THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 «* 
 
 1i 
 
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 s-t 

 
 TRIBUNE ESSAYS.
 
 TRIBUNE ESSAYS 
 
 LEADING ARTICLES 
 
 CONTRIBUTED TO 
 
 THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE 
 
 FROM 1857 TO 1863 
 
 By CHARLES T. CONGDON 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 By HORACE GREELEY 
 
 " The shop of war hath not more anvils and hammers working to fashion out 
 the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, 
 than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps musing, 
 searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with 
 homage and fealty, the approaching reformation. "--John Milton's Speech for 
 the Liherty of Unlicensed Printing. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 J. S. BEDFIELD, PUBLISHER 
 
 140 FULTON STREET 
 
 I860.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 J. S. REDFIELD, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Conrt of the United States 
 for the Eastern District of New York. 
 
 E. 0. JENKINS, 
 STEREOTYPE!? AND PRINTER 
 W N. WILLIAM ST., N. Y.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prefatory Notice xi 
 
 Introduction xix 
 
 £j Perils and Besetting Snares 1 
 
 00 Inaugural Glories 6 
 
 *£[ Mr. Benjamin Screws 8 
 
 |L.; Mr. Mason's Manners 13 
 
 ^. The Great Rogersville Flogging 16 
 
 Mr. Mitchell's Desires 20 
 
 Mr. Mason's Manners Once More 24 
 
 ji- Presidential Politeness 29 
 
 5f> _ William the Conqueror 33 
 
 CM ^~- . l 
 
 :> Benjamin's Second Notice 38 
 
 The Reveries of Reverdy 42 
 
 The Foresight of Mr. Fielder 46 
 
 Mr. Mitchel's Commercial Views 50 
 
 "S Father Ludovico's Fancy 54 
 
 Mr. Choate on Dr. Adams's Sermons 58 
 
 . » University Wanted 61 
 
 Mr. Pollard's " Mammy " 63 
 
 . i A Church Going into Business 68 
 
 A New Laughing - Stock 73 
 
 _j A Cumberland Presbyterian Newspaper 79 
 
 Nil Nisi Bonum 84 
 
 Two Tombstones 88 
 
 The Perils of Pedagogy 92 
 
 Josiah's Jaunt 97 
 
 A Biographical Battle 102 
 
 Mr. Bancroft on the Declaration of Independence 106 
 
 (vii) 
 
 462373
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 Modern Chivalry — A Manifesto 110 
 
