting ridicule, as sometimes with superficial thinkers it has done, is to be recognized as proof of our magnificent control over the wayward factions of the hour, and of our abiding trust in the hardly less than inspired wisdom of our fathers, to which we thus make our ultimate appeal. For the Constitution is the organic law of the nation, and stands for the firm foundation of our national life. The indissoluble bond of the Union, it is itself the palladium of our liberties. It is, in fine, the grandest chart of liberty and law, of justice and political order, which the world ever saw. The man who dares knowingly violate its provisions merits the punishment that followed the sacrilegious touch of David's servant to the ark of the covenant--instant death. In the midst of a fierce conflict with traitors who set at nought its binding force, let us beware lest in our zeal to punish them we be not guilty of an equal crime!
We yield, then, to no one in our devotion to the Constitution. We will not allow that any one goes before us in reverence for it. But we are of those who think that the time has come, in the providence of God, for an amendment to its provisions.
Indeed, the Constitution derives not the least portion of its claim upon our tender regard from the fact that it recognizes the eternal law of progress; and, while establishing a government whose stability should be as enduring as the principles upon which it is based, does not assume to declare that it has exhausted the possibilities of the future. Guarding against any and every impulse of popular passion, it nevertheless leaves scope for the necessary changes of time and circumstance, which may make the politic statesmanship of one period the exploded fallacy of the next. For of the science of politics it may be said, as in the glowing eulogy of Macaulay upon the philosophy of Bacon: 'It is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained its end, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-post to-morrow.' Political science, indeed, is only another one of those 'illustrations of universal progress,' which the genius of Herbert Spenser has made familiar to our literature. And therefore it is that we cannot too much admire the sagacity of the patriots who framed our Constitution. It was a sagacity drawing its inspiration from all history, which taught, and teaches, that if progress is attempted to be checked, it will find vent in volcanic revolution. Reformation is the watchword of history: anarchy and destruction the fate of those nations which heed it not.
Thus it was that the principle of amendment found its way into the Constitution of the United States--a principle so just that by it we are enabled in these bitter days to faithfully withstand the usurpation that seeks to justify itself by appealing to the right of revolution. For in the principle of amendment (as has heretofore been stated in this magazine) the right of revolution was at the same time recognized and exalted; and by it a means of war was made a means of peace, and so revolution was sought to be forestalled. Nothing but despotism itself would have disregarded this humane provision of the Constitution, and sought a remedy for alleged grievances that is only justified by despotism.
What, then, is the principle of amendment in our Constitution, and what are its provisions? They are found in the fifth article, and read thus: '_The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution_, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, _shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States_, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided, ... that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.'
Can anything be clearer? And yet how men have contrived to mystify the whole question by vague declamation about the rights of States! As if those rights of States that were meant to be protected, were not carefully guarded by the article itself, and especially by the proviso 'that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate'! As if, too, the rights of the States were everything, the rights of the Nation nothing! It might well be asked, moreover (as, indeed, a discriminating writer in _The Evening Post_ has lately asked), whether the _people_ of the States have no rights that are to be considered in this discussion; whether there are not certain reserved rights of the people that have been violated by many States--rights reserved in the very constitutions of those States, as well as in the Constitution of the United States? But let it be noted, as above intimated, that this fifth article is duly careful to guard the rights of States. Three fourths of the States must concur in the amendment; and in no event may a State be unwillingly deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, which is the distinguishing mark of the independent equality of all the States in the Union. On the other hand, the rights of the States being thus protected in a manner and degree which we must suppose to have been satisfactory to the men who framed and the States which ratified the Constitution, the article then proceeds to care for the rights of the Nation, by declaring that the amendment duly ratified by three fourths of the States 'shall be valid, as part of the Constitution:' thus binding all the States, the three fourths which have ratified it, and the one fourth which may not have ratified it. We have here a key to the motives of the Southern rebellion. The leaders of Southern politics knew well that an amendment like the one now proposed must one day come, and that whenever it should come, article fifth left them no pretext for resistance. So they precipitated their revolution, and have only hastened that inevitable day.
But it is objected that the right to amend the Constitution does not give us the right to enlarge its powers. Why not? And if not, to what things does the right of amendment extend? Such an interpretation makes article fifth an absurdity. This objection springs from the same mischievous doctrine of State sovereignty, which has so outraged the patriotic common sense of the people by the denial of our right to 'coerce' a State, and tends to the same result--nullification and secession. It is good logic for a confederation, but bad logic for a nation, to say that the articles of its organic law may not be changed by the will of the people. And let us not neglect to observe in the provisions of article fifth the strong incidental proof that the Constitution of the United States was meant to be the basis of a _nation_, and not the compact of a _confederation_. For how may this article be reconciled with the theory of a compact? _Three fourths_ of the States may concur in adopting an amendment that shall be valid as part of the Constitution, which declares itself to be the supreme law of the land, over _all_ the States.
This incidental point serves fitly to introduce the second branch of our discussion, namely:
II. THE EXPEDIENCY AND NECESSITY OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.
For slavery, or, in other words (lest we seem to offend some), a rebellion in the interests and for the avowed establishment of slavery, has struck _at the life of the nation_; and in self-defence the nation must strike down slavery. If our Government is only the compact of a confederation, then not only is there no need, but we have not the right to adopt the proposed amendment. For by it an institution fostered by the legislation of some of the States would be overthrown, in defiance of that legislation. But the right, or constitutional power, of itself implies the necessity to adopt the amendment whenever the occasion for it may arise. The right is made part of the Constitution: the necessity, or expediency, must be determined by circumstances outside of the Constitution. We contend that circumstances at present point to the complete extinguishment of slavery as the political necessity of the period. The time for timid counsels is past. The day of tenderness for Southern prejudices is gone by.
Coming, then, directly to the root of the matter, we lay down this first proposition:
1. The proposed amendment finds its justification and highest warrant, as a measure of political reform, in the _fact of the Southern Confederacy_. This fact, pure and simple, is the controlling and abundant necessity for it. We need not take the ground that slavery is the cause of the rebellion: though to the philosophical inquirer it certainly seems difficult to reach any other conclusion. We Americans are so much under the influence of partisan prejudices, so surrounded with the complications of present and past political issues, that for us a dispassionate study of this point is almost, or quite, impossible. But the investigations of impartial and unprejudiced foreigners seem remarkably to concur in designating slavery as the moving cause of the war. We may cite, for example, the recent profound review of the slave power by Professor Cairnes. And surely no person who pauses to reflect upon the inherent nature of the slave system as a labor basis of society, will venture to deny that such a principle is at war with the elemental principles of our Government. No person will deny that slavery depreciates the dignity of labor, which is the pride and boast of our institutions. Nor does it need any but the logic of common sense to point out the incongruity of a free government resting, even partially, upon a basis of slave labor.
But all this may be waived. We may discard all these considerations. Perhaps it is wise to discard them. Let us forget our differences of political opinion in the past, and seek for points of agreement in the present. Taking this position, we cannot ignore the fact of the Southern Confederacy, and that the avowed basis of it is slavery. It is a stubborn fact confronting us at the outset of our inquiry, and, like Banquo's ghost, 'will not down.' Proclaiming boldly that free labor is a mistake, and unblushingly affirming as a doctrine of social and political economy that 'capital must own labor,' the Southern Confederacy challenges the Christian civilization of the age, and declares its right to exist as an independent nation of slaveholders. How may we explain so monstrous a pretence? There is but one explanation that is adequate. It may be stated in a single word, _ambition_. The lesson of our experience is that this malignant system of slavery, the chattel slavery of the South, is too great a temptation to the ambition of men. Let us not disregard it. Political ambition stands always ready to strike hands with the devil, and the devil is always near the conscience of ambitious men. We have no recourse but to remove the temptation. The death-knell of Carthage is well appropriated: _Servitudo est delenda_. So long as a vestige of the slavery establishment remains, the temptation remains--a deadly risk to our Government. The peril of it is too great. And this furnishes a complete answer to the superficial objection that there is no need of the amendment because slavery is dead already; for ambition may revive it, and what ambition _may_ do it _will_ do. In other words, and to sum up the argument on this point: Whatever may have been our individual opinions and beliefs before the rebellion (variant enough at all times), the attempted establishment of a confederacy avowedly based on slavery, proves beyond possibility of cavil that chattel slavery, to which we have been lenient without limit, is a temptation too great for the peace of the nation, and therefore the highest interests of the nation require its removal.
2. The simple fact of the Southern Confederacy is also the basis of our second proposition. For it reveals clearly the necessity of the proposed amendment as a thing essential to be added to the organic law, in order to carry out the purpose of it. That purpose is thus expressed in the preamble to the Constitution: 'We, the people of the United States, _in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity_, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.' Every one of the objects therein specified is, in the baleful light of the rebellion, a plea for the amendment.
We are aware that this preamble has heretofore served as a basis for the stanchest conservatism, and wisely so. We are of those who have always contended that the 'blessings of liberty' are best secured by whatever tends most to strengthen the Union--the asylum and hope of liberty, without which liberty, disorganized and unprotected, were a vain show. We are of that opinion still, and therefore support the amendment, because we are for strengthening the Union and making it 'more perfect.' We have not changed: circumstances have changed. What was formerly conservatism is now radicalism, and radicalism is now the true conservatism. For the period is one of transition, a crisis period, when these two forces, to be of use, must be interfused, and thus become a combined power of reform.
So long as the cotton and slaveholding interest could be held in check and kept measurably subordinate to the supremacy of the Constitution, there was hope that eventually the steadily-increasing forces of free labor would overpower the gradually-decreasing forces of slave labor. It was believed that by the silent action of natural laws freedom would, in the long run, assert itself superior, and the ideal of our Government, universal freedom, would thus at last become a reality and fact. Such, we have been taught to believe, was the doctrine of the statesmanship of 1850. Such was the underlying argument of Webster's great 7th of March speech--the enduring monument of his unselfish patriotism, seeking only the good of his whole country. Such was his meaning when he declared that the condition of the territories was fixed by an 'irrepealable law,' needing no irritating legislation to assure their freedom.
Contrary to the hopes of our fathers, the slave system had prospered and grown strong--chiefly because of the impetus given to it by the growth of cotton, as was clearly shown by Webster in the speech just noted. We suppose no candid reader of our history will deny this point. But the system had no vital force within itself, and could not withstand those laws of nature and free emigration to which we have adverted. It sought protective legislation, and got it. Still, it was hampered by limitations, notwithstanding it had present control of the cotton growth. So the question of the slave trade was mooted. Thus it came to pass that within half a century after it had expired by limitation of the Constitution, that monstrous anomaly of the Christian era was sought to be revived. And so corrupt had public sentiment become that the slave trader captain of the yacht Wanderer could not be convicted by a jury of his countrymen of violating the ordinance of the nation against this traffic.[8] Will any one dare affirm that the tone of public feeling in the South on this subject was not higher and purer in the time of Jefferson than in the time of Buchanan? To what a depth of moral degradation the nation might have sunk under the thus retrogressive influences of ungodly Mammon, setting God and Christianity at total defiance, may not easily be conjectured. But that law of action and reaction which balances the powers of nature with such equal justice, holds good also in the world of mind; and in the providence of God the time of reaction came at last, and the temper of the nation reverted to its pristine purity. That time came when defiant Mammon waxed so bold as to threaten the nation's life. Under the protective statutes of Congress, jealously watching over the local institutions of States, slavery had grown to be a dominating power in the country; and, bound by legislation and compromise, and the strict letter of the Constitution, the people could only protest, and bide the inevitable issue of such arrogant domination.
Now no longer is slavery dominant. Its own hand has struck down the protecting shield of a quasi-constitutional guaranty, and all men feel that its condemnation is just. Now there is 'none so poor to do it reverence.' Why is this? It is the uniform course and consequence of sin. 'Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.' But God has spoken at last in a voice that we must heed. It is the voice of war, a voice of woe; the voice of civil war, the chief of woes. Slavery is now at our mercy. And mercy to it is to be measured by our humanity to man and our fear of God. 'The word is nigh thee, even in thy own mouth.' _Servitudo delenda est: deleta est_. Slavery is to be destroyed: it is already destroyed. Shall we permit it a chance to be revived? The way is opened to us, as it was not to our fathers, to remove the curse from our borders. We shall be false to every inspiration of patriotism if we now fail to remove it. The time has come to complete the unity of the Constitution, and make the ideal purpose of it, as stated in the preamble, a living fact. Shall we let the opportunity slip? Now, at last, we may ordain a Constitution by which 'a more perfect Union' shall 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'
3. A third reason for the proposed amendment, not less cogent though more familiar to our political discussions than the two already named, is found in article fourth, section second, of the Constitution: 'Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.' Everybody knows that this section of the Constitution has been heretofore practically a dead letter, albeit as fully a part of the supreme law as that other provision in the same section for the rendition of 'persons held to service.' So everybody knows equally well the reason of it. It was a concession to the fierce passions of slaveholding politics. From the very nature of the case there could not be the same toleration of speech and press in a Slave State which the men from a Slave State enjoyed in a Free State. It was incendiary. So for half a century there has been this virtual nullification of one of the justest compromises of the Constitution; and citizens of the United States have, within the limits of the United States, been tarred and feathered, and burnt, and hung, and subjected to indignities without number and without name. Nobody will probably be willing to say that such a state of things is worthy to be continued. The hope of peaceable relief has for long restrained the hands of a people educated to an abhorrence of war. We have submitted to a despotism less tolerant than the autocracy of Russia, or the absolutism of France--hoping, vainly hoping, for some change; willing to forego all things rather than dissever the Union, which we have held, and hold, to be foremost, because bearing the promise of all other political blessings; pardoning much to a legacy left the South for which it was not primarily responsible, and ready to second the humane care of a feeble race, and clinging to the hope of that better time to which all the signs pointed, when, by force of freedom, there could be no more slavery. The time has come, though sooner and under other circumstances (alas! far other circumstances) than we expected. We need now no longer give guaranties to the slaveholding interest. Taking advantage of such as it had, it has not hesitated to attack its sole benefactor, and now all our obligations are at an end. The Congress of the nation may and will take care that, secession being stifled, there shall not henceforth be a nullification of the least provision of the organic law, out of mistaken tenderness for the interest of any section. We have at last learned a nobler virtue than forbearance, and henceforth either the Constitution, in all its parts, is to be supreme, or else the nation must die. One or other of these things must result. Let him who can hesitate between them write himself down a traitor; for he is one. No patriot can hesitate. No lover of his country can falter in a time like this. And if three years of war have not taught a man that this is the alternative, that man does not deserve a country.
4. But there is a more emphatic expression of our fundamental law than any yet cited; which, if left to its proper working, as now it may be, strikes at the root of slavery. It is the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution. 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.'
