THE AMERICAN STATE AND AMERICA-N STATESMEN. BY WILLIAM GILES DIX. BOSTON: ESTES AND LAURIAT. 187-6. Copyright, 1875. By WILLIAM GILES DIX. University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridcu. PREFACE, As the festivals of the Church are preceded by retreats, in order that humihation may open the door of joy, so is it wise that patriotic reflection should go before and even go under patriotic jubilees. Has our country been faithful to her origin, her duty, and her destiny ? Have we been faith- ful to our country ? That patriotism alone is real which truly tries to ask and answer these questions. He is most a patriot, as he is most a Christian, whose soul kneels in penitence before she soars in exultation. Now, when the full arch of a hundred years spans or soon will span the chief events of our early history as com- monly received, and their recent or coming commemoration, it is not the spirit or desire of discord which entreats that some tones of warning may be heard and heeded, before resounds the universal and triumphant music of congratu- lation. Are we sure that we have reached the very summit of po- litical wisdom in our structure of government ? This ground is constantly assumed. Is it rightly assumed ? Have we long since passed the point where it was our plain duty to learn ; and has it long since become our plain prerogative to teach ? I affirm, and claim to be no less true to America for so affirming, that, as regards the principles of civil gov- ly PREFACE. ernment, we have quite as much to learn as to teach ; and that, as regards the sure, ready, simple, effective, and just application of the principles of civil government, we have far more to learn than to teach. This ground may be wounding to our national pride, but is that alone to be considered ? Is it not better that our national pride should be wounded by the healing probe, than that our national honor, welfare, and glory should be wounded unto death by demagogues and destructives, whose only principle of government is a majority of votes, and whose only political policy is the determination to live and thrive at the expense of the government, and without regard to expense ? Have we, as Americans, duly considered the principles of government? Have we even admitted that there are any such principles ? Has it not rather been our boast, that there are no principles of government beyond the will of the people, the platforms of political conventions, and the laws of the States or of Congress ? Even the Constitution is re- garded more frequently as a practical rule of procedure than as an exponent of organic law. It will be hard to find in the language of American politicians a single word ac- knowledging that principles of civil order are inexorable and universal laws, as independent of popular sovereignty as the light and motion of the sun, moon, and stars. Yet principles of government will claim recognition soon- er or later'. They cannot be discarded forever. So long rejected as intruders in American history, they will yet be hailed, honored, and followed as guides. Look at that grand old word Loyalty. For a hundred years that word had been scouted and scorned in America, driven in igno- PREFACE. V minious exile from the hearts and lips of men, pelted with stones, and daubed with mire ; yet, when the national life was in peril, the rejected exile was sought out, — like some noble hero of Greece or Rome, banished in the hour of pub- lic pride, but recalled in the hour of public danger, — was summoned to the front of war, and, with unwavering march and with inspiring eye and voice, led our armies to victory and peace. Have we not been trying to get along, somehow for nearly a hundred years without any principles of government ? Is our government, or what we call a government by conceit, as foreign nations call it a government by courtesy, anything more, have we ever tried to make it anything more, has it not been our special American pride that it is nothing more, than an ingenious balance and compromise of poli- cies ? Can we be said, for instance, to recognize such a principle as national law, when what is law in one part of the country is directly contrary to law in another part of the country ; that is, when a man in one State may be a good and true citizen, doing as he does, and, having gone to an- other State, the same man, for doing the same things in the same way, may be, if not a felon, at least a disturber of the peace and a law-breaker? Are we wise in claiming for what we call our system of government the right of being the American dispensation of civil rule, to be in due time adopted by all the world, though, wherever and whenever the characteristic marks of our civil polity, in which we take pride, have been imitated, the result has been, in every instance, without a single ex- ception, in either hemisphere, a thorough, dismal, and dis- astrous failure ? Can principles, immutable and universal VI PREFACE. principles, — and principles cannot be principles, unless im- mutable and universal, — can they possibly be of such lim- ited, if not transient application ? Look at every inch of independent Spanish America ! Look at the recent history instead of being skimmed off and thrown away, is piously preserved, and perhaps is sent to Congress, as bait for lobbies. No man, it seems to me, can justly deny the great merit of President Grant in guiding our armies with wisdom and success, or can refuse to him the deep gratitude which he has deserved and won ; yet no man can justly affirm that he has high intellectual affinities and sympathies, — those qualities of the head warmed by the heart, and of the heart invigorated by the head, which in all ages and in all countries constitute the highest kind of men, the leaders of the race. He did his duty and share in saving what we had. Thank him and thank God for that ! Yet he has developed but little 1 8 THE AMERICAN STATE. of that power, in his civil administration, which the times demanded, — that power which impresses itself upon people and institutions for ages, which leads a nation out of the marshes and quicksands of disorder, consolidates and concentrates authority, wins and holds the hearts of thousands, not only by heroic ability but by heroic enthusiasm, and is even stronger in death than in life. We needed a man whose eye would have seen what the war meant, and whose unbending will and unyield- ing hand would have secured it for the good and the praise of all coming time. We needed a man like those who, here and there, shine out along the centu- ries, who establish dominions upon immovable rocks, and whose fame and praise for their benefits to man- kind are as enduring as the structures they build. We needed a man who would recognize the permanent glory of nations, the inspiring power of books, of works of art, of Christian institutions, — who would favor and encourage with all his energy all the objects of true and enduring fame. We needed a man whose personality would throb through all the ages of his country's life, like that of Alfred in England. No such man was found. No such man is found. It is not the fault of President Grant that he is not an architect of domin- ion ; that he is not, in other words, one of the immortal men of history : but it is, at least, his misfortune that he has failed to see what his country needs for its honor, security, and peace ; and he seems to repel SENATORS AND STATES. 1 9 those who do see and know it. He could wisely com- bine armies, but he seems to have no skill or inclina- tion to organize civil authority. After rendering so great and noble service in the field, he seems to be willing to float down the current of his country's his- tory on " flowery beds of ease," rather than to see and feel that the war simply cleared the way for the work of peace, — not the pleasure of peace, not the languor of peace, but the work of peace ; that is, the foundation, deep, strong, and imperishable, of national unity. The President was, of course, bound by his oath of office ; but he would not have broken that oath by telling the people plainly what the country needs. To return to Mr. Sumner and his resolution. Mr, Sumner has been too faithful a soldier himself in the Senate, where true courage is more rare than on the battle-field, to permit the belief that he would willingly take away one jot of the honor and praise due to those who put their lives in peril for their country. Happily, it is not in the power of any man, of any senator, of all the country, or of all the world, to pluck one leaf from the laurels of our loyal soldiers. Their record has gone beyond the reach of any blotting pen, and belongs to immortal history and to God. Mr. Sumner's resolu- tion, whether wise or unv/ise, was perfectly consistent with his record for thirty years. He may have thought that, so far from taking away any honor from the na- tional army, it was really adding more, to admit that their work had been so well done that the regimental 20 THE AMERICAN STATE. colors of the army might be permitted to tell their own triumphant story, waving in the free wind in every part of the land, without memorials of civil conflict on their victorious folds. Whatever promotes unity of feeling promotes unity of power. Mr. Sumner may have thought that perhaps the time had come when the soldiers of the whole country, having laid aside their arms, might be willing to kneel together, with heads bared and bowed, and with clasped hands, around the altar of their country, to be strengthened by her sub- lime and sacred power. His wish may have been the father to his thought, but it was an honorable wish. His faith may have been too great, but it was a patri- otic faith. As I understand Mr. Sumner's resolution, it was that the regimental colors of the Regular Army of the United States should not be inscribed with the names of bat- tles in which the victory was won over fellow-citizens ; and I understand him to justify the resolution by refer- ring to the fact that civil wars were not so commemo- rated in England, France, or Spain, or the European countries generally. I think that the illustrations from European history are not exactly appropriate. The contending parties in the civil wars of England, France, and Spain were all equally agreed in upholding the national authority, and had no intention to divide the national territory between them. They fought for the control of the nation, but not for its destruction. They sought to change the dynasty or the form of govern- SENATORS AND STATES. 21 ment, or to promote some special design ; but they all professed, and no doubt sincerely, to respect the na- tional rights as such, and they fought under the flag of their country. Even the Parliament of England made war upon the king in the king's name, and were as eager as the king himself for the honor and interest of the whole British dominion. The royal armies of Charles the First fought loyally for their sovereign, but also patriotically for all their country. The people of Ireland fought with most heroic courage for James the Second, the lawful sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against the invading Prince of Orange ; and later yet, the brave Highlanders of Scotland fought nobly with Charles Edward for his father, the lawful sovereign of Great Britain and Ire- land, against the brutal boor and pretender who oc- cupied his throne. In each case the heroic devotion was unsuccessful. Usurpation and wrong won the day against right and justice ; but neither the English nor the Irish nor the Scotch fought for any division of power or territory, but for the rights of the lawful ruler of the whole national domain. It would have been adding insult to injury with a vengeance, if Oliver Cromwell, William of Orange, or George of Brunswick had emblazoned on the national banners their victories over all that remained of blended loyal and patriotic devotion in the British Empire. That would have been like what might have happened here if the " Con- federate Army " had conquered the National Army and 22 THE AMERICAN STATE. had transferred the capital of the " Confederacy " to Washington. How would our people have liked to have " Bull Run " inscribed on the national banner, and every year to call their humiliation a "glorious revolution," like the people of England in 1688? Robespierre himself, bad as he was, was as firmly patriotic as the Grand Monarch himself, and as decided in upholding the authority of united France. Even those who desired to turn back the tide of ages, and degrade France into a federal republic, did not intend actually to dismember the country. That might have been the result, for federalism is always and every- where disintegrating ; but it was evidently no part of their design. Most certainly it was not avowed. Nevertheless, the French federalists were certainly the enemies of their country in fact, though not by inten- tion. Robespierre was right in regarding them as public enemies, though he had no right to put them to death as traitors, for they were public enemies by construction only. So, since Spain has been one country, though pro- vincial jealousies are stronger there than anywhere else in Europe, yet no Spanish party has striven to break up the unity of their country. Now, as in other times, men, rising in wild insurrection, may disclaim and try to destroy all authority ; yet Spaniards generally would forget all differences, and would rise at once and as one to resist any design or attempt to break Spain into pieces. All Spaniards are proud, as they well may be, SENATORS AND STATES. 23 of their glorious flag, of their noble country, of their chivalric history ; yet Spain, like her illustrious sister, France, has good reason to beware of forfeiting the con- secrated honor and wisdom of ages by fantastic experi- ments, bewildering dreams, and incongruous institutions. To these observations it may be replied, that our country has never been a nation in the same sense as England, France, and Spain are now and were during their civil wars. I admit the force of the objection, and grant that civil war in our country stood in new relations, and is to be judged by itself; or, if com- pared with any conflicts in European history, is to be compared with those only which occurred for ages be- tween baronial and ducal powers and prerogatives and the growing spirit of nationality. Feudalism and fed- eralism are really the same thing ; yet, during all those ages, there was, of course, something like the germ of a central and national power growing continually wider and wider, and absorbing more and more of feudal privilege ; and certainly it would not have been deemed wise or concfliatory towards those who had been ab- sorbed in the rising nationality, to record the victories over them on the flag which was meant to represent the principle and fact of nationality. This considera- tion makes the case stronger for Mr. Sumner's resolu- tion than against it. I presume no thoughtful man will deny that our civil war was a conflict between federal- ism and nationality. To be sure, while the war lasted, the Confederate States had a far more consolidated 24 THE AMERICAN STATE. government than the National States. They were, in fact, a consohdated power, fighting for federal princi- ples ; while the loyal States were a federal Union fight- ing for national principles. This fact explains why the national forces were baffled so long. The government which was fighting against a common nationality had, for the time, far more concentrated energy than the government which was fighting for it. The people of the seceding States, taking up arms avowedly for State rights, yielded not only without grumbling, but with unbounded zeal, to an administration which practically ignored State rights; while the national government and the people of the loyal States were hampered and har- assed all through the war by large numbers professing to be true to the Union, who denounced what little unity of administration could be exercised, and seemed to be a thousand times more eager for State rights than the armed adherents of State rights, as they were a thou- sand times greater public enemies. If each side had acted in consistency with the real theories in dispute, — that is, if the seceding States had conducted the war on the principle of a debating society of sovereign States, and the loyal States had acted throughout with the un- hindered, unflinching energy of a national government, — the war would have been a very short one indeed. By kicking State rights overboard, the Confederate gov- ernment nearly won the race ; by keeping on board the cumbersome deck-load of State rights, the national government nearly lost the race. That race it would SENATORS AND STATES. 25 have lost on account of that deference to State rights, but for its greater resources. Though feclerahsm was weighed in the balances, on both sides of the line, and found equally wanting, it is yet adored like Juggernaut. But I am going further in this direction than I mean at present. I will abruptly return, merely remarking that the more Mr. Sumner's proposition is considered, whether as referring to past events or as an abstract rule, the less deserving it will be found to be of that flood of scorn which by some was thrown upon it. It is open, like all other senatorial acts or designs, to public or private criticism, but not to official censure from any quarter. Special legislation is a curse to any country. On rare occasions it may be required, but so very rarely, that special legislation stands universally condemned in theory. Now, the essential principle of special legisla- tion is an endeavor to make the part greater than the whole. Special legislation is made, not occasional, but the permanent rule, the perpetual order of the day, if a senator is compelled to drag his State into the Sen- ate after him ; and whenever any question arises on which he must decide, he must turn his eyes around to his State, as to a familiar spirit, and, according as she smiles or frowns, must go on or draw back, must vote yes or vote no. The idea that the election of a senator is a retaining fee, paid him by the State, which the sen- ator must accordingly regard as his client, and which he must defend at all hazards, on all points, right or wrong, 2 26 ■ THE AMERICAN STATE. against all the rest of the country, if need be, is subver- sive of all right views of government in theory, and has been, in practice, one of the causes of a long and ter- rible war. States have no right to be lobbies. To choose a man is neither to gag nor to bribe him, nor to bind him to think, speak, and act just as he is offi- cially told to think, speak, and act. The freedom of the Senate should be guarded on all sides, and on no side more strongly than on that of interference by any State or States as such, in national legislation. A senator is not a voting machine, controlled by wires from the State which sent him. When a State has chosen a national senator, her duty is done until the time to choose again. It is to be presumed that she has deliberated long and well, that she has chosen one whom she can trust to be true to his country ; and that is all the pledge which she has a right to demand, and no more right than any other State. Aside from a senator's duty to God, the voice of his country is the only one which has a right to be heard, the only one to which he is bound to listen ; but even that he is under no obligation to obey, unless it urges him to do what he knows or believes to be right. If the view of the senatorial office which a majority of the Legislature of Massachusetts pronounced be correct, which virtually is, that the State, not the sen- ator, speaks, decides, votes, and offers resolutions in Congress, then the national Senate is as cumbersome a piece of machinery as the Electoral College itself. SENATORS AND STATES. 2/ In that case, let the Senate be abolished ; and, in its place, let there be established at Washington a national telegraph office, with wires to the capitals of all the States. Clerks should be in attendance, who should be required, when a question arises in the Cabinet, needing the sanction of a majority of the States, to send and pro- cure a certified despatch of the opinions of every State, as represented by its government. How easy to get that opinion ! How easy to count votes, to compare notes, and form a decision, — not the decision of a national gov- ernment, for that would be usurpation and all that, but the decision, on "general average," of the United States ! How worthy such a plan would be of a great nation ! And what a wonderful saving of money ! That would be an arrangement of " checks and balances " that ought to satisfy the most timid patriot, who hardly dares to sleep at night lest he should be wanting in "eternal vigi- lance." How original a statement it would be to put on the national records, that the Secretary of State will have to assure the minister of some foreign govern- ment that, in consequence of a violent east-wind which has prevailed for some days, telegraphic communication between the capital of the United States and the States themselves has been interrupted ; and therefore the undersigned is unable to say at the moment what the views of the majority of the United States of, America are on the question proposed by His Excel- lency : but as soon as the cast-wind subsides wliich, in the spirit of amity which happily prevails between 28 THE AMERICAN STATE. the government of His Excellency and the nearly forty governments of the undersigned, the undersigned ventures to observe must be as annoying to His Excel- lency personally as to him as the representative of his government, and as soon as telegraphic communication is restored, the undersigned will take pleasure in procur- ing and conveying to His Excellency the decision of the majority of the United States, unless there should unfortunately be a tie, in which case His Excellency will observe that the difficulty of reaching a decision will be, in a singular and interesting manner, the very reverse of the one before explained ; nevertheless. His Excellency will be duly and promptly informed of the progress of events ! Meanwhile, hoping in the spirit of amity, as above indicated, for clear weather and unbroken wires, or, in the contingency named, for a broken tie, the undersigned, in the name of the nearly forty governments, for which, by the direction of the President, he has the honor to act, ventures, without waiting for special instructions to that effect from the nearly forty governments aforesaid, to renew to His Excellency the assurance of his very distinguished con- sideration ! All the legislative proceedings about annulling the vote of censure would have been entirely out of order, except that it is always right to undo a wrong. If you have gone into your neighbor's field to remove his landmark, you may be permitted to go in again to place it where it was before. May the time come when SENATORS AND STATES. 29 national senators will be permitted to act unrestricted, uninstructed, and uncensured by any State, but accord- ing to their own responsibility to their country. One fallacy has been prominently brought forward by those who were opposed to rescinding the vote of censure, that to do so would be to interfere with an act of a past Legislature of the State. The same fallacy substantially, more as regards persons than acts, has been frequently uttered in Washington. Now, there are no past legislatures, except in the instances of states and nations that had legislative assemblies, but which are now dead states or nations ; and even they may be said to live in new forms of political life. The legislature of a state or nation is as continuous as its life. It is a part of its life. We divide the assemblies of the States for convenient reference, just as we num- ber each Congress ; but, in fact, there has been but one continuous Congress since what we call the first. We speak of past years, because we have no other way to designate events, and we divide the year into months, weeks, days, and so on ; but they are all one unbroken time, which does not stop on the last day of December, to begin again on the first day of January, or stop on Saturday night, to begin on Sunday morning. Once a member of Congress always a member of Congress. Responsibility never dies. Members of Congress die, terms expire, new members are chosen ; but Congress never dies. Its sessions may be for many months sus- pended, but they are suspended only. The present 30 THE AMERICAN STATE. Congress, as wc call it for convenience, is not only the successor, but the succession of every Congress that has met since the country was born, as the first Con- gress under the Constitution was the successor and the succession of the old Continental Congress, as the pres- ent Legislature of Massachusetts is the successor and the succession of all the previous ones, and even of the colonial Assembly. Consequently any Congress or Legislature can an- nul and rescind any act of any preceding session, be- cause it is simply dealing with itself Of course, it can repeal no law without the executive sanction. Any Congress can call to account any member of any one before it, if it chooses, for any offence which would make such a member liable to punishment, if he were a serving member. No member can es- cape provided punishment by resigning his seat ; for whether he resigns or not, he is just as liable as ever to the laws of his country and to the disciplinary rules of Congress. Nor can he plead, or others for him, that, having ceased to be a member of Congress by the expiration of the term for which he was chosen, he is no longer amenable to Congress ; for he is amen- able until he is cleared, punished, or forgiven. A member of Congress, if convicted of wrong by the judgment of his peers, can no more justly escape pun- ishment by resigning his seat, than a private citizen, convicted of wrong by a lawful jury, can justly escape punishment by resigning his rights and duties as a citizen. SENATORS AND STATES. 3 1 When the secession of States began, members of Congress from the seceding States resigned their seats, and their resignations were accepted ; but they had no power to resign, and Congress had no power to accept their resignations. They should all have been arrested on the spot for violating their Federal respon- sibility as members of Congress, and should have been held as hostages for the loyalty of the States which sent them to Congress, and whose request or command they placed above, not only their duty to their coun- try, considered as a nation, but even against their Federal obligations, on the Federal theory. As soon as any man is chosen to Congress, he passes out of the jurisdiction of his own State, except, of course, as regards what he may do as a private citizen, and is under the jurisdiction of the body to which he is chosen. His State cannot force him to resign, nor can he of his own will resign without some valid rea- son which does not affect his personal honor or legis- lative responsibility ; and even then he simply resigns his seat as a member of the acting Congress. He can no more relinquish his membership in the historical Congress than he can relinquish his soul. The same obligation holds with other members of the government. John Tyler could have been im- peached in 1 86 1 for taking up arms against his coun- try as properly as he could have been for any impeach- able ©ffencc in 1 841, when he was actually in office. If found guilty at the later period, he could not, of 32 THE AMERICAN STATE. course, have been removed, for he was no longer act- ing as President ; but his name could have been struck from the roll of patriotic Presidents, of whatever party, to be cited only, like some unfaithful kings in European history, when reference requires. This truth of the continuance of all branches of the government is confirmed by the usual way of speaking of the Supreme Court. We do not speak of the last Supreme Court, or of the next one, but of the last or the next term of the Supreme Court. By an instinc- tive feeling the Supreme Court is regarded as having a continuous life. The fountain of justice is deemed perennial, though, in truth, it may sometimes get muddy, as it did when slavery was king, as it does now, when the irredeemable greenback is king. That fountain became very miry not long ago, so that the clear face of justice could not be seen in its clouded depths, when the decision was rendered that green- backs are lawful money, at their nominal value, for debts contracted before irresponsible greenbacks were authorized by law, — a decision made in plain defiance of the clause in the Constitution which forbids the pas- sage of an " ex post facto law." A law of Congress, not intended to be ex post facto, but simply to pro- vide for an existing emergency, if it receives an ex post facto interpretation from the Supreme Court, becomes, in spite of its intention, an ex post facto law, and so imconstitutional and null and void. In this instance, the law so interpreted becomes one " im- SENATORS AND STATES. 