Chapter 1

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"TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE"

ADDRESS OF

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

FOUNDERS' DAY, JANUARY 16, 1913

"'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE"

In the single hour self-allotted for my part in this occasion there is much ground to cover,--the time is short, and I have far to go. Did I now, therefore, submit all I had proposed to say when I accepted your invitation, there would remain no space for preliminaries. Yet something of that character is in place. I will try to make it brief.[1]

As the legend or text of what I have in mind to submit, I have given the words "'Tis Sixty Years Since." As some here doubtless recall, this is the second or subordinate title of Walter Scott's first novel, "Waverley," which brought him fame. Given to the world in 1814,--hard on a century ago,--"Waverley" told of the last Stuart effort to recover the crown of Great Britain,--that of "The '45." It so chances that Scott's period of retrospect is also just now most appropriate in my case, inasmuch as I entered Harvard as a student in the year 1853--"sixty years since!" It may fairly be asserted that school life ends, and what may in contradistinction thereto be termed thinking and acting life begins, the day the young man passes the threshold of the institution of more advanced education. For him, life's responsibilities then begin. Prior to that confused, thenceforth things with him become consecutive,--a sequence. Insensibly he puts away childish things.

[1] Owing to its length, this "Address" was compressed in delivery, occupying one hour only. It is here printed in the form in which it was prepared,--the parts omitted in delivery being included.

In those days, as I presume now, the college youth harkened to inspired voices. Sir Walter Scott belonged to a previous generation. Having held the close attention of a delighted world as the most successful story-teller of his own or any preceding period, he had passed off the stage; but only a short twenty years before. Other voices no less inspired had followed; and, living, spoke to us. Perhaps my scheme to-day is best expressed by one of these.

When just beginning to attract the attention of the English-speaking world, Alfred Tennyson gave forth his poem of "Locksley Hall,"--very familiar to those of my younger days. Written years before, at the time of publication he was thirty-three. In 1886, a man of seventy-five, he composed a sequel to his earlier effort,--the utterance entitled "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." He then, you will remember, reviewed his young man's dreams,--dreams of the period when he

" ... dip't into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be,"

--threescore years later contrasting in sombre verse an old man's stern realities with the bright anticipations of youth. Such is my purpose to-day. "Wandering back to living boyhood," to the time when I first simultaneously passed the Harvard threshold and the threshold of responsible life, I propose to compare the ideals and actualities of the present with the ideals, anticipations and dreams of a past now somewhat remote.

To say that in life and in the order of life's events it is the unexpected which is apt to occur, is a commonplace. That it has been so in my own case, I shall presently show. Meanwhile, not least among the unexpected things is my presence here to-day. If, when I entered Harvard in 1853, it had been suggested that in 1913, I,--born of the New England Sanhedrim, a Brahmin Yankee by blood, tradition and environment--had it been suggested that I, being such, would sixty years later stand by invitation here in Columbia before the faculty and students of the University of South Carolina, I should under circumstances then existing have pronounced the suggestion as beyond reasonable credence. Here, however, I am; and here, from this as my rostrum, I propose to-day to deliver a message,--such as it is.

And yet, though such a future outcome, if then foretold, would have seemed scarcely possible of occurrence, there, after all, were certain conditions which would have rendered the contingency even at that time not only possible, but in accordance with the everlasting fitness of things. For, curiously enough, personal relations of a certain character held with this institution would have given me, even in 1853, a sense of acquaintance with it such as individually I had with no other institution of similar character throughout the entire land. It in this wise came about. At that period, preceding as it did the deluge about to ensue, it was the hereditary custom of certain families more especially of South Carolina and of Louisiana,--but of South Carolina in particular--to send their youth to Harvard, there to receive a college education. It thus chanced that among my associates at Harvard were not a few who bore names long familiarly and honorably known to Carolinian records,--Barnwell and Preston, Rhett and Alston, Parkman and Eliot; and among these were some I knew well, and even intimately. Gone now with the generation and even the civilization to which they belonged, I doubt if any of them survive. Indeed only recently I chanced on a grimly suggestive mention of one who had left on me the memory of a character and personality singularly pure, high-toned and manly,--permeated with a sense of moral and personal obligation. I have always understood he died five years later at Sharpsburg, as you call it, or Antietam, as it was named by us, in face-to-face conflict with a Massachusetts regiment largely officered by Harvard men of his time and even class,--his own familiar friends. This is the record, the reference being to a marriage service held at St. Paul's church in Richmond, in the late autumn of 1862: "An indefinable feeling of gloom was thrown over a most auspicious event when the bride's youngest sister glided through a side door just before the processional. Tottering to a chancel pew, she threw herself upon the cushions, her slight frame racked with sobs. Scarcely a year before, the wedding march had been played for her, and a joyous throng saw her wedded to gallant Breck Parkman. Before another twelvemonth rolled around the groom was killed at the front."[2] Samuel Breck Parkman was in the Harvard class following that to which I belonged. Graduating in 1857, fifty-five years later I next saw his name in the connection just given. It recorded an incident of not infrequent occurrence in those dark and cruel days.