The essence of republicanism is freedom. A republic that, like Sparta, permits the enslavement of any portion of its people, is surely not predicated upon the true idea of a republic; and it is worth while to consider that the ancient republics found their bane in slavery, and that the aristocratic republics of modern times, like Venice, have perished. Only those republics survive to-day which, like San Marino, have free institutions. A republic is a country where the whole people is the public, and the state the affair of the whole people. It is a _public affair_ (as its name imports), a thing of the public; and this is not true of any other than a democracy. For the essential idea of such a government is expressed in the maxim: 'the greatest good to the greatest number;' and in that other maxim which is part of our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.' It needs no argument to show that these maxims are violated in a country where any portion of the people are deprived of their highest good--liberty. For what is the object of government? To protect men from oppression. And our republican doctrine is that this is best accomplished in a form of government which gives to the voice of all men the controlling power. 'The voice of the people is the voice of God,' because humanity is of God. The doctrine is that the state is made for the individual, not the individual for the state; just as our Saviour declared that 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' These things being so (and it is not pretended that they are novel, for they are very trite), does it not immediately appear how essentially opposed is slavery to the idea of a republic? Therefore when the Constitution guarantees to every State a republican form of government, it guarantees to all the people of every State a voice in its control. And whatever State disfranchises any portion of its people violates this provision of the Constitution.
To the objection that, at the time of adopting the Constitution, all the States were Slave States, with a single exception, and therefore within the meaning of that instrument slavery and a republican form of government are not incongruous, there are two answers. First, it is matter of history that the framers of the Constitution acted throughout with reference to the eventual abolition of slavery; as has been already adverted to in this paper. Therefore such States as have retained their slave establishments have done so in violation of the spirit of this provision of the Constitution; while such States as have since been admitted into the Union with slave establishments have been admitted by compromises, equally in violation of that provision, but acquiesced in by the whole country, as the slave establishments of the original States had been, and therefore equally binding on our good faith. We are now no longer bound by any compromises. We have kept our plighted faith strictly and fairly, though the Slave States have not. Our duty now is to reconstruct, if we can, the fabric of the Union. If, in doing this, we abolish slavery entirely, which makes impossible the full realization of this guaranteeing clause, the guaranty will spring into new life and become a power in the law of the land. Secondly, what is meant by a republican form of government within the meaning of the Constitution must be determined by reference to the Declaration of Independence, which is the basis of our Government, and declares the principles of it. That Declaration was promulgated as embodying the doctrines of a new age--an age in which the rights of man should at last be maintained as against the rights of royalty and privilege. It is, therefore, the soundest rule of interpretation to refer the ambiguities of the organic law to the declaration that preceded and introduced it and made it possible. And so interpreting, will any one say that slavery is compatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence?
In support, moreover, of the view here taken, may be cited the opinion of many of our statesmen, as expressed on the question of admitting new States into the Union: as, for instance, when Missouri applied for admission with a slave constitution. Nor is it competent to offset this with the opinion of such statesmen as have advocated the doctrine of the Virginia Resolutions of State sovereignty; for they notoriously disregarded the paramount supremacy of the Constitution. The conscientious doubt of others as to making the exclusion of slavery a condition precedent to admission into the Union, proves not the incorrectness of this position, but strengthens it, by showing that only a controlling love of the Union caused the doubt, which originated in a policy that would not even seem to do injustice to any State.
But whatever may be true as to the opinions of the fathers and early statesmen of the republic; whatever may be true as to the precise meaning of the term 'republican form of government' in the Constitution; surely, in the light of our rebellion, there cannot longer be a doubt as to the inherent antagonism of slavery to the principles of republican government. The Southern Confederacy sprang into existence as an oligarchy of slaveholders, willing (if need be) to live under a military despotism (as is the fact to-day, and will be hereafter if the world should witness the dire misfortune of its success), rather than submit to the searching scrutiny of republican ideas, with freedom of speech and press and person. And so it is that we recur to the simple fact of the Southern Confederacy for the vindication of the proposed amendment in all its bearings, finding in that fact the full warrant and justification of it.
5. There is still another reason for the proposed amendment, that may be urged with great force, on the ground of expediency; namely, that it would settle the whole question of reconstruction in a manner and with an effect that could not be gainsaid. For, once incorporated into the fundamental law, there could not then arise questions touching the validity of acts by which slaves are declared freemen. There would be nothing left to hang a doubt upon. The Proclamation of Emancipation as a war measure is undoubtedly a proper proceeding; but as a means of effecting organic changes, and as possible to operate beyond the period of actual war, it is open to many grave objections. Freedom being thus made the law of the land, there would be no longer reason for differences, as now there are wide differences among conscientious and capable men, as to the proper mode of reinvesting the States usurped by the rebellion with their rightful powers as kindred republics of the nation. Constituent parts of a common and indivisible empire, those powers cannot be destroyed by a usurping rebellion.
But, it is objected, the proposed amendment destroys certain of those powers. Yes, it takes away all pretended right to hold slaves. For the right of slavery is nowhere recognized in the Constitution. The fact of slavery as part of the local establishments of some States could not be ignored, although, as is well known, the word 'slave' was expressly ruled out of the Constitution. Hence, the famous provisions for the rendition of '_persons held to service_' (art. iv. sec. 2), and for the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes, 'by adding to the whole number of free persons ... _three fifths of all other persons_' (art. i. sec. 2): which are the only recognition slavery finds in our Constitution.
It is true, therefore, that slavery, never a right, but always a wrong, under the Constitution, as under the law of nature and revelation, is now to be no longer recognized even as a fact. To abolish it by this amendment is to abolish it entirely throughout the Union, irrespective of apparent State rights. The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law remits the question of restoring 'persons held to service' to the safeguards of trial by jury, but has no further force. To supplement and complete the work of reconstruction, we need to make impossible the pretence of a power anywhere within the domain of the United States to hold a person in bondage.
To the objection we have just noted, that certain State rights are thus destroyed, there are two sufficient answers. First, in no State of the Union, it is believed, does slavery exist by virtue of positive law. It is the subject of legislation only as a recognized fact in society. It exists in Virginia in violation of the Bill of Rights, which is part of the organic law of that State, and, in its essential features, of every slaveholding State. Therefore to abolish it is both to fulfil the duty of the United States in guaranteeing to every State a republican form of government, and to assert the only true doctrine of State rights, namely, that the legislation of a State shall conform to the fundamental law at once of the State itself and the nation. And thus the Bill of Rights of a slaveholding State will be no longer a mockery, but a living power. Secondly, the destruction of this pseudo right of a State to hold slaves is no cause of complaint--even supposing it were a legitimate and proper right.[9] For, the Constitution once adopted, the provision for amendment, as part of it, has also been ratified and adopted; and therefore, by a familiar principle of law, the exercise of that provision may not afterward be questioned. It is not for the parties who have once solemnly ratified an agreement to complain of the carrying into effect of its terms. They must forever hold their peace.
Thus, by virtue of the proposed amendment, all the States of the Union will become Free States, and there will be no longer the anomaly of a free nation upholding slavery. It will then, moreover, have been settled by the highest authority in the land, that a republican form of government means, first of all, freedom; and so a free constitution will be the unquestionable condition precedent of the admission of any State into the Union. This doctrine will seem monstrous to the believer in State sovereignty as paramount to the sovereignty of the nation: so it will seem monstrous to the believer in secession and rebellion. But by the lover of the Union (who alone is the true patriot in our country) it will be accepted as a doctrine that adds another bond of unity to the nation, and so tends to secure its perpetual strength.
In fine, the Constitution itself is all bristling with arguments for this amendment. Besides the provisions already quoted, there is the fifth article of the amendments, declaring that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' which has now a significance unknown before. Oh, how the rebellion has interpreted for us and commented upon the provisions of the Constitution! In the dread light of its unholy fires, we see, as never before, how cursed and doubly accursed a thing is slavery--making men forget all that is holiest and sacredest, quenching all their inspirations of patriotism, and leading them to sell body and soul for mad ambition. How true, alas! is the poet's word: 'How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition!'
We _must_, therefore, put an end to slavery. In its whole essence and substance, it militates against the perpetuity of our national Union. To think of preserving both it and the Union is to shut our eyes wilfully to the facts of the last half century, and the culminating condemnation of slavery in the rebellion. A Southern journal (_The Nashville Times_) has lately said, with great truth and force: 'Slavery can no more violate the law of its existence and become loyal and law-abiding than a stagnant pool can freshen and grow sweet in its own corruption.' Discard all other considerations; say, if we please, that slavery has nothing to do with the origin of the war; yet we must recognize the fact of a confederacy avowedly basing itself on the system of slavery, and which is in the interest of slaveholders, and is fostered by the minions of despotism all over the world. Then, if we can, let us come to any other conclusion than the one suggested in the proposed amendment.
This confederacy in the interest of slaveholders threatens the life of the nation. There is a limit to the powers of the Constitution, and we may not pass beyond it. But shall we deny that there is a higher law back of the Constitution, back of all constitutions--namely, that 'safety of the people,' which is 'the supreme law'? If we say that there is no such thing as moral government in the world; that a beneficent God does not sit in the heavens, holding all nations as in the hollow of His hand; yet we cannot deny this law of self-preservation. This law, this higher law of human society, the law political, in the very nature of things, demands the amendment.
Above all, let us not ignore the lessons of the war. The million graves of the heroes fallen in defence of our liberties and laws, are so many million wounds in the bleeding body of the nation, whose poor, dumb mouths, if they had voice, would cry out to Heaven against the system which has moved this foul treason against those liberties and laws. Let us, then, in the white heat of this terrible crisis, adopt the amendment, and stamp on the forefront of the nation, as its motto, for all time, those magnificent words of Webster: 'Liberty _and_ Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!' For let us be well assured that the Southern Confederacy cannot triumph. In the darkest and most mournful period of the despotism of the first Napoleon, when all hearts were failing, a minister of the Church of England spoke these words of the military empire of France, and they may fitly be spoken of the military empire of the South to-day:
'It has no foundation in the moral stability of justice. It is irradiated by no beam from heaven; it is blessed by no prayer of man; it is worshipped with no gratitude by the patriot heart. It may remain for the time that is appointed it, but the awful hour is on the wing when the universe will resound with its fall; and the same sun which now measures out with reluctance the length of its impious reign, will one day pour his undecaying beams amid its ruins, and bring forth from the earth which it has overshadowed the promises of a greater spring.'[10]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The writer saw the defiant little yacht lying snug at the Savannah wharf, in October, 1859--after the trial.
[9] In the constitution of the _republic_ of Texas (1836), it is declared (sec. 9 of General Provisions), 'All persons of color who were slaves for life previous to their immigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, _shall remain in the like state of servitude_.' But in the constitution of the _State_ of Texas (1845) there is no such declaration; and article i., the Bill of Rights, sec. 1, declares: 'All power is inherent in the people.' The foregoing provision of the Texan constitution of 1836, is believed to be the only actual establishment of slavery in any Southern State, and even that has been abrogated, as is seen, by the State constitution of 1845. (See Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage, vol. ii.)
[10] Alison's History of Europe, vol. iii. p. 461.
AVERILL'S RAID.
Say, lads, have ye heard of bold Averill's raid? How we scoured hill and valley, dared dungeon and blade! How we made old Virginia's heart quake through and through, Where our sharp, sworded lightning cut sudden her view! Three cheers!
Red battle had trampled her plains into mire; The homestead and harvest had vanished in fire; But far where the walls of the Blue Ridge arose, Were prize for our daring and grief for our foes. Three cheers!
There was grain in the garners, fresh, plump to the sight; And mill-wheels to grind it all dainty and white; There were kine in the farmyards, and steeds in the stall, All ready, when down our live torrent should fall. Three cheers!
And in the quaint hamlets that nestled more far, Were contrabands pining to know the north star; And home guards so loath to leave home and its joys, But who dreamed not they staid prize for Averill's boys. Three cheers!
Oh, keen did we grind our good sabres, and scan Our carbines and pistols, girths, spurs, to a man! Then up and away did we dash with a shout, With cannon and caisson, away in and out. Three cheers!
Away in the forest and out on the plain; The stormy night gathered, we never drew rein; The raw morning cut us, but onward, right on, Till again the chill landscape in twilight grew wan. Three cheers!
Sleet stung us like arrows, winds rocked us like seas, And close all around crashed the pinnacle-trees; Red bolts flashed so near, the glare blinded our eyes, But onward, still on, for in front shone the prize. Three cheers!
We climbed the steep paths where the spectre-like fir Moaned of death in the distance; we ceased not to spur! Death! what that to us, with our duty before! Then onward, still on our stern hoof-thunder bore. Three cheers!
We dashed on the garners, their white turned to black; We dashed on the mills, smoky veils lined our track; We dashed on the hamlet, ha, ha! what a noise, What a stir, as upon them rushed Averill's boys! Three cheers!
The contrabands came with wide grins and low bows, And old ragged slouches swung wide from their brows; But the home guards ran wildly--then blustered, when found Not made food for powder, but Union-ward bound. Three cheers!
The kine turned to broils at our camp fires--the steeds, The true F. F. V.'s, fitted well to our needs; They pranced and they neighed, as if proud of the joys Of bearing, not home guards, but Averill's boys. Three cheers!
We dashed on the rail-track, we ripped and we tore; We dashed on the depots, made bold with their store; Then away, swift away, for 'twas trifling with fire; We were far in the foe's depths, and free to his ire. Three cheers!
Fierce Ewell and Early and Stuart and Hill Launched forth their fleet legions to capture and kill; But we mocked all pursuit, and eluded each toil, And drummed unopposed on their dear sacred soil. Three cheers!
We swam icy torrents, climbed wild, icy roads Where alone wolf and woodman held savage abodes; We floundered down glary steeps, ravine, and wall, Either side, where, one slip, and a plunge settled all: Three cheers!
The dark, mighty woods heaved like billows, as o'er Burst harsh jarring blasts, and like breakers their roar; While clink of the hoof-iron and tinkle of blade Made sprinkle like lute in love's soft serenade. Three cheers!
Oh, footsore and weary our steeds at last grew! Oh, hungry and dreary the long moments drew! We froze to our saddles, spur hardly could ply: What of that! we were lucky, and now could but die! Three cheers!
But we wore through the moments, we rode though in pain; Were sure to forget all when camp came again;-- So we rode and we rode, till, hurrah! on our sight Burst our tents, as on midnight comes bursting the light! Three cheers!
OBSERVATIONS OF THE SUN.
As much interest is manifested for increased knowledge of solar characteristics, and as many astronomers and numerous amateurs are daily engaged in their investigation, I have thought that the experience of thousands of observations and the final advantages of a host of experiments in combination of lenses and colored glasses, resulting highly favorably to a further elucidation of solar characteristics, would be interesting, especially to such as are engaged in that branch of inquiry.
My experiments have resulted in two important discoveries. First, by a new combination of lenses, I prevent heat from being communicated to the colored glasses, which screen the eye from the blinding effects of solar light, and thus avoid the not infrequent cracking of these glasses from excess of heat, thereby endangering the sight--whereas, by my method, the colored glasses remain as cool after an hour's observation as at the commencement, and no strain or fatigue to the eye is experienced. Secondly, the defining power of the telescope is greatly increased, so that with a good three-and-a-quarter inch acromatic object-glass, with fifty-four inches focal length (mine made by Búron, Paris), I have obtained a clearer view of the physical features of the sun than any described in astronomical works.