33 pairing the obligation of contracts," and, consequently, opposed to the law of God and to Christian civilization, as well as to the spirit of the Constitution. Such a law, so interpreted, requires no tribunal to declare it unsound, in a legal respect, for it falls to the ground of itself by the weight of its own rottenness. I know very well that it is doubted whether the prohibition of ex post facto laws means criminal cases only or civil cases also ; but, where national honor is concerned, it seems as wise as it is patriotic to give to national honor the benefit of the doubt. See "Madison's Re- port " for light on this prohibition. It cannot be supposed that the Federal government has any right to impair the obligation of contracts by passing laws for that purpose, because such a proceed- ing is formally forbidden to the States only ; for the reason why the prohibition was inserted referring to the States evidently was, because similar things had been done by some of the States, at least by one, un- der the Confederation, and it was intended that no State under the Constitution should be guilty of such dishonor. It would be a most absurd interpretation of the Constitution, that the general government has a special immunity to do a wrong, which for ample reason was expressly prohibited to the States. Of course, it was not even dreamed of, that the Federal government would ever desire " to impair the obliga- tion of contracts." Formally to forbid its doing so would be itself a stain upon its honor. Laws of bank- 34 THE AMERICAN STATE. ruptcy stand on a different ground, and spring from a special authority in the Constitution. Perhaps irredeemable greenbacks had a kind of pre- adamite existence, which justifies their recognition by an ex post facto interpretation of law, wherever and whenever they should make their appearance in the history of the world ; though one would think, if they had anything to do with Paradise, they must have ap- peared on the scene about the time when a very noted individual also appeared, who, having broken his own contract of loyalty and honor, was very naturally in favor of "impairing the obligation of contracts" every- where and by all. Who can wonder at the corruption which prevails in so many departments of the govern- ment, and in every nook and corner of the land, when a judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, however just or legal its intention, is univer- sally understood to permit and sanction fraud ? Of course, a decision of the Supreme Court is binding in law, until reversed. A court of justice, composed of the same members, should not be subjected to re- versing its decrees by the pressure of public opinion only, even if that opinion be right ; for it may be sub- jected to the same pressure when public opinion is wrong ; and the very idea of a court of justice is, that it should decide questions without any regard whatever to public opinion. A court of justice should guide, not follow, public opinion. "And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." There SENATORS AND STATES. 35 is, however, one way in which the Supreme Court can get out of the mire and reach again firm ground. Judges cannot resign their judicial history, but they may at times, for good and accepted reasons, resign actual service. The resignation of those judges of the Supreme Court who pronounced irredeemable green- backs lawful money for the payment of previous debts, contracted to be paid in gold or its equivalent, would do more than anything else to redeem the honor of our highest tribunal, and to bring public opinion back to its bearings on financial questions. To the great and enduring honor of Chief Justice Chase, though himself the author of the greenbacks, in a terrible time of need, he was opposed to forcing them upon the country as an irredeemable and perma- nent currency, when the terror and the need had gone. The need itself may be doubted ; but the good faith of Mr. Chase is beyond a question. This incident seems to suggest the recognition of the fact, that no judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States is really valid which lacks the assent of the chief justice. Of course, neither he alone, nor with others in a minority, can make that opinion of his own or of that minority law ; but it is essential, and it should be so provided, that in all cases argued before the full bench of the Supreme Court, the chief justice must be one of the majority deciding. If he cannot agree with his brethren on the bench, there is no decision. This seems to be required by the worth and honor of 36 THE AMERICAN STATE. the post of chief justice. So eminent an officer of the government ought not to be subjected to the hu- miliation of having to bear the blame and obloquy of a judgment, not only constitutionally, but morally wrong, and which he may strongly condemn. By him the supreme law of the country is supposed to speak. His voice should certainly represent his own consent- ing: conviction. CHAPTER III THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. Mr. Disraeli, on the death of Richard Cobden, spoke in a spirit of generous and grateful honor to the name of a political opponent, and to his surviving in- fluence, when he said that "some men are perpetual members of the House of Commons." By so speaking, he not only paid a noble and just tribute to the memory of an illustrious man, but he recognized a great truth. It was well for him, who represented the party of con- servative Englishmen, — a party on whose record are some of the noblest instances of courage in defending right, and of equally noble fortitude in enduring wrong, that the world can show, — to honor the name of Richard Cobden, who was not a demagogue or a destructive, but a wise, upright, far-seeing, high-toned Christian gentleman and statesman ; none the less, but all the more a statesman because, earnest patriot as he was, he regarded the British Empire as one member, and one only, of the great commonwealth of nations. Richard Cobden's great offence " hath this extent, no more," that he believed it to be unjust and unfair, as it was unjust and unfair, that the British Empire should 38 THE AMERICAN STATE, desire or claim free-trade or a nominal tariff in foreign countries for the sale of British goods, while refusing to foreign countries free-trade or a nominal tariff for the sale of grain. For the truth contained in these two statements, which to every candid man seem like the two ends of an identical proposition, Richard Cobden was denounced and vilified in a way seldom equalled in human history. I have alluded to Richard Cobden's great work in life, regarding him as a statesman. Of course his noble efforts had a higher inspiration and a deeper foundation than policy. He strove to keep up the poor that were up, and to lift up the poor that were down. Time will vindicate him ! Ay, before he died, his wisdom, humanity, and patriotism were triumphantly vindicated. I cannot recall anything nobler in English Parliamentary history than when Sir Robert Peel, in the very last hour of his holding office, as truly as gen- erously placed the laurel-wreath of victory upon the brow of Richard Cobden. A British legislator may take a just pride in being one of the great succession of members of the British Parliament, — a body which, though its sessions may be newly summoned, prorogued, or dissolved, has, never- theless, an enduring historical life, as, under the sanc- tion of the crown, a perpetual source of law for the British Empire. Though there is much in the history of that Parliament which, if not every human being, certainly every one humane, could wish had never been, yet, after all drawbacks and qualifications, the British THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 39 Parliament retains, as age after age adds to its solidity and worth, a grandeur which wins the respect of the world. There is hardly an acre of ground on the globe that has not felt the hand of the British Parliament. There is hardly a man of the millions who have lived and died since the British Parliament began, that has not felt in some way, for good or for ill, the power of that assembly, where the legislation of one of the most powerful dominions, while it concerns interests that reach all round the globe, is conducted generally in the calm, quiet, conversational tone of the drawing-room, and where the boisterous rhapsodies of an American town-meeting about a new road or a new school-house would not be tolerated for an instant. Eloquence of great power and splendor has been heard at times in the British Parliament ; and it always impresses, because it never comes without a just occasion. It controls, because it is itself controlled by some great motive. It inspires, because itself obeys an inspiration. The British Parliament is a noble ship which for centuries has battled with many a storm and has lived through many a hurricane. It is built of true live-oak. It has been in danger of being wrecked on the rocks of despotic power, and of being swallowed up by the quicksands of popular caprice. Its sails have been blown away. Its masts have been broken, and have fallen over, with all their tangled rigging into the open sea ; her compass has sometimes failed to answer the authority by which alone she bears the treasure of 40 THE AMERICAN STATE. British law ; and her rudder has sometimes failed to obey the hand of some strong, heroic helmsman lashed to the wheel, and determined to be true to his trust while there was a foot of deck on which to stand or a foot of canvas to feel the gale. Most of the crew of the grand old ship once rose in mutiny, put under the hatches every man who would not join in the insurrection, and made a piratical attack upon the royal barge before her, which bore alike the jewelled crown of England and him who wore it ; who, with all his faults, was " more sinned against than sinning." The mutineers boarded the royal barge, stained its deck and their own hands and souls with royal blood, and put the leader of the mutinous and murderous band in the place of the slaughtered king ; but they dared not put the insulted crown of England on the bloody pirate's branded brow. The ruler of the pirates wielded his power with a cruelty and tyranny of which the murdered sovereign never dreamed, and with which he was never charged by his worst enemies. Soon, in his rage at being baffled in his design to make all who spoke the English language his abject slaves, the chief marauder ran both ships ashore, while the flag of England which floated over him blushed a deeper red at his unhallowed crimes. Both ships came near breaking into pieces. But the tide of loyalty rose again; again the royal barge of England and the old Parliament ship floated on the waves ; and now they float, in harmony and peace ; and long, long, long may THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 4I they do so ! Long may the diadem of England flash around the world, the gemmed symbol of true and firm authority ! Long may the Red Cross banner of Eng- land wave, untorn, undimmed, above its island home and over Indian shores and seas ! Long may the live- oak of the British Parliament bear safely on the beating sea the precious freight of a noble empire's law ! CHAPTER IV THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. The man who regards his election to Congress as a successful political trick, as a way to make hay while the sun shines for himself and all his hungry neighbors, has no conception of the nobleness of his trust ; but he, whether senator or representative, who has a right view of the meaning and honor of his office, may feel a noble incentive in deeming himself, not only a member of the Congress to which he has been chosen, but a member of the greater, the historical Congress, including all the rest which have met since the country was born. He will even seem to go back in imagination, and take a per- sonal share in the momentous debates which were calm- ly but surely convprging to the point of independence. He will seem to be present when the deed was done, and to feel its fearful but glorious responsibility. The blazing words of Patrick Henry will keep bright the flame of his heart, and kindle it anew, if it seems to languish and flicker. When he hears the words of Benjamin Franklin, always directly to the point, charged, like electric jars, with unfailing faith and cour- age, he will be strangely invigorated and revived, as THE AMERICAN CONGRESS, 43 though the philosopher, patriot, and statesman had in- deed drawn the very hghtning of heaven, to electrify his own soul and the souls of his fellow-members, to hold on and to hold out, undaunted, unflinching, undis- mayed. Under the rough speech of John Adams, im- pulsive and impetuous but profoundly wise, he will recognize, with a companion's personal pride, the true gold which stands every test. He will feel the beating of the warm and noble heart behind the calm reserve of Thomas Jefferson, who may have erred at times as a statesman, but who never failed or faltered for an in- stant as a patriot, and whose sterling merits as a man were not consumed but purified by the fiery furnace of political rage. As he admires the brave souls of the early sufferers for the faith, who never quailed an in- stant or an inch when the fierce, fearful cry arose, " The Christians to the lions ! " so will he be nerved to new sacrifices and devotion when he sees Charles Carroll sign his name to the immortal Declaration, and add " of Carrolton," not from aristocratic pride, but on purpose to signify that, if one of his name was wanted to join " the noble army of martyrs " for truth and right, he was the man, ready to stand or to die, to go to the lions, the dungeon, or the scaffold. He will look on the grand signature of John Hancock as having a fourfold char- acter, being at the same time a pledge, a prayer, a chal- lenge, and a patriotic appeal. He will feel the pressure of doubt and fear when battles were lost, and when the sufferings of the army, 44 THE AMERICAN STATE. which could not be relieved, produced as keen anguish in the Continental Congress as in the camps of the soldiers. He will take his share in the terrible weight of sorrow when eloquence, self-denial, and public spirit ready for martyrdom were powerless to cover the bleed- ing feet of the soldiers, to blunt the pointed ice in the dreary winter's march, or to tame the freezing, piercing blast ; yet he will also be moved by gratitude to God when some movement of the genius of Wash- ington shows that the cause of his country is not lost. He will share in the faith in the guiding providence of God which marked that suffering and struggling, yet sublime period, — sublime because suffering and strug- gling ; for the heroes of all time are they who, however unlearned in human science, have taken, by unswerving devotion to great, undying principles, all the degrees in the great university of sorrow, trial, toil, and victory, — not always the victory which flames before the gaze of man from the page of history, though it may shine before the faces of angels in Heaven from the eternal book of God. He \yill feel as though he could not have borne the terrible burdens of that day, if faith had not sometimes been turned to sight ; and he can hardly help believing that, at intervals in the great struggle, the veil that divides the seen and the unseen worlds must have been withdrawn, and the true and tried patriots of the time, serving their country in whatever way, must then have looked at the hand of the living God, which held the star of empire before the little fleet of THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 45 Columbus, as it sailed out into the unknown future for the unknown shore, yet holding that star in the bricjht blue western sky, shining clear above all the clouds of doubt and all the smoke of war ; and as the servant of the prophet of God of old, dismayed when he saw the city surrounded with horses and chariots of war, was reassured w^hen the prophet prayed that the eyes of his servant might be opened, and they were, and, "behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha," — so will all the spiritual forces fighting for his country seem to take visible shape, and he will see " round about " George Washington, and his little struggling army going forth to meet the disci- plined ranks of the most powerful dominion upon earth, an aiding, cheering host, leading, attending on either side, and following, all arrayed in celestial, invincible armor, — innumerable squadrons of inspiring hopes, vast, thronging battalions of urging memories, and, stronger than all, countless legions of striving prayers. As Congress assumed a more definite shape under the Constitution, he will be more and more drawn to the side of the eminent men who have gone before him, and yet now seem to be near, as though all were con- temporaries, moved by the same regard for the highest good of their country, though differing often and widely as to the ways of promoting it. The American Congress in its earlier days was an institution for which no American at home or abroad was ever obliged to hang his head in shame. In no legislative assembly 46 THE AMERICAN STATE. on earth was there a higher and better type of patri- otic self-devotion, abihty, and energy. The Constitu- tion had been accepted in good faith, both by those who saw in it a recognition of their pohtical theories and by those who did not, but who, nevertheless, yielded as patriots and statesmen, believing that honor required them to do the best they could for their country, and not to leave civil duties undone because they could not be done in all respects agreeably to preference and con- viction. Some of the great names of the Revolutionary period poured living sunshine on the road of patriotic service ; and the shadow of others not long departed yet lingered to inspire the reverence of all, and to soothe political heat. In those days strong and true men were sent to Congress, men indeed with the pas- sions, the imperfections, the rivalries of other men ; but Congress was not then as now the purgatory of statesmen and the paradise of adventurers. As time went on, the political struggles became more vehement, and principles and policies were more sharply defined, yet Congress continued to be the intellectual focus of the country. Though aristocratic traditions and usages remained in great force in many parts of the land, yet they succeeded in securing for the country's service men who honored their country, and whom their country could safely honor for their ability and worth, irrespective of accidental position ; while real merit, obscure though it might be, and without ances- tral wealth or privilege, was earnestly hailed, honored, THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 4/ and promoted, as it is not now, when the generous and hearty appreciation of native worth has given place to a democratic hate of inborn nobihty. No man hates a man whose gifts are the gifts of God so bitterly •as your uproarious democrat. False democracy hisses at worth which peers are proud to recognize, and which kings delight to honor. Look in upon the Congress of a later day, but long before what it now is. Hear John Randolph utter keen wit and wisdom in shrill tones, like a steam-whistle endowed with intelligence and speech ; or, more fre- quently, see him dash about the field of Congress with a free lance, reckless whom or where he attacks, if he but sees a weak point in some cuirass, some unbarred helmet, or some loosened greave. Yet his chivalric antics were generally on the side of right. If one such man were in each house of Congress now, he would be an inestimable blessing, and the field would be daily strewn with unhorsed and wounded knights of profit and loss and bargain and sale, whose thick armor, impenetrable to the hardest blows of public denunciation, could not always resist the sharp, quick thrust of one hke John Randolph. Hear Thomas H. Benton maintain with vehement pertinacity the true principles of mercantile and na- tional honor, — principles easier to ridicule and de- nounce than to disprove ; and one cannot help wishing that the grand, impulsive Missourian could have been permitted by the will of God to live till now, to reassert, 48 THE AMERICAN STATE. with all the sanctions of patriarchal age, the doctrines of his vigorous manhood, and to point out with the fiery indignation of his nature to a certain august body of navigators and expounders the North Star of national integrity, which never sets, but which the learned navigators forgot to look at, in revising the chart to guide the country's honor. If I could call the spirit of Thomas H. Benton from the immortal world, and command him to speak, he could utter nothing more directly suited to this mo- ment than these vivid, burning words from his speech on the " Divorce of Bank and State," delivered during the extra session of Congress in 1837 : — " I do not go into the moral view of this question. It is too obvious, too impressive, too grave, to escape the observation of any one. Demoralization follows in the train of an inconvertible paper-money. The whole community becomes exposed to a moral pestilence. Every individual becomes the victim of some imposi- tion, and, in self-defence, imposes upon some one else. The weak, the ignorant, the uninformed, the necessi- tous, are the sufferers ; the crafty and the opulent are the gainers. The evil augments until the moral sense of the community, revolting at the frightful accumula- tion of fraud and misery, applies the radical remedy of total reform." Then may be seen the face of John C. Calhoun flash upon the Senate like the eyes of an eagle. The chief advocate of State rights and delegated powers it THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 49 is the fashion to brand as a traitor and a rebel simply for holding what views he did respecting the Constitu- tion, — but very unjustly, for, whether those views were sound or not, he held them, not only as his own, but as the representative of a very powerful party, in whose ranks were some of the most ardent patriots of the Revolution and of the time after, even to our own day ; and, as far as I can see, the views of John C. Calhoun are practically held, though perhaps they would be in theory denied, by a very large portion of Northern men at this moment, and by men too who stood by the government of the country through the war. John C. Calhoun professed, and no doubt sincerely, to find the remedy for grievances in the Constitution and under the authorized government of the country. His views may have been wrong ; they may have been narrow ; and most certainly I think that, however consistent they may have been with the Constitution, they were both wrong and narrow as regards the or- ganic principles of government ; but, if John C. Cal- houn was a traitor and a rebel simply for holding such views, — and I am now speaking of him as a theorist, — then Patrick Henry was a rebel and a traitor, for he had the same views about the rights of the States; and a large proportion of the framers of the Constitu- tion were, according to the same standard, rebels and traitors, and as many of them, probably, from the North as from the South, John C. Calhoun had the high-toned respect for him- 3 D 50 THE AMERICAN STATE. self and his office which would have become a Roman senator ; and, notwithstanding his narrow theories of government, he towers in nobleness inaccessible by the mean and sordid creatures who enter the Senate, not by the wide-open door of manly honor and merit, but who climb into it over the fence, like sneaking robbers as they are, on the rails of bribery and cor- ruption. Better, any day and every day, to hear State rights urged by men without the stain of personal dishonor on their souls, than to see hands cursed with offering gold for office extended to take the solemn senatorial oath, or to hear the praises of national unity shouted in selfish, grasping hypocrisy by lips that have promised dollars for place. The genius of John C. Calhoun was, in truth, the most costly single sacrifice which the Dagon of Amer- ican slavery ever exacted ; but it must be granted that men who abhorred slavery as much as he seemed to approve it, were as firm adherents as himself to his theory of the government. The opinions of John C. Calhoun are beacons that warn off the dangerous shore on which they stand ; but to what extent they are sus- tained, and, consequently, how far the danger is to be traced to another source, are questions to be considered thoughtfully and deeply. Did Daniel Webster refute John C. Calhoun ? To my mind, though my sympa- thies are with Webster, that is an open question. The denunciation of Calhoun and of his views did not put down him or them during his life; his argii- THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 51 rnents are yet full of life and strength, and they can never be met and answered by platitudes or abuse. I dissent from his views and protest against them ; but, whether or not he was justified in holding them as logical constructions and interpretations is a serious and, some will think, a dangerous question ; yet that question, dangerous or not, I shall in due time try to answer. For the present let me say, that the man who does not feel the intellectual fascination of the writings of Mr. Calhoun, even while dissenting and protesting a dozen times in reading every page, had better betake himself to Artemas Ward and the whole litter of liter- ary clowns, clerical and lay, whose writings, daubed with red ochre and bright with brass spangles, Amer- ica offers in sober earnest as her contribution to the literature of the world. I have spoken the name of Daniel Webster. Behold his majestic presence, as he rises in the Senate. His words are simple, yet massive like himself, and sym- metrical, as though they had been chiselled by Grecian art out of Grecian marble. When combined they have an architectural grandeur. Daniel Webster was the greatest intellectual gift of Almighty God to the his- tory of the New World. His fame stands on the mountain of his country's renown, seen afar and tow- ering high, like the monument on Bunker Hill, at the laying of the corner-stone of which he addressed his countrymen with impressive wisdom, and at the com- pletion of which he renewed, on the same spot, the 52 THE AMERICAN STATE. noble strain, like some inspiring, patriotic anthem which filled the air with sonorous melody. Daniel Webster's fame will stand while that 'monument shall stand ; and when that monument shall have become a ruin, the fame of Daniel Webster will have floated over the ocean of centuries, and will be recalled and honored by the scholar, the patriot, and the' statesman of future ages, as now the traveller among the ruins of Athens looks about him and says, " Here stood Demosthenes ; those crumbling columns, then rising in regular form and beauty, echoed his words ; yonder sea swelled the refrain of his resounding periods ; and yonder sun, with his illuming light, answered the flam- ing lips of the orator." Daniel Webster could not be President. There were two fatal objections to him. He was a great man, and that was a strong reason why he should be put down and kept down. He had deserved well of his country, and that was a yet stronger reason why he should be put down and kept down. In all countries except America great men are regarded as special gifts of God. In America great men arc regarded as curses, not as blessings. Their greatness is deemed an intol- erable injury to everybody else in the land. They are endured while in lowly station they work hard and long for the welfare of their country, provided that they know and keep their place as very humble ser- vants. If they dare to think, speak, or act according to the light and power with which they hive been THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 53 endowed by the God of heaven, they forfeit their character for docihty, and must in some way be chained, cowed, or crushed into submission, and never again dare to have a mind of their own. If there are any more abject slaves to any single despot on earth than American statesmen, thinkers, and scholars are to pop- ular tyranny, point them out to the surprise and won- der of all mankind ! America is not yet out of the woods. It is too soon for her to boast that political and intellectual guides are useless and cumbersome, and belong to a bygone order of civihzation. From the beginning of time it has been, and to the end of time it will be, true that to do anything permanently good, great, and glorious on earth demands some kind of personal guidance, inspiration, or power. Undi- rected aggregations of men never yet did anything but quarrel and stumble, and never will. In America the noblest qualities of statesmanship, the most patient, persistent, patriotic labors through good report and ill, through contumely and detraction, through struggles and defeats on the way to final vic- tory, constitute the very highest claim to be set aside by the omnipotent will of the