It was, however, in Breck Parkman and his like that I first became conscious of certain phases of the South Carolina character which subsequently I learned to bear in high respect.

So far as this University of South Carolina was concerned, it also so chanced that, by the merest accident, I, a very young man, was thrown into close personal relations with one of the most eminent of your professors,--Francis Lieber. Few here, I suppose, now personally remember Francis Lieber. To most it gives indeed a certain sense of remoteness to meet one who, as in my case, once held close and even intimate relations with a German emigrant, distinguished as a publicist, who as a youth had lain, wounded and helpless, a Prussian recruit, on the field above Namur. Occurring in June, 1815, two days after Waterloo, the affair at Namur will soon be a century gone. Of those engaged in it, the last obeyed the fell sergeant's summons a half score years ago. It seems remote; but at the time of which I speak Waterloo was appreciably nearer those in active life than are Shiloh and Gettysburg now. The Waterloo campaign was then but thirty-eight years removed, whereas those last are fifty now; and, while Lieber was at Waterloo, I was myself at Gettysburg.

[2] DeLeon, "Belles, Beaux and Brains of the Sixties," p. 158.

Subsequently, later in life, it was again my privilege to hold close relations with another Columbian,--an alumnus of this University as it then was--in whom I had opportunity to study some of the strongest and most respect-commanding traits of the Southern character. I refer to one here freshly remembered,--Alexander Cheves Haskell,--soldier, jurist, banker and scholar, one of a septet of brothers sent into the field by a South Carolina mother calm and tender of heart, but in silent suffering unsurpassed by any recorded in the annals whether of Judea or of Rome. It was the fourth of the seven Haskells I knew, one typical throughout, in my belief, of what was best in your Carolinian development. With him, as I have said, I was closely and even intimately associated through years, and in him I had occasion to note that almost austere type represented in its highest development in the person and attributes of Calhoun. Of strongly marked descent, Haskell was, as I have always supposed, of a family and race in which could be observed those virile Scotch-Irish and Presbyterian qualities which found their representative types in the two Jacksons,--Andrew, and him known in history as "Stonewall." To Alec Haskell I shall in this discourse again have occasion to refer.

Thus, though in 1853, and for long years subsequent thereto, it would not have entered my mind as among the probabilities that I should ever stand here, reviewing the past after the manner of Tennyson in his "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," yet if there was any place in the South, or, I may say, in the entire country, where, as a matter of association, I might naturally have looked so to stand, it would have been where now I find myself.

But I must hasten on; for, as I have said, if I am to accomplish even a part of my purpose, I have no time wherein to linger.

Not long ago I chanced, in a country ramble, to be conversing with an eminent foreigner, known, and favorably known, to all Americans. In the course of leisurely exchange of ideas between us, he suddenly asked if I could suggest any explanation of the fact that not only were the publicists who had the greatest vogue in our college days now to a large extent discredited, but that almost every view and theory advanced by them, and which we had accepted as fixed and settled, was, where not actually challenged, silently ignored. Nor did the assertion admit of denial; for, looking back through the vista of threescore years, of the principles of what may be called "public polity" then advanced as indisputable, few to-day meet with general acceptance. To review the record from this point of view is curious.

When in 1853 I entered Harvard, so far as this country and its polity were concerned certain things were matters of contention, while others were accepted as axiomatic,--the basic truths of our system. Among the former--the subjects of active contention--were the question of Slavery, then grimly assuming shape, and that of Nationality intertwined therewith. Subordinate to this was the issue of Free Trade and Protection, with the school of so-called American political economy arrayed against that of Adam Smith. Beyond these as political ideals were the tenets and theories of Jeffersonian Democracy. That the world had heretofore been governed too much was loudly acclaimed, and the largest possible individualism was preached, not only as a privilege but as a right. The area of government action was to be confined within the narrowest practical limits, and ample scope was to be allowed to each to develop in the way most natural to himself, provided only he did not infringe upon the rights of others. Materially, we were then reaching out to subdue a continent,--a doctrine of Manifest Destiny was in vogue. Beyond this, however, and most important now to be borne in mind, compared with the present the control of man over natural agencies and latent forces was scarcely begun. Not yet had the railroad crossed the Missouri; electricity, just bridled, was still unharnessed.