In a favorable state of the atmosphere, and when spots are found lying more than halfway between the sun's centre and the margin, or better still, if nearer the margin, when the spots lie more edgeways to the eye, I can see distinctly the relative thickness of the photosphere and the underlying dusky penumbra, which lie on contiguous planes of about equal thickness, like the coatings of an onion. When these spots are nearer the centre of the sun, we see more vertically into their depths, by which I frequently observe a third or cloud stratum, underlying the penumbra, and partially closing the opening, doubtless to screen the underlying globe (which, by contrast with the photosphere, is intensely black) from excessive light, or to render it more diffusive.[11] The concentric faculæ are then plainly visible, and do not appear to rise above the surface of the photosphere (as generally described), but rather as depressions in that luminous envelope, frequently breaking entirely through to the penumbra; and when this last parts, forms what are called 'spots.' The delusion in supposing the faculæ to be elevated ridges, appears to me to be owing to the occasional depth of the faculæ breaking down through the photosphere to the dusky penumbra, giving the appearance of a shadow from an elevated ridge. What is still more interesting, in a favorable state of the atmosphere, I can distinctly see over the _whole_ surface of the sun, not occupied by large spots or by faculæ, a network of pores or minute spots in countless numbers, with dividing lines or faculæ-like depressions in the photosphere, separating each little hole, varying in size, some sufficiently large to exhibit irregularities of outline, doubtless frequently combining and forming larger spots.[12] When there are no scintillations in the air, the rim or margin of the sun appears to be a perfect circle, as defined, in outline, as if carved. By interposing an adjusted circular card, to cut off the direct rays of the sun, thus improvising an eclipse, not a stray ray of light is seen to dart in any direction from the sun, except what is reflected to the instrument, diffusively, from our atmosphere; thus proving that the corona, the coruscations or flashes of light, seen during a total or nearly total eclipse of the sun by the moon, are not rays direct from the sun, but reflections from lunar snow-clad mountains, into her highly attenuated atmosphere. Solar light, being electric, is not developed as light until reaching the atmosphere of a planet or satellite, or their more solid substance, which would explain why solar light is not diffused through space, and thus account for nocturnal darkness.
The combination of glasses which enabled me to inspect the above details may be stated briefly thus: In the place of my astronomic eyepiece, I use an elongator (obtainable of opticians) to increase the power. Into this I place my terrestrial tube, retaining only the field glasses, and using a microscopic eyepiece of seven eighths of an inch in diameter. Over this I slide a tube containing my colored glasses, one dark blue and two dark green, placed at the outer end of the sliding tube, one and a half inches from the eyeglass. The colored glasses are three quarters of an inch in diameter, and the aperture next the eye in diameter half an inch. The power which I usually employ magnifies but one hundred and fifty diameters; and I use the entire aperture of my object glass. This combination of colored glasses gives a clear dead white to the sun, the most desirable for distinct vision, as all shaded portions, such as spots, however minute, and their underlying dusky penumbra, are thus brought into strong contrasts.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Imagine an immense sphere enclosed within two contiguous and equally thin envelopes, and yet sufficiently thick to show their edges distinctly when broken; the outer, a photosphere, having an intensely bright surface, and the inner, or penumbra, of a dull gray surface; while the enclosed hollow space is all dark, with the exception of an occasional fleecy cloud, floating within, and contiguous to the inner envelope. Now remove a large irregular piece from the outer, and a smaller piece from the inner envelope, and you have an exact idea of the appearance of a spot; contrasting the comparative brilliancy of the photosphere with the penumbra; their relative thickness; the intense blackness within, and occasional cloud stratum floating beneath the opening, as seen, under the most favorable circumstances, with a good telescope.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] The Nasmyth willow-leaf appearance, I think, is either the result of imperfect vision, defective instruments, or unfavorable state of the air, distorting the unvarying result of my observations, as above described, which have been a thousand times repeated in our clearer atmosphere, both on the coast and interior mountain regions. My observation of a general pore-like character, over the whole surface of the photosphere of the sun, is, I think, corroborated by considering the spots, as usually known and visible with ordinary instruments, as merely greater pores of the same general character.
AN ARMY: ITS ORGANIZATION AND MOVEMENTS.
_FOURTH PAPER_.
In previous papers we have briefly related the history of the art of war as now practised, stated the functions of the principal staff departments, and mentioned some of the peculiar features of the different arms of military service. It remains to describe the operations of an army in its totality--to show the methods in which its three principal classes of operations--marching, encamping, and fighting--are performed.
The first necessity for rendering an army effective is evidently military discipline, including drill, subordination, and observance of the prescribed regulations. The first is too much considered as the devotion of time and toil to the accomplishment of results based on mere arbitrary rules. The contrary is the truth. Drilling in all its forms--from the lowest to the highest--from the rules for the position of the single soldier to the manoeuvres of a brigade--is only instruction in those movements which long experience has proved to be the easiest, quickest, and most available methods of enabling a soldier to discharge his duties: it is not the compulsory observance of rules unfounded on proper reasons, designed merely to give an appearance of uniformity and regularity--merely to make a handsome show on parade. Nothing so much wearies and discourages a new recruit as his drill; he cannot at first understand it, and does not see the reason for it. He exclaims:
'I'm sick of this marching, Pipe-claying and starching.'
He thinks he can handle his musket with more convenience and rapidity if he is permitted to carry it and load it as he chooses, instead of going through the formula of motions prescribed in the manual. Perhaps as an individual he might; but when he is only one in a large number, his motions must be regulated, not only by his own convenience, but also by that of his neighbors. Very likely, a person uneducated in the mysteries of dancing would never adopt the polka or schottish step as an expression of exuberance; but if he dances with a company, he must be governed by the rules of the art, or he will be likely to tread on the toes of his companions, and be the cause of casualties. Military drill is constantly approaching greater simplicity, as experience shows that various particulars may be dispensed with. Formerly, when soldiers were kept up as part of the state pageants, they were subjected to numberless petty tribulations of drill, which no longer exist. Pipe-clayed belts, for example, have disappeared, except in the marine corps. Frederick the Great was the first who introduced into drill ease and quickness of execution, and since his day it has been greatly simplified and improved.
One great difficulty in our volunteer force pertains to the institution of a proper subordination. Coming from the same vicinage, often related by the various interests of life, equals at home, officers and men have found it disagreeable to assume the proper relations of their military life. The difficulty has produced two extremes of conduct on the part of officers--either too much laxity and familiarity, or the entire opposite--too great severity. The one breeds contempt among the men, and the other hatred. After the soldier begins to understand the necessities of military life, he sees that his officers should be men of dignity and reliability. He does not respect them unless they preserve a line of conduct corresponding to their superior military position. On the other hand, if he sees that they are inflated by their temporary command, and employ the opportunity to make their authority needlessly felt, and to exercise petty tyranny, he entertains feelings of revenge toward them. A model officer for the volunteer service is one who, quietly assuming the authority incident to his position, makes his men feel that he exercises it only for their own good. Such an officer enters thoroughly into all the details of his command--sees that his men are properly fed, clothed, and sheltered--that they understand their drill, and understand also that its object is to render them more effective and at the same time more secure in the hour of conflict--is careful and pains-taking, and at the same time, in the hour of danger, shares with his men all their exposures. Such an officer will always have a good command. We think there has been a tendency to error in one point of the discipline of the volunteer forces, by transferring to them the system which applied well enough to the regulars. In the latter, by long discipline, each man knows his duty, and if he commits a fault, it is his own act. In the volunteers, the faults of the men are in the majority of cases attributable to the officers. We know some companies in which no man has ever been sent to the guard house, none ever straggled in marching, none ever been missing when ordered into battle. The officers of these companies are such as we have described above. We know other companies--too many--in which the men are constantly straying around the country, constantly found drunk or disorderly, constantly out of the ranks, and constantly absent when they ought to be in line. Invariably the officers of such companies are worthless. If, then, the system of holding officers responsible for the faults of the men, were adopted, a great reform would, in our judgment, be introduced into the service. It is a well-known fact in the army that the character of a regiment, of a brigade, of a division even, can be entirely changed by a change of commanders. A hundred or a thousand men, selected at random from civil life anywhere, will have the same average character; and if the military organization which these hundred or thousand form differs greatly from that of any similar organization, it is attributable entirely to those in command.
Passing to the army at large, the next matter of prominent necessity to be noticed is the infusion in it of a uniform spirit--so as to make all its parts work harmoniously in the production of a single tendency and a single result. This must depend upon the general commanding. It is one of the marks of genius in a commander that he can make his impress on all the fractions of his command, down to the single soldier. An army divided by different opinions of the capacity or character of its commander, different views of policy, can scarcely be successful. Napoleon's power of impressing his men with an idolatry for himself and a confidence in victory is well known. The _moral_ element in the effectiveness of an army is one of great importance. Properly stimulated it increases the endurance and bravery of the soldiers to an amazing degree. Physical ability without moral power behind it, is of little consequence. It is a well-known fact that a man will, in the long run, endure more (proportionately to his powers) than a horse, both being subject to the same tests of fatigue and hunger. A commander with whom an army is thoroughly in accord, and who shows that he is capable of conducting it through battle with no more loss than is admitted to be unavoidable, can make it entirely obedient to his will. The _faculty of command_ is of supreme importance to a general. Without it, all other attainments--though of the highest character--will be unserviceable.
However large bounties may have given inducements for men to enlist as soldiers, it is undeniable that patriotism has been a deciding motive. Under the influence of this, each soldier has entertained an ennobling opinion of himself, and has supposed that he would be received in the character which such a motive impressed on him. He has quickly ascertained, however, when fully entered on his military duties, that the discipline has reduced him from the position of an independent patriot to that of a mere item in the number of the rank and file. Military discipline is based on the theory that soldiers should be mere machines. So far as obedience is concerned, this is certainly correct enough; but discipline in this country, and particularly with volunteers, should never diminish the peculiar American feeling of being 'as good as any other man.' On the contrary, the soldier should be encouraged to hold a high estimation of himself. We do not believe that those soldiers who are mere passive instruments--like the Russians, for example--can be compared with others inspired with individual pride. Yet, perhaps, our discipline has gone too far in the 'machine' direction. To keep up the feeling of patriotism to its intensest glow is a necessity for an American army, and a good general would be careful to make this a prominent characteristic of the impression reflected from his own genius upon his command. Professional fighting is very well in its place, and there are probably thousands who are risking blood and life in our armies, who yet do not cordially sympathize with the objects of the war. But an army must be actuated by a living motive--one of powerful importance; in this war there is room for such a motive to have full play, and it is essential that our soldiers should be incited by no mere abstract inducements, by no mere entreaties to gain victory, but by exhibitions of all the reasons that make our side of the struggle the noblest and holiest that ever engaged the attention of a nation.
But we must leave such discussions, and proceed specifically to the subject of this paper--the methods of moving an army.
A state of war having arrived, it depends upon the Government to decide where the _theatre of operations_ shall be. Usually, in Europe, this has been contracted, containing but few _objective points_, that is, the places the capture of which is desired; but in our country the theatre of operations may be said to have included the whole South. The places for the operations of armies having been decided on, the Government adopts the necessary measures for assembling forces at the nearest point, and accumulating supplies, as was done at Washington in 1861. A commander is assigned to organize the forces, and at the proper time he moves them to the selected theatre. Now commences the province of _strategy_, which is defined as 'the art of properly directing masses upon the theatre of war for the defence of our own or the invasion of the enemy's country.' Strategy is often confounded with tactics, but is entirely different--the latter being of an inferior, more contracted and prescribed character, while the former applies to large geographical surfaces, embraces all movements, and has no rules--depending entirely on the genius of the commander to avail himself of circumstances. It is the part of strategy, for instance, so to manoeuvre as to mislead the enemy, or to separate his forces, or to fall upon them singly. Tactics, on the contrary, are the rules for producing particular effects, and apply to details. The strategy of the commander brings his forces into the position he has chosen for giving battle; tactics prescribe the various evolutions of the forces by which they take up their assigned positions. It was by strategy that General Grant obtained the position at Petersburg; it was by tactics that his army was able to march with such celerity and precision that the desired objects were attained.
Marches are of two classes--of concentration and of manoeuvre. The former, being used merely for the assembling of an army, or conducting it to the theatre of operations, need but little precision; the latter are performed upon the actual theatre of war, often in the presence of the enemy, and require care and skill for their proper conduct. The details of marches are of course governed by the nature of the country in which they are performed, but so far as practicable they are made in two methods--by parallel columns, or by the flank. The former is the most usual and the most preferable in many respects; indeed, the latter is never adopted except when compelled by necessity, or for the purpose of executing some piece of strategy. A careful arrangement of all details by commanders, and a steady persistence in their performance on the part of the troops, are required to permit this class of marches to be made safely in the presence of an enemy.
For the use of an army of a hundred thousand men about to march forward against an enemy, all the parallel roads within a space of at least ten miles are needed, and the more of them there are the better, since the columns can thereby be made shorter, and the trains be sent by the interior roads. Where a sufficient number of parallel roads exist, available for the army, it is usual to put about a division on each--sometimes the whole of a corps--according to the nature of the country and the objects to be attained. We will attempt to illustrate the march of an army by columns in the following diagram.
Suppose that E and F are two towns thirty miles apart, and that there are road connections as represented in the diagram. The army represented by the dotted line A B, wishes to move to attack the army C D. Cavalry, followed by infantry columns, would be sent out on the roads E M N and E G I, the cavalry going off toward P and K to protect the flanks, and the infantry taking position at I and O. Meantime another column, behind which are the baggage trains, covered with a rear guard, has moved to L. If the three points I, L, and O are reached simultaneously, the army can safely establish its new line, the baggage trains are entirely protected, and the whole country is occupied as effectually as if every acre were in possession.
The formation of a marching column varies according to circumstances, but is usually somewhat as follows, when moving toward an enemy:
The dots representing the ambulances and wagon trains do not show the true proportion of these to the rest of the column, and it cannot be given except at too great a sacrifice of space. They occupy more road than all the other parts of the column combined. With the advance guard go the engineers and pioneers, to repair the roads, make bridges, etc.
The difficulties and dangers attending a _flank march_ can be made apparent by a diagram:
Let A B and C D represent two armies drawn up against each other in three lines of battle, on opposite sides of a stream, E F. The commander of the army A B, finding he cannot cross and drive the enemy from their works, determines, by a flank march to the left, to go around them, crossing at the point E. In order to effect this he must send his trains off by the road I K L to some interior line, and then slowly unfold his masses upon the single road K E H. By the time the head of his column is at H the rear has not perhaps left K, and thus the whole length of his army is exposed on its side to an attack by the enemy, which may sever it into two unsupporting portions. It will be perceived that to accomplish such marches with security, they must be made in secret as far as possible, until a portion of the marching force reaches the rear of the enemy; the column must be kept compact, and great vigilance must be exercised. In his progress from the Rapidan to the James, General Grant made three movements of this character with entire success, each time putting our forces so far in the rear of the rebels that they were compelled to hasten their own retreat instead of delaying to avail themselves of the opportunity for attacking.