people. America says to her statesmen, " Be faithful in the day of trial, con- flict, and danger, and then, in the day of success, you shall be sure to lose your reward. Serve your country with a martyr's courage and constancy, and you shall win a martyr's crown of disappointment and death, thick set with piercing thorns." The mind of Daniel 54 THE AMERICAN STATE. Webster was brighter than a prince's crown. His greatness depended on no circumstances. It was in- trinsic and indestructible. The voice of the people is not always the voice of God, not always even the voice of history. The court of history is always in session, making up judgments in the present to be handed on for expression in the future. That judg- ment, there is little doubt, has been formed in the case of Daniel Webster ; and there is little doubt that it is, that Daniel Webster, by the prerogatives given him by Almighty God, stood nobly and grandly pre-eminent above all the royal or republican rulers of his time ; or, as it may be expressed in the words of the sa- cred writer, " Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him." Daniel Webster sleeps, as he ought, by the sounding, the eloquent sea. The roar of the broad Atlantic is his sublime, fitting, unceasing requiem. Every coming tide brings some new tribute of honor to his tomb, and every ebbing wave bears to other shores some new memorial of his fame. Hark ! through the charmed hall reverberates the voice of Henry Clay, invigorating and inspiring as the fresh air of the mountains, while " musical as is Apol- lo's lute" the voice of Henry Clay, which seemed to have a magical power, not only to adorn the loftiest themes of the statesman with a new interest, but to endow the driest details with living beauty, and to THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 55 make columns of figures glow with attractive grace like Corinthian pillars ; yet the voice of Henry Clay, pow- erful as it was, had one successful rival in winning the hearts of hundreds of thousands of strong men, and that rival was the manly, chivalric, patriotic soul of Henry Clay, which nothing could intimidate, darken, or crush ; which even above the shadow of defeat shone with a power unsubdued, triumphant over the failure of hope, and glowing with more intensity and splendor than ever. No national ingratitude could quench that patriotic flame, for it burned on, and brightly burned, until his lamp of life went out ; "and even in his ashes live their wonted fires." Go again to the other side of the Capitol, and stand like one bewildered with enchantment, as the corusca- tions of the genius of Prentiss play and sparkle around you like a meteoric shower of " thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." And now, stand in awe, as though in the presence of one of the ancient prophets of God, who would make known eternal truth and thunder the warnings of Jehovah, undaunted by threats ; who, though in chains, would declare the inalienable rights of God ; and who, though confined in a dungeon, would "proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound " : for look ! John Quincy Adams rises, defying defiance, with a heart that never quailed and with a will that never quaked ; with a hand, indeed, that sometimes trembled, though not with fear, but because, even in old age, it shook 56 THE AMERICAN STATE. before the faces of tyranny and wrong the gleaming thunderbolts of retribution ; with a voice, indeed, that sometimes trembled, though not with terror «r doubt, but because it flashed in rebuke before the guilty defend- ers of injustice like a quivering flame of celestial fire. Could I call the roll of the silent Congress of the dead, and could they come at my call, should I fail to note, as goes the pale procession by, on many a shad- owy face some shadowy signs of sorrow for deeds that cannot be undone, for words that cannot be unsaid ? Would those lips pallid from another world now say one word for slavery, or for any of the wrongs and cruelties of time ? Now flits a ghastly shade that once in mortal form, for words of warm debate, laid out his comrade cold. Would he repeat the deed ? How, as in a dread eclipse, those moving figures pace through old familiar corridors and new, through old familiar walks and new, up and down old familiar steps and new ! The sound of clanking chains the shudder- ing shadows hear, and deeper grows their anxious pal- lor, for chains like those in life they riveted anew with bolts of bitter speech, in slavery's behalf, on limbs and souls of men. Would they now do it, or praise its being done ? Speak ! speak ! Are you forgiven ? Do your souls rest in peace ? Hark ! no sound replies. Silently, sadly on, sadly, silently on, with downcast faces, the troubled shadows go into a deeper shade. Yet others come, silent, yet hearing all. Their shad- owy forms pace, like the rest, through old familiar cor- THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 5/ ridors and new, through old famihar walks and new, up and down old familiar steps and new. As they go, a gentle radiance attends, until their faces, pale in death, shine with a living light ; and halls and grounds are brightened by their illumined forms. It is the light that never fades from words and deeds for truth, for right, for God. It is the light which goes before, like Heaven's announcing herald. It is the light that follows on, like Heaven's rewarding fame. They also hear the sound of clanking chains ; and, at the sound, a flush of joy like that of life spreads over every face, and like soft music memories come of brave words said, long years before, defying threats of death, to strike such dreary chains from limbs and souls of men. So, silently, joyously on, joyously, silently on, the shadowy shapes proceed, until they fade from view into eternal liffht. 3* CHAPTER V. CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. The strongest men of history are they who in the face of scorn have believed, and in the face of enmity have acted on the belief, that the Christian faith is the well of deepest wisdom, as truly as the dayspring of immortal hope. Professor Greenleaf, when he put a copy of the Holy Scriptures into the Law Library at Cambridge, as the first and best of law-books, acted not only like a Christian, but like a man of sense. What are laws that are not founded on the law of God ? What is their power, what is their claim to be obeyed ? There have been Christian rulers, states- men, legislators, soldiers, whose fame will never fall, for it was founded, not on the quicksands of popular applause, not on the marshes of transient policy, but on a rock, — the Rock of Ages. There have been Christian kings on powerful thrones, who have served their God in the spirit of a little child, and who have served their country with a lion's strength and courage. There have been Christian statesmen, who have held with steady hand the helm, to guide their country through blazing seas of bellowing war, who, for their CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. 59 country's life or honor, have stood and looked the yell- ing powers of darkness in the face, unflinching and defiant, yet who have humbly bowed the head and bent the knee, when out of oracles divine came the clear voice, Thus saith the Lord thy God. There have been Christian legislators whom no wealth or power could hire to put an unjust law into a nation's code, and who, .were it in without a fault of theirs, would work with a hero's might and with a martyr's zeal, though under threats of the dagger or the dungeon, to tear it out and tear it up, and send its fragments spin- ning in the air, like dry, scared leaves of autumn ; yet who, while strenuous and severe for righteous laws and against unrighteous ones, would kneel with the publican's contrition to own their faults before the altar of their forgiving God. There have been Chris- tian soldiers who, having made their peace with God, have dared to make war with hell and its fierce sub- alterns here on earth, — soldiers of the sword or of the pen or of the living voice, who, in defending right or in storming the citadel of wrong, have faced the cannon's mouth or the blasting throats of obloquy and hate, — Christian soldiers, who have feared nothing in mortal shape except a mortal sin, and who, though daring all true heroes can, would have been ground to powder, torn in pieces, or blown to atoms, before they would have dared to be disloyal to the King of kings. Thanks be to God, there have been such men as 60 THE AMERICAN STATE. those in our own land ; there are now. They may be overborne by throngs of the adorers of mammon or of self, but they are here. Their influence has at times been i^lt ; it will be so again and to a greater degree. When once the tide of American materialism shall turn, the noble things which are now in the dust, and the base things that are now uppermost, will change places ; and our country will begin to be what she was evidently designed to be. Even in Congress there have been, there are now, men of lofty purpose, of patriotic integrity, of thoughtful wisdom, of Christian principle. They have been honored deeply, if not widely. They have shown in their lives that the more true a man is to God, the more true he will be to his country ; and some of them who have gone hence have shown that public service faithfully performed may brighten the shadow of death. I recall the account of the death of a senator which impressed thousands by its beauty. He was a Christian believer, and in his very last moments he seemed to see and to hail with ecstasy the eternal city of God. It may have been the illusion of disease ; it may have been the delirium of dissolution ; but may it not sometimes be that, before the eyes quite fail to see or the lips to speak, dawning immortality may send a ray across the barrier of death.? May it not sometimes be that the soul, after life's duty nobly done, departing in Christian faith and fear, may at the last mortal moment see and greet its heavenly home with the rapture of the loving child, who, after CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. 6 1 being absent long, catches a glimpse, at closing day, through darkening woods and deepening mist, of the cheering light which shines in welcome from his father's house ? If such a thing can be, who would not rather die a death like that, than to call his, or to leave to his heirs, all the royal diadems that were ever worn by mortal kings ? Nations avowedly Christian develop a nobler kind of manhood than those which acknowledge nothing, as nations, to revere beyond their own greatness and glory. These last may be as patriotically, as bravely defended in peril as the first ; but in nations that have for ages professed the faith of Christendom, patriotism and bravery are marked by a chiyalric reverence, which is not so much a personal quality as a diffused influ- ence, of which they partake as of the air and of the sunshine ; a characteristic which seems rather a gift than an acquisition, which, where it exists most plainly and largely, exists the most unconsciously, and so is the more attractive charm. This characteristic may at times be found in countries that do not profess Chris- tianity : but, in such cases, it exists as an exception and as an exotic, rather than as a native of the soil ; just as sometimes a man, who has rapidly though honorably acquired wealth, may neither feel nor show the usual marks of new riches ; or just as a laborer in the mills or in the mines may have and reveal the inborn quali- ties of the gentleman, though he can point to no coat of arms for thirty or for three generations, and has no 62 THE AMERICAN STATE. Other title of nobility than a true, a brave, a manly heart, — Heaven's own heraldic sign. To develop this peculiar reverence of which I speak, it is not enough that a people should be Christian, for it is the growth of centuries of association of Christian truth with the national life in all its forms and ways, with social customs, names, places, traditions, legends, with the daily music of chants hallowed by ages of use, with the daily sight of grand cathedrals. These Chris- tian memories, influences, and usages, interwoven with the national character and with the affections of the people, are among the causes, apart from the direct hand of God, which have prevented any nation which ever professed Christianity from ever losing it for a long time, unless it has been conquered by the enemies of the faith ; and even then the hearts of the people have remained inflexibly loyal to their dishonored faith. It is this habit of Christian reverence which makes patriotism a kind of sacred devotion, and which gives a kind of sanctity to courage. Who can measure the power which the cathedrals of France may have had in bringing her back to her Christian loyalty, when, in a wild hour, so many of her people, but not all, broke away from the altar and the throne .-• If those cathedrals were impressive before, as they rose in stately grandeur, how much more im- pressive were they when they seemed to stand in still, majestic sorrow, while the surges of popular frenzy beat against their sacred walls in vain, and while every arch CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. 63 and scroll and sculptured figure, and over all the shin- ing cross, seemed to warn and to appeal and to bless while warning and appealing ! In Christian countries, hypocrisy, wrong, sin, injus- tice, and deceit may be found, as in other lands, and they may have high place and power. Nothing of this is meant to be denied. All that is asserted is, that in avowedly Christian nations nobleness of character has a nobleness above itself, that comes from ages of the blending of the Christian faith with the national life. In our own country, probably, there have been and are as beautiful Christian exemplars as anywhere can be found; but they exist apart and isolated, out of har- mony with the spirit of the government, with the spirit of the country, with the spirit of the people, with the institutions and influences about them. Christianity as a positive power is not interwoven with our national history, but seems something away from it and beyond it ; whereas the Christian faith, when intimately united with the national life, imparts to that national life some of its own sublimity, and is also brought more directly to the hearts, homes, walks, and works of the people, becoming no less than before, but rather more, the angel of God, because going about among men, their best daily helper, defender, and consoler, as truly as the surest guide of nations. No doubt, our country should be plainly, directly, and avowedly a Christian land. A godless nation jars the moral order of the universe more than a godless man. 64 THE AMERICAN STATE. Multitudes of Christian men keep aloof from their plain duties as citizens, because they have no faith in politics or politicians ; but if they wait until their country is a Christian country before they take their part, as far as they can, in civil affairs, how soon will it be one ? It is going farther and farther every day from the ideal of a Christian state. If Christians have little faith in politicians, politicians have less faith in them, — and why ? Because they judge of faith by works. If they see Christian men indifferent to their countr}', doing nothing to make it what they know it ought to be, why should they try to supply the want .'' If the men of Israel will not rescue the ark of God, why should the Philistines care ? The politicians know too much to fight against themselves. They know that when our country shall become a truly Christian land, their occu- pation will be gone. Unless restrained, they will con- tinue to rule with an iron will and an iron hand until the word " American," which ought to be a clarion of inspiration for all noble things throughout the earth, shall be everywhere the synonyme of all that is abomi- nable, grovelling, degrading, and accursed. I do not mean that we are to have a religion insti- tuted by the state, a manufactured creed, which the government is to fit to every man's conscience with tailor's shears. I am pleading for the recognition by the government as a government, and by the nation as a nation, of the religion which God made ; that it may be plainly declared to be the law of the land, not left to be CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. 65 proved to be so by implication, inference, and ingenuity; that its principles may be applied in the laws and con- duct of the government; that vi^hile "all who profess and call themselves Christians " shall be free to worship God in their own way, the discipline of their organiza- tions shall be respected, and, if need be, protected, but never dictated or hindered by the civil authority ; that all Christians, by whatever name they may go, shall be free to educate their children as they choose, that they may be, as far as the authority, kindness, and fidelity of parents and teachers can go, Christian children first of all, and then diligent and faithful learners in all the branches of human knowledge for which they have inclination and time, being wisely advised and directed by those who have the right to advise and direct. Both these points are of great importance. In the case of ecclesiastical discipline, in particular, I see great possible danger in the future. Some of the Christian governments of Europe seem to argue that, because they are Christian governments, they have a right to interfere in cases of ecclesiastical discipline. Precisely the opposite conclusion is the only logical one. On the very ground that they are Christian governments, they have no right so to interfere, but it is their duty to pro- tect all Christian organizations in their inherent prerog- atives. All such organizations, calling themselves and known in the community as Christian, and so recognized in deeds of property and acts of incorporation, should be defended, not assailed, by a Christian government, £ 66 THE AMERICAN STATE, when an unfaithful or a muthious minister has been suspended or degraded from his office. No such man should be restored to his post by the civil authority ; and if he makes a formal appeal to a civil court for restoration, the only questions which the court can consider are these : Has he been condemned ? if so, was the authority which condemned him that which is recognized by the Christian organization to which he belongs as having the right to condemn ? If this is so, the court must dismiss the case, as having no jurisdic- tion, for it cannot open the question of a right or wrong condemnation without judging the case. The court, however, can go one step further, if the appellant refuses to yield property belonging to the trust from which he has been removed. It can compel him to yield ; for it will be understood that the civil courts will not interfere with ecclesiastical judgments in any case, except to en- force them, where they come within the range of civil authority. No Christian nation can properly recognize mutineers as the regular army of the Lord. The mu- tineers may possibly be right. If they think they are, then they must appeal to the highest authority which their organization recognizes as the court of final ap- peal. The government has nothing to do with the case, as regards the justice of the decision. But a Christian government has not only negative duties, it has also positive rights. Among them is the right to break up institutions — like those of the Mor- mons, for instance — which conflict with Christian morals CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. 6/ and the common law. It has the right to prevent any more public assemblies of any set of people, in which assemblies it has been proved that the sanctities of the Christian religion, where they touch morals or the good order of society, are openly, defiantly, and habitually denounced. A Christian government has the right to suppress, with the strong arm of the law, bad books, bad newspapers, bad plays. While a Chris- tian government should allow a very wide scope to human inquiry and investigation, it has a right to demand that institutions of learning shall not boldly, directly, and habitually teach and encourage infidelity and immorality under the name of science, because such teaching perverts science, the daughter of truth, into a foul and brazen teacher of lies, and tends to make good citizens bad citizens, and bad citizens worse. Every Christian government should be the firm and strong ally of the Church of God in fostering and promoting everything which tends to Tift, refine, and ennoble man, and in discouraging, denouncing, and restraining everything which tends to lower, degrade, and corrupt him. A Christian government should be the earnest and special friend and patron of literature, art, and science, when they are true to themselves and to God, who made the worlds of material and spiritual beauty which they are intended to illustrate. A Christian government should do everything that is just to encourage and develop honorable industry in all its branches, and manly enterprise in all its ways. 68 THE AMERICAN STATE. A Christian man is not of necessity a drone ; and a Christian government, so far from being less energetic than others, should be far more so ; only it makes, or should make, the pursuits of material benefit secondary to those which are inspired by the highest motives and the purest aspirations of man. A Christian government ought to protect and en- force Christian law and discipline respecting marriage and divorce. All State laws on both these subjects should be completely and forever abolished. The na- tional government, without recognizing any Christian organization as exclusively binding on its allegiance, can have and should have one law only throughout the country on these subjects, the main features of which should be, that no marriages will be held lawful, either as regards the rights of persons or of property, which are not formed under some Christian sanction, or Jewish, in cases where both parties are Jews ; and that no divorces whatever, of any kind or for any cause, shall be permitted without the decree of some recognized ecclesiastical authority. As regards other religions than the Christian, and the relation of civil government towards them, though no religion but the Christian — unless it be the Jewish, in virtue of its ancient and once valid authority — has any rights as a religion which Christian governments are bound to protect, yet the adherents of these other religions may have rights as citizens, and such rights are to be respected and protected precisely like the CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. 69 rights of all other citizens ; but among these rights as citizens is not included any right to hold public as- semblies for worship in v/hich tenets are advanced, or practices approved, subversive of Christian morals or public order. Many people, not J:hinking very profoundly, seem to feel that we have a right as a nation to assume great pride because our country has never been to any great extent, the theatre of contests connected with relig- ion ; and they contrast the governments of Europe, which, professing to be Christian, have been neverthe- less nearly torn to pieces sometimes by insurrections against Christian authority, with our freedom from such terrible conflicts. It is too soon to boast. The Christian governments of Europe, by professing as nations to re- spect and uphold the Christian faith, have made, in so doing, a constant declaration of war against the rebel who defies all divine and human authority ; and the Devil has answered the challenge, and has used all his Satanic engineries to destroy the Christian faith and Christian institutions. The contest has been going on for centuries, and the forces seem to be gathering for a fiercer struggle than ever. The great adversary of God and man changes his ground with wonderful skill, and assumes more disguises than Milton assigns to him in "Paradise Lost." Now he appears as the advocate of civil supremacy in all things, applauding especially marriage as nothing but a civil contract. Now he advises kings to rule without parlia- 70 THE AMERICAN STATE. ments ; then he advises parhaments to rule without kings ; again he urges the people to rule without either, each one doing what each likes best, even though trying his best to do his worst, and all, perhaps, fighting for the same thing, until civil society gives place to uncivil pandemonium. His great delight, however, is to put on the cap of liberty, and talk about liberality and a broad and comprehensive charity towards all kinds and modes of faith and no faith, to deprecate severity of dis- cipline, and to wonder why men will not live together like brothers, though the main reason why they do not is because he is ever near to prevent their doing so ; and all this is to undermine in every way possible, by policies contradictory at different times, or contradictory in different places at the same time, the glorious faith which he hates, and the governments which protect it, who sometimes have listened to his silvery speech, but recovered before they had quite gone over the ridge of destruction to which his crafty counsels had brought them. Now he urges a Prussian Prime Minister to turn Spain into a Prussian province, so as to destroy Christian France by her imperative resistance to such a flank movement, intended to chain her in a vice, with ungrateful Italy on one side, and Spain under Prussian control on the other, so that Prussia may advance un- hindered to the subjugation of Europe, When the dis- asters occur, which afford him ecstatic joy, he supplies petroleum and firebrands, from his own unlimited re- sources in that line, to destroy Paris, not so much be- CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS. /I cause it is a beautiful and splendid city, as because it is the capital of a noble Christian nation, which, notwith- standing its vagaries and follies, has lived centuries of renown, and even now, in her penitence, is more glori- ous than Prussia in her pride. Now he advises England to turn pirate, and prey upon the commerce of a friendly nation engaged in a terrific struggle for life. Then he persuades Italy to turn burglar, and rob the most august sovereignty on earth of some of its most ancient and sacred rights. Yet the conflicts between the sons of light and the powers of darkness which have arisen from the recogni- tion by governments of the fact that Christianity is the lawful ruler of the world, have won in the end a thou- sand rewards for right for every victory for wrong. Notwithstanding all the weakness, sin, trouble, and treachery which European history can show, it is her Christianity — which, being of higher authority than any nation, can receive the homage and loyalty of every nation, without any surrender of national worth or rela- tive importance — which has been the chief stronghold of Europe against bitter foes without and yet more bitter foes within. Some people who look at the dark pages of human history only, though believing sincerely in the Christian faith, have seemed to regret that Constantine, as the head of the Roman Empire, ever bent his imperial knee in homage to the Cross ; yet from that great deed what greater deeds have sprung ! Notwithstanding the ter- 72 THE AMERICAN STATE. rible tumults that have occurred in consequence of the assumption of power by emperors and kings over the faith which they professed to obey, yet the benefits which have resulted from the alliance of Christianity with civil government have immeasurably exceeded the evils. Civil authority, when it has recognized the Chris- tian faith as its supreme law, and has acted agreeably to that recognition, has had a power and a sanction to bring about great results in all the ways that im- prove and exalt mankind that it never would have won from any other source, or from all other sources com- bined ; and Christianity, by her alliance with the civil power, has had a strong arm for her defence against assault, and has more than repaid all the help she has received, by imparting nobler motives of action, higher standards of individual and national honor, and, more than all, by hastening the time when all human gov- ernments, all human institutions, all men, shall bend the adoring knee at the Redeemer's cross. There can be no doubt that Christianity was meant to be blended with all the affairs of men. To keep her power entirely dis- connected from the state is no more reasonable than to keep it severed from the individual pursuits of men, from the family, or from the school. Christianity can be con- tent with nothing less than to be the supreme guide of all men, at all times, everywhere, and in every way. The conflicts in our country have been mainly of political principles and policies, or to save her from destruction. The sovereign claims of Christianity to CHRISTIANITY THE INSPIRER OF NATIONS, ^^ rule the world, not simply as an abstract theory, but as a practical system, have never excited any wide or special attention in our