I have now passed in rapid review what may perhaps without exaggeration be referred to as an array of conditions and theories, ideals and policies. It remains to refer to the actual results which have come about during these sixty years as respects them, or because of them; and, finally, to reach if possible conclusions as to the causes which have affected what may not inaptly be termed a process of general evolution. Having thus, so to speak, diagnosed the situation, the changes the situation exacts are to be measured, and a forecast ventured. An ambitious programme, I am well enough aware that the not very considerable reputation I have established for myself hardly warrants me in attempting it. This, I premise.

Let us, in the first place, recur in somewhat greater detail to the various policies and ideals I have referred to as in vogue in the year 1853.

First and foremost, overshadowing all else, was the political issue raised by African slavery, then ominously assuming shape. The clouds foreboding the coming tempest were gathering thick and heavy; and, moreover, they were even then illumined by electric flashes, accompanied by a mutter of distant thunder. Though we of the North certainly did not appreciate its gravity, the situation was portentous in the extreme.

Involved in this problem of African slavery was the incidental issue of Free Trade and Protection,--apparently only economical and industrial in character, but in reality fundamentally crucial. And behind this lay the constitutional question, involving as it did not only the conflicting theories of a strict or liberal construction of the fundamental law, but nationality also,--the right of a Sovereign State to withdraw from the Union created in 1787, and developed through two generations.

These may be termed concrete political issues, as opposed to basic truths generally accepted and theories individually entertained. The theories were constitutional, social, economical. Constitutionally, they turned upon the obligations of citizenship. There was no such thing then as a citizen of the United States of and by itself. The citizen of the United States was such simply because of his citizenship of a Sovereign State,--whether Massachusetts or Virginia or South Carolina; and, of course, an instrument based upon a divided sovereignty admitted of almost infinitely diverse interpretation. It is a scriptural aphorism that no man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. And in the fulness of time it literally with us so came about. The accepted economical theories of the period were to a large extent corollaries of the fundamental proposition, and differing material and social conditions. Beyond all this, and coming still under the head of individual theories, was the doctrine enunciated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence,--the doctrine that all men were created equal,--meaning, of course, equal before the law. But the theorist and humanitarian of the North, accepting the fundamental principle laid down in the Declaration, gave to it a far wider application than had been intended by its authors,--a breadth of application it would not bear. Such science as he had being of scriptural origin, he interpreted the word "equal" as signifying equal in the possibilities of their attributes,--physical, moral, intellectual; and in so doing, he of course ignored the first principles of ethnology. It was, I now realize, a somewhat wild-eyed school of philosophy, that of which I myself was a youthful disciple.

But, on the other hand, beside these, between 1850 and 1860 a class of trained and more cautious thinkers, observers, scientists and theologians was coming to the front. Their investigations, though we did not then foresee it, were a generation later destined gently to subvert the accepted fundamentals of religious and economical thought, literary performance, and material existence. The work they had in hand to do was for the next fifteen years to be subordinate, so far as this country was concerned, to the solution of the terrible political problems which were first insistent on settlement; yet, as is now apparent, an initial movement was on foot which foreboded a revolution world-wide in its nature, and one in comparison with which the issues of slavery and American constitutionality became practically insignificant,--in a word, local and passing incidents.

Finally, it remains to consider specifically the political theories then in vogue in their relation to the individual. In this country, it was the period of the equality of man and individuality in the development of the type. It was generally believed that the world had hitherto been governed too much,--that the day of caste, and even class, was over and gone; and finally, that America was a species of vast modern melting-pot of humanity, in which, within a comparatively short period of time, the characteristics of all branches of Indo-Aryan origin would resolve themselves. A new type would emerge,--the American. These theories were also in their consequences far-reaching. Practically, 1853 antedates all our present industrial organizations so loudly in evidence,--the multifarious trades-unions which now divide the population of the United States into what are known as the "masses" and the "classes." As recently as a century ago, it used to be said of the French army under the Empire, that every soldier carried the baton of the Field-Marshal in his knapsack. And this ideal of equality and individuality was fixed in the American mind.