Besides the topography of the country, various circumstances influence the manner in which a march is conducted--particularly the position of the enemy. When following a retreating foe, the cavalry is sent in the advance, supported by some infantry and horse artillery, to harass the rear guard, and, if practicable, delay the retreat until the main army can come up. This was the case in the peninsula campaign, from Yorktown to the Chickahominy. Again, the exact position of the enemy may not be known, or he may have large bodies in different places, so that his intentions cannot be surmised. It is then necessary to scatter the army so as to cover a number of threatened points, care being exercised to have all the different bodies within supporting distances, and to be on guard against a sudden concentration of the enemy between them. This was the case in the campaign which ended so gloriously at Gettysburg. The rebels were then threatening both Harrisburg and Baltimore, and the two extremities of our army were over thirty miles apart, so as to be concentrated either on the right, left, or centre, as events might determine. It happened that a collision was brought on at Gettysburg, and both armies immediately concentrated there. The corps on the right of our army was obliged to march about thirty-two miles, performing the distance in about eighteen or nineteen hours, and arriving in time to participate in the second day's battle. As much skill is evinced by a commander in preliminary manoeuvring marches and the assignment of positions to the different portions of his army as in the direction of a battle. Napoleon gained many of his victories through the effects of such manoeuvres.
_Time_ is a very important element in marching. An army which can march five miles a day more than its opponent will almost certainly be victorious, for it can go to his flank, or assail him when unprepared, Frederick the Great achieved his successes by imparting mobility to his troops, and Napoleon also was a master of that peculiar feature in that faculty of command of which we have before spoken, that enables a leader to obtain from his men the maximum amount of continued exertion. To achieve facility in marching, all the equipments of the soldiers should be as light as possible, and the columns should be encumbered with no more trains than are absolutely indispensable. Officers of the highest class must be prepared to forego unnecessary luxuries, and to march with nothing more than a blanket, a change of clothing, and rations for a few days in their haversacks.
When a march is contemplated, orders are issued from the general headquarters prescribing all the details--the time at which each corps is to start, the roads to be taken, the precautions to be observed, and the points to be gained. Usually an early hour in the morning is fixed for the commencement of the march. If not in the immediate presence of the enemy, and a surprise is not intended, the _reveillé_ is beaten about three o'clock, and the sleepy soldiers arouse from their beds on the ground, pack up their tents, blankets, and equipments, get a hasty breakfast, and fall into their ranks. If some commander--perhaps of a regiment only--has been dilatory, the whole movement is delayed. Many well-formed plans have been defeated by the indolence of a subordinate commander and his failure to put his troops in motion at the designated hour. Such a delay may embarrass the whole army by detaining other portions, whose movements are to be governed by those of the belated fragment. At four o'clock, if orders have been obeyed, the long columns are moving. Perhaps four or five hours are occupied in filing out into the road. While the sun is rising and the birds engaged at their matins, the troops are trudging along at that pace of three miles an hour, which seems so tardy, but which, persisted in day after day, traverses so great a distance. Every hour there is ten or fifteen minutes' halt, enabling the rear to close up, and the men to relieve themselves temporarily of their guns and knapsacks. Soon the heat commences to grow oppressive, the dust rises in suffocating clouds, knapsacks weigh like lead, and the artillery horses pant as they drag the heavy guns. But the steady tramp must be continued till about eleven o'clock, when a general halt under the shelter of some cool woods, by the side of a stream, is ordered. Two or three hours of welcome rest are here employed in dinner and finishing the broken morning's nap. After the intenser heat of the day is past, the tramp recommences, and continues till six or seven o'clock, when the place appointed for encamping is reached. Soon white tents cover every hill and plain and valley, the weary animals are unharnessed, trees and fence rails disappear rapidly to feed the consuming camp fires, there is a universal buzz formed from the laugh, the song, the shout, and the talking of twenty thousand voices: it gradually subsides, the fires grow dim, and silence and darkness fall upon the scene.
Such marching, with its twenty, twenty-five, or thirty miles a day, is light compared with the harassing fatigues of a retreat, before the pursuit of a triumphant enemy. To accomplish this movement, so as to save the organization and the material of an army, without too great a loss of life, tests in the highest degree the skill of a commander and the fortitude of the men. In a retreat, the usual order of marching is reversed--the trains are sent in the advance, and the troops must remain behind for their protection. Often it happens that they are obliged to remain in line all day, to check by fighting the advance of the enemy, and then continue their march by night. The dead and wounded must, to a great extent, be left on the field; supplies are perhaps exhausted, with no opportunity for replenishment; the merciless cannon of the enemy are constantly thundering in the rear, his cavalry constantly making inroads upon the flanks. Weary, hungry, exhausted, perhaps wounded, the soldier must struggle along for days and nights, if he would avoid massacre or consignment to the cruelties of a prison. The rout of a great army--the disorganization and confusion of a retreat, even when well conducted--the toil and suffering and often slaughter--are the saddest scenes earth can present. Who can paint the terrors of that winter retreat of the French from Moscow? Fortunately, in our war we have had nothing to equal in horrors the retreats of European armies, but no one who passed through those trying seven days fighting and marching which closed the Peninsula campaign, can ever fail to shudder at the sufferings imposed on humanity by a retreat.
VIOLATIONS OF LITERARY PROPERTY.
THE FEDERALIST.--LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN JAY.
Among the rights which are ill protected by law, and yet of essential importance to the individual and society, are those of literary property. If any bequest should be sacred, it is that of thought, convictions, art--the intellectual personality that survives human life--and the 'local habitation and the name' whereby genius, opinion, sentiment--what constitutes the best image and memorial of a life and a mind, a character and a career, is preserved and transmitted. And yet, with all our boasted civilization and progress, no rights are more frequently or grossly violated, no wrongs so little capable of redress, as those relating to literary property. Herein there is a singular moral obtuseness a want of chivalry, an inadequate sense of obligation--doubtless in part originating in that unjust legislation, or rather want of legislation, whereby international law protects the products of the mind and recognizes national literature as a great social interest. Within a few months, the biography of our pioneer author,[13] whose memory his life and character, not less than his genius, had singularly endeared to the whole range of English readers--was prepared by a relative designated by himself, who, with remarkable tact and fidelity, completed his delicate task, according to the materials provided and the wishes expressed by his illustrious kinsman. A London publisher reprinted the work, with eighty pages interpolated, wherein, with an utter disregard to common delicacy toward the dead or self-respect in the living, unauthentic gossip is made to desecrate the reticent and consistent tone of the work, pervert its spirit, and detract from its harmonious attraction and truth. A greater or more indecent and unjustifiable liberty was never taken by a publisher with a foreign work; it was an insult to the memory of Washington Irving, to his biographer and those who cherish his fame.
Not many weeks ago, an eloquent young divine, who had in no small degree saved the State of California to the Union, by his earnest and constant plea for national integrity, died in the midst of his useful and noble career: forthwith the publisher of a Review, in whose pages some of his early essays had appeared, announced their republication: in vain the friends and family of Starr King protested against so crude and limited a memorial of his genius, and entreated that they might be allowed to glean and garner more mature and complete fruits of his pen, as a token of his ability and his career; and thus do justice, by careful selection and well-advised preparation, to the memory they and their fellow citizens so tenderly and proudly cherished: no; the articles had been paid for, the recent death of the writer gave them a market value, and the publishers were resolved to turn them to account, however good taste and right feeling and sacred associations were violated.
Again, one of the few legal works of American origin which has a standard European reputation is Wheaton's 'International Law.' Its author was eminently national in his convictions; foreign service and patriotic instincts had made him thoroughly American in his sympathies and sentiments; no one of our diplomatic agents sent home such comprehensive and sagacious despatches, having in view 'the honor and welfare of the whole country;' and no one who knew Henry Wheaton doubts that, were he living at this hour, all his influence, hopes, and faith would be identified with the Union cause.
Yet an edition[14] of his great work has lately appeared, edited in an opposite interest; and the standard reference on the law of nations, so honorable to the legal knowledge, perspicacity, and candor of an American author, goes forth perverted and deformed by annotations and comments indirectly sympathetic with the wicked rebellion now devastating the nation. Can a greater literary outrage be imagined? Is it possible more grossly to violate the rights of the dead?
Aware that certain rules apply to the annotation of legal treatises not recognized in other departments of literature, and diffident of personal judgment in this respect, in order to ascertain how far our sense of this violation of literary property and reputation was well founded, how far we were right in asserting a partisan aim, we requested an accomplished lawyer, thoroughly versed in the literature of his profession, and experienced as an editor, to examine this edition of Wheaton, and state his own opinion thereof: to him we are indebted for the following clear and palpable instances of a perverted use of a standard American treatise, endeared to many living friends of the author, and all his intelligent and patriotic countrymen: of the 'additions' to the original by the editor, he says:
'1. They indicate considerable reading and industry, but are far too voluminous, and abound in extended extracts from speeches, state papers, and statutes, which should have been omitted altogether, or very much abridged.
'2. They contain no language complimentary to the Administration, little or nothing in defence of the Government--none that can be offensive to Jefferson Davis; and, as a whole, they give the impression that he regards the Confederate position as being quite as defensible, on the principles of international law, as that of the United States.
'3. He has no word of censure for Lord John Russell, and no word of apology for Mr. Seward. He nowhere calls the Confederates _rebels_, and nowhere thinks the conduct of France suspicious or unfriendly.
'4. His positions are unquestionably the same with those of Seymour, Bishop Hopkins, Professor Morse, Judge Woodward, etc.
'5. He is everywhere cold--more willing to wound than bold to strike; and yet he fretfully commits himself before he gets through, in defence of slavery and extreme democratic positions.
'6. He does not pretend that he was ever requested by the great author with whose productions he has taken such liberties to undertake the editorial duties.
'His language is so general that one needs to read it carefully to feel the full force of what I have said.
'In the preface (page 1-20), he speaks of 'Spanish American independence, now jeopardized by our _fratricidal_ contest'--fratricidal is indeed a favorite word; he uses it in an offensive sense as regards the United States. Page 99, note, he says of slavery, what is utterly untrue, that 'the Constitution recognized it as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it.' The noble act of June 19, 1862, forbidding slavery in United States Territories, he comments on in this wise: 'This act wholly ignores the decision of the Supreme Court (meaning the Dred Scott case) on the subject of slavery.' He then inserts the whole act in the note, only to hold it up to censure--'testing it by international law' as interpreted by him. At page 605 he denounces that law as 'obnoxious not only to the principles of international law, but to the Constitution of the United States.' His note and extracts, including long extracts from speeches of Thomas, of Massachusetts, and Crittenden, of Kentucky, fill more than twenty-two pages--reserving a line or two of text at the top. To say nothing of the sentiments, such notes are a shameful abuse of the reputation and work of Mr. Wheaton, and a perversion of the duties and rights of an editor. But a word of the sentiments. He exhausts himself and the records of the past in accumulating precedents to condemn the policy of freeing slaves as a war measure, or of arming them in the nation's defence.
'At page 614, in this same note, speaking of the effect of the Proclamation of Emancipation, he says: 'The attention of publicists may well be called to the withdrawal of the four millions of men from the cultivation of cotton, which, is the source of wealth of the great commercial and manufacturing nations of Europe.' That is, he suggests this as a ground for interference in our affairs on the principles of _his_ international law. He further adds that this cultivation of cotton is 'by nature a virtual monopoly of the seceded States;' that is, nature preordained the negroes to be slaves in the seceded States to raise cotton; and hence natural and international law require emancipation proclamations to be put down. Did Stephens ever go farther? Again, on the same page, he says: 'The effect on the United States, _in the event of the reestablishment of the Federal authority,_' without the Proclamation in force, etc., 'would be _seriously felt_, in its financial bearings,' etc.--'abroad as well as at home.' Not satisfied, therefore, with suggesting a justification of intervention, on the basis of international law, he appeals to the cupidity of foreigners as well as natives, by hinting also that financial ruin may follow the triumph of Freedom and the Federal armies. What a shame that an American editor should use the great name of Wheaton to give dignity to such suggestions in foreign countries.' He then gives--all in the same interminable note (page 614)--an extract from _The Morning Chronicle_, of May 16, 1860, of which I give you this delicious morsel: 'No blacks, no cotton, such is the finality.' At page 609, he speaks of the 'incompatibility of confiscation of property with the present state of civilization.' At page 609, he quotes, with evident delight, the sanctimonious despatch of Lord John Russell about sinking ships in Charleston harbor, which his lordship calls a 'project only worthy the times of barbarism;' and the American annotator, who could use page after page to degrade his own Government for emancipating slaves, of course could not be expected to refer to any of the precedents that would have silenced Lord John, and have justified the United States; and he therefore passes on with no reference to them.
'At page 669, Mr. Wheaton says: 'The validity of maritime captures must be determined in a court of the captor's Government,' etc. This American editor does not so much as allude to the fact, that while he is writing, the highways of the ocean are lighted by the fires of American merchantmen, plundered, and then burned, without condemnation of any court, by vessels fitted out in English ports, in open violation of the first principles of international law, and which have never been in any port under the jurisdiction of the piratical Confederacy!
'Some of his indications of sympathy with the rebellion are quite in excess of those of Lord John, with whose views, on the whole, he seems well enough pleased. For example, at page 254, Lord John is quoted as follows: 'Has a commission from the _so-called_ President Davis,' etc.; but at page 107 and generally, the American editor, not willing to imply that there is any doubt about the reality or permanency of the Confederate concern, nor being willing to offend its managers, speaks of 'the President of the Confederate States,' and 'an act of Congress of the Confederate States,' etc.; and when he reaches page 535, as if to set Lord John a better example (and I believe there had been some Confederate victories about the time he was writing that note), he says: 'A proclamation was issued by _President Davis_, on the 14th of August, 1861, ordering all citizens adhering to the Government of the United States, etc., to depart from the _Confederate States_ in forty days.' It is very evident the author approves this order as warranted by international law, at least according to his interpretation thereof.
'Need I go farther to satisfy you of the temper and character of the notes, and the views of their author? I can hardly suppress the expression of my indignation that such a use should have been made of this great national work--that such an opportunity should have been lost to say something worthily in favor of colonization and freedom, and in vindication of our nation, in its great struggle with the relics of barbarism in its midst, and with the selfish and ambitious spirits of the European continent, so ready to take advantage of our troubles to promote their own schemes.'