own country as having any bearing upon ourselves. When the time shall come for those claims to be made, and when, according to the ap- parent design of Providence, it shall become the plain and binding duty of America to take her place as an authoritative Christian power, with a right to speak and to act as such in both hemispheres, there will be no lack of excitement and commotion. When this tre- mendous question shall demand an answer, there will be room enough, and time enough, and opportunity enough to win the Christian hero's laurel or the Chris- tian martyr's crown. The Devil can very prudently permit our country to rest for the present, because here he has a vantage- ground which he has not in Europe. In Europe the Devil is an outlaw ; so regarded, so treated in theory by all the Christian governments, however much in practice they may follow his counsel. But in America the Devil is not an outlaw, but a fellow-citizen, in good and regular standing ; who goes to the caucus, which he has already packed, and finally prevails on a political candidate to accept, very reluctantly and diffidently, his nomination, which has been made to his great astonish- ment and surprise, — as he says, — but which he may have been trying with all his might to get for ten years. Then the Devil votes "early and often," wherever he can. He goes to national conventions for nominating 4 74 THE AMERICAN STATE. Presidents, and enjoys himself very much, because they seem so natural and homelike. He is petted and patted on the back by committees of both political parties, who make heavy bids to get his support ; and he accepts both bids, and pockets the money. He is told that large and influential numbers of American citizens de- fine a free country as one in which the Devil has equal rights with Almighty God, and argue that laws should be made or applied accordingly ; which being told for news makes the Devil chuckle, for it is no news to him. Then he is told that many Americans regard him as the victim of a rather exclusive administration ; that though it would not do to nominate him for the Presi- dency, because availability must first be considered, and his nomination might offend some superstitious old bats, who count nothing of themselves, though their votes do, yet that any special friend of his, and known to be such by the managers, would stand a good chance. Then they tell him that he can make the laws to suit himself; and then the Devil chuckles again, for he has had already a hand in making many of them ; and then he winks and says, "Indiana" ; then they all laugh. One says, " That 's a good one " ; then they all laugh again and take something. Then the Devil winks again and says, " Connecticut " ; then an- other cries, " That 's another good one." Then they laugh all round again and take something. CHAPTER VI. MATERIALISM THE CURSE OF AMERICA. If there is much to discourage an American who desires to see his country at least on the road towards the goal of true national glory, much remains to invig- orate hope. The very impression which has been so deep in the history of our country, that she is reserved by Providence for some great object, is in itself hopeful ; for the impression may in time inspire deeds according to it, as it already has done when our country's life was in peril. A lofty aim, though it may long lie smoulder- ing in the heart of a man or of a nation, is better than a blank of high designs. It is well enough to talk about clearing the track before the higher national life begins its course, but how long are we to wait for the track to be cleared, when just as soon as one railroad three thousand miles long is built, another road as long or longer is begun, to break up the fair profits of the original enterprise, and in the end to swamp them all in irretrievable disaster.? Our country, according to the usual reckoning, is nearly a hundred years old already; yet, as regards those developments of intellectual eminence which make the 'j6 THE AMERICAN STATE. chief glory of nations, she is yet a child ; and when rebuked, as she deserves to be, for what little she has done in the higher sphere of national power and honor, contrasted with what she has done in the lower sphere of material progress, she claims more time. But how long will she wait ? Must all the forests in America be cut down and turned into ships, or into logs for politicians to roll ; must every acre of open ground on the continent be bearing wheat, pota- toes, or taxes ; must there be a howling mill bordering every mile of water from Maine to Mexico, before our country will learn and own that commerce, agri- culture, and manufactures, important as they are, should not absorb a nation's soul ? Must our country wait for a literature worthy of herself until she shall be so crossed by rival railroads from every Atlantic to every Pacific port, and from the Lakes to the soil and the Gulf of Mexico, as to be a continental gridiron, on which stocks will be cooked to a crisp, and burn the fingers of all who touch them ? The theory is false, that the intellectual field of the country must be left to run to weeds until the material acres shall be all developed ; that a nation must reach her dotage before she begins to think or to write. A literature worthy of the name is not produced when nations are worn out, but in the fulness of their vigor- ous energy, when throbbing with manly pulses, having faces ruddy with health and eyes beaming with clear and s:enerous fire. MATERIALISM THE CURSE OF AMERICA. 7/ Did Greece wait until she had lost her teeth and her independence before she charged with the fire of her soul her never-dying works of genius ? Did Rome wait until she had conquered the world before she stamped all time with immortal figures of intellectual might ? Were the giants of Italian song obliged to wait until Italy was in perfect repose, enjoying wealth and "all festivity," before they tuned their harps, and a world, though rocked on the billows of political convulsion, listened enchanted ? Did England wait until she had conquered India and spanned the earth with armaments before she bade Chaucer and Shakespeare sing, Roger and Francis Bacon think, and Newton see ; or heard St. Thomas a Becket assert the rights of the soul above those of the sceptre ? Where would have been the treasures of German literature, if Goethe and the rest had lived and died waiting for Bismarck to come and, after trying to destroy all that is glorious in France, then turn to try to destroy all that is best and noblest in German life and history? The grandest works of human genius in literature and art have grown with the growth of the nations in which they were inspired. When nations have become luxurious and corrupt, and have rested from eager toil, genius itself has become eftcminate and weak. The sunshine which ripens the harvests of national power kindles the fires of the poet's soul, lights for the sculp- tor and the architect the way of renown, and tips the pencil of the painter with beauty. yS THE AMERICAN STATE. During the calumniated ages, — those ages of mar- vellous intellectual splendor, commonly called the Dark Ages, — the highest and noblest knowledge was sought with the avidity with which, in this age of light, specu- lators gamble in stocks. In the Dark Ages the wonders of the soul of man, the mysteries of "thoughts that wan- der through eternity," were investigated with the same eager intensity with which, in this age of light, philoso- phers study bugs and the bones of primeval nonde- scripts. In the Dark Ages emperors and kings and nations vied with each other in building majestic cathe- drals, to stand for ages, for worshipping in a majestic manner the eternal majesty of God. In this age of light emperors and kings and nations vie with each other in building houses of glass which a hail-storm may destroy, to display the gilt and glare of civilization, not even admitting books for their worth as books, but only for their luxurious binding. In the Dark Ages Gregorian chants echoed beneath lofty arches reared for the worship of the Most High, as though they would join the music of the choirs " that circle God's throne rejoicing." It was reserved for an age of light to sing the praises of God to the music of opera-dancers. In the Dark Ages philosophers believed that man was made, as Revelation says he was made, in the image of God ; and they drew their most powerful arguments for a noble life from that undoubted truth. In this age of light philosophers maintain that man was made in the image of a monkey, and retains it with the addition MATERIALISM THE CURSE OF AMERICA. 79 of " all the modern improvements " ; from which it follows that, if a man lives a monkey's life and dies a monkey's death, he rounds the circle of his destiny. In the Dark Ages giants of thought and study built works of intellectual power as strong as the cathedrals, and yet more enduring ; for when the cathedrals shall have become shapeless ruins, countless thousands will con- tinue to be nerved and exalted by the grand thoughts of those majestic masters of the soul, yet humble ser- vants of God, whose words will never die. It was reserved for an age of light to hang on the lips of a jester with a thousand times more enthusiastic delight than it would on the lips of the Archangel Raphael. The Dark Ages, as we insolently call them, were ages of furious storms in Church and State. At times it seemed as though chaos would come again ; yet, generally, the questions which led to such terrific convulsions were great c^uestions. Often, when they seemed to concern nothing more than the claims of rivals for a throne, they really touched three worlds. Heaven, Earth, and Hell. The very men, perhaps themselves without learning, who were engaged in the tumults of those times, when society was in a state of transformation, were often the zealous friends and defenders of human knowledge and of scholars, poets, and thinkers. Those were times when there might be some excuse for neglecting the higher traits of civilization ; but they were not neglected, and we are now gathering the fruits of that noble de- So THE AMERICAN STATE. termination that the souls of men should not starve while the nations were passing through the Red Sea of stormy conflict from Pagan Egypt to the Christian Canaan. Rulers and potentates, half-barbarians as some of them were, did not wait until society was or- ganized, and contending powers had ceased to strive, before they filled the scholar's lamp, endowed the scholar's home, and gave him time and freedom to follow the mind and heart of man through all their wondrous ways, and even to soar upon the wings of humble yet courageous faith, to catch upon the mirrors of their souls some beams of light from the eternal throne. I have said enough to illustrate what I mean in say- ing that, by the profound contempt with which our country has generally treated the better and nobler labors and struggles of national inspiration and~glory, she has dishonored and degraded herself, all the mem- ories of her past, all the hopes of her future. Other nations have revelled in greater luxury, but not one ever before revelled in such vulgar luxury, so unre- deemed by lofty aims and objects ; not one ever made such ostentatious displays, with so httle, so far as the world knows, of that real, eternal worth which survives the crash of empires, behind the ostentation ; not one ever before so trampled upon those highest graces of civilization, which even in Pagan empires were held in the highest honor, and which barbarians recognized and defended with a cordial sincerity and zeal that Amer- MATERIALISM THE CURSE OF AMERICA. 51 ica, the stock-jobbing, paper-money-making "land of the free and home of the brave," which keeps down merit and keeps up pretension, woukl scorn to feel or show ; not one ever so scouted and abhorred the claims of the human soul, as does this broad, noble land of ours, which is set forth in the maps of our school- books in pure white as the most enlightened part of the world, while other lands and other times are made to wear a funeral pall. Revise your maps, vainglorious geographers, and set forth the nations during the Dark Ages, when the souls of men were held in honor, in alluring white ; and set forth your own country, in this age of light, when and where the souls of men are trampled in the mire, in dismal and repulsive black. The merchants of Europe, during the Middle Ages and those subsequent, were ardent friends and helpers of literature and art. With some most glorious excep- tions, what, in such a regard, are the merchants of the New World ? The least said the better. There have, indeed, lived among us men who have left worthy and noble records of their lives in sterling works of literature. Such men are living now ; but they, like their predecessors, have to go against the tide. They have excited but little of the sympathy and en- thusiasm with which, in other lands and other times, men like them have been regarded. In a few quiet circles of friends they have been appreciated and hon- ored ; but they have not found the hearts of the people of their country beating manfully and generously with 82 THE AMERICAN STATE. theirs, inspiring and inspired. Instead of being lifted by their aspirations, they have had to drag them Hke a load. America is free for anything and everything ex- cept for those aims and efforts which are the chief gift, joy, and crown of freedom. Intellectual life in Europe, generally, feels the cheering support of the great heart of the people ; and that is a constant incentive to con- stant exertion. Its very labors have wings that make them light. Intellectual life in America is a dreary, weary treadmill, and every toiling foot is laden with lead. I have used the language of denunciation. I have used it with good reason. I have a right to use it, and will use it again with tenfold greater severity, if I shall choose to do so, and if the same reason shall continue to be, not because I hate my country, — for, if I did, I should not care, — but because I love my country, and desire with all my heart that she should be what she ought to be, what she was evidently intended by Al- mighty God to be, what all friends of everything no- blest and best in Christian civilization supposed she would be, but what she has not been, is not, and ap- parently has no desire to be. If there were a hell for nations, as there is for individuals who prove traitors to God and man, I should indeed tremble for my country. I will take a more cheering view. I will try to be- lieve that noble aspirations find a welcome in tens of thousands of American hearts, which have little oppor- tunity for expression, though they receive no favor from MATERIALISM THE CURSE OF AMERICA. 83 the government, but, on the contrary, total neglect or insolent derision, and that there is in our country a de- termination that it shall not always be so. On that faith I lean and hope. I cannot believe that all the noble struggles of our country have been in vain. I cannot believe that the western star of empire is noth- ing but the illuminated golden seal of mammon. I cannot believe that our country is much longer to be a coliseum as vast as the continent, in which stock-job- bers are the gladiators and a population of forty millions of people the eager and applauding spectators. I can- not believe that Washington was born in vain, lived in vain, strove in vain, and died in vain. As I look upon the calm face of the Father of his Country, I draw new- hope from the view. Would God have given to our country so wise and so illustrious a guide in her time of need, if He had not meant that our country herself should be, in due time, a wise and illustrious guide ? A man may, indeed, by his own free will, bring about his own destruction, refusing to grasp the rope which is thrown out for his rescue ; but can such a thing as the defeat of a divine purpose respecting a nation be known in the counsels of the Most High and Omnipo- tent God .-* I cannot believe it : I will not believe it. My faith may die, but it shall wear the blooming and fragrant garland of hope until it dies. CHAPTER VII. AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER. George Washington ! How entirely wrong are many of the views regarding him, held even by those who love and revere his memory ! They look upon him as a man almost without warm sympathies or human passions. What is the truth ? George Wash- ington was, in his nature, one of the most ardent, im- pulsive, impetuous of men. He was a man of fiery passions held under control and made ready servants, not despotic masters, by sublime wisdom and Christian principle. By the impulse of his nature in his terrible conflict, he would with heroic boldness have met the armies sent to subjugate his country many a time, and if falling in the face of the enemy and in front of his soldiers, he might have left behind him the renown of a fiery hero, like Richard of the Lion-heart ; but the cost of his personal glory forever might have been the ruin of his country. He knew that with the solemn charge in his hands, and with his slender resources, he must avoid positive and direct engagements when it was pos- sible, and to accept them only when it was impossible to do otherwise, or under such conditions that, while AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER. 85 victory might not be decisive, defeat would not be fatal for his cause. In nothing is the genius of Washington more manifest than in the skill with which he baffled the efforts of the generals sent to destroy him and his small, though devoted army in desperate conflicts. It was often the duty of Washington — and the most bitter duty that can fall to the lot of a brave man — to bear the imputation of a want of bravery, rather than to risk the fate of his country on the open field without imperative need. Yet the war gave many proofs that he was not wanting in the most heroic personal cour- age ; and as to the army which he led, history cannot often show more glorious daring or more glorious en- durance than theirs. Time may indeed make it needful, even in complet- ing the majestic work which Washington began, to depart on some points even from his patriotic counsels, which, of unerring wisdom when uttered, may prove not to be wise under very different conditions. For instance, his advice against "entangling alliances" was just and right when it was given, and it would be equally just and right now, if any alliance were to be accepted or to be sought with any other nation for any merely self- ish object on either side ; but in performing any of the great national or international duties which the future may make imperative, it will not be just and right to decline doing that duty through fear of an "entangling alliance." When the time shall come for America to take her S6 THE AMERICAN STATE. share in restoring Christian sovereignty to Eastern Eu- rope, Western Asia, and Northern Africa, she will be compelled by urgent need, not only without reproach, but with immortal ho,nor, to accept or to seek an alli- ance with any Christian nation, or with more than one, which shall earnestly endeavor to fulfil the long-bind- ing, yet long-neglected duty of Christendom. America may have recognized Mohammedan sovereignty over Christian people as a fact, — and a fact it is, and the most degrading one in modern history, — but she has never recognized it as just, and she never will. America, when she shall become plainly and avowedly a Chris- tian nation, will be able, and it may become her duty, to act with the lofty heroism and for the holy purpose of the glorious Crusades. Indeed, the signs of history seem to show that if Mohammedan sovereignty shall not be quietly and completely surrendered on the unan- imous demand of the Christian powers, including those of America, our own noble empire will have the un- fading honor of leading the last and permanently tri- umphant Crusade. Certainly, one of her first duties, when by her own will and by the consent of the rest she shall become a member of the family of Christian nations, will be to demand that Jerusalem and Con- stantinople shall no longer be subjected to the rule of the enemies and, as far as they could be, destroyers of the Christian faith, — Jerusalem, because she is the mother of us all, the most sacred spot on earth, where God and man united laid the corner-stone of the king- AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER. 8/ dom of heaven upon earth ; and Constantinople, because founded by the sovereign who first recognized Chris- tianity as the sovereign law for nations as for men. When the great Eastern question, eight centuries old and an unanswered question yet, shall again be opened for decision, the Christian world may be very sure that the rights of Christianity and of Christendom will not again be dishonored, disowned, and betrayed by another Treaty of Paris, like that of 1856, in which all the rights whose recovery inspired the hearts and hands of Christian soldiers for ages were basely surrendered at the victorious demands of England and France, or rather of Turkey ; for Mohammedan power, in the height of its baleful ascendency, never won by her own force of arms a triumph more insolent than it gained by diplomacy from the so-called Christian powers in 1856. Before any treaty can be again made, settling the sovereignty of the East, America will be a Christian power, and she will put an imperative and effective veto upon any treacherous surrender of the rights of Chris- tian sovereignty. When the time shall come for the destruction of that iniquitous treaty, the joint work of infidels and apos- tates, in which, thank God, the governments of North and South America had no share and by which they are not bound, England and France may remember that they have been, if they are no longer. Christian nations, and may act accordingly. At any rate, let England and France understand plainly and in season, 88 THE AMERICAN STATE. that then America will have something to say, and probably something to do. America will pay no heed for a single instant to any such incidental question as keeping the way open to India for the sake of anybody, or as keeping the balance of power for the sake of any- body, but will take and hold the ground, at all hazards, that Mohammedan usurpation must cease, and that Christian sovereignty must be restored over every acre of land that formed a part of the first Christian empire. Let God be praised that the nations of Christendom, however independent they may be, in the sense of being free each to act for its highest good, never have been, are not, and never will be independent in the sense of complete isolation. They constitute a great family of nations, whether they like it or not ; a very quarrelsome family oftentimes, yet one family never- theless. They have mutual rights and mutual duties ; they have also common rights and common duties ; and they are all equally binding. He is a very poor patriot and a very miserable American any way, who thinks that his country should make it a special point to ab- sorb all the wealth possible to nourish her individual pleasure, and all the influence possible to nourish her individual pride. Even if such purposes should inspire not only the people but the government, at some unex- pected moment they may utterly fail. The providence of God has a very summary way at times of destroying selfish pretensions and plans, as truly in the case of nations as of men. America cannot share in the wis- AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER. 89 dom of all the ages without sharing in the national responsibilities of all the ages. If her wealth shall become greater than that of her neighbors, so will her Christian duty be greater. If her power shall become greater than that of her neighbors, so much greater will become her obligation to use that power, not for selfish glory, but for the welfare, authority, and honor of all mankind. Christianity cannot cease to be aggressive upon all forms of error without being false to herself and to her divine origin ; and Christian nations cannot cease to be aggressive upon all obsta- cles and enemies to the Christian faith, without being false to the cross and to their God. In the future to a far greater extent than ever before. Christian nations will see and do their duty as Christian nations, until the Redeemer's cross shall be tenderly touched by the shadow in every valley, and triumphantly illumined by the light on every mountain throughout the globe. Our country is not an avowed Christian nation, but the first men from Europe who trod the soil of the New World, according to the received records of history, were the representatives of Christian nations. The discovery of America was itself a Christian enterprise, so understood. Christopher Columbus was not only the discoverer of the New World, but the agent by whom Christian authority was brought from the Old World to the New ; and through Christopher Columbus, acting by the express authority of Christian sovereigns, so acknowledged by the nations of the earth, our coun- 90 THE AMERICAN STATE, try holds, through the succession of ages and countries, her civil authority in a direct and unbroken line from its very beginning on earth ; and more particularly as regards Christian right and obligation from the Roman Empire, after it became a Christian power by the act of Constantine. The rights of Christianity as a sovereign power in all civil as well as in all religious affairs existed poten- tially in the will and power of God himself, in a certain sense, before the worlds were made ; but that sov- ereignty in civil affairs was recognized for the first time on earth by Constantine as the representative of aii actual and organized government ; and that recognition was not only for the Roman Empire, but for civil authority itself throughout the world for all time, re- maining unbroken through all forms and changes of government. A principle meant for all time when once recognized is recognized for all time, and is binding upon all nations and all men for all time. That Columbus did not actually found a positive gov- ernment on the main continent of America makes no difference in the validity of civil authority under Chris- tian sanction, brought through his agency. He estab- lished such authority in several of the American islands, and the germ would have been a true germ if it had been planted in the smallest island that lifts its head from American waters. Besides, his successors, ex- tending the authority first planted by him, and acting, like him, by the sanction of Christian sovereigns, con- AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER. 9I tinued the unbroken line of Christian ascendency in civil affairs, which potentially exists now in our own land, waiting to be avowed, developed, and defended. It will be seen that the rights of Christian sovereignty were planted in the New World very long before the settlements made by the subjects of the British crown. Those settlements have had very important conse- quences, but they were simply incidental as regards the principle considered. Nor will it make any difference whatever in the argu- ment, if it shall be plainly proved that the Northmen came to America centuries before Columbus ; for the point is, that Columbus conveyed civil authority from a Christian state to the New World, — a Christian state which had undergone many changes, but which was one of the provinces of the Roman Empire when it became Christian. If the Northmen were Christians and came by authority, that authority must be traced to Constantine, who was the first to recognize Christian sovereignty in the state and over the state ; and if they were not Christians, they could not bring what they did not own. To go no further back than the Christian era, then, it follows — to present the points again — that our country derives her civil authority by succession of governments from the Roman Empire before it became Christian, and has the right and is really bound to recognize Christian sovereignty in the state, in all affairs within the just jurisdiction of the state, because 92 THE AMERICAN STATE. she derives both the right and the obhgation to do so from the Roman Empire, after it became Christian. Those who prefer to trace civil authority in America no further than Plymouth Rock and Jamestown can stop there if they choose ; but if they go back in their own chosen line, they will finally reach the throne of Con- stantine the Great, the founder of the great Christian empire of the East ; and also, in a certain sense, the founder of what may prove the yet greater Christian empire of the West. I speak but relatively in calling Constantine the founder of the first Christian empire. No man can really found an empire, though he may combine and extend its powers, or may own, as Constantine did, that the rights of God are before and above the rights of man. Authority is continuous, like the life of nature, through all changes and apparent destructions. It takes no more from the praise due to Washington that the materials