Not that I for a moment mean to imply that in my belief the middle of the last century, or the twenty years anterior to the Civil War, was a species of golden age in our American annals. On the contrary, it was, as I remember it, a phase of development very open to criticism; and that in many respects. It was crude, self-conscious and self-assertive; provincial and formative, rather than formed. Socially and materially we were, compared with the present era of motors and parlor-cars, in the "one-hoss shay" and stove-heated railroad-coach stage. Nevertheless, what is now referred to as "predatory wealth" had not yet begun to accumulate in few hands; much greater equality of condition prevailed; nor was the "wage-earner" referred to as constituting a class distinct from the holders of property. Thus the individual was then encouraged,--whether in literature, in commerce, or in politics. In other words, there being a free field, one man was held to be in all respects the equal of the rest. Especially was what I have said true of the Northern, or so-called Free States, as contrasted with the States of the South, where the presence of African slavery distinctly affected individual theories, no matter where or to what extent entertained.

Such, briefly and comprehensively stated, having been the situation in 1853, it remains to consider the practical outcome thereof during the sixty years it has been my fortune to take part, either as an actor or as an observer, in the great process of evolution. It is curious to note the extent to which the unexpected has come about. In the first place, consider the all-absorbing mid-century political issue, that involving the race question, to which I first referred,--the issue which divided the South from the North, and which, eight years only after I had entered college, carried me from the walks of civil life into the calling of arms.

And here I enter on a field of discussion both difficult and dangerous; and, for reasons too obvious to require statement, what I am about to say will be listened to with no inconsiderable apprehension as to what next may be forthcoming. Nevertheless, this is a necessary part of my theme; and I propose to say what I have in mind to say, setting forth with all possible frankness the more mature conclusions reached with the passage of years. Let it be received in the spirit in which it is offered.

So far, then, as the institution of slavery is concerned, in its relations to ownership and property in those of the human species,--I have seen no reason whatever to revise or in any way to alter the theories and principles I entertained in 1853, and in the maintenance of which I subsequently bore arms between 1861 and 1865. Economically, socially, and from the point of view of abstract political justice, I hold that the institution of slavery, as it existed in this country prior to the year 1865, was in no respect either desirable or justifiable. That it had its good and even its elevating side, so far at least as the African is concerned, I am not here to deny. On the contrary, I see and recognize those features of the institution far more clearly now than I should have said would have been possible in 1853. That the institution in itself, under conditions then existing, tended to the elevation of the less advanced race, I frankly admit I did not then think. On the other hand, that it exercised a most pernicious influence upon those of the more advanced race, and especially upon that large majority of the more advanced race who were not themselves owners of slaves,--of that I have become with time ever more and more satisfied. The noticeable feature, however, so far as I individually am concerned, has been the entire change of view as respects certain of the fundamental propositions at the base of our whole American political and social edifice brought about by a more careful and intelligent ethnological study. I refer to the political equality of man, and to that race absorption to which I have alluded,--that belief that any foreign element introduced into the American social system and body politic would speedily be absorbed therein, and in a brief space thoroughly assimilated. In this all-important respect I do not hesitate to say we theorists and abstractionists of the North, throughout that long anti-slavery discussion which ended with the 1861 clash of arms, were thoroughly wrong. In utter disregard of fundamental, scientific facts, we theoretically believed that all men--no matter what might be the color of their skin, or the texture of their hair--were, if placed under exactly similar conditions, in essentials the same. In other words, we indulged in the curious and, as is now admitted, utterly erroneous theory that the African was, so to speak, an Anglo-Saxon, or, if you will, a Yankee "who had never had a chance,"--a fellow-man who was guilty, as we chose to express it, of a skin not colored like our own. In other words, though carved in ebony, he also was in the image of God.

Following out this theory, under the lead of men to whom scientific analysis and observation were anathema if opposed to accepted cardinal political theories as enunciated in the Declaration as read by them, the African was not only emancipated, but so far as the letter of the law, as expressed in an amended Constitution, would establish the fact, the quondam slave was in all respects placed on an equality, political, legal and moral, with those of the more advanced race.

I do not hesitate here,--as one who largely entertained the theoretical views I have expressed,--I do not hesitate here to say, as the result of sixty years of more careful study and scientific observation, the theories then entertained by us were not only fundamentally wrong, but they further involved a problem in the presence of which I confess to-day I stand appalled.