We now come to another and more generally obnoxious instance of this use of standard national works for personal or political objects. The 'Federalist,' from the circumstances under which it was written, the influence it exerted, the events with which it is associated, the character of the writers, and the ability manifest both in their arguments and the style--has long been regarded as a political classic. It was the text book of a large and intelligent party at the time of and long subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution; and few works of political philosophy, written to meet an exigency and prepare the way for a governmental change, have attained so high and permanent a rank among foreign critics and historians. It is evident that such a work, whoever owns the copyright or boasts the authorship, has a national value and interest. To preserve it intact, to keep it in an eligible and accessible form before the public, is all that any editor or publisher has a right to claim. Much has been written as to the authorship of the respective papers, and some passages have been variously rendered in different editions; but the general scope and merit of the work, and the obvious and unchallenged identity of style and opinion with the acknowledged authors as regards most of the articles, make the discussions on these points of comparative little significance to the reader of the present day, who regards the work as a whole, seizes its essential traits, and is _en rapport_ with its magnanimous tone, so wholly opposed to petty division of credit in a labor undertaken from patriotic motives, and by scholars and gentlemen. Enough that we have here the reasonings of enlightened citizens, the views of statesmen, the arguments whereby the claims of the Constitution were vindicated. Whoever is familiar with the history of the period, finds in this remarkable work a memorable illustration of that rectitude and wisdom which presided over the early counsels of the nation, and an evidence of the rare union of sagacity and comprehensiveness, of liberal aspiration and prudential foresight, of conscientiousness and intelligence, which has won for the founders of the republic the admiration of the world. In these pages, how much knowledge of the past is combined with insight as to the future, what common sense is blent with learning, what perspicacity with breadth of view! Each department of the proposed government is described and analyzed; the political history of Greece, Rome, the Italian republics, France, and Great Britain examined for precedents and illustrations; popular objections answered; popular errors rectified; this provision explained, that clause justified; the judicial, legislative, and executive functions defined; national revenue discussed in all its relations; the advantages of our civil list, of a republic over a democracy in controlling the effects of faction, are clearly indicated; as are those attending the reservation of criminal and civil justice to the respective States: on the one hand the defects of the old Confederacy are stated with emphasis and truth, and on the other, the transcendent benefits of Federal union are elaborately argued, and economy, stability, and vigor proved to be its legitimate fruits. Of the evils of the old system, it is said: 'Let the point of extreme depression to which our national dignity and credit have sunk, let the inconvenience felt everywhere from a lax and ill-administered government, let the revolt of a part of North Carolina, the memory of insurrection in Pennsylvania, and actual insurrection in Massachusetts, declare it.' An unique distinction of this political treatise is that while Pericles, Cato, Hume, Montesquieu, Junius, and other classical and modern authorities are cited with scholarly tact, the most practical arguments drawn from the facts of the hour and the needs of the people, are conveyed in language the most lucid and impressive. To give a complete analysis of the 'Federalist' would require a volume; the glance we have cast upon its various topics sufficiently indicates the extent and importance of the work. Not less memorable is the spirit in which it was undertaken. 'A nation without a national government,' it is said, 'is, in my view, an awful spectacle;' and elsewhere--'The establishment of a constitution in times of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a prodigy, to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety.' 'I dread,' writes Jay, 'the more the consequences of new attempts, because I know that powerful individuals in this and in other States are enemies to a General National Government in every possible shape.'
Under such a sense of responsibility, with such patriotic solicitude did Hamilton, Madison, and Jay plead for the new Constitution with their fellow citizens of New York in the journals of the day, and it is these fragmentary comments and illustrations which, subsequently brought together in volumes, constitute 'the Federalist'; and well did they, toward the close of the discussion, observe: 'Let us now pause and ask ourselves whether, in the course of these papers, the proposed Constitution has not been satisfactorily vindicated from the aspersions thrown upon it, and whether it has not been shown worthy of the public approbation and necessary to the public safety and prosperity.' Whatever degree of sympathy or antagonism the intelligent reader of the 'Federalist' may feel, he can scarcely fail to admit that it is a masterly discussion of principles, and that the influence it exerted in securing the ratification of the Constitution in the State of New York, was a legitimate result of intelligent and conscientious advocacy. But the work has other than merely historical and literary claims upon our esteem at this hour. Its principles find confirmation here and now, in a degree and to an extent which lends new force and distinction to its authors as writers of political foresight and patriotic prescience. There are innumerable passages as applicable to the events of the last three years as if suggested by them; there are arguments and prophecies which have only attained practical demonstration through the terrible ordeal of civil war now raging around and in the heart of the republic.
When we saw the announcement of a new edition[15] of this national work, we hailed it as most seasonable and desirable: when the first volume came under our notice, our first feeling was one of gratitude to the editor for having taken such care to reproduce the work with the greatest possible correctness of text, obtained by patient collation of the different editions: regarding his labors as those of a disinterested historical student, ambitious to bring before the public a work full of warning and wisdom for this terrible national crisis, we at first saw in his annotations and comments only the labor of love whereby a standard work is illustrated and made more emphatic and complete: but, ere long, we found a spirit of detraction at work, a want of sympathy with the tone and a want of understanding of the motives of the authors, which made us regret that, instead of this partisan edition, the 'Federalist' had not been reissued with a brief explanatory introduction, and without note or comment.
Instead of a hearty recognition, we find a narrow interpretation of these eminent men: long-exploded slanders, born of partisan spite, are more in the mind of the editor than the permanent and invaluable traits which, to a generous and refined mind, constitute the legitimate claims of the work itself and the authors thereof. Guizot remarks: 'In the discussions of the numbers' (the 'Federalist'), 'for all that combines a profound knowledge of the great elementary principles of human government with the wisest maxims of practical administration, I do not know in the whole compass of my reading, whether from ancient or modern authors, so able a work.' _The Edinburgh Review_ says: 'The 'Federalist' is a publication that exhibits an extent and precision of information, a profundity of research and an acuteness of understanding, which would have done honor to the most illustrious statesmen of ancient or modern times.'
In contrast with these and similar instances of eminent foreign appreciation, the editor of this edition of the 'Federalist' attributes to tact what is due to truth, represents the people, as such, as opposed to the Constitution, and Hamilton, Jay, and Madison 'poor antagonists' in combating their objections; if so, how does he account for the remarkable triumph of their dispassionate exposition and lucid arguments? In all political and literary history there are few more benign and distinguished examples of the practical efficiency of intelligent, patriotic, and conscientious reasoning against ignorance, prejudice, and partisan misrepresentation. And yet, in the face of this testimony, by the self-constituted editor of this national work, Hamilton is described as sophistical and disingenuous, whose object is to deceive rather than to instruct, to mislead rather than enlighten, and whose motives are partisan rather than patriotic.
Throughout the introduction there is a spirit of latent detraction; insinuations against the aims and methods, if not against the character of the illustrious men whose memories are our most precious inheritance; we feel that, however industrious in research and ingenious in conjecture, the tone and range of the critic's mind are wholly inadequate for any sympathetic insight as to the nature of the men whose writings he undertakes to reintroduce to the public--and this irrespective of any difference of political opinion: something more than verbal accuracy and patient collation is requisite to interpret the 'Federalist' and appreciate its authors; even a political opponent, of kindred social and personal traits, would do better justice to the theme: and a truly patriotic citizen of the republic, at such a crisis as the present, could never find therein an appropriate occasion to magnify political differences at the expense of national sentiment.
Whatever the literary merit or political interest of the 'Federalist,' its moral value is derived from our faith in the absolute sincerity and profound convictions of its authors: not only does the internal evidence of every page bear emphatic testimony thereto, but the correspondence of each writer as well as of contemporary statesmen, attest the same truth: they regarded the condition of the country as ruinous, and lamented that the fruits of victory turned to ashes on the lips of the people, because there was no homogeneous and vital organization to conserve and administer the invaluable blessings won by the sword: against the suicidal jealousy of State rights as adequate for prosperous self-reliance without the bonds and blessings of a vital National Government, they earnestly directed the most patriotic and intelligent arguments: of these the 'Federalist' is the chief repertory; hence its value and interest as a popular treatise which prepared the way for the intelligent adoption of the Constitution; yet in this edition the introductory remarks impugn the sincerity of the authors, and attempt to revive the political heresy of extreme State as opposed to Federal power, which it is the primary object of the work to expose and condemn; and this at a time when the fatal doctrine is in vogue as what may be called the metaphysical apology for the most base and barbarous rebellion against free government recorded in history. According to this editor, Chancellor Livingston was 'dilatory and uncertain,' Duane sympathized with the Tories in power, Hamilton exaggerated the troubles of the country and consciously sought to make his fellow citizens attribute, against the facts, the depreciated currency and the dearth of trade to the weakness of the Confederation--making a false issue to effect a political triumph: 'his plan of operations,' his 'tact,' are referred to as if, instead of being a true patriot and conscientious statesman, he was a mere special pleader, intriguing and ambitious. Add to this that, when introducing the 'Federalist' to the public in what purports to be an historical preface, he is silent on the wonderful fruits of the Constitution therein advocated--and fails to indicate, as would any candid critic, the remarkable proofs which time and experience yield of the practical wisdom and patriotic foresight of the men whose honorable prestige he thus indirectly seeks to undermine. Jay, we are told, was regarded 'by the majority of his fellow citizens as selfish, impracticable, and aristocratic;' he is said to have been 'induced to undertake' his share of the 'Federalist;' he speaks of the small part he actually did write, without alluding to the fact that illness withdrew him from work of all kinds, after his third paper had been contributed--thus conveying the impression of a lukewarm zeal and even utter indifference; whereas not only do his own words confute the imputation, but we have Madison's declaration that the idea of the 'Federalist' was suggested by Jay; 'and it was undertaken last fall,' he writes to Jefferson, 'by Jay, Hamilton, and myself. The proposal came from the two former. The execution was thrown, by the sickness of Jay, mostly on the two others.' It is even insinuated by this editor that Jay confined himself to topics which could be discussed 'without compromising in the least his general political sentiments, and without obliging him to assent even by implication to any portion of the proposed Constitution.' The representative duties and offices again and again forced upon John Jay--whether as a writer, jurist, envoy, or legislator--the evidence of his own letters, and especially the testimony of his fellow statesmen, adequately confute such misrepresentations as we have noted. It is a thankless, and, we believe, a superfluous task to vindicate the manliness, sincerity, and patriotism of the authors of the 'Federalist' and their fellow statesmen; indeed, their illustrious opponents in political questions again and again bore witness to the worth, wisdom, and integrity of the _men_, while many disputed the doctrine of the writers; popular sentiment embalms their fame and cherishes their memories; the insinuations of any self-constituted editor cannot impair the confidence or reverse the verdict which time has only confirmed and national growth made more emphatic. On the other hand, such attempts to diminish the personal authority, by misrepresenting the methods and motives of these eminent men, as are exhibited in the whole tone and manner of this editorship of a national work, imply a perverted sense of the duties of the hour, an insensibility to the terrible crisis through which the nation is passing, that cannot be too severely condemned by the patriotic and intelligent of all parties. Now, if never before, we should keep bright the escutcheon of our country's honor, and renew our love and admiration for the fathers of the republic and our faith in their principles.
Scrupulous as firm, Jay acted with judicial moderation; he advocated the last petition before declaring hostility against Great Britain--desirous of trying every means before accepting the dread alternative of war; he insisted upon a general convention of the States before deciding upon the new Constitution; he was loyal until loyalty became an abrogation of free citizenship; law and justice with him went hand in hand with reform, and rectitude, not impulse, gave consistency to his course. Such a man lays himself open to factious criticism far more than reckless politicians, who are restrained by no sense of responsibility; but, on the other hand, in the last analysis, they stand forth the most pure because the most patient, just, and truly patriotic of representative statesmen.
'Mr. Jay,' says John Adams, 'had as much influence in the preparatory measures for digesting the Constitution and in obtaining its adoption as any man in the nation;' yet according to this editor of the 'Federalist,' he found therein 'little that he could commend, and nothing for which he could labor:' the same authority declares that he was regarded 'by the majority of his fellow citizens as selfish, impracticable, and aristocratic;' while Dr. McVickar justly remarks that the first thing that strikes us in contemplating his life is 'the unbroken continuity, the ceaseless succession of honorable confidences, throughout a period of twenty-eight years, reposed in Jay by his countrymen.'
But instead of dwelling upon such abortive disparagement, the only importance of which arises from its being annexed to and associated with a standard political text-book, let us refresh our memories, our patriotism, our best sympathies of mind and heart, by tracing once more the services and delineating the character of this illustrious man, whose benign image seems to invoke his countrymen, at this momentous climax of our national life, to recur to those principles and that faith which founded and should now save the republic.
Among the French Protestants who were obliged to seek a foreign home when the Edict of Nantes was revoked, was Pierre Jay, a prosperous merchant of Rochelle, who took up his abode in England. This statement alone is no inadequate illustration of the character of John Jay's paternal grandfather; sagacity, enterprise, and application, are qualities we may justly infer from commercial success; and when the fruits thereof were, in no small degree, sacrificed by adherence to a proscribed religion, no ordinary degree of moral courage and pure integrity must have been united to prudential industry. Those who believe in that aristocracy of nature whereby normal instincts are transmitted, will find even in this brief allusion to the Huguenot merchant traits identical with those which insured the public usefulness and endear the personal memory of his grandson. The latter's father, Augustus Jay, was one of three sons. He, with many others of the second generation of exiled French Protestants, found in America a more auspicious refuge than even the more free states of Europe afforded. A family who had previously emigrated to New York, under similar circumstances, naturally welcomed the new _emigré_; and the daughter of Bathezan Bayard became his wife. Their children consisted of three daughters and one son, who was named Peter for his grandfather. One of the prominent names of the original Dutch colonists of New York is Van Cortland; and Peter Jay married, in 1728, Mary, a daughter of this race, by whom he had ten children, of which John, the subject of this sketch, was the eighth. Genealogists, who reckon lineage according to humanity rather than pride, might find in the immediate ancestry of John Jay one of those felicitous combinations which so often mark the descent of eminent men among our Revolutionary statesmen. With the courteous and intelligent proclivities of Gallic blood the conservative, domestic, and honest nature of the Hollander united to form a well-balanced mind and efficient character. With the best associations of the time and place were blended the firmness of principle derived from ancestors who had suffered for conscience' sake; so that in the antecedents and very blood of the boy were elements of the Christian, patriot, and gentleman; which phases of his nature we find dominant and pervasive throughout his life; for it is a remarkable fact in the career of John Jay that by no triumph of extraordinary genius, by no favor of brilliant circumstances did he win and leave an honored name, but through the simple uprightness and the sound wisdom of a consistent and loyal character--so emphatic and yet unostentatious as to overcome, in the end, the most rancorous political injustice. His early training was no less favorable to this result than his birth. His father removed to Westchester county, and, on a pleasant rural domain still occupied by the family, the future jurist's childhood was passed. At that time there was a French church at New Rochelle, the pastor of which was an excellent scholar; and this gentleman fitted young Jay for college. He gave early proofs of a studious turn of mind and a reticent temperament; acquiring knowledge with pleasure and facility; and, for the most part, exhibiting a thoughtful demeanor. In some of his father's letters, alluding to his childhood, he is described as a boy of 'good capacity,' of 'grave disposition,' and one who 'takes to learning exceedingly well.' He attended the grammar school of the French clergyman until the age of fourteen, and then entered King's (now Columbia) College, at that time under the care of President Johnson. Here he became intimate with three youths with whom he was destined to be memorably associated in after life, and whose names, with his own, have since become historical--Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Robert R. Livingston. We can easily imagine that the diversities of character between these remarkable men were already evident; the ardor and frankness of Hamilton, the emphatic rhetoric of Morris and fluent grace of Livingston must have singularly contrasted with the reserve, seriousness, and quietude of Jay; yet were they akin in the normal basis of character--in the love of knowledge, in loyalty to conviction, and that heart of courtesy which harmonizes the most diverse gifts of mind and traits of manner; even then no common mutual respect must have existed between them, and difference of opinion elicited both wit and wisdom. In a letter to the latter of these young friends, written soon after, Jay speaks of himself as 'ambitious;' but little in his subsequent life justifies the idea; he had more pride of character--more need to respect himself--than ambition, as that word is usually understood; excellence more than distinction was his aim;--no one of the leaders in the Revolution sought office less, none fulfilled its duties with more singleness of purpose, or escaped from its responsibilities with greater alacrity; the instincts of John Jay were mainly for truth, duty, and success, in the higher acceptation of the term. What he undertook, indeed, he strove to do well, but it was from an ideal rectitude and a pride of achievement more than a desire to gain applause and advancement; his ambition was more scholarly than political or personal. He graduated with the highest honors on the fifteenth of May, 1764, and delivered the Latin salutatory. His family had gained wealth and position in commerce, and it is probable that, with his clear-sighted perseverance, John Jay would have been a most successful merchant; but his tastes were intellectual; he determined to study law--at that period, in this country, when Blackstone's 'Commentaries' had not appeared, before Chancellor Kent had written, or a law school had been established, a discipline so arduous and uninviting as to be conscientiously adopted only by the most self-reliant and determined.