for an independent country and the sanc- tions of its power existed before his day, and without regard to the claims of the British crown, than that the marble stands ready in the quarry for the sculptor's chisel, or that myriad colors, lights, and shades wait eager to spring to the canvas at the painter's call. There is little doubt that Washington habitually nerved and renewed the strength of his soul at the inexhaustible Fountain of strength. On Washington leading his soldiers, so few yet patriotic and heroic, the patriots of all ages might look with rapture and hope. AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER. 93 On Washington, in some obscure headquarters of his army, with his maps and the reports of trusty messen- gers before him, studying by the lonely lamp at mid- night the ways and means of resistance, every armed defender of right that ever lived, and who had to con- sider how he could be " able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand," might look with eager sympathy. Washington victo- rious and receiving the applause and thanks of his countrymen as he journeyed from city to city, over ways covered with flowers and bedewed with tears of joy, and welcomed by songs from the voices of thou- sands of children, joined by the chorus of resounding bells, was a spectacle on which Roman conquerors, crowned with laurels, not always for serving their coun- try, but often for destroying the freedom of some other land and bringing it under the iron hand of Rome, might look with jealousy and envy ; for their triumph, more frequently than otherwise, came from power subjecting all that is dearest to man, while Washington's victory was that of all that is dearest to man over the strong arm of power. Washington, at the head of the govern- ment, presiding with unyielding rectitude and honor, and with the true yet stately courtesy of the olden time, was a spectacle on which all the rulers of the world might look as on a noble example of all that is lofty and chivalric in personal character and of all that is noble, just, and fearless in administration. Yet a spectacle more sublime than Washington at the front 94 THE AMERICAN STATE, of his small but unflinching army; or than Washing- ton at his headquarters, calm, patient, energetic, among intense anxieties ; or than Washington receiving the homage of grateful tears and grateful shouts and grate- ful songs ; or than Washington, as the chief ruler of his ransomed country, beloved and revered by all, — more sublime than all these was Washington on his knees, with head bared, and with folded hands uplifted, under the shadow of the forest tree, in earnest prayer to God to help him save his country from her foes by His almighty arm. On that spectacle not only patriots and heroes, conquerors and rulers, but all the angels of Heaven might look with tenderness and awe. Could such a spot as that have been marked at the time and be known now, though it were in the heart of a busy city, how reverently would it be regarded ! And should the stranger ask why that spot is kept so sacred, and bright with living green, while over 'it the aged oak rears its great branches high, though all around flows the clamoring tide of trade, he would be told that, on that spot, the Father of his Country knelt, in his days of patriotic agony, in prayer for the help and guidance of God ; that every branch of that old oak, which sheltered the bared head of Washington while he was imploring the favor of God for his coun- try, is guarded and bound with tender care ; and that, whenever the leaves of that old oak of the Rev- olution wave gently in the wind, they seem yet to quiver with the ascending prayers of Washington. AMERICA A CHRISTIAN POWER, 95 Though no man can tell that spot, it is marked on God's map. There it shines in immortal green. That tree may have been burned to ashes many a year ago, or it may have formed a part of some ship that bore her country's flag, and upheld its honor at sea ; but, in the memory of the omniscient God, that tree yet rears its majestic branches, waves its leaves to the music of the winds, and throws around its sacred shade. The Father of his Country may anywhere and at any time have sought the aid of his Father in Heaven ! And, behind his features, generally so grandly calm, may have been a spirit of earnest and constant en- treaty for aid from the armory of Heaven. It may have been as true of him as it is of others, absorbed in the cares of life, that supplication can be set to the tune of any fair and faithful work. As chants the sweet singer of Oxford : — " The trivial round, the common task. Would furnish all we ought to ask ; Room to deny ourselves ; a road To bring us, daily, nearer God." The sounding strokes of the anvil may be the chorus of a thankful heart, inspiring the strong arm that wields the heavy sledge. The bright plough- share may reflect the shining soul of him who ploughs and sows and reaps in simple, daily faith. " The dizzy mast" may prove to be one of the firm, endur- ing pillars of the gate of Heaven. The dreary mine 96 THE AMERICAN STATE. may dazzle with the presence of God. The ledger filled with names and figures may be a beautiful, me- lodious liturgy of praise and prayer, if the merchant looks it over to see not how little but how much he can bestow to advance on earth the kingdom of his Saviour-God. Every good deed done on earth strikes one of the unseen chords of that " vast, mystic instru- ment" of the universe, of which Dana sings, thrills along its electric line, until it reaches the choirs of Heaven, and breathes a new note of joy upon their responsive harps. CHAPTER VIII. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. No event in the life of Abraham Lincoln has more historical sublimity, and, all the more, because he had no thought of anything historical or sublime about it, than when, while his neighbors thronged around him, to bid him farewell, as he was about to leave Spring- field — never, as it proved, to see it again — to become the ruler of a distracted nation, he besought their prayers to God for him, that he might serve his coun- try faithfully and well, through all the toils and perils before him. I seem to see Abraham Lincoln as he will stand transfigured by revering ages in the glorious company of all who lived and died for right. He stands in patient yet firm reliance. His eyes are tearless, yet seem to be brimming with that peculiar tenderness which comes from suffering nobly borne. The fur- rows and ridges of his face are there, for they are the marks of untold anguish for his country's cause, of the sorrows of a heart that would have given no need- less pang to any living thing, yet was compelled by loyalty to God and to his country to send armies to 5 G 98 THE AMERICAN STATE. meet armies in fierce, defiant war. The marks of anxious ardor and suffering for the sake of others are the heraldic signs of heroes and martyrs, the coat of arms of that nobiUty whose titles bear the sign-man- ual of God. Let no painter or sculptor, led by any theory of art against truth and nature, seek to soften or erase them. Let them stay on the painter's canvas and in monumental marble. They are, like the wounds of the Christians under the claws of the lions in the amphitheatres of Pagan Rome, sacred forever. What is more beautiful than the rough and rugged ridges of the mountains, illumined by the golden glory of the morning sun ? What is more beautiful ? The face of Abraham Lincoln was more beautiful, when over its ridges of anxiety played the clear sunlight of a patri- otic faith which no reverse could darken. The words of Lincoln, like himself, were often rough in form, yet through them his thoughts flashed like diamonds, which, if not set in gold, were diamonds still ; and, at times, his periods had a rhythmic rise and fall of playful fancy or of tearful grace, which no poet could have tuned to purer, sweeter harmony. He was a deep, wise, thorough man, deeper, wiser, more thorough than his countrymen knew. In coun- cil he might be as bending as the bow, yet, in act, he could be as unbending as the oak. W'hcn he led he was more often right than when he followed. He was not always quick to see, but he was sure to sec ; and, when he saw, he struck. His will moved about ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99 SO readily and playfully upon the waves, that some, thought he could be drawn this way or that, at pleas- ure ; but, when they tried, they found that his will was anchored fast. It might move around, not often from its anchorage. He was greater than his fame for greatness ; and the more he is studied, the greater he is seen to be. He proved a sure and faithful guide as well as a true patriot. He was a mine of precious worth, which, the more it is explored, the richer it is found to be. His suavity hid from many his sagacity. His wit was but the out-door exercise of an inner man that was profoundly serious and earnest. He did not generally run over an obstacle rough-shod ; but he would put the obstacle aside — it might be some wild, mazy, incompetent, half-hearted, or officious man — so gently yet so thoroughly, that the obstacle itself would look round and wonder how it was done. No man could have so deeply impressed so many as Lincoln did, if he had been eminent by place alone. Arduous duty has often brought out, but it never created, worth. The post of honor and power often lifts the lowly and degrades the proud, but it never yet made true manhood out of soulless souls or pure gold out of brass. The soldiers fighting for their country lifted their feet in the weary march with a new spring of loyal zeal, in the hour of combat they stood firmer and stronger, and in the silence of their tents they felt their hearts grow warmer for their country's cause, lOO THE AMERICAN STATE. even among the thronging memories of home, when they thought of some fervent, patriotic appeal of Abra- ham Lincohi, equally inspired by a tender heart and a fearless will. Lincoln won and kept the hearts of the soldiers through the war. Had he not been a true, noble, glorious man, he could not have done that ; and the man who could do that, as Lincoln did, was a treasury of inspiring ardor. The warm heart of Abraham Lincoln was like an army for his coun- try's cause. No man can measure the value of Lin- coln's calm and steadfast fortitude in the early months of the war, when the country, startled into self-defence by combinations which, perhaps, had been for years secretly planned, found herself unprepared for the great and unexpected conflict. For months before he had any right to speak or to act, these combina- tions had been caressed, allowed, if not approved, by the very man, who, as President, should have crushed them at once with all the resources at his command. Had President Buchanan seen that the oath to sup- port the Constitution of the United States did not destroy, but really confirmed what ought to have been his oath on his knees before God, to try to save his country at all hazards, and had he acted accordingly, perhaps there would have been no war. Without a country, of what use would be the Constitution .-* Lin- coln had to receive as his immediate, official inher- itance the terrible weight of responsibility laid upon his shoulders by a man who, as President, proved to ABRAHAM LINCOLN. lOI be, if not morally a traitor, so nearly one that the di- viding line is like one of those " infinitely small quan- tities" which, the mathematicians say, can be safely neglected. A weak man, or a merely sentimental patriot, or a man without earnest, ardent feeling, nerved by an inflexible will, occupying the post of the Presidency when Lincoln did, would have been a fearful, possibly a fatal obstacle. Thank God — thank Him forever — Lincoln was a strong man. He was no sentimental patriot ; for, though he loved his country as a true man loves a true woman, as a true woman loves a true man, his affection arose from no accidental or incidental caprices. Lincoln's love for his country was a part of himself He was chosen by his coun- trymen to be their ruler, and he accepted the solemn trust for life or for death ; and, though it proved to be for death to himself, it was for the life of his coun- try. Let no man deny to Abraham Lincoln his just honor. So far as so great a praise can be claimed for any one man, Lincoln was the savior of his country. One anxiety Abraham Lincoln should not have had to bear. His propositions to his Cabinet, there is great reason to fear, had to encounter cross-examina- tions from Presidential desires. They might be right, just, seasonable; but would they favor this Secre- tary's hopes of the Presidency, and, if they did, would they not oppose another's.-' and should they favor 102 THE AMERICAN STATE. either, would they not diminish another's ? or, oppos- ing all, would they not favor some one outside the Cabinet, who might presume to aspire to the Presi- dency ? Abraham Lincoln, in the generous simplicity of his trustful nature, called his disappointed rivals around him to be his constitutional advisers. He would have done a thousand times better without them. And so would the country. The public need of unity of administration was far greater than that of the divided counsels of eminent men, — personal friends, no doubt, but also personal rivals. Cabinet ministers, of less abstract ability, perhaps, but having public views less refracted by private aims, would have been more useful. Cabinet ministers are the confidential ser- vants, not the partners of the Executive ; and when they seek or strive to be anything else, they violate alike their personal and their official honor. If they cannot give an opinion which is not colored by their personal ambition, their plain duty is to give place to others who will at least try to do so. Abraham Lincoln had to face the music of the Cabinet which he had himself chosen ; and distract- ing music it was. Out of the tumultuous discord one voice at least rang clear, strong, and true ; and that was the voice of Abraham Lincoln, who strove with the single sincerity of his heart and with the power of his mild yet firm will to be true to his trust, hav- ing to encounter avowed, armed, and open enemies, and also friends whose desire to succeed him was ABRAHAM LINCOLN. IO3 probably as great as their desire to have their coun- try succeed. If any man on earth has a harder choice to make, in selecting Cabinet ministers, than an American President, point him out. If he shall choose nobodies for his Cabinet, the public business must suffer from in- competency ; if he shall choose somebodies, then each somebody will have at his elbow, at Cabinet meetings, the ghost, not of some Presidency that has been, but of some Presidency that hopes to be ; and every sug- gestion made about national affairs must be referred for a decision to each ghost of the Presidency that hopes to be ; and the ghosts are each at war with each, and all very politely but very bitterly at war with him who holds the office which their patrons want. Navigation must be always hard and some- times dangerous, if the captain tries to follow the ship's compass, and his officers try to go by com- passes of their own, which obey the magnets of their contrary desires, instead of pointing to the north. All lands honor, as all ages will, Lincoln's genial simplicity, his loving heart, his trusting spirit, his un- bending will, his ardent patriotism, his thoughtful yet working wisdom, his eminent and triumphant services. Throughout the world, in homage to such nobleness, the laborer lifts his toil-worn hands and the king lifts his royal crown. There are, indeed, more splendid names on the historic page, some crowned with rays as from the throne of God himself, others with bale- I04 THE AMERICAN STATE, ful fires of wild ambition ; yet, as Abraham Lincoln stands on the summit of his true and wide renown, all the world can sec how all the gems of Persia fade before the starry light which flows from the patriot- martyr's brow. Look where Abraham Lincoln stands in undying fame. A vast throng approaches. On one side they come, a long array, and still they come, and, as far as the eye can see, they yet are coming, as well they may come gladly, crowding on. They have dark faces, but illumined hearts. They are free. No one owns them now but God. Yet they seem bound to- gether as of old ; and so they are, but sec how they are bound. As they approach, wreaths and chains of flowers of every hue are about their heads and about their necks, and extend from hand to hand, filhng the air with fragrance. Flowers upon flowers are borne aloft and onward by the grateful throngs. Red, white, and blue — the rose, the lily, and the violet — are inter- woven there in rich and sweet profusion. The blush- ing, quivering mimosa blends with vines of golden jessamine ; the grand magnolia opens wide its fragrant, pearly shell, and evergreens of every kind arc inter- twined with all. Now the vast multitude throw to- gether in a thankful, fragrant monument their floral fetters, that bear no stains but those of tears of eager, triumphant joy. They kneel at their deliverer's feet, and lift their hands and voices high, and sing to God a song of grateful praise, and this is the refrain : ABRAHAM LINCOLN, IO5 A race from bondage freed, a nation saved ; thanks be to God on high, thanks be to him who did the will of God! Look on the other side. Thousands, tens of thou- sands of soldiers are there, drawn up in ranks after ranks, columns after columns, arrayed in loyal blue, Heaven's own color for Heaven's own cause ; and among them, in cordial harmony, are the sailors, who on the deck were as heroic as their brothers on the field. Innumerable starry banners are waving in the wind, and martial music rolls along the lines in ocean-waves of melody. The great host march on in a grand review before the ruler of his country, who was true to his trust, as they were true to theirs. In the sunshine gleam their arms of steel. From their eyes flames forth the patriotic fire which glowed on fields and decks for country and for God. The soldiers and sailors stand beside the kneeling throngs. Sud- denly the martial music stops. The banners wave, but not ' a voice is heard. Hark ! now there is a sound. The roll is called, the living roll of the im- mortal dead, the names of those who fell to save their country, who died in battle, were wounded unto death, or who, in hospitals, worn out by fatal mala- dies, yielded their lives to God with one regret alone, that they could not have died, wounded or slain in conflict. Their names are called, the names of the pale yet glorious throng who no more can speak on earth ; yet, as each name is called in a clear, resound- 5* I06 THE AMERICAN STATE. ing voice, with a tone as clear, resounding, some comrade answers, " Here " ; and each name goes round, repeated from lips to lips of " numbers without num- ber." Now the vast multitude, the standing guard of honor of loyal soldiers and sailors, joined by the sympathetic souls, if not the ringing voices, of the fallen comrades " Here," the kneeling crowds of the freed, and the innumerable hosts of the people that have come from all the land, swell the same resounding chorus through the air, while instrumental tones lift and spread the vocal harmony: A race from bondage freed, a nation saved ; thanks be to God on high, thanks be to him who did the will of God ! The thousands of loyal soldiers and sailors, the throngs of the freed, the greater throngs of the rest of the thankful people, slowly yet reverently leave the historic presence of Abraham Lincoln, not deserted, but attended by all patriotic hopes, by all patriotic memories, by all patriotic thanks from countless mil- lions of all time. They go repeating the inspiring sounds of praise until they reverberate through all the waving forests of the land, through all its shaded val- leys, over all its towering mountains, through every embowered village, through every crowded city. The anthem swells with the waves of Northern lakes ; it mingles with the sublime, unresting roar of Niagara; and near by, while Niagara joins like an organ in the harmony, it delays to chant its tender homage, blend- ing heroic sorrow with heroic joy over the grave of the ABRAHAM LINXOLN. lO/ young patriot, Porter, found "dead upon the field of honor," pierced with more than thirty wounds. At soldiers' homes the anthem lingers ; and betrothed maidens, youthful wives, heroic mothers, pressing to their hearts again the pictured faces of loved ones they nevermore shall see on earth, seem to baptize with holy tears each echoing word of praise. Gigantic rivers of our land, winding along from pines to palms, from snowy mountains to the far-off sea, in all their windings wind responsive to the' winding song. Over tens of thousands of soldiers' graves the strains delay. Each rising mound of earth that holds a hero's form under its living green is like another key of melody, which, touched by sympathetic tones, joins the vast chorus of exulting praise. The anthem minglfes with the sounding waves of the Atlantic, which bear it to the European shore ; and over the broad land it rolls until the grand Pacific takes the sound and speeds it to the islands of the sea. So, onward, onward, on over seas of time and seas of space, the anthem goes, sounding, resounding, echoing through choral ages, while patriot sires bend with patriot sons from Heaven to hear and join the glad acclaim : A race from bondage freed, a nation saved ; thanks be to God on high, thanks be to him who did the will of God ! CHAPTER IX. ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. What did Abraham Lincoln save by the loyal aid of hundreds of thousands of brave men, and by as great self-devotion and self-sacrifice of a lo3-al and determined people as was ever known before ? He saved the nation. What is meant by that ? Are the United States a nation ? Yes. I have said before that Christopher Columbus, as the authorized agent of a sovereign power, brought civil authority from Europe to America. Civil author- ity began on earth as soon as there were men need- ing to be ruled. It cannot be created by any man. It is the gift of God for human government, and is transmitted under many changes from age to age. It is as impossible for any man or for any number of men, a hundred thousand or a hundred millions, by their own will and power, to form an entirely new government, as it would be for them, singly or combined, to make a new planet or a blade of grass, or to rub out the past and begin the world again, as was tried in France. Human genius has, indeed, often combined national materials in sublime and en- ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. IO9 during forms, and may again, as architects design cathedrals, as poets write epic poems ; but in all such cases there was the pressure of all the ages before towards the great result. You cannot blot out the past without blotting out the present, for it becomes the past while you are blotting out ; and so you spend in pulling down the time which God gave you for building up. The treasures of the past are the armies which the commanding genius of the present may lead to higher and greater victories. Without the powers of by-gone ages the greatest human intelligence would be as weak as a general without soldiers, a king without subjects, or a ship without a crew. Civil authority is the creature of God and of him alone, — made once for all when men were created. It has been distorted and abused by man, like every other gift of God, but it is a trust, and not an origi- nal human prerogative. People cannot establish gov- ernment : government establishes the people, as it has a divine right to do, whatever may be its outward form. All the vast changes and modifications of all the nations are simply the changing applications of an unchangeable principle ; the power to say, in its lawful sphere, as the agent, not of the sovereign peo- ple, but of the sovereign God, Thou shalt, and thou shalt not. Behind all creation is the Creator ; behind all law, the great Lawgiver ; behind all forms and modes of government, the organic, original right to govern. Civil authority exists by the decree of no THE AMERICAN STATE. God before and after all constitutions. The govern- ing principle precedes, both in reason and in time, the loyal consent to be governed. We have been so accustomed to hear " inalienable rights " spoken of as identical with popular rights, that we are in great danger of forgetting that rulers have "inalienable rights " as well as the ruled. I admit that in a certain sense people may estab- lish a government ; that is, at some times and places, as delegates of Almighty God, they may apply the pri- mal and eternal principle, government, to civil afiairs. If "sovereignty of the people" is used in this sense, — of a delegated sovereignty, — though such a phrase is a contradiction, it may be permitted, if it gives pleas- ure. But it is an objectionable term anyway, and is open to very general misconstruction. Vast numbers who use the term " sovereignty of the people " under- stand it to mean that rulers are the servants of the people, and nothing else ; that they are responsible to the people, and to no one else ; and that the people themselves are responsible to nobody and to nothing ; that their judgment as expressed by the larger number is positive law and immutable, except when they reverse it of their own accord. This is a theory which annuls alike the duty of man and the law of God. Men, in applying the laws of nature to the mariner's compass, to the steam-engine, to the telegraph, to the unnumbered combinations of chemistry, never think of callin": themselves "sovereign" in reference to those ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. I I I laws. They acknowledge that the power which they try to use for the benefit of man is beyond and above them ; that they did not and could not create it ; and that the very highest aim they can have is, to apply it with the most success ; yet perhaps the same men, when they come to apply the laws of government, will hold that the eternal principle of authority is simply a creature of their own. They will admit that the law of magnetic attraction is independent of their will, and that they must conform to it, if they wish to use it ; but the immutable and divine law which controls, or ought to control, all human beings, as members of the social and civil state, — that law, they think, is nothing but their own will, as expressed by a majority of votes. I deny that the people have any more sov- ereignty in the laws of civil society than they have in the laws which direct the mariner's compass and the electric telegraph. In the word " people " as here used I include emperors, kings, presidents, magis- trates of all kinds and degrees. They have no author- ity, except as representing the divine and eternal source of all authority. In some forms of government people choose their own rulers. That is well enough, if it is understood that people cannot confer the right to rule, but can only say who shall rule, — a very different thing. Rulers, once chosen, and however chosen, though being accountable chiefly to God, are the servants of the people, just as by divine decree the sun is the 112 THE AMERICAN STATE. servant of the planets, which yet draw their light, heat, and power to move from him as being the agent and dispenser of a higher power. Rulers, exercising civil rights in the civil sphere or spiritual rights in the spiritual sphere, are the servants of the people, blending service and sovereignty ; and though mortal, they represent immortal prerogatives, in the same way — though in a degree infinitely less, because, as men, they are no better than the men they rule — as our incarnate God, the Saviour of the world, is in loving mercy the servant of all, while being in eternal power the Lord of all. The germ, or, rather, the new shoot of the old prin- ciple of civil authority which was brought to the New World by Christopher Columbus, afterwards grew to great dimensions under other auspices than those of Spain, — noble and glorious Spain, to whom, notwith- standing all her faults, no greater, probably, than those of other nations, our own great dominion and every other in the New World is indebted for the rightful succession of lawful rule in civil society. Whatever misfortunes may befall Spain, this undccaying, undy- ing glory is hers, that by her hands the sacred fire of Christian sovereignty in civil affairs, first actually kindled in the great empire of the civilized world by Constantino, though by right existing from eternity, and illuming large portions of three continents dur- ing the existence of the Christianized Roman Empire, and, on the dissolution of that empire, being diffused ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. II 3 more widely than ever, the nations growing out of the wreck of the empire retaining through their con- vulsions the essential principle which made them Christian nations, — the undying glory of Spain is, that by her the sovereignty of the Christian state was handed from the Old World to the New. Spain, like most nations, has found her worst enemies within herself; and the root of that enmity has been rebel- lion against the rights of God : but, notwithstanding all drawbacks and qualifications, Spain has been for ages a noble, courageous Christian nation. If she shall fall, the memory of her triumphant services for Christian ascendency can never be forgotten or over- valued ; if she shall rise to nobler heights of national glory, then brighter than all the jewels of her royal crown will be the reflected splendor of that light which she kindled in the western world. That others, beside the representatives of Spain, afterwards availed themselves of the discovery of the New World, and of the succession of Christian sover- eignty so secured, is historically true ; but they could not plant what had been already planted, they could not sow what had been already sown, they could not found what had been already founded, they could not do or undo what had been already done. They could bring, if they would, their own civil and religious institutions, but those institutions became subject to the claims of institutions that preceded them. Not that the people of the New World were 114 THE AMERICAN STATE, bound for all time to render allegiance to the crown of Spain. That is not meant. It was not the claim of Spain simply as a power which was concerned. That might be granted, or might not be. I am stat- ing the historical fact, and contending for what fol- lows from that fact, that through Spain, as a repre- sentative of Christian dominion, came from the Old World to the New alike the inalienable right and the peremptory obligation to establish civil society and national power on the basis of the Christian faith. Civil authority was growing in America under the benignant shadow of the Cross, among the fragrant, blooming flowers of St. Augustine, in Florida, long before a European foot was set on the icy Plymouth Rock, fit emblem alike of the firm endurance and of the cold, hard faith of the Pilgrims. Yet the Pilgrims of Plymouth may be absolved from any personal share in the murder of their king ; and, to their eternal honor, they dissented from much of the tyranny and violence of the British Puritans, whose malignity afterwards cul- minated in that awful crime. Neither the Pilgrims nor the Puritans were the founders of the empire of North America. That the murderers of a Christian king should have laid the corner-stone of a Christian empire would have been most humiliating and preposterous. God be praised, they did not. That corner-stone was laid by 'the hands of Spain long before Charles the First came to his thorny throne under a bloody star. As regards the obligations of the world to Spain, I ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. II5 have spoken in general terms, having in view such glorious achievements as the discovery of America and laying the foundation of the empire of the West, the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and the restoration to Christian rule of the lands which those enemies of the faith had so long and so defiantly profaned ; and the fact that wherever a Spanish soldier or civilian went by order of the Crown, he planted the Cross. I am not defending the Spanish Inquisition, though I doubt whether, among its authentic records, from beginning to end, or among the cruelties attributed to it by popu- lar belief, there has ever been, or has ever been ascril^ed, any greater atrocity than the murder of Sir Thomas More, the murder of Mary Queen of Scots, the murder of Charles the First of England, the murder of Arch- bishop Laud, the murder of Archbishop Plunkett, or ■ the massacre of the brave and confiding Highlanders of Glencoe. Nor am I defending the way in which Spanish authority has been at times maintained. Yet, if Philip the Second was hard and cruel in setting the dogs of war upon the people of Holland, Oliver Crom- well was no less hard and cruel in letting loose his tigers upon the people of Ireland. There is much to honor and revere in the history of England, though there is frequent occasion for indignation and grief; and so the glory of Spain immeasurably exceeds her shame. A single settlement and the prior settlement made by the sanction of a Christian power on a new con- Il6 THE AMERICAN STATE. tinent is the original germ of authentic nationality, however feeble its beginning, or however widely other Christian powers may subsequently extend their set- tlements on the same continent. America was in a condition entirely different from Europe, Asia, or Af- rica as regards the sanctions of Christian nationality. Europe had been already subdivided for centuries by the fall of the Roman Empire, deriving vast intellect- ual treasures from that greatest of all political wrecks, but, as the most imperishable and unchangeable inher- itance, Christian sanction for civil institutions. A part of Asia had been under Christian rule, which had been overv/helmed by the Mohammedan invasion ; but the right of Christian rule was not alienated by that cir- cumstance : for it is the right of Christianity to rule the world ; and the right, once recognized anywhere, at once gains the seal of perpetuity, no matter what may occur to oppress or to crush it. A large part of Asia, however, was divided into independent govern- ments, having a Pagan civilization, which had a right to exist as long as they recognized in their intercourse with other nations the natural law of justice. Africa was in a somewhat similar position. Northern Africa, having once been a part of a Christian empire, could never lose the right to Christian sovereignty, even by the lapse of thousands of years of Mohammedan or Pagan usurpation ; while the larger part of Africa was occupied by barbarous tribes, which could hardly be recognized as nations even by natural law. ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA, 11/ All the Spanish settlements, all the French settle- ments, all the English settlements, in North America were really each one dominion, acknowledging respec- tively the Spanish, the French, or the English crown. The difiference in the date of grants could not keep separate, except for convenience of administration, the colonies which professed the same allegiance. As there can be no division of sovereignty, so there can be no division of allegiance when it is rendered to the same national authority. What is more to our immediate purpose, these different national authorities, however divergent their streams may be, unite in drawing the sanction of their power from the common fountain, and that common fountain was the first settlement made by the consent, approval, and direction of a Christian state. Several settlements were made in the New World previous to that of St. Augustine in Florida, though that was the first in what is now our dominion. The germ of the empire of North America was planted on that bright October day when, under the shadow of the palms, Christopher Columbus knelt in homage to his God, in loyal honor lifted the Cross, where divine sorrow for a day became the spring of human joy forever, and in thankful memory of his Redeemer, named the island which first felt the pressure of a Christian's knees San Salvador. The New World that was, and, consequently, the North American empire that was to be, was con- secrated to the Christian faith then and there. The Il8 THE AMERICAN STATE. act was authoritative, final, and irrevocable, defying all lapse of time, changes of allegiance or of dynasties, political transformations, convulsions, revolutions, popu- lar sovereignty, constitutions, majorities, or minorities forever. No doubt in the future the results of that great act — the authoritative consecration, in a moment of time, of a world to Christianity forever — will be com- mensurate with the momentous and sublime responsi- bility then, there, and so incurred, and binding until " the elements shall melt in fervent heat." San Salvador, though it has never belonged to us politically, belongs to us historically, as the mother of our empire, as really as though it were a part of our actual domain. With the landing of Columbus on the flowery soil of San Salvador, not with the landing of the Pilgrims on the hard, cold rock of Plymouth, our imperial history begins. The empire of North Amer- ica was founded on loyalty to God, to the Christian Church, and to the Christian State, not on rebellion against God, against the Christian Church, and against the Christian State. As our domain extends landward and seaward, we seem to grow older at the beginning as well as by the progress of time. For many years, Jamestown in Virginia was the earliest actual settlement of the United States. When Florida was joined with us, St. Augustine became our earliest settlement ; and when that venerable town became ours, we seemed rather to be annexed to Florida, than Florida to us. ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. I I9 So, when Mexico shall become one with us, we shall add to our age at the beginning. Something more will be prefixed to our age when the West Indies shall come, and more yet when the Bahamas shall come, until our imperial domain shall comprehend every spot of land in North America which was pressed by the feet of the Christian founder of our empire, — Christian as it is by right and obligation, if not in fact, — Christopher Columbus. Of no man that ever lived can it more truly be said that " he built wiser than he knew," than of Columbus, all the gorgeous visions of whose Southern imagination have been or will be completely overshadowed by the actual facts of history. Sebastian Cabot — a name to be forever honored as the symbol of heroic enterprise — would probably never have discovered the coast of Florida, if Columbus had not discovered San Salvador ; nor would he, with John Cabot, have found Canada, but for that previous discovery; yet England made no settlement on the coast of Florida at that early time, and Spain did. So that, as regards both previous discovery and previous occupation, we derive our national life from Christian Europe through Spain, not through England. Some may wonder at my making so much account, over and over again, as I have done, of the succession of political authority. With my convictions, I cannot do otherwise. I do not believe that men can found a state any more than they can found a church, 120 THE AMERICAN STATE. though, of course, we may speak of their doing either, by a relative, not absolute, use of the words. When- ever I have spoken or whenever I may speak of the founders of dominion, I must be understood to speak in this relative manner. Believing that the Christian Church and the Christian state are both derived from God, and serve Him in different yet harmonious re- lations, I cannot help regarding the succession of Christian authority in the state as equally binding with the succession of Christian authority in the Church. The emperor, king, or president, in any of the countries comprising Christendom, who cannot trace his political lineage through all the changes of civil history to Constantine the Great, who was the first Roman emperor who recognized Christian sover- eignty, would be as equally without a right to rule as the man who cannot trace his authority and jurisdic- tion in the Church of God to the commission of our ascending Lord. What was once Christendom, in fact, is always Christendom by right. Hence the world presents this anomaly to the observer, that all the rulers of Christendom can trace lawful titles to Constantine, except the so-called sovereign who rules in the city of Constantine, and those who regard him as their political or religious head. This ignominy might not be long expected to endure, if we had not seen within twenty years the resources of Christian civilization perverted by a diabolical and successful endeavor to ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE OF NORTH AMERICA. 121 sustain and confirm this ignominy. Some Christian rulers have very false views of their Christian respon- sibilities. They cannot, however, be expected to have any regard for the throne of Constantine, if they have none even for the Cross of their redeeming God. Note. — Gibbon says (Chapter XVIII.), that "by the conver- sion of Tiridates [the king of Armenia] the character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Cas- pian, and Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy and religion." Alilnian, however, in a note to the same page in which the statement is made, says : " Tiridates had sustained a war against Maximin, caused by the hatred of the latter against Christianity. Armenia was the first nation which embraced Christianity. About the year 276 it was the religion of the king, the nobles, and the people of Armenia." This state- ment, if really true, does not change the argument since the time of Constantine ; but it exalts, as concerns the recognition of Chrlstianit)', a "barbarian" king of Armenia above the proud ruler of the Roman world. It makes the case stronger against Turkey. Take away from the Ottoman Empire what was once Armenia and what belonged to the Roman Empire, and not much will be left over which the Sublime Porte can have any valid sovereignty. Gibbon afterwards admitted in his "Vindi- cation," as quoted by Milman (note in Chapter XX.), " that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, may dispute with Con- stantine the honor of being the first sovereign who embraced the Christian relitrion." CHAPTER X. NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE, NOT THE DELEGATE, OF AUTHORITY. We are more immediately concerned at present with the so-called English colonies, which, as the nucleus of an empire, were one colony only. It is right to speak of different colonies of an empire, when they are in different parts of the world ; though even then they form, with the parent state, one dominion. The Roman colonics, though scattered about the world, were cer- tainly a part of the Roman Empire. The present colo- nies of England, on every continent, are a part of the British Empire ; but contiguous colonies, obeying the same sovereignty, however they may be marked by earlier or later grants, or by geographical boundaries, arc essentially one. The thirteen Colonies were as much an integral part of the British Empire as if they had been thirteen counties in England ; and it is as ab- surd to speak of the distinct sovereignty of each of the " old thirteen," as it would be to speak of the distinct sovereignty of each of the counties of England, which are all under the same crown. The people who obey one ruler are one people, though they live in the four quar- ters of the world. Though an empire may be divided NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1 23 into a hundred provinces and colonies, all the provinces and colonies can make but one empire. When the "old thirteen" Colonies separated from the British Empire, they made a joint step forward towards a recognized nationality. They had been one dominion potentially before. Then they became actually one by the laws of civil attraction. They were not thirteen dominions, rendering thirteen allegiances, when they obeyed the British crown, but one dominion, rendering one and the same allegiance. As they were not thirteen dependencies, but one dependency, as regarded their loyalty to the British crown, so they did not and could not become thirteen independencies, but one indepen- dency after the Revolution. They were not thirteen sovereignties before, so they could not be and were not thirteen sovereignties afterwards. As they were one colony in thirteen divisions, so they became one nation, in thirteen provinces, not by their own will, but by the fact and logic of history and of human society. The American Revolution was but one revolution, not thirteen revolutions, with one Commander-in-Chief, with one Continental Congress ; with one deputation to France, not thirteen deputations ; with one alliance with France, not thirteen alliances ; with one struggle from beginning to end, and with one final victory, with one treaty of peace, and, consequently, with one indepen- dence. I deny that the Colonies became each indepen- dent ; that is, each by itself. They became all inde- pendent ; that is, as all making one, not as all counted 124 THE AMERICAN STATE. separately. They were not fighting for, and they did not win, — they did not try to win, — independence of each other ; but they tried to win, and did win, a joint independence of the British crown. To prove that the thirteen Colonics became thirteen sovereign States, it is necessary to show that they were recognized in the Treaty of Peace as thirteen sovereign powers. That was not the case. The Treaty of Peace recognized them all as one. The world at large recog- nized them as one. Every nation that recognized their independence recognized that independence as the independence of one dominion, and not of thirteen dominions. If the States were sovereign, they must have been so at the close of the war ; but if they were sovereign, the Treaty of Peace was invalid, for, in that case, each freed Colony, now become a sovereign State, not only had a right to have a separate treaty of peace, but there was no real peace unless each State had its own individual treaty of peace with Great Britain. Not only so, but if each dependent Colony had become a sovereign State, Great Britain would have had a right to say that, unless she had the security of a separate treaty of peace with each one of the States, instead of one with them all as one, she miglit be attacked on land or sea at any time ; for, on the ground of thirteen sov- ereignties, each might repudiate any part that it pleased of a joint treaty, which did not recognize and, conse- quently, did not bind each sovereignty ; for certainly there can be no plainer international principle than NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 125 this, that treaties can be binding only between sov- ereign powers. All the facts of history before, during, and after the Revolution prove that there was but one dependence, one people struggling for independence, but one sovereignty when that independence was gained. There cannot be thirteen independent sovereignties making one overruling sovereignty. It is a positive contradiction. Nor can thirteen sovereignties and one sovereignty occupy the identical space at the same time, any more than thirteen figures can fill exactly the space of fourteen figures at the same time. Nor can any government be recognized as a government anywhere on earth, or by anybody on earth, if it assumes to act as one sovereignty when it likes, or as thirteen or fifty sovereignties when it likes. As our country, in all her treaties, has been recog- nized as one nation and one sovereignty, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the States must fall to the ground. No country in the world has ever recognized our States as sovereign. Not one of the States can show a treaty of any kind with any recognized foreign power ; and no such power would ever think of proposing to make any such treaty. Sovereignty, without a recognition of sovereignty, is an idle dream, when it concerns po- litical powers living in the world and acting with other political powers. A man may look in the glass and bow to himself by the hour at a time, if he pleases, but he is very much mistaken if he calls that a recognition by a friend. So a State may look in the glass of its 126 THE AMERICAN STATE. own self-conceit for seventy years if it pleases, and may bow, and smile, and look very amiable ; and the image may bow, and smile, and look very amiable in return ; but after all the mutual admiration, there is but one in- dividual, and no recognition of personality beyond itself. The previous divisions of our country were of no account whatever, as regards the allegiance rendered. When our country threw off that allegiance, they did it as a united people ; for they were one people by politi- cal affinity, association, and similarity of laws, and one people is a united people ; and if a political community, they are one political community, that is, a nation. Yet, if others joined them, whether individuals or com- munities, they became a part of that one dominion. What we call the purchase of Louisiana was of course a purchase, as a transaction ; but it was something more than that. It was an action of a law beyond the reach of men or governments, the inexorable law of centripetal force. So it was with Texas ; so it was with Alaska ; so it may be with other territories in the future. In this view, then, the United States are a nation, whether they like to be or not. In answering Yes to the question. Are the United States a nation ? I have not once spoken of the Constitution, as proving the point. I have purposely avoided doing so ; for to attempt to prove that we are a nation by anything which the Constitution says, or by any interpretation of its words, by their own light or by that of history, would be false logic. It would be simply a begging of NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 12/ the question. I .will not knowingly use a false argu- ment. If we were not a nation before the Constitution, we were not a nation after the Constitution. We are a nation, not because of the Constitution, but antecedently to the Constitution, independently of the Constitution, and, in some very important respects, notwithstanding the Constitution. A constitution is not the condition precedent. A nation is the condition precedent. A constitution cannot make a natipn. A nation makes a constitution. The nation is the larger circle which includes the constitution. A constitution does not make authority ; it recognizes authority. The Creator must precede the creature. The law-giver must precede the law. The sun must precede its heat. The rose must precede its fragrance. The living soul must pre- cede the living word. A constitution can no more make a nation than a barometer can make the weather, or than an astronomical map can make the stars, or than the Holy Scriptures can make the Church of God. The barometer tells the weight of the air ; the map denotes the stars ; the Holy Scriptures, coming from God, record the divine origin of the Church of God. But the air was before the barometer ; the stars were before the map ; the Church of God was before the Scriptures of God. Whatever nationality or sovereignty our country has, she has by an historical beginning and by historical continuance, and not in consequence of any constitution. The American Revolution did not create us a nation. 128 THE AMERICAN STATE. It simply transferred the sovereignty from the British crown to ourselves. The supremacy of England so long over so large a part of what we now call our country was a very important incident in our national history ; but it was an incident only. The germ of our empire had been planted long before an Englishman set his foot upon American soil. Our patent of na- tionality was signed, sealed, and delivered long before the American Revolution. At the Revolution our country fell back upon her independent and preceding nationality, as a political community existing, by right of previous settlement, on the American continent, from Christian countries. As I have above said, our country connects herself with the family of nations through Spain, in the first instance. She never, as a country, owed or paid political allegiance to Spain ; there was no reason why she should. But Spain, not England, was the mother of the North American empire. Our country, in renouncing allegiance to the British crown, and throwing herself into the stronghold of her previous nationality, and reconnecting herself with the Christian nations, through her earlier chain of relation, was nobly aided by France, — an instance of poetical justice as severe and beautiful as anything in the Grecian drama ; for France was a cognate nation with Spain, from whom American nationality was derived. Thank God, our country was founded on the corner-stone of true, organic authority, not upon a successful, however just, insurrection. NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1 29 I admit the sacred right of revolution, after all honor- able ways of peace have been tried in vain to secure a redress of undoubted grievances. I admit that no revolution in history was more just than our own ; and, unquestionably, all honorable ways of peace had been tried over and over again to secure for the Ameri- can people the same rights which were freely allowed to the people of England, The colonists were, for the most part, of the same race as those who inhabited Great Britain and Ireland ; and they had the same rights. A distinction between colonists and citizens at home can be justly made only when a colony is established among barbarians, who must be educated to citizenship, or among races like those of India, to a degree civilized, yet of entirely different traditions and politics, which require to be gradually displaced. There was no reason why the American people, while they rendered allegiance to the British crown, should not have been treated just as the people of England were. I do not say as the people of Ireland were treated ; for that was even worse than the way in which the American people were treated. It has been the ingrained error of the British government for hundreds of years to regard the people of England as alone entitled to civil rights, and to deny to all others — the people of Scotland, the people of Ireland, and of English colonies — an equality of po- sition, and of the rights of liberty, industry, and enter- prise with the people of England itself Had the British 6* I 130 THE AMERICAN STATE. government acted on the plain, comprehensive, and persistent belief that no part of the British Empire could be injured without injuring the whole, and that the more a free and generous rivalry in all modes of honorable enterprise was encouraged in all parts of the empire, the greater, richer, stronger, and more loyal all parts of the empire would be, the history of a large part of the world would have been very different from what it has been. England might, perhaps, have won and for ages have worn the crown of universal empire, had she been far-sighted and broad-sighted enough to discard, where it was possible, the Pagan distinction between citizens and colonists, and to permit all the subjects of her dominion to contribute to the common prosperity, by seeking individual prosperity in honorable and unre- stricted ways. But she has preferred to treat all the rest of her empire as merely tributary to the people of England alone. It is too late for her to recover what she has lost ; it is too late for her to keep for a long time her North American possessions ; but it is not too late to keep her European dominion, and to keep and to extend her East Indian dominion, by a wiser and nobler policy, unless she wishes to contemplate the domain on which the sun never sets reduced to the space between Land's End and the Tweed. But, though I claim and honor the justice of the American Revolution, and am proud of it as an Amer- ican citizen, I admit having a kind of horror of an empire being founded by a revolution, however just NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1^1 and glorious. I claim that our own was not so estab- lished ; that the Revolution was an important era in our national progress, but not our national beginning. There is one very important consideration connected with our Revolution, which is, that there was no rea- son for any American having any special reluctance to renounce allegiance to the British crown, since, through the American Revolution, for a long time before and for a long time afterwards, George the Third was not the lawful king of England. During the whole period of our Revolution, the lawful king of England, Charles the Third, was an exile from his throne ; and George the Third was simply one of the line of usurpers, or, at best, but a provisional monarch. The people of the British Empire could recognize George the Third as the king of England, if they chose to do so, though they were under no obliga- tion to do so. His acts as the king of England, though he never was the lawful king of England, ex- cept for the last thirteen years of his reign, were bind- ing as regarded foreign countries, for these were bound to recognize as the representative of the sovereignty of the British Empire the individual whose reign was submitted to, if not recognized as right by, the people of the nation. Even the acts of Oliver Cromwell, while he was the recognized head of the British Em- pire, had to be regarded, when they referred to inter- national affairs, as the authorized acts of the British Empire. But the authority of George the Third, the 132 THE AMERICAN STATE. provisional king of Great Britain and Ireland, de- pended, during the greater part of his long reign, upon the sufferance of the people of Great Britain and Ire- land and the people of the British colonies, and not upon any right. The stigma of disloyalty or disobe- dience