For a brief period Jay was the law partner of his friend Livingston, afterward the chancellor of the State. The evidences of his professional career, like those of so many eminent lawyers, are inadequate to suggest any clear idea of his method and ability, except so far as the respect he won, the practice he acquired, and the style of those state papers which are preserved, indicate argumentative powers, extensive knowledge, and finished style: in a few years he had become eminent at the bar, and while in the full tide of success, the exigencies of public affairs--the dawn of the American Revolution, called him from personal to patriotic duties. He was an active participant in the first meeting called to protest against the injustice and oppression of the British Government, and elected one of the committee of fifty chosen by the people, to decide upon a course of action: at his instance they recommended the appointment of deputies from each of the thirteen colonies. Jay was the youngest member of the Congress that met on the 5th of September, 1774, and was selected as one of the committee to draft an address to the people of Great Britain; in the next Congress he was one of the committee to prepare the declaration showing the causes and necessity of a resort to arms, and of that appointed to draft a petition to the king--as a last resort before actual hostilities; he also wrote the address to the people of Canada, Jamaica, and Ireland. The address to the people of Great Britain opens thus:
'When a nation, led to greatness by the hand of liberty, and possessed of all the glory that heroism, munificence, and humanity can bestow, descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her friends and children, and, instead of giving support to freedom, turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negligent in the appointment of her rulers.'
It concludes as follows:
'It is with the utmost regret that we find ourselves compelled, by the overruling principles of self-preservation, to adopt measures detrimental in their consequences to numbers of our fellow subjects in Great Britain and Ireland. But we hope that the magnanimity and justice of the British nation will furnish a Parliament of such wisdom, independence, and public spirit, as may save the violated rights of the whole empire from the devices of wicked ministers and evil counsellors, whether in or out of office; and thereby restore that harmony, friendship, and fraternal affection between all the inhabitants of his majesty's kingdoms and territories, so ardently wished for by every true and honest American.'
These and other state papers, emanating, as Jefferson declared, 'from the finest pen in America,' won the eloquent admiration of Chatham, and, by their dignified, rational, and well-informed spirit, had a great influence in securing, at the outset of the momentous struggle, the respect and sympathy of the wise and conscientious in both hemispheres, for the people and their enlightened and intrepid representatives.
As correspondent with the other colonies, in all the important discussions and arrangements, we find John Jay earnest, sagacious, and indefatigable: chosen a delegate to the New York colonial convention, he could not be present in Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence; but he reported the resolutions whereby his State endorsed that memorable instrument--her first official act toward American independence.
In 1774, Jay had married the daughter of Governor Livingston, of New Jersey; and the glimpses which his correspondence affords of his domestic life, indicate that in this regard he was peculiarly blest, not only in the sweet and dignified sympathies of a family inspired by tenderness, loyalty, and faith, but in the freshness and vigor of his own affections, whereby retirement became far more dear than the gratification even of patriotic ambition in an official career. His home was indeed overshadowed by the dark angel, and the loss of a beloved daughter long and deeply saddened his heart; but there was a daily beauty in the confidence and sympathy of his conjugal relation--hinted rather than developed in the freedom of his letters to the home whose attractions were only increased by absence and distance, in the respect and love of his sons, and the tender consideration devoted to his blind brother; while, spreading in beautiful harmony from this sacred centre, his heart and hand freely and faithfully responded to numerous and eminent ties of friendship, associations of enterprise and philanthropy, and the humblest claims of neighborhood and dependants.
His next eminent service was to draft the Constitution of New York; subsequently amended, it yet attests his patriotism and legal insight; while his own illustrations sanctioned its judicial workings: one of the council of safety and appointed chief justice of the supreme court, Jay maintained, but never abused the high authority with which he was thus invested; kindness to political opponents, devoid of all bitterness, inflexibly just, he was often compared to the unyielding and self-possessed characters of antiquity. When Clinton was preparing to join Burgoyne, Jay held his first court at Kingston--administering justice under the authority of an invaded State, and on the very line of an enemy's advance; under such circumstances, his uniform dignity, calmness, faith in the people, in the cause, and in the result, made a deep and salutary impression, enhanced by the courage exhibited in his charge to the grand jury. In order to serve as delegate to the Congress over which he soon presided, Jay resigned the chief justiceship on the tenth of November, 1778; and signalized his advent by a logical, seasonable, and cheering address to the people on the condition of affairs.
Jay's mind was essentially judicial: he had the temperament and taste as well as the reasoning powers desirable for legal investigation, and the probity and decision of character essential to an administrator of law. With strong domestic proclivities and rural taste--the conflicts, excitement, and responsibilities of a political career were alien to his nature; but the functions of the higher magistracy found in him a congenial representative. Accordingly, it is evident from his correspondence and the concurrent testimony of his kindred and friends, that while as chief justice his sphere of duty was, however laborious, full of interest to his mind--the vocation of a diplomatist was oppressive: he undertook it, as he had other temporary public offices, from conscientious patriotism; the same qualities which gave him influence and authority on the bench commended him specially to his fellow citizens as a negotiator in the difficult and dangerous exigencies produced in our foreign relations by the war with Great Britain. Tact, sagacity, courage--the ability to command respect and to advocate truth and maintain right--dignity of manner, benignity of temper--devotion to his country--all the requisites seemed to combine in the character of Jay, on the one hand to enforce just claims, and, on the other, to propitiate good will. To raise a loan and secure an alliance in Spain seemed a hopeless task: Jay undertook it, much to his personal inconvenience and with extreme reluctance. The history of his mission, as revealed by his correspondence and official documents, is a history of vexations, mortifications, and patient, isolated struggles with difficulties, such as few men would have encountered voluntarily or endured with equanimity. The Spanish Government shrank from a decisive course, feared self-committal, promised aid, and to concede, on certain terms, the right of the United States to navigate the Mississippi. Jay took council of Franklin, who advised him not to accede to the terms proposed, but to maintain 'the even good temper hitherto manifested.' Meantime Congress drew on him for the loan without waiting to hear that it had been negotiated; after a small advance, the Spanish Government declined the loan unless the sole right of navigating the Mississippi were granted. Having thus failed to accomplish the great object, which indeed was unattainable except at a sacrifice which subsequent events have proved would have essentially interfered with the prosperous development of the Southwest--Jay, sensitively vigilant of his country's credit, despite his habitual prudence, accepted the bill at his own credit; boldly assuming the responsibility; his claims on the Spanish Government were proved; Franklin remitted twenty-five thousand dollars; of the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, due December, 1780, only twenty-five thousand was paid by the following April; his outstanding acceptances amounted to two hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars--the greater part of which was due in two months. A more painful situation for a gentleman of refinement and honor can scarcely be imagined than that of John Jay--living without any salary, living on credit, scarcely recognized by the proud court to which he had been accredited; and yet maintaining his self-respect, persistent in his aim, courteous in his manner, faithful to his trust, harassed by anxiety--patient, true, and patriotic. As we read the lively and genial letters of the lamented Irving, when American minister at Madrid seventy years later, what a contrast to the high consideration and social amenities he enjoyed, are the humiliations and the baffled zeal of Jay, when obliged to 'stand and wait,' under circumstances at once so perplexing and hopeless! In March, 1782, the bills were protested; but the credit that seemed utterly destroyed was soon retrieved, though Jay found himself constrained, by the instructions of his Government, to yield the right of navigating the Mississippi in order to secure the treaty; having drawn and presented it, his presence was no longer requisite, and he proceeded to France to act in concert with Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Lee in negotiating for peace.
In June, 1782, Jay arrived in Paris, and, with Franklin, for the most part carried on the negotiations which resulted in the treaty of peace; it was a period of 'painful anxiety and difficult labor:' Hamilton, Jefferson, and other of his eminent countrymen recognized warmly his services and his success: he did not altogether agree with Franklin, and was pertinacious in claiming all respect due to the Government he represented, assuring the British envoy that he would take no part in the business unless the United States 'were treated as an independent nation:' he drew up such a commission as would meet his views. While Hamilton gave Jay full credit for sagacity and honesty, he thought him suspicious, because he so far evaded his instructions as not to show 'the preliminary articles to our ally before he signed them:' this caution, however, arose from Jay's patriotic circumspection; he excused himself on the ground that his instructions 'had been given for the benefit of America, and not of France,' and argued justly that there was discretionary power to consult the public good rather than any literal directions, the spirit, aim, and scope thereof being steadily adhered to. Subsequent revelations abundantly proved that sagacity rather than suspicion, and knowledge more than conjecture justified Jay's course. There is a letter of Pickering, when Secretary of State, to Pinckney, when about to visit France as envoy from the United States Government, in regard to which Washington manifests in his correspondence particular solicitude for the absolute correctness of its statements; wherein the treachery of the French Government is demonstrated from official documents. Jay, during his residence in Spain, had ample opportunity to realize the selfish intrigues of the Bourbon dynasty, and he had a better insight as to the real objects of the French Government, from examining its policy at a distance and in connection with an ally, than Franklin, who had been exposed to its immediate blandishments, and had so many personal reasons for confidence and hope. Vergennes, then prime minister, looked to the relinquishment of the fisheries, and while France, from animosity to Great Britain, cheerfully aided us in the war of the Revolution, it was no part of her secret purpose to foster into independent greatness the power which she befriended from motives of policy during her own struggle with England. Jay, therefore, insisted upon a recognition of our independence on the part of Great Britain, not as the first article of the treaty, but as _un fait accompli_; and wisely declined to allow the French minister, whose plans and views he so well understood, to see the advantageous terms we made with the formidable enemy of France, until those terms were accepted, and the treaty signed.
After visiting England and returning to Paris, having declined an invitation from the Spanish Government to resume negotiations, and also a tender from his own Government of the English mission, Jay returned to his native land with delight, and on landing in New York, on the 24th of July, 1784, was received with great honor and affection. Ten years of public life had so little weaned him from his legal proclivities that he had determined to resume practice; but Congress urged upon him the important position of Secretary of Foreign Affairs, which place he filled with distinguished ability until the convention to form the Constitution met. In his correspondence, Jay's views of government are frankly and clearly unfolded: he had experienced the manifold evils of inadequate authority; and while he would have power emanate from the people, he deeply felt the necessity of making it sufficient for the exigencies of civil society: a strong General Government, therefore, he deemed essential to national prosperity; his theory was not speculative, but practical, founded upon observation and experience: it was sustained by the wisest and best of his countrymen: it was, however, opposed to a prevalent idea of State rights, a jealousy of their surrender and infringement; comparatively few of his fellow citizens had, by reading and reflection, risen to the level of the problem whose solution was to be found in a charter at once securing all essential private rights and local freedom, while binding together, in a firm and patriotic union, the will and interests of a continent. Add to these obstacles the fierce partisan feeling engendered by the circumstances of the time and country--fears of aristocratic influences on the one hand, and sectional intrigues on the other, and we can easily perceive that the first duty of the enlightened and patriotic was to clear away prejudices, explain principles, advocate cardinal political truths, and lift the whole subject out of the dense region of faction and into the calm and clear sphere of reason and truth. Accordingly, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and others, by public discussion sought to elucidate and vindicate the Constitution: by conversation, correspondence, in the committee room and the assembly, through reference to the past, analysis of the present, anticipations of the future, John Jay, directly and indirectly advocated and illustrated the Constitution. With his gifted coadjutors he became an efficient political essayist; and, though prevented by illness from contributing largely to the 'Federalist,' he wrote enough to identify himself honorably with that favorite American classic of statesmen. His frankness, lucid style, perspicuous sense, made him as effective a writer in his own manner as the more intrepid Hamilton. When Washington came to New York to be inaugurated as first President of the United States, Jay proffered his hospitality with characteristic simplicity and good sense; he received the votes of two States as Vice President; at Washington's request he continued to perform the duties of Foreign Secretary until Jefferson assumed the office, when, with eminent satisfaction and in accordance with Jay's views, the President sent the latter's name to the Senate as Chief Justice, thus associating him with his Administration.