to a Christian king, reigning by right and true to his trust, does not rest upon America. The American Revolution sprang out of resistance to the so-called king of England, who was not the lawful king at that time, and who became the lawful king twenty-five years after the Independence of the United States of America was acknowledged by the provis- ional yet binding government of Great Britain. I readily admit that the present dynasty of the British Empire is in lawful possession of the throne, but it has only been so since the year 1807, the year when died his Majesty, Henry the Ninth, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., etc., etc.. Cardinal York. In what I have just said, I have meant to insist upon the point that, if a people hold to hereditary descent as the foundation of the royal authority which they recognize, they must accept the principle in good faith. Circumstances may indeed arise when the peo- ple of any country under hereditary rule have a per- fect right, according to the laws of God and of man, to dismiss the reigning dynasty from power, and to choose as their king any individual from their own land or from any other, disregarding entirely all the NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1 33 laws of hereditary descent, which should either be as strictly as possible adhered to, or openly and avowedly rejected in the choice of a king, provided that, while choosing a king, they acknowledge that his right to rule comes from God and not from man ; and even if requiring hereditary descent, according to the rules of dynasties, they are not obliged to spend time in clear- ing titles greatly involved ; and when a dynasty has decayed, they are not required to hunt up some ob- scure person, who may have, or who may not have, a valid claim of descent ; but in the case of the child and grandchildren of James the Second, who was not un- faithful to his trust, and who was wrongfully dethroned, there was no such emergency. James the Third was the lawful king of England, and the son of a lawful king. Charles the Third was the lawful king of Eng- land, and the son of a lawful king. Henry the Ninth was the lawful king of England, the son of a lawful king, and the brother of a lawful king. With Henry the Ninth the house of Stuart died, as far as any clear right can be owned in reference to hereditary descent. There may be claimants of the house of Stuart per- haps true, and perhaps as shameless and treacherous as the infamous adventurer who for several years set all England in a flurry by claiming to be the heir of the Tichborne estates ; but it is too late now to make or to decide any question of a Stuart descent. The house of Brunswick is now the lawful dynasty of Great Britain, and will remain so until the people 134 THE AMERICAN STATE. shall choose to change it, in order to restore those con- ditions under which • England was illustrious for cen- turies. In that case, the house of Brunswick can find no fault ; for it reigned over England ninety-three years without any right to reign, and for twenty-five years before its accession the lawful king of England was an exile from his throne ; so that if at any time the people of the British Empire shall choose to change the dynasty of their sovereigns, they cannot be accused of injustice towards families who have occupied their throne, with- out a just title, for one hundred and eighteen years. I do not claim and do not believe that the kings of the house of Stuart were of a very high and illustrious order of monarchs ; but the reduction of the royal au- thority to a mere shadow has proved a thousand-fold greater calamity to England than was or could be the reign of the worst of the Stuart kings. The British Empire will not again occupy its proper sphere of in- fluence in the world until the royal authority shall be restored to something like its ancient grandeur and splendor, in the hands of sovereigns able and willing to wield with power and justice the sceptre of Alfred. The British Empire, by substituting the house of Brunswick for the house of Stuart, certainly gained one thing, — a vast and frightful increase of the national debt, — besides showing to the world the extraordinary anomaly of George the Third, a king wearing the crown of England for forty-three years without a right to wear it, according to the theory of the British people for NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1 35 centuries, making war against the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte as an unlawful ruler of France. The title of Napoleon Bonaparte and that of his family to the French throne was a great deal better than the title of George the Third to the British throne for forty-three years, and as good as his title for the remaining seven- teen years of his reign. The French people, in recog- nizing the head of the Napoleonic dynasty, did not pretend to follow, on the main road or on any by-road, the line of hereditary descent. They deviated avowed- ly, and made a new man, unconnected with any royal family, their Emperor, as they had a right to do, as any nation, in great civil emergencies, has a right to do. The throne was vacant, in consequence of civil convul- sions, when the French people assented to its being occupied by Napoleon Bonaparte. They had not de- throned their lawful king, as England had done, on purpose to put an adventurer and invader in his place. A terrible faction, in its hour of malignant ascendency, had murdered the king of France, but the people of France were powerless to prevent that crime. In as- senting to the reign of Napoleon, they did the best they could ; and as things were, what they did was best. Now, indeed, the French people have a clear right, and it would be good sense and wisdom to restore the heir of the house of Bourbon, with the lilies of St. Louis and the white-cross flag ; for that restoration, even if followed by the branch of Orleans, would do much to conciliate and reconcile all parties in France to the 136 THE AMERICAN STATE. eventual restoration of the Napoleonic dynasty, which, with all its faults, and they were many and great, has rendered too great, too illustrious and enduring services to France, to be dethroned forever by a sincere and patriotic, if unfortunate, effort to sustain the national honor, and, as it would have proved, the national life. France has suffered terribly by resisting the vindictive arrogance of Prussia, but she would have suffered more terribly if she had not resisted. Had she permitted the diplomatic and dynastic conquest of Spain by Prussia, that event would have been followed, in due time, by the complete annihilation of France as a ruling power. During our war to defend the national life, much exasperation was created, entirely without excuse, by representing it as a Puritan war. The unjust reproach of our enemies was most singularly accepted and ap- proved by some loyal men. I remember that even one of our generals, during a furlough from active duty in the field, boasted in a public speech of his descent from a famous Puritan elder, and represented the war as a continuation of the Puritan conflict. Nothing more false, more absurd, more foolish, or more liable to do irreparable mischief, could have been said. What were the Puritans ? When they first arose, they were loyal citizens with strict views of private and public duty, and of intentions honorable and commendable. If some abuses had been corrected, the Puritans might not have been driven to try to destroy all that is beautiful, inspiring, and glorious in English history NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1 3/ and civilization. While they remained loyal in their relations to God and man, they were, notwithstanding some widely mistaken views, patriotic and useful men. Of such a class were those who came to America. But when the Puritans are named, the idea is presented to the mind as they afterwards became, when, attain- ing power, they tried to destroy nearly all that was worth saving in England, and to develop all that deserved destruction ; when, no longer loyal to any- thing, their tyrannical leaders became the abject slaves of their own self-will, and traitors to their God, their church, their country, and their king. Yet America was represented as trying to put down a domestic in- surrection on the very princijDle of a fourfold rebellion. It was not true. The follies of the Stuarts, great as they were, faded away before the crimes of those, including Elizabeth, who cut off their heads. Our empire was founded before the Puritans were heard of. Even the first emigrants from England were not Puritans. There is nothing more wild or preposterous in all history than to represent the Puri- tans as the founders of the Empire of the West, even if we go no further back than English settlements. With all my love for Massachusetts, I cannot see how that claim can be an historical honor which is an historical falsehood. We may not like the politics of Virginia, but we cannot conveniently rub out the his- tory of the " Old Dominion " or deny its claim to that laurel of praise. Virginia, indeed, turned herself 138 THE AMERICAN STATE, against herself, and fought against her own noble record ; but that fact, however deplorable, cannot change the historical Jamestown into the original wil- derness, or blot out the hallowed memories of Mount Vernon. Our country was fighting to save herself from de- struction, without reference to any conflicts of party anywhere or at any time before. If the sons of the Puritans chose to help, as thousands of them did, bravely and nobly, it was well. If sons of those who fought with all their might against the Puritans chose to help, and thousands of them did, bravely and nobly, it was well. But no man in civil or military service, while the war was in progress, had any right to rep- resent the soldiers of his country, whom military obedi- ence would compel to bear the insult in silence, as fighting for the policy which the speaker approved in the conflicts of two centuries ago. Under his own command, no doubt, there were whole regiments of men, and those as brave as the bravest, into whose very souls had been burned well-deserved hatred for the Puritan ascendency in Great Britain and Ireland. But, since a general of the national army, in actual service, chose to pervert history and the cause of his own struggling country, it is right, now that the war is over, to say that our country was not fighting for Puritanism in the state or in the church, or anything of the kind. She was fighting to save her life ; and, so far from fighting on the Puritan ground against the NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 1 39 disloyal States, she was contending for the lawful and the recognized national authority ; and the Puritans, during their malignant ascendency in England, were notoriously fighting, as they knew, and as all the world knew, against the lawful and recognized national au- thority, until they succeeded in murdering their king and putting their bloody leader in his place. Our coun- try was not trying with all her might to put down dis- loyalty or the principles of disloyalty. It would be far more historically just to say that she was fighting against Puritanism, not for it. The Puritan ascendency in England I regard as a great calamity while it endured, and a greater calamity in its consequences. Nevertheless, there were, as I have intimated, some sterling qualities in the earlier Puritans which will forever challenge and win admi- ration. There can be no doubt that many of the Puritans protested and resisted when the mask of the leaders was thrown off, and the features, more hideous than the mask, of fierce and undisguised ambition glared in their faces ; as many who had upheld the Parliament when the rights of Englishmen were in doubt bravely rushed to the side of the king when the rights of organic authority were invaded. In the same way, many affirmed that we were fight- ing for republicanism, when republicanism as republi- canism had nothing whatever to do with the question. The country was fighting to save her life. She hap- pened to be a republic, and so, indeed, she was fighting 140 THE AMERICAN STATE. for a republic ; but simply as a matter of fact, not as a principle, for that had nothing to do with the war, one way or another. It is a poor compliment to pay to our hosts of brave and loyal soldiers, to say that they were fighting for a merely incidental form of govern- ment, when they were fighting and dying for their country and their country alone, however governed, yet their country worth living for, worth dying for. Can any one believe that our army and navy would not have fought with equal bravery and success if Abraham Lincoln, the representative of the national sovereignty, had descended in direct succession from kings who had reigned before William the Conqueror, instead of being taken from his simple prairie home to preside over the Empire of the West ? Was not the personal enthusiasm for Abraham Lincoln among our soldiers, and in all hearts and wills that were true to their country, very nearly akin to loyalty ? When a man is drowning, his first thought and first effort will be to save his life. If he knows how to swim, he will do the best he knows without intending to favor one theory of swimming over any other theory of swimming, but simply to save himself or get saved, if he can. When a nation is in danger of drowning, she will save her life or get saved, if she can ; she will thankfully accept the service of strong arms for her rescue, without question- ing her deliverers, at such a critical moment, whether they have dived into the salt water on royal or republi- can principles. So when men fight for their country, NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. I4I they fight for their country, and with equal bravery, self-devotion, and success, as all history shows, whether the man who represents their country and whose orders they obey wears a jewelled crown, a helmet, or a hat, a robe of royal purple, a tunic, or a coat. If, on either side, the bravery, self-devotion, and success are greater, it is where the sentiment of patriotism is made more real and intense by the sentiment of loyalty. Our nationality is imperfect, like that of Switzerland, — a confession rather humiliating to make, though en- tirely just, that a nation which is the first in the New World, and claims to be one of the ruling powers on earth, has, indeed, a true nationality in theory, but one so hampered and hamstrung in practice, that, as regards its form of government, it has to take its place by the side of one of the smallest nationalities in the world. The world has never seen nobler instances of manly courage than Switzerland can show in her past, and nothing in that past is nobler than the way in which one of her Catholic bishops now shows a spirit worthy of the early days of martyrdom, in upholding the rights and immunities of his high office in the face of threats, insults, and indignities, like those which his Divine Mas- ter bore in the hall of Pilate. There are as noble, gener- ous, brave, and Christian people in Switzerland as any- where else on earth ; but, for a long time, they have been overborne and trampled down by the wild fury of the false principle that the will of a majority sane- 142 THE AMERICAN STATE. tifies any wrong and any crime. These noble peo- ple have not been able to rescue their country from degrading the very name of republicanism, or from proving that the Very smallest of souls may live among the grandest of mountains, and that men, when led astray by the spirit of injustice, are seen in ignominious contrast with the majesty of nature. Stories, poems, and sentimental histories represent the people of Swit- zerland all and always as the generous and glorious up- holders of human liberty. Nonsense ! How can men be the upholders of honorable liberty for its own sake, when they will uphold the worst tyranny on earth for hard ringing money .'' God grant that the manly and magnanimous portion of the people of Switzerland may yet win back the ancient honor of their glorious land ; and may they do it soon ! Otherwise the world will see without grief her territory become a part of France, of Austria, or of both. There need be no fighting to secure that result. Where soldiers can be bought, a country can be sold. Yet if Switzerland desires to keep her nationality, let her get, as soon as she can, a nation- ality that is worth kcepijig, and administer its govern- ment with honor and justice. Let her not go limping through the world in an ungainly and awkward federal union. Let Switzerland become one state, with one head and one responsible ministry. Small as she is, she may become great in wisdom and in right. Until then, the Federal Union of America, spread over half a continent, will repose with her forty millions of Fed- NATIONAL UNITY THE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY, 1 43 eralists under the protecting shadow of her European exemplar and model. Switzerland has, at least, a name which denotes nationality. In this respect she is more fortunate than her great American sister, who clings with tenacity like hers to the worn-out heresy of federalism. CHAPTER XI. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. Imperfect as our nationality is, it has been recog- nized throughout the world for many years. The Fed- eral Union grew out of the Confederacy. The Confed- eracy grew out of the independence of the Colonies, as we speak, though, after independence, they were exactly what they were before, an undeveloped nation ; yet whatever inherent sovereignty they had, was the sov- ereignty, not of each, but of all ; and, in like manner, the sovereignty of the States is the sovereignty, not of each, but of all ; not a combination of sovereignties, but a single sovereignty, visibly the result of the combina- tion, though potentially existing before. No one State has an inherent right to claim sovereignty on the ground that all the States are sovereign, any more than a man can claim to be a sovereign because he is one of the people, and all the people are sovereign. Perhaps so; all the people, not each one of all the people, — a vast difference. Whenever it is proper to use the expression "the sovereignty of the people," it must be understood to mean what only it can mean, the sov- ereignty of all the people, as of one body, not an NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. 145 aggregation of individual sovereignties. So, of the so-called sovereignty of the States, which is very often referred to, as though each State had, at some time, an entire and independent sovereignty, of which it gave lip a share when the Constitution was formed. No State of the American empire ever had any such sov- ereignty ; so it could not give what it never had, nor could a State reserve what it never owned, an inherent and original sovereignty. The States never had any sovereignty except as parts of a whole ; and, in that case, the sovereignty was the undivided and indivisible sovereignty of all together, not of each or of any sepa- rately. Authority that does not grow or is not transmitted is no authority. Authority cannot be made at will, for the essential prerogative of authority is to make. No number of men, simply as a number of men, can make a civil government which shall be binding upon any one. References are often made to the political con- stitution which was said to be made in the cabin of the " Mayflower." Nothing could be there made ex- cept a few by-laws for the guidance of individuals in their social relations ; nothing in the way of an organic law of state which would be to any degree more bind- ing than the rules of a debating society or of any private literary or political club. The Pilgrims of the " Mayflower " were subjects of the British crown, and had no more right to make a constitution of govern- ment which could be binding upon anybody, even upon 7 J 146 THE AMERICAN STATE, themselves, as an authoritative law, than they had to regulate the movements of the planets. The royal charters were the only civil constitutions which were binding in America until the sword of a just Revolu- tion sundered the bond of allegiance, and the Colonies fell back upon their organic rights as being together one civil community, deriving, not creating those or- ganic rights. Nations alone can make constitutions, and authorized agents of nations can alone make laws, which even then are not laws until they have received the approval of him, by whatever name he may be called, who repre- sents the sovereign power of the state. The state, like the Church, comes from God ; and the man who has no credentials has no right to act for either. Now and then, indeed, in the history of the world, there have been men evidently born with a right to rule, the gift of God himself, whose plain duty it has been to make organic and permanent changes in civil government ; and who, of course, were not required to wait for the recognition of their right by the actual civil govern- ment at the time, which it was alike their aim and their obligation to change or supplant. But these instances arc so rare that they cannot be taken for the ordinary rule of civil affairs ; and even in their case it is their obedience to God which makes them seem disobedient to man. As Channing said of Mil- ton, they obey higher laws than they transgress. Even they cannot create. They can bul use. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. I47 The state, like the Church, is founded on the law of God applied to the affairs of men, in a sphere different 3^ct harmonious. Were it possible for any government to exist in Christendom that had not a right to rule derived from Christendom, it would have no right to rule. That is the present condition of the Ottoman Empire. She exists, and has existed for centuries, but without a right, for she has derived no authority to rule from Christendom, and rules in defiance of Christendom. Not even the consent of all the Christian powers could give her a clear title to sovereignty over Christian ter- ritory. Our national authority has come to us in an unbroken line from recognized governments, whether we trace it through England or through Spain. A living nation may be the mother of a living nation, and from the ashes of dead empires new dominions may spring. Whether our organization is one per- fectly national or not is a subordinate question in de- ciding our title. The main point here is, Are the United States in any way, in any sense, a nation .'' Our national tree came from Christian Europe. Its roots were planted in a soil which belongs, first of all things, to God. That tree, as it grew, put forth many branches ; but they all came from the same root, and however independent they might seem to be or might claim to be, they were not independent, for they de- rived all their life and vigor from one root. Many grafts have been made upon that tree, but, as they were grafts from living trees, they soon partook of 148 THE AMERICAN STATE. the living force of the tree on which they were grafted. We sometimes hear it said, that such and such domains have been annexed to our country. The expression is strictly incorrect, though it may be used in a general way, when one is not intending to be exact. Annexa- tion means to add something, just as one would nail a board to a building. Our country has never had, and God forbid that she should have, any such annexations. All the domains which have been joined to our original national domain have been, not dead boards nailed to a dead building, but living branches grafted into a living tree. The root of our tree of civil sovereignty was planted, and it has grown, by the good providence of God. It was planted as one ; it has grown as one. The branch- es draw their life and power to grow from the root. Whether the branches are " thirteen," thirty, or three hundred, they have no life which they did not derive from the living, extending root ; and they cannot have any other life. The root and trunk do not grow and expand by the delegated permission of the branches. There was a root before there were any branches. I never heard of a tree having any other constitution than its own power and freedom to grow. I never heard of the branches of a tree meeting in convention, and making a solemn compact to provide themselves with a root of guarded and limited powers, which should grow so far only in one direction and so far only in another direction, which should represent the branches. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. I49 know no other law than the will of the branches, and that all power which was not expressly and by a strict construction granted by the branches to the root was reserved to and by the branches. Many who see with patriotic pride the glorious tree of our nationality spread wider and wider, grow larger and larger, from ice to palm and from sea to sea, seem moved at times with a strange fear when they see that the root and the trunk grow as well as the branches. Of course they must grow, and the root and the trunk must continue to grow ; and, thank God, the root and the trunk will break all the iron bands with which an unpatriotic fear tries to curb their growth. What if all the constitutional contrivances to check the growth and expansion of the root and trunk of the national tree could succeed, while the branches should be permitted to grow from the chained and stunted trunk ? Would not the branches fall in time by their own unsupported weight ? The trunk would fall too ; and the root would be dragged from the ground to wither and die, and the whole national tree would be a monumental wreck of the folly of man in trying to improve and check the work of God. A nation all states, — a tree all branches : each is alike impossible. Why did you save the precious tree, when unfilial hands tried to destroy it, if you were not willing it should grow as strong as God would permit, to be the beauty and glory of the world ? You cannot have the noble, spreading branches, if you maim or 150 THE AMERICAN STATE. check the root. The consolidation which you fear and resist is the law of the universe, and it will not be changed to accommodate your fear, and it will laugh at your resistance. As long as the tree lives it will grow, its root as well as its branches. It is hard to say whether the folly is greater or the patriotism smaller which would destroy the root to save the branches. Would you check liberty for the sake of liberty, and, while you rejoice in the branches, be jealous of the root, without which the branches could not be ? The highest liberty is the liberty to grow ; and the liberty that cannot endure liberty, if its aims arc right, is no true liberty, but tyranny in the robes of liberty. Our national tree will grow ; its roots will strike deeper and deeper, will grow wider and wider ; its trunk will grow higher and higher, its branches broader and broader ; and nothing that mortal man can do will check the growing root, the growing trunk, and the growing branches ; and that noble tree will stand for ages in beneficent grandeur long after every hand that has tried to resist its growth has turned to dust. Be content, and not only be content, but rejoice at the growth of that wide and lofty tree, and remem- ber that you cannot desire or try to curb its growth without dishonoring the memory of the brave and loyal men who died to save that noble tree, when all its branches flamed with the red glare of war, and who now sleep in peaceful, glorious graves beneath its holy shade, while all its branches wave in grateful, living green. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. 151 Sovereignty, in its essential principle, must be a unit. There is no such thing, there can be no such thing, as numerical sovereignty, whether the number be ten or ten millions, each retaining a share of sov- ereignty. There must be unity of will and of action, even when millions rule or act. In cither case, it must rule or be ruled as one. There can be no liv- ing branches without a living root. There can be no states, as parts of a nation, without a common centre of unity and life, which is not derived from the states, but from which the states are derived. There is no plainer law of God than this, that all power begins at the centre and thence spreads to the circumference. The circumference cannot make the centre its deputy and delegate, endowed only with what it chooses to grant ; and this holds good every- where, in all material, moral, civil, and spiritual forces, throughout the universe of God, alike in the fleeting circle made by the pebble which the child throws into the brook ; in the state, whether it rules over a hundred acres or a continent ; in the Church, whether its do- main be the upper room in Jerusalem or the wide world, until the end of time ; or in the eternal throne of Jehovah, the centre and source of life and power. Now, since government exists independently of the human will, it cannot be the simple agent and nothing more of those who are governed. It cannot derive special and limited grants of authority from those who derive their own authority from it. The centre must 152 THE AMERICAN STATE. rule ; the circumference must obey. The very first movement in America towards anything Hke visible unity of power came from the central idea of govern- ment, itself existing independently of the human will, underlying the various colonial or provincial forms, and seeking, like a law of unity endowed with conscious life, to be expressed and embodied in a recognized central authority of some visible institution. Hence, the general government, the federal government, the national government, as we call it, meaning the same thing, was not, and could not have been, created either by the Constitution, or by those who made it, or by those who accepted it ; for that central authority, by whatever name it may be called, existed before the Constitution and before the Revolution. It was the beginning and the nucleus of power, not the end and the creature of power. It was by the strength of that previously existing central sovereignty, though unde- veloped, that, in the sight of the world, the framers of the Constitution themselves assembled. They could not create their own creator, meaning, not an absolute creator, but only as anything can be a creator which acts as the agent of a higher power. The solar system is frequently cited as the model of our government. It is a partial illustration only. I cite it to show but one point. While the sun does not really create the planets, it is very certain that the planets never met in convention and agreed to create the central sun, and gave to the sun certain NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. 1 53 limited powers, among which was the law of gravita- tion, subject, however, to a strict construction ; and the planets, while resolving and submitting to go round the sun in certain orbits marked out by themselves, in order " to establish a more perfect union " among the heavenly bodies, reserved to themselves " or to the peo- ple " inhabiting them all " the powers not delegated " to the sun. Every one can see that this statement is the very reverse of the law of nature as shown in the solar system. It is the power of the sun himself, the power given to him by Almighty God, not the consent of the planets or the people of the planets, which is able " to establish a more perfect union " on the starry plains above. It is by an inexorable law of the Infinite God, and not by any constitution made or accepted by the planets or their people, that they go round the sun in varying yet harmonious orbits. Sovereignty is the soul of a nation, whether its na- tionality be, in form, complete or incomplete. The various parts of the nation can no more divide the living soul of the nation, and each take its share, than the members of the human body can separate, each claiming and taking its share of the quivering brain and beating heart. Sovereignty is not a string of beads, of which one is as good as another, off or on ; it is a source of electric life, which kindles where it touches along the whole line of its power. Sovereignty is like the sun, which glorifies the top of the mountain and paints the flower at its foot, which ripens the 7* 154 THE AMERICAN STATE. grain, and dazzles the face of the sea ; yet, while dif- fusing itself, it retains itself in bright enduring unity. To sum up : from the beginning of the settlement of North America there has been a strong national attraction of its communities, resisted strongly in every case by many, yet invincible, because depend- ing upon a law of civil government beyond and above the control of man. Every advance towards a true and plain nationality has been vehemently protested against ; but it has gone on, nevertheless, like the calm yet unyielding march of the sun ; and it will continue to go on until the goal is reached, and fed- eralism shall be, as it ought to be, completely and forever annihilated. When I see this intense strug- gling of gigantic forces for unity, — irrepressible against all endeavors to repress it, irresistible against all resistance, invincible against all attempts to con- quer it, — and when I consider to what a degree a vast domain has obeyed this mighty impulse, I feel justified in answering to my question, Arc the United States a nation .-' Yes. CHAPTER XII. ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION ? Are the United States a nation ? No. I retract nothing said above in answering yes to the same question. Most truly do I believe that the United States are a nation ; but I deny that they arc a nation on the ground on which our nationality is generally claimed. The usual political belief of my countrymen is, that the Constitution makes us a na- tion. I deny that the Constitution could make us a nation, even if it were a national Constitution ; and I deny that the government, whose powers are de- fined by the Constitution, is a national government. I have, then, to consider myself as standing on the same level with the Constitution, with no right to look beyond it, except to its history, its interpretation and illustration. I must regard the States each as actually independent, each as actually sovereign, be- fore the Constitution was formed, and as surrendering each a part of its sovereignty and retaining the rest when the Constitution was made. I believe nothing of the kind. I believe that no such sovereignty ex- isted ; but I have tried to put the question fairly ; 156 THE AMERICAN STATE. and, as it is put, I deny that tlie Constitution makes us a nation. Sovereignty cannot be divided between tlie compo- nent parts of a nation. Tliere is but one sovereignty in a commonwealth, and that is the sovereignty of the commonwealth itself. A citizen must regard his loy- alty to God as above anything and everything else ; but if he professes loyalty to a political state, as he not only may but is bound to do, it must be a full and entire loyalty in all that concerns his civil life. Othervv'ise, it is no true loyalty at all. If he sa}'s, on such and such points, naming them, as regards his condition as a citizen, he will obey the government of his country, and on other points, which affect neither his faith nor his conscience as an immortal being, but simply his relations to the state, he will not obey, but will reserve his obedience ; and, besides, affirms that when and where he obeys he does so on the ground that he has a right to set his own bounds to his obe- dience, — or, in other words, if he holds that he gives up to the state a part of his individual sovereignty, and keeps the remainder to himself and for himself, — whatever else such a man may be called, he is not a citizen of a state ; and a state which would permit such citizenship would not deserve to be called a state. No community, civilized or uncivilized, would regard such a man as a true member. It might happen that he reserved to himself exactly those obligations as a citi- zen on which the very existence of the community ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION? 1 5/ might depend. The case would be worse if a large number of people, calling themselves citizens, and worse yet, if all should meet together and promise to support a common government to a certain degree, no more and no less. No nation would recognize such an act or such citizens. Of course, in all countries and always, individuals have individual rights and liberties which do not concern the government. I have not been speaking of these, but of those common rights and duties which belong to men in civil communities. Of these, no man can, of his own will, reserve a part and yield a part, and yet be a true citizen ; and no nation can permit such partial loyalty and be a true nation. Now, exactly this absurdity, so plain in the case of one individual or more, is exactly the theory of the relation of our government and the States which com- pose it. Such obedience of such a man or of such a state is not true obedience to national authority ; and a government which permits such a half-way covenant of civil duty is not a national government. A com- munity of individuals such as I have described, yield- ing some rights and reserving others, when both those yielded and those reserved belong to the same kind of rights, that is, rights belonging intrinsically to the civil condition, would be nothing but a limited partner- ship. It is difficult to see in what way the character of the association is changed by substituting states for individuals. 158 THE AMERICAN STATE. But, again, suppose a man a citizen of one of the States of the United States, — and this roundabout way is the only legal and accurate way of describing the individual generally known as an American citizen ; for our country, while claiming to be a nation, has no citizens of her own, but simply adopts those of the States, — but suppose this citizen of one of the States of the United States, commonly, though inaccurately, known as an American citizen, makes no claim of re- serving any civil sovereignty to himself, but readily concedes the force of his obligations as a citizen. He is compelled, then, to render two allegiances ; he can- hot make his choice ; he is bound in theory by both, — one to his State, the other to what is called his Country. Now, as civil sovereignty cannot be divided, neither can civil allegiance be divided. The very idea of national authority is, that it is one ; and if one, it can permit no division of its claim to civil loyalty. According to the Constitution, among us two sov- ereignties claim a man's allegiance, the State and the general government. If the State alone claimed his allegiance, the State, however small, would be to him a nation, and he could render to it national allegiance ; or if the general government alone claimed his alle- giance, then the general government would be to him a national government. But this is not the case. Both claim him. Both cannot be sovereign. Whichever is sovereign to this man is the nation to which he belongs; but the claims of each destroy the claims of both. A ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION? 1 59 man can have but one country ; and if two claim him, with apparently equal reason, he belongs to neither, and is " a man without a country." If one only claimed him, the right would be plain, and his duty would be plain. In many cases the demands of the two may not clash ; but they may : whether they do or not, the man has two masters, either of whom, without the other, would be to him a nation, with a right to command him ; but neither is a nation, according to the Constitution, because each cannot be. Is the man, then, free to do what he likes.'* By no means. Law is binding by its own right derived from God, whether there is any human authority with full power to administer it or not ; and if there is no regular government which a man can own, he must make the best of it, and obey the irregular one, if that alone exists, hoping and praying for a better one, making a loyal intention to obey serve in the place of a true obedience, which can be really rendered only when there is a true right to command. A man, placed as I have described, will almost of necessity regard his State as his country, for it is nearest to him, and is more directly concerned with his daily life and his home. It is no wonder that State pride has been so deep, so great, and so disastrous, since, accord- ing to the Constitution, one great dominion, clearly known and felt, and having the right to be so known and felt, as alone sovereign in every part of the land, does not exist ; for an agent whom all the States — or l60 THE AMERICAN STATE. the people of all the States, if you choose, though it makes no difference in the argument — agree to appoint to attend to certain specified affairs for them in specified ways, they agreeing to do certain things which this agent, acting not by any authority of his own, but by theirs, may require them to do, is nothing but an agent, by whatever name he may be called. These words describe our form of rule, as fixed by the Con- stitution, and they are fatal to its claim to establish a national government. A national government must have certain rights, not granted to it, but as original, inherent, and inalienable as the rights of the people themselves " to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness." A general agency, acting by command of those whom it professes to command, cannot be a national government, having an organic, intrinsic, and original right to command, underived from those whom it com- mands. It is an overturn of responsibility for those ruled to grant powers to rulers, even where the ruled and the rulers change places, as they do among us ; for a man who has authority to rule has prerogatives, by virtue of that authority, which leave him instantly when, at the expiration of his term of office, he becomes again one of the ruled ; yet this concession of power is not of necessity fatal to the national character of a govern- ment, for any such concession may be allowed by suffer- ance, being understood as a mutual agreement between rulers and the ruled, provided that the authority of ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION ? l6l what is called the general government really extends throughout the country, that is, if every officer in the land, concerned in its civil administration, of whatever degree, draws his right to be such an officer directly from the general government, or immediately through officers appointed by the general government, — if, for instance, the governors of the States receive, as they ought only to receive, and as, in any proper theory of a nation, they could only receive, their authority to act as governors from the general government. The people of each State might continue to choose their governors, as they now do, if it were deemed best, provided that each governor, as soon as chosen, received his commission to act as governor from the central authority of the government. If what is sometimes called the national government — though it is not one,, and has no right or claim to be so called, by the letter or spirit of the Constitution — had this right of juris- diction, the liberty of choice might well enough be left where it is ; but the governor of each State is chosen by the people of each State, and his own authority to act comes from the people of the State which chose him. He is not and does not claim to be a national officer ; on the contrary, he expressly claims, and takes a special pride in claiming, not to be a national officer, and protests, or others do for him, against being so re- garded. His oath to support the Constitution of the United States is never understood to make him a national officer ; and it does not so make him, since he K 1 62 THE AMERICAN STATE. is not recognized by the Constitution as an officer of the nation, but only of the State. A nation which neither chooses, nor authorizes, however chosen, all who administer its civil affairs throughout its extent, is not a nation in any sense that plain, unsophisticated people can understand, so far as that supposed nationality depends upon a constitution which permits any man to serve any part of his coun- try without the authority of his whole country, as rep- resented by its central government. Whatever nation- ality, if any, might possibly be affirmed of the Consti- tution, as it originally stood, is completely taken away by the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitu- tion. Those amendments take away from the Consti- tution every jDossible trace or shadow of nationality. Nations, as nations, and they only, can retain rights, and by nations as nations and by them only can powers be reserved. The power that retains national rights is superior to the nation, — hence there is no nationality. ^ The authority which reserves national powers is superior to the nation, — hence there is no nationality. I cite the following sentences from the letter of James Madison to Edward Everett, as published in the North American Review, August, 1830, and quoted by Thomas H. Benton in his defence of Madi- son against the charge of advocating nullification: — " Nor is the government of the United States, cre- ated by the Constitution, less a government, in the ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION ? 163 strict sense of the term, within the sphere of its pow- ers, than the governments created by the constitutions of the States are, within their several spheres. It is, like them, organized into legislative, executive, and judiciary departments. It operates, like them, directly on persons and things. And, like them, it has at com- mand a physical force for executing the powers com- mitted to it. " Between these different constitutional governments, the one operating in all the States, the others oper- ating separately in each, with the aggregate powers of government divided between them, it could not escape attention, that controversies could arise con- cerning the boundaries of jurisdiction." It would not be possible for me to use language more vividly illustrating my position that, according to the Constitution, the United States are not a na- tion, than the plain, direct words of James Madison. If "the government of the United States" is no less a government than "the governments created by the constitutions of the States," then it is no more a government than they are. It is organized like them ; they are organized like it. There is a complete invo- lution of civil authority, wheels within wheels of sov- ereignty and allegiance. I deny that this involution, whatever else it may be or do, can be or accord wdth a national government. If our State governments, "organized into legislative, executive, and judiciary departments," however cumbersome such machinery 164 THE AMERICAN STATE. must be, derived their legislative, executive, and judi- cial sanction from the central authority, our country would be, I admit, a nation, according to the Consti- tution ; but this is not the condition of things. It is the very reverse of the condition. The general gov- ernment is the deputy of the States ; the States are the original authority. " Aggregate powers of govern- ment divided between " two civil authorities, each claiming to be sovereign in its own sphere, and one, the local, not the general one, claiming besides to have an inexhaustible fountain of sovereignty left, — such powers cannot make or found a nation. A human body can have but one heart ; a nation can have but one central spring of life, authority, and power. Even the executive head depends upon the ever-beating, ever-sustaining heart of essential nation- ality for its power to direct and guide the life which it represents. Read the last paragraph above quoted from Mr. Madison's letter, in the light of our civil war. It reads like a prophecy of death to hundreds of thousands of brave men. Hear it : it sounds like a chorus of lamentation and woe from millions of voices over myr- iads of graves. Look at it : every word burns like a blazing star, scorching harvest-fields and blasting hearts and homes. " Controversies " terrible indeed, red with the carnage, flashing with the lightning, and rolling with the thunder of war, hav'e proved, one would think, enough as to the character of " consti- ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION ? l6$ tutional governments" having "the aggregate powers of government divided between them" ; but the proof seems to have made but a sHght and transient im- pression. No monster in mythology, romance, or his- tory has died so hard as State sovereignty is dying, singing hke a siren to allure and destroy, and smiling, entrancing with satanic illusion, to the last gasp of his hot, infernal breath. My countrymen ! through how many red seas of war do you mean or desire to go, before you will own, by a plain, organic law, a nationality which will admit no possible conflict of civil jurisdiction? Mr. Madison, as the author of the resolutions of '98, triumphantly vindicated himself and the resolutions from any intention to declare or authorize the doc- trines of nullification and secession. There never lived in any country, in any age, a truer, purer pa- triot than James Madison. While saying this with all my heart, I say also that the doctrines of nullifica- tion and secession are direct, logical consequences of the resolutions of '98. Those resolutions never would have seen the light of day, had Madison and other eminent Virginians foreseen what opinions and events would grow out of those resolutions. This is not all. The resolutions of '98, if not in strict accordance with one theory of the Constitution, are in strict accord- ance with another theory of the Constitution, held by some who aided to form the Constitution, by others who aided to secure its adoption, by others who have l66 THE AMERICAN STATE. upheld and administered it, and by nearly as many people, if not quite, as many, at this moment, as main- tain the other theory. It is a strange nationality whose charter allows the very nationality which some say that it creates to be an open question, and a ques- tion as open now as ever. If the Constitution makes us a nation, it requires to be explained why half the people, without reference to degrees of latitude or lon- gitude, have denied that it does from the first, and deny it now. I am greatly amazed by the position of those who seek to defend the Constitution by vindicating the con- stitutional character of the resolutions of '98. The stronger they make the argument for the resolutions, the weaker they make it for the Constitution. What- ever danger there may be in this assertion comes from its unimpeachable truth. I maintain that the resolu- tions of '98, as meant by Madison and the Legislature of Virginia, are constitutional, but I do not draw from this fact the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States is a national charter. I draw just the opposite conclusion, and contend that it is the only logical and direct conclusion. I allow on one side, and claim on the other, that the Virginia resolutions are not in harmony with a true nationality ; but that is not the fault of the resolutions. I rebuke plainly and severely those who will not or who dare not fol- low up the dangers of the resolutions of '98 to their fountain-head, the Federal Constitution of the United ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION ? 167 States. No one holds that nullification and secession find any express guaranty in the Constitution. I am not aware that Calhoun or Hayne ever went so far as that ; but nullification and secession are logical developments from those reserved rights and State sovereignty which the Constitution owns and sanc- tions. It is as unfair to denounce the Virginia reso- lutions for their tendency to disunion, while upholding the Constitution as a national charter, as it would be to hang or shoot a colonel for obeying the orders of his general. The Constitution is a federal Constitu- tion, and cannot without historical violence be called a national Constitution. National jurisdiction is never doubtful. Federal jurisdiction is always doubtful. Look at European history for ages. It is red and fiery with proofs. Doubts are the seeds of denials ; and denials are the seeds of anarchy, convulsion, and ruin, ever have been, and ever will be. The very name of our country is not in keeping with any idea of nationality. The title United States of America is proper for a league of sovereign States, and even for a federal Union, but not for a united sovereign nation. The name of our country conveys to the mind no image whatever of one great domin- ion being, or claiming to be, a power in the world, but confuses and distracts like looking at the pris- matic colors, that are useless except for scientific curi- osity, but which, when duly blended, make one clear, genial, reviving light, the joy of earth and the glory 1 68 THE AMERICAN STATE. of heaven. Our country is a political prism, disturb- ing the vision of all men with its broken radiance of green, yellow, red, and the rest, when it ought to be a sun of clear, inspiring, undivided light, cheering like a benediction all the world. Are the United States a nation .-* Yes, if we regard their historical beginning and growth, independently of the Articles of Confederation and the Federal Con- stitution. In this view, they are a nation, and can- not help being one. They are a nation, whether the people will it or not, for they obey, and cannot help obeying, the great, primal law of political gravitation, which is as inexorable as the law of gravitation in the material universe. Are the United States a nation ? No, if we regard alone the Articles of Confederation and the Federal Constitution as founding, either or both, the title of nationality. The Articles of Confed- eration and the Federal Constitution, instead of rec- ognizing and developing American nationality, have really retarded and defeated it, as far as the power of man could do it ; and that was in many minds the very object to be desired. That object, within the limit of free will and human power, has been ful- filled. Our essential nationality, which is independent of all written forms or constitutions, which began before them, lives through them, and will survive them all, is in plain and direct contradiction to that so-called nationality which attempts to resist the primal laws of human so- ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION ? 1 69 ciety and government ; which treats civil authority as a concession, and the right to rule as a grant ; which makes the branches of the tree create the root, and makes the sun in the sky out of a contribution from the sovereignty of the planets, — the planets keeping the rest for their own use. There is one way, and but one, by which the inherent nationality of our country and her constitutional nation- ality can be made harmonious ; and that is by a national constitution, which shall equally recognize the organic, pervading, indestructible laws of civil government, which are independent of the will and power of man, and the rights and duties of man as a citizen, which are alike independent of the will and power of man. Man has no rights of any kind which he did not derive from God. This sublime truth is recognized in the Declaration of Independence ; and I believe and maintain that in urging and demanding for my country a national gov- ernment and a national constitution, in order that our essential and our constitutional nationality may be in complete and triumphant agreement, I am acting in strict harmony and compliance with the historical de- velopment of the Declaration of Independence, and with its recognition of eternal truth. In saying this, I am not contradicting what I have intimated before, that the corner-stone of North American nationality was laid long before the Declaration of Independence was written or dreamed 'of; long before a European foot trod on Plymouth Rock ; long before a single tree fell I/O THE AMERICAN STATE. in Jamestown by the stroke of a European axe. But the day of the Declaration is hallowed by so many in- spiring memories, that it may well take its place as, in a certain sense, our national beginning ; yet I desire my countrymen to consider, for it is not enough con- sidered, that the Declaration of Independence recognized not only the rights of man but the rights of government. That very Congress, whose members signed their im- mortal names to that paper, at once began to rule the thirteen Colonies as one independent nation ; for the "free and independent States" were then understood to form one resisting dominion, one dominion ruled and ruling ; such they were, such they were meant to be, such they were owned to be by the very fact of the Continental Congress. I maintain, in this view, that the Continental Congress of 1776 was a more national assembly than the Federal Congress of 1875 ; for the former was less limited and controlled by set rules, forms, and reservations contradictory and intended to be contradictory to the spirit and the letter of nation- ality. To conclude, I claim again that, in demanding a national government and a national constitution, I am acting in strict harmony with the exalted and exalting " spirit of '76." The " spirit of '76 " was not only the spirit of liberty, but also the spirit of nationality. Only by hailing, holding, and developing both can we be really true to the Day and the Declaration. The "spirit of 1776" was the spirit of national advance- ARE THE UNITED STATES A NATION? I7I mcnt, development, and growth. Unless the spirit of 1876 shall be equally the spirit of advancement, devel- opment, and growth, it will not be grateful or true to the "spirit of 1776." The spirit of liberty is the spirit of growth ; and if it is not true to the days as they come, it cannot be true to the days that are gone. The in- spiring past, no less clearly than the striving present, cries ever and aloud, Onward ! THE END. Cambridge : Electrotyiied and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company.