When Genet's arrival had stimulated partisan zeal into reckless faction, and his insulting course widened the breach between the two political sects, their representatives were exposed to all the unjust aspersion and violent prejudice born of extreme opinions and free discussions: one party held in high esteem the principles of the British constitution, recognized the moral as well as civic necessity of a strong central Government, and dreaded the unbridled license of French demagoguism; they steadily opposed any identity of action or responsibility in foreign affairs, cherished self-respect and self-reliance as the safeguard of the States, and sustained the dignified and consistent course of Washington: of these, John Jay was one of the most firm and intelligent advocates, and hence the object of the most unscrupulous partisan rancor: the name of Monarchist was substituted for Federalist, of Jacobin for Democrat: on the one hand, the British minister reproached the American Government with injustice to British subjects and interests, contrary to treaty stipulations; on the other, Genet complained of the ingratitude of the Government, and sought to array the people against it: England had not as yet fulfilled her part of the treaty; along the frontiers her troops still garrisoned the forts; the lakes were not free for American craft, and no remuneration had been made by Great Britain for the negroes which her fleet carried off at the close of the war: meantime her warlike attitude toward France made still fiercer the conflict of the respective partisans on this side of the Atlantic; American seamen were impressed; crowds surrounded the President's house, clamorous for war; and he was only sustained in the Senate by an extremely small majority, while the Democratic party were eager for immediate action against England. At this crisis, Washington resolved to try another experiment for conciliation, and to this end proposed Jay as especial envoy to Great Britain. His nomination was opposed in the Senate, but prevailed by a vote of eighteen against eight. The mission was not desired by him. Uncongenial as were absence from home and diplomatic cares, this exile and duty were, in all private respects, opposed to his tastes and wishes; he foresaw the difficulties, anticipated the result, but, once convinced that he owed the sacrifice of personal to public considerations, he now, as before and subsequently, brought all his conscientiousness and intelligence to the service of his country. His reception at the court of St. James was kind and considerate, and his intercourse with Grenville, then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, carried on with the greatest mutual respect. A treaty was negotiated--Jay obtaining the best terms in his power: no state paper ever gave rise to more virulent controversy; it became a new line of demarcation, a new test of party feeling: Hamilton was its eloquent advocate, Jefferson its violent antagonist: Washington doubted the expediency of accepting it; and it passed the Senate by a bare majority. While in a calm retrospect we acknowledge many serious objections to such a treaty, they do not account for the intense excitement it caused; and the circumstances under which it was executed sufficiently explain, while they do not reconcile us to, the signal advantages it secured to Great Britain. She agreed to give up the forts;--but this concession had already been made; to compensate for illegal captures; there was a provision for collecting British debts in America; and in a commercial point of view American interests were sacrificed; it was declared a treaty wherein a weak power evidently succumbed to a strong: but on the other hand, public expectation had been extravagant: no reasonable American citizen, cognizant of the state of the facts and of party feeling, could have believed it possible to secure, at the time and under the circumstances, a satisfactory understanding; and no candid mind could doubt that a negotiator so patriotic, firm, and wise as John Jay had earnestly sought to make the best of a difficult cause, or that he was 'clear in his great office'--an office reluctantly accepted. It has been well said of Jay's treaty that 'now few defend it on principle, many on policy.' When its ratification was advised by the Senate, and it became public, the whole country was aroused; all the latent venom of partisan hate and all the wise forbearance of patriotic self-possession were arrayed face to face in so fierce an opposition that Washington justly described the period as 'a momentous crisis.' It was denounced as cowardly; it was defended as expedient; copies were publicly destroyed amid shouts of exultation: Jay was burned in effigy; the Boston Chamber of Commerce voted in favor of its ratification: Hamilton, under the signature of 'Camillus,' analyzed its claims, and deprecated the bitter hostility it had evoked; and Fisher Ames, in pleading for moderation to both parties, in the House of Representatives, embalmed his patriotic counsel with such heroic patience and eloquent references to his approaching end, that his speech became one of the standard exemplars of American eloquence.
'When the fiery vapors of the war lowered in the skirts of our horizon,' he observes, 'all our wishes were concentred in this one--that we might escape the desolation of the storm: this treaty, like a rainbow on the edge of the storm, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded, at the same time, the sure prognostic of fair weather: if we reject it, the vivid colors will grow pale; it will be a baleful meteor, portending tempest and war.'
And he ends this remarkable speech in these words:
'I have thus been led by my feelings to speak more at length than I had intended. Yet I have perhaps as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as it will, with the public disorders, to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive the Government and Constitution of my country.'
Jay's own remarks on the subject in his private correspondence, are characteristic alike of his rectitude of purpose and equanimity of soul: 'The approbation,' he observes, in a letter to Dr. Thatcher, 'of one judicious and virtuous man relative to the conduct of the negotiations, affords me more satisfaction than clamor and intrigue have given me concern.'
Before the outbreak of political animosity on account of the treaty, and during his absence on that mission, Jay had been elected Governor of the State of New York; had that instrument been published in April instead of July, he would not have been chosen; and yet, despite the fever of partisan feeling, he made no removals. At the close of this memorable year, Washington died: that illustrious man held no man in greater esteem than Jay: to him and Hamilton he had submitted his Farewell Address: when the former's term of office expired, he determined to retire; and did so on the 1st of July, 1801, declining the reappointment as Chief Justice, earnestly tendered him. He now removed to his paternal estate at Bedford, in Westchester county, New York, to enjoy long-coveted repose from public duties. Thenceforth his life was one of dignified serenity and active benevolence. The superintendence of his farm, co-operation in philanthropic enterprises, the amenities of literature, the consolations of religion, and the graces of hospitality congenially occupied his remaining years--years abounding in respect from his countrymen, and the satisfactions of culture, integrity, and faith. He rebuilt the family mansion, occasionally made visits on horseback to New York and Albany. Now zealous in building up a church, and now benignly considerate of a dependant's welfare--loyal and happy in his domestic relations, interested in the welfare of both nation and neighborhood, and preserving his intimacy with the classics and the Scriptures--the last thirty years of John Jay's life, in their peaceful routine and gracious tenor, reflected with 'daily beauty' the sustained elevation of mind and the consistent kindliness and rectitude of a Christian gentleman. On the 17th of May, 1829, he died, crowned with love and honor. The echoes of party strife had long died away from his path: the clouds of party malice had faded from his horizon: all felt and acknowledged, in his example and character, the ideal of an American citizen. Not as a brilliant but as a conscientious man, not as a wonderfully gifted but as an admirably well-balanced mind, not as an exceptional hero but as a just, prudent, faithful, and benignant human being--true to the best instincts of religion, the highest principles of citizenship, the most pure aspirations of character--are cherished the influence and memory of Jay.
His personal appearance is familiar to us through the masterly portraits of Stuart: that in judicial robes has long been a favorite examplar of this eminent artist, exhibiting as it does his best traits of expression and color: although destitute of those vivid tints which Stuart reproduced with such marvellous skill, the keen eyes, fine brow, aquiline nose, pointed chin, and hair tied behind and powdered, with the benign intelligence pervading the whole, render this an effective subject for such a pencil: it is a face in which high moral and intellectual attributes, dignity, rectitude, and clear perception harmoniously blend: the lineaments and outline are decidedly Gallic: one thinks, in looking at the portrait, not only of the able jurist, Christian gentleman, and patriot--but also of his Huguenot ancestor, who fought at Boyne, urbanely accepted exile rather than compromise faith, and suffered persecution with holy patience and adaptive energy of intellect and character.
The political opinions of Jay were obnoxious to a large party of his countrymen; but had we not so many examples in history and experience of the blind prejudice and malicious injustice generated by faction, it would seem incredible, as we contemplate, in the impartial light of retrospective truth, his character and career, that any imaginable diversity of views on questions of state policy, could have bred such false and fierce misconstruction in reference to one whose every memory challenges such entire respect and disinterested admiration. As it is, the record of his life, the influence of his character seem to borrow new brightness from the evidences of partisan calumny found in the more casual records of the past. Singularly intense and complicated is the history of the period when Jay's prominence and activity in the political world were at their height. On the one hand, the triumph of freedom in the New World; on the other, the atrocities committed in her sacred name in the Old: the American and French Revolutions, considered in regard to their origin, development, and results, seem to have brought to a practical test all principles of government and elements of civic life inherent in human society: so that they have since afforded the tests and illustrations of the most enlightened publicists and statesmen, and now yield the most familiar and emphatic precedents for political speculation and faith. In England, Pitt, Burke, Fox, and Mackintosh represented, with memorable power, the opposing elements of conservatism and reform, of social order and revolution, of humanity and of authority; while in America, Hamilton, Adams, Morris, Jay, and other leading Federalists, repudiated the license and condemned the encroachments of France, as Jefferson and his followers advocated the French republic on abstract principles of human rights and as having legitimate claims upon American gratitude. No small part of the bitterness exhibited toward Jay by the latter party arose from his having testified, with Rufus King, that Genet intended to appeal from the Government to the people of the United States--an audacious purpose on the part of the French envoy, which excited the just indignation of every citizen whose self-respect had not been quenched in the flame of political zeal: accordingly he, to a peculiar extent, 'shared the odium which the French Revolution had infused into the minds of its admirers:' partial to the spirit if not the letter of the English constitution, convinced by the absolute moral necessity of a strong central Government, an enlightened and strenuous advocate of law, a thorough gentleman, and a sincere Christian--his undoubted claim to the additional distinction of pure patriot did not save him from the aristocratic imputations, which professed champions of popular rights then and there attached to all men who recognized as essential to social order and progress, respect for and allegiance to justly constituted authorities in government and society: jealousy of the rights of the people was the ostensible motive of a political opposition to Jay, which, at this day and with all the evidence before us, seems inexplicable until we remember how the mirage of party fanaticism distorts the vision and perverts the sympathies of men.
But to a well-poised, clear-sighted, upright character like his, the storms of faction seemed innocuous: how candid is his own confession of faith, how just his reasoning, and enlightened his principles, and patriotic his motives, as revealed in every act, state and judicial paper, recorded conversation, and private letter! 'Neither courting nor dreading public opinion,' he writes (in his account of the Spanish mission), 'on the one hand, nor disregarding it on the other, I joined myself to the first assertors of the American cause, because I thought it my duty; and because I considered caution and neutrality, however secure, as being no less wrong than dishonorable.' As he had espoused the cause deliberately, he served it conscientiously, and met the difficulties in the way of organizing the Federal Government with philosophical candor: 'It was a thing,' he observes, in his first contribution to the 'Federalist,' 'hardly to be expected that in a popular revolution, the minds of men should stop at the happy mean which marks the boundary between power and privilege, and combines the energy of government with the security of private right.'
An æsthetical student and delineator of character remarks that 'where we recognize in any one an image of moral elevation, which seems to us, at the first glance, unique and transcendent, I believe that, on careful examination, we shall find that among his coevals, or in the very nature of the times, those qualities which furnish their archetype in him were rife and prevalent.'[16] The highest class of American statesmen and patriots, and especially those grouped around the peerless central figure of Washington, afford striking evidence of the truth of this observation. A certain spirit of disinterested integrity and devotion, an elevated and consistent tone of feeling and method of action alike distinguished them; and nothing can be imagined more violently in contrast therewith than the inadequate standard of judgment and scope of criticism adopted by those who, actuated by partisan zeal and guided by narrow motives, apply to such characters the limited gauge of their own insight and estimation--endeavoring to atone by microscopic accuracy for imbecility in fundamental principles.' Hence the foreign publicist of large research and precise historical knowledge, the scholar of broad and earnest sympathies, the patriot of generous and tenacious principles, find in these exemplars of civic virtue objects of permanent admiration; while many of their self-appointed commentators, entrenched in pedantic or political dogmas, and devoid of comprehensive ideas and true magnanimity, fail to recognize and delight in depreciating qualities with which they have no affinity, and whose legitimate functions they ignore or pervert--for 'Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.' With all due allowance for honest differences of opinion as to political or religious creeds, for diversities of taste and education, there yet remains to the truly humane, wise, and liberal soul, an instinctive sense of justice, veneration for rectitude, love of the beautiful and the true, which keeps alive their veneration and quickens their higher sympathies despite the venom of faction and the blindness of prejudice; and thus causes the elemental in character to maintain its lawful sway whatever may be the inferences of partisan logic or the dicta of personal opinion. Goethe's invaluable rule of judging every character and work of art by its own law is ever present to their minds, and they find a satisfaction in the spontaneous tribute of love and honor to real genius and superior worth, all the more grateful because there is not entire sympathy of sentiment and creed; their homage and faith are as disinterested as they are sincere.
An eminent English novelist has indicated with genial emphasis, in one of his essays, how much more wonderful as a psychological phenomenon is the clairvoyance of imagination than that ascribed to mesmerism: since, by the former, writers of genius describe with verisimilitude, and sometimes with a moral accuracy such as we can scarcely believe to originate in the creative mind alone, all the traits and phases of a scene, an event, or a character, the details of which are lost in dim tradition or evaded by authentic history. Shakspeare is cited as the memorable example of this intellectual prescience. There is, however, another species of foresight and insight whereby the logic of events is anticipated, and great principles embraced before the multitude are prepared for their adoption; reformers and statesmen are thus in advance of their age, and through high ethical judgment and the inspiration of rectitude, see above the clouds of selfishness and beyond the limits of egotism, into the eternal truth of things. It was this wisdom, sustained by, if not born of, integrity and disinterestedness, that distinguished the highest class of our Revolutionary and Constitutional statesmen, culminating in Washington, and in no one of his contemporaries more manifest than in John Jay. We have alluded to the comprehensive and sagacious scope of his various state papers and judicial decisions, based invariably upon the absolute principles of equity; and the same traits are as obvious in his correspondence and occasional writings: but recently there was found among his papers a charge to the grand jury at Richmond, Virginia, in which are expressed the most authentic principles of international drawn from natural law, at a period and in a country where the former had not been codified or even vaguely understood; and so practical as to be of direct application to the exigencies of the present hour. At the root of these convictions was a profound religious faith. No one of the early American statesmen, for instance, has left on record a more clear and just statement of his views of slavery;--that foul blot on the escutcheon of the republic was ever before the eyes and conscience of Jay; he sought not to evade, but to make apparent its inevitable present shame and future consequences, and argued for a prospective abolition clause in the Constitution. The events of the last three years are a terrible and true response to his warnings. 'Till America,' he wrote, 'comes into this measure (emancipation) her prayers to heaven will be impious. I believe God governs the world, and I believe it is a maxim in His as in our courts, that those who ask for equity ought to do it.' He set the example in the manumission of a boy then his legal property, and was the president of the first anti-slavery society, bequeathing the cause to his descendants, who have faithfully acquitted themselves of the once contemned but now honored trust, for three generations; for his son succeeded him in the office, his grandson has been and is its strenuous advocate, and his great-grandson now confronts the slaveholding rebels in the Army of the Potomac. His intelligent and patriotic fellow citizens realized and recognized the faith and probity whence arose his moral courage and his clear mental vision, 'His life,' says Sullivan, 'was governed by the dictates of an enlightened Christian conscience.' One of his last letters was in reply to the congratulation of the corporation of New York that he lived to witness the fiftieth anniversary of our national independence, and an invitation to join in its commemoration; too feeble, from advanced age, to meet their wishes in this respect, in gratefully declining he thus bore testimony to his life-long convictions: 'The most essential means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the source from which they flow?' We can readily appreciate the literal truth of Verplanck's observation, when death canonized such a character: 'A halo of veneration seemed to encircle him, as one belonging to another world, though lingering among us: the tidings of his death were received with solemn awe.'
Jay cherished a firm belief in Providence, confirmed by his long life of varied experience and thoughtful observation. Proverbially courteous and urbane, he was, at the same time, inflexible in the withdrawal of all confidence when once deceived or disappointed in character. Clear and strong in his religious convictions, he was none the less free from intolerance; he enjoyed communion with a Quaker neighbor as well as correspondence with clerical friends of different persuasions, though himself a stanch Episcopalian.
Underlying a singularly contained demeanor and aptitude for calm and serious investigations, there was a vein of pleasant humor which enhanced the charm of his intimate companionship; bold, independent, and tenacious in opinion, when once formed, he was perfectly modest in personal bearing and intercourse; his mind was more logical than severe in temper, more vigorous than versatile, judicial in taste and tone, with more precision than eagerness; and his temperament united the gravity of a cultivated and thoughtful with the vivacity and amenity of a harmonious and cheerful nature. Like Washington and Morris, he was fond of agricultural pursuits; and like them, his example as a statesman seems to acquire new force and beauty from the long and contented retirement from official life that evinced the plenitude of his own resources, and evidenced how much more a sense of public duty than political ambition had been the motive power of his civic career. It is this which distinguishes the first-class representative men of our country from the mere politicians; we feel that their essential individuality of character and genius was superior to the accidents of position; that their intrinsic worth and real dignity required no addition from fame or fortune--that they are nobler than their offices, superior to their popularity, above their external relation to the parties and functions illustrated by their talents, and made memorable by their integrity.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] 'Life and Letters of Washington Irving,' by Pierre M. Irving. New York: G. P. Putnam.
[14] Elements of International Law. By Henry Wheaton. Edited by W.B. Laurens. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
[15] The Federalist. Edited by H. B. Dawson. New York: C. Scribner.
[16] 'Caxtoniana.'
A SIGH.
How can I live, my love, so far from thee, Since far from thee my spirit droops and dies? Who is there left, my love, for me to see, Since beauty is concentrate in thine eyes? My only life is sending thee my sighs, Which, as sweet birds fly home from deserts lone, Fly swift to thee as each swift moment flies, Uprising from the current of my moan. But closed is still thy heart of cruel stone, And my poor sighs drop murdered at thy feet, For which, while I in grief do sigh and groan, New hosts arise to meet a death so sweet, Ah! love, give scorn; for if love thou shouldst give, How could I love thee in thy sight, and live?
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
A PHILOSOPHIC DEBATE.
_A._ I would like to hear your opinions regarding the antiquity of our race: geologists are daily becoming bolder and more unhesitating in their assertions on the subject; and we are fast drifting toward conclusions that seem to startle the religious world, and threaten to upset our confidence in that Book which we have been accustomed to regard with profoundest reverence.
_B._ Never, sir, never: the hand of true science can never rise as the antagonist of revelation: revelation, rightly understood, must ever find in science a brother, a protector, a friend.
_A._ How would you maintain your position, if the geologists should arrive at a final conclusion on the subject, and declare positively that men existed in the world twenty or thirty thousand years ago?
_B._ They have arrived at such a conclusion already; that is to say, they have, in a stratum which cannot be less than twenty thousand years old, unearthed some skeletons of a mammal resembling man. But let these skeletons resemble ours ever so closely, I, for one, am not prepared to concede that these creatures, when they existed, were men in the sense that we are. Revelation declares quite explicitly that the present race is not more than six thousand years old.
_A._ What theory, then, must we adopt respecting these human-shaped fossils? Why do you deny that they were men like us?
_B._ Tell me what a human being is, and I will answer your query.
_A._ The definition would be a somewhat prolix one.
_B._ It will be sufficient for our purpose that you admit two points regarding the existing race.
_A._ The first?
_B._ That man _has_ a body.
_A._ Good. The second?
_B._ That man _is_ a soul, a spiritual being.
_A._ Good.
_B._ Well, then; answer me this: Were the men whose remains are now being discovered, of a spiritual nature, and endowed with minds? Might they not rather have been mere mammals, shaped indeed in the same external mould as that in which the Creator intended, when the time should come, to form his masterpiece; but not as yet tenanted by that divine nature which would have entitled him to rank with the race existing now?
_A._ Such questions it is hardly the province of geology to solve. But it may fairly be asked, What right have we to suppose that beings ever existed who were men only in shape, but who were destitute of the spiritual nature? Does the Bible allow us any margin on which to base such a belief? Do the sacred writers mention the creation of two human races, one endowed with merely an animal nature, the other possessing a spiritual nature?
_B._ Scripture does so in passages which I shall point out presently. But first, concede to me this one point, admitted by many theologians already, that in the first and second chapters of Scripture, the term 'day' has an ambiguous meaning--that the days were vast geological eras.
_A._ Granted.
_B._ The first human creation spoken of by Moses is that mentioned in Gen. i. 27, where, immediately after recording the creation of the inferior animals, it is said that 'God created man in his own image,' etc. Thus the visible and external creation has received its top and climax: the animals have found a master. After that, we are told that 'the evening and the morning were the sixth day.' Then the second chapter is opened, and the seventh day is described as forming a vast interval of rest.
_A._ All true.
_B._ Now look at the seventh verse of this second chapter. The words are: 'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul.' Now I regard this passage as referring to a creation quite distinct from that of the first chapter.
_A._ Theologians have been in the habit of considering the two passages as descriptive of the same act.
_B._ I am aware of it. But by what right have they done so? Everywhere else in Genesis we find events recorded in chronological order, and there is no reason why the historian should in this instance commit the irregularity of passing from the end of the seventh day to the beginning of the sixth: it is certainly much more likely that in the story of the second chapter and seventh verse he has passed on to an event which transpired at the close of the seventh day, or, still more probably, on the _first_ day of a new series. And if it were so, we would thus have, in the time of this second and spiritual creation, a beautiful symbol of a more recent first-day's-work, when manifestation was made of a life far nobler than Adam's.
_A._ Your parallel is not without beauty, and, therefore, not without weight; but I cannot see enough of difference between the two accounts to warrant the hypothesis that the first refers to an unspiritual man, the second to a spiritual. The first account says that 'man was made in God's image.' The second says of the man which it describes, that 'God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul.'
_B._ We must not attach too much importance to the term 'God's image.' The sacred writer might make use of such an expression merely to show the excellency of the image or form of the body of this first human race, whose frame, relatively to the inferior animals, was, _par excellence_, God's image. And on the whole, the difference between the two accounts is very wide and very important. The first passage does not stand connected with the history of the present race at all: the second does. In the former passage the creation of a _race_ is described, but the _individual_ is not even named: in the latter we are not merely told of a race, we are introduced to an individual. His name is given, and he is connected with the existing race of mankind by a continuous history. In speaking of the difference between the two passages, it were well to consider that, till of late, there has been no reason to suspect their real significancy, _i. e._, to suppose that they spoke of two creations and two races. But now that the proofs of a pre-Adamite race are fast accumulating upon us, it were well to inquire whether God's revelation has not anticipated the story which the strange hieroglyphics of his finger are now unfolding. The philologist and the geologist are each deciphering the same story in two different books, that are equally divine. It remains to be seen which will be the first to read correctly.
_A._ The account in the second chapter certainly speaks explicitly enough of the creation of the soul or spirit.
_B._ Yes; and observe this: that the seventh day, a mighty geological era, has elapsed between the two creations--a period long enough for the first race to pass entirely away, leaving behind them as their only memorials a few skeletons, to be dug up here and there in the nineteenth century of the Christian era. When the last specimen of the anterior race had been long dead, God created the new man, 'breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,' and gave him a mind and a name to distinguish him from the former race that had borne the same image.
_A._ Of course we cannot expect geologists to discriminate between the two races, seeing they differed only by the latter having a spiritual nature, while the former had not.
_B._ Of course not.
_A._ Perhaps, then, there is, after all not so much absurdity as has been supposed in the oriental traditions of pre-Adamite kings.
_B._ It need not surprise us that there should, among primitive nations, exist some traditionary vestiges of the first race: and such traditions were probably derived from some very reliable source. But be that as it may, I am not afraid to trust the settlement of the entire question to the arbitration of time.
WHO KNOWS?
Who knows but the hope that we bury to-day May be the seed of success to-morrow? We could not weep o'er the coffined clay If a lovelier life it should never borrow. Did we know that the worm had conquered all, That Death had forever secured his plunder, Not a sigh would escape, not a tear would fall, For the human heart must burst asunder. Death mimics life, and life feigns death: What parts them but a fleeting breath?
Who knows but the love that in silence broods, Slinking away to some lonely corner, May yet, in the change of times and moods, Sit proudly throned in the heart of the scorner? I have seen a haughty soul destroy The glittering prize that once it bled for; I have seen the sad heart leap for joy, And smiling grant what it vainly plead for: True tears the flashing eye may wet, The lip that curled may quiver yet.
Who knows but the dream that mocks our sleep With visions that end in a sorrowful waking, Leaving just enough of brightness to keep Our souls from despair and our hearts from breaking, May come in the heat of the midday glare, Or the afternoon with its gorgeous splendor, Palpable, real, but not less fair, With airs as soft and touch as tender? Morn breaks on the longest night of sorrow, And there is more than one to-morrow.
LITERARY NOTICES.
LINNET'S TRIAL. A Tale. By S. M., Author of 'Twice Lost.' Second Edition. Loring, publisher, 319 Washington street, Boston. 1864.
A moral and interesting novel. There is a fascinating freshness and originality about it, pervaded by genial humor and strong common sense, and an utter absence of all common and clap-trap sensational expedients. The plot is simple, but well conceived; the characters consistent and clear cut, the incidental remarks tolerant and full of spirit. We know no more true and delightful character-painting than that of Rose. Her shyness, exclusiveness, pettishness, and ignorance are delicious in the rosy girl of sixteen. Her friendship with Linnet, a woman of imaginative and impassioned stamp, is natural in conception, and skilfully rendered. Linnet is expansive and sympathetic, her sweet and all-pervading influence is the true charm of the book. The woman of beauty and genius ripens into the perfect wife, strengthening weak hands and reviving courage in weary, doubting hearts. 'Linnet is like an alabaster vase, only seen to perfection when lighted up from within.'
We heartily recommend 'Linnet' to all readers of fiction, who like to study character through its rainbow sheen.
PHANTOM FLOWERS. A Treatise on the Art of Producing Skeleton Leaves. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co. 1864.
A complete treatise on this beautiful art, in which typography and illustrations are alike perfect. The directions given are ample and accurate. The contents are: Chap. 1. Anatomy of a Leaf; Green and Dried Leaves. 2. Preparing the Leaves and Flowers. 3. Bleaching the Leaves and Seed Vessels. 4. Arranging the Bouquets. 5. Illustrated List of Plants for Skeletonizing. 6. Seed Vessels. 7. The Wonders and Uses Of a Leaf. 8. Leaf Printing. 9, Commercial Value of the Art; Preservation of Flowers. We have accurate cuts of the skeletonized leaves of the American Swamp Magnolia, Silver Poplar, Aspen Poplar, Tulip Poplar, Norway Maple, Linden and Weeping Willow, European Sycamore, English Ash, Everlasting Pea, Elm, Deutzia, Beech, Hickory, Chestnut, Dwarf Pear, Sassafras, Althea, Rose, Fringe Tree, Dutchman's Pipe, Ivy and Holly, with proper times of gathering and individual processes of manipulation for securing success with each. 'Fanciful though expressive,' says our author, 'is the appellation of 'Phantom' or 'Spiritual' Flowers; it was given to the first American specimens by those who produced them, and it has since become so general as to be everywhere understood and accepted as their most appropriate name. Referring to the process by which these flowers are prepared, a Christian friend beautifully used them as emblems of the Resurrection, and as illustrating the ideas--'Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body,' and, 'This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality.''
All who practise this beautiful and _lucrative_ art with any hope of success, should purchase 'Phantom Flowers,' the result of _five years'_ industrious and intelligent effort.
POEMS: With Translations from the German of Geibel and Others. By _Lucy Hamilton Hooper_. Philadelphia: Frederick Leypoldt.
These translations are of far more than ordinary merit. From his exceeding and tender simplicity, Geibel is very difficult to render aright: a word too much will frequently ruin the stanza in which it may have been introduced almost necessarily to fill up the rhythm or consummate the rhyme; a single injudicious ornament will spoil the whole effect of the cadenced emotions of which his poems consist. We have tried Geibel, and the songs of Heine, and know the difficulties; we heartily congratulate our authoress on her success. Nor are her own poems less beautiful. Musically rhythmed, delicately worded, and purely felt, they commend themselves to the reader. They do not soar into the region of abstract thought; they are without pretension, mysticism, or effort. She challenges no crown, her range is limited, but our hearts swell and throb with the emotions she sings. A single specimen will best elucidate our meaning:
BABY LILY.
She was a purer, fairer bud Than summer's sun uncloses; Spring brought her with the violets; She left us with the roses.
A little pillow, where the print Of her small head yet lingers; A silver coral, tarnished o'er With clasp of tiny fingers;
A mound, the rose bush at the head Were all too long to measure;-- And this is _all_ that Heaven has left Of her, our little treasure.
O human pearl, so pale and pure! 0 little lily blossom! The angels lent a little space To grace a mortal bosom.
The azure heavens bend above, Unpitying and cruel; A casket all too cold and vast To shrine our little jewel.
We cannot picture her to mind, An angel, crowned and holy; A fair and helpless human thing, Our hearts still keep her solely.
Sleep, baby, calmly in thy nest Amid the fading flowers, The while we strive to learn the words: 'God's will be done--not ours!'
HISTORY OF THE ROMANS UNDER THE EMPIRE. By CHARLES MERIVALE, B. D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. From the fourth London Edition. With a copious Analytical Index. Vol. IV. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 & 445 Broadway.
The character of this work is so high and so widely known that it is only necessary to remind or inform our readers of the appearance of the fourth volume to awaken their interest. Merivale succeeds in making his subject intensely interesting. Beginning with the anticipations of a constitutional monarchy, the indifference of the citizens on political questions, the legislative measures to encourage marriage, the efforts of Augustus to revive the national sentiment, this volume carries us quite through his important reign, with all its great events and domestic dramas. We have descriptions of the nature of life in Rome, places of recreation, exhibitions of wild beasts and gladiators, the schools of the rhetoricians, as well as studies of the authors, Livy, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, each reflecting in his own way the sentiments of the Augustan age. It is a complex and important period of history, and nobly treated by our author. Brutus and Cassius evoke no false sympathy. The character of Augustus is closely analyzed, and the sketch of the Roman dominion, in its political, social, and intellectual outlines, is able and interesting.
RECEIVED.
CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. No. CCXLIV. July, 1864. Contents: Character and Historical Position of Theodore Parker; The New King of Greece; Robert Browning; Marsh's 'Man and Nature;' Robert Lowell; Renan's Critical Essays; Edward Livingston; A Word on the War; Review of Current Literature.
NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCIV. July, 1864. Contents: A Physical Theory of the Universe; The Property and Rights of Married Women; The Philosophy of Space and Time; The Constitution, and it Defects; The Navy of the United States; Our Soldiers; A National Currency; The Rebellion: its Causes and Consequences; Critical Notices.
THE UNIVERSALIST QUARTERLY. July, 1864. Contents: When are the Dead Raised? The Contraband; Faith and Works; Charles the Bold; In Memoriam: a Tribute to T. Starr King; General Review; Recent Publications; Synopsis of the Quarterlies.
BOSTON REVIEW. No. XXII. July, 1864. Contents: The Relations of Sin and Atonement to Infant Salvation; The Publication of Free Descriptions of Vice; The Rabbis, the Mischna, and the Talmuds, and their Aid in New Testament Studies; Huxley on Man's Place in Nature; Teachings of the Rebellion; Pascal; Short Sermons; Literary Notices; The Round Table.