 Mr. Fillmore takes a View 116 
 
 A Banner with a Strange Device 121 
 
 ^•A Southern Diarist 124 
 
 Dr. Tyler's Diagnosis 128 
 
 The Montgomery Muddle — A Specimen Day 131 
 
 Ready made Unity and the Society for its Promotion 136 
 
 A Private Battery 141 
 
 Southern Notions of the North 114 
 
 Alexander the Bouncer 148 
 
 Roundheads and Cavaliers 151 
 
 "Wise Convalescent 155 
 
 Slaveholder's Honor 158 
 
 No Question before the House 103 
 
 Bella Mollita — Soft "War 168 
 
 The Humanities South. . . 172 
 
 The Charge of Precipitancv 177 
 
 • The Assassination 181 - 
 
 Striking an Average 183 
 
 The Coming Despotism 187 
 
 Abolition and Secession 192 
 
 A Bacchanal of Beaufort 197 
 
 Concerning Shirts . 201 
 
 Fair but Fierce 204 
 
 Bobbing Around 208 
 
 Niobe and Latona 213 
 
 Secession Squabbles 219 
 
 " Biblius " 224 
 
 Cold Comfort 22G 
 
 Extemporizing Production 230 
 
 Very Particular 234 
 
 Prudent Fugacity 238 
 
 Extemporizing Parties 242 
 
 Platform Novelties 247 
 
 Prophecies and Probabilities 251 
 
 " Drawing it Mild " in Memphis 25 > 
 
 Loyalty and Light SCO 
 
 Hedging 205
 
 CONTENTS. i x 
 
 The Trial of Toombs 269 
 
 The Council of Thirty-Five 273 
 
 ,- Davis a Despot 279 
 
 All Means to Crush ! 284 
 
 Northern Independence 288 
 
 The Constitution — Not Conquest 292 
 
 Train's Troubles 297 
 
 The Slaveholding Utopia 300 
 
 Twelve Little Dirty Questions 304 
 
 Democracy in London 308 
 
 Laughter in New Hampshire 312 
 
 Slaveholding Virtues 316 
 
 Roland for an Oliver 321 
 
 Historical Scarecrows 325 
 
 The Other Way 329 
 
 Saulsbury's Sentiments 334 
 
 Jefferson the Gentleman 338 
 
 The Contagion of Secession 341 
 
 Davis to Mankind , 346 
 
 Union for the Union 351 
 
 The Necessity of Servility 355 
 
 What shall we do with Them ? 360 
 
 Pocket Morality 366 
 
 "Waiting for a Partner 370 
 
 At Home and Abroad 374 
 
 ' Mr. Davis Proposes to Fast 377 
 
 Mr. B. Wood's Utopia 379 
 
 Mr. Buxton Scared 384 
 
 "Charleston Cozy 387 
 
 The Twin Abominations 391 
 
 Victory and Victuals 395 
 
 Sus. Per Coll 399
 
 PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 In making this compilation, I have trusted that the 
 memory of the reader would be sufficient for the 
 explanation of most allusions ; and commentary 
 would not only have cumbered these pages, but 
 would hardly have been fair. !Nor have I ventured 
 upon any corrections or alterations of importance. 
 These articles are precisely what they profess to be ; 
 they were, from day to day, hastily written to serve 
 an immediate purpose ; and they are, therefore, en- 
 titled, I hope, to a lenient and charitable judgment. 
 
 A book like this would be of little value if it did 
 not, in some respects, illustrate one of the most ex- 
 traordinary changes in the opinions of a great people 
 which history records. The election of Mr. Buchanan 
 seemed definitely to indicate not merely the perpe- 
 tuity of Human Slavery in this Republic, but the 
 acquiescence of the people of the Free States, or of a 
 majority of them, in the extension of that unhappy 
 institution. Its opponents, if not silenced, were 
 
 (xi)
 
 xii PREFATORY NOTICE. . 
 
 decidedly defeated, and the Democratic Party, after 
 a hundred previous audacities, continued to hold the 
 Government with something of a feeling of invinci- 
 bility. There remained, it is true, throughout the 
 Korth and West, an Anti-Slavery sentiment which 
 no misfortunes could overcome ; hut a considerable 
 measure of its activity was to be found anions: those 
 who abstained from political methods ; while two 
 classes of men, the one religious, and the other polit- 
 ical, still vehemently insisted that agitation of the 
 Slavery Question was in itself an immorality deserv- 
 ing rebuke, and requiring vigorous suppression. Of 
 these remarkable apostles of an untimely conserva- 
 tism, I may be permitted briefly to speak. 
 
 One who is outside the pale of ecclesiastical 
 organizations, and who is not an assistant in the 
 maneuvering of their machinery, finds it difficult to 
 comprehend how any confessor, in the possession of 
 his natural mental faculties, should ever have 
 thought it possible to reconcile Slavery with the pre- 
 cepts of Christianity ; yet many unquestionably were 
 left to believe that the Institution was Divine in its 
 origin, and that it was still authorized by the Divine 
 sanction. The hearts of men we may not be permit- 
 ted to judge, but surely there is no law which forbids 
 us to make a conscientious estimate of their heads ;
 
 PREFATORY NOTICE. xiii 
 
 and he who, upon the strength of two or three little 
 texts — upon the fact of the existence o± Slavery 
 among the Jews and in the Roman Empire — upon 
 that small portion of history which records the curse 
 upon Canaan, could assert, and in pulpit, newspaper, 
 review, and volume, persist in the assertion that 
 the Slavery of Four Millions of Men, in the Republic 
 of the United States, in the year of Christianity One 
 Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty, — that such 
 Slavery, utterly modern in its theory and practice, 
 was a thing to be not merely justified, but applauded 
 and defended in the pulpit — he, I say, who could 
 make this large demand upon the faith of his neigh- 
 bors, must have had one of those narrow and monk- 
 ish natures which may be capable of a certain degree 
 of usefulness in drilling battalions of neophytes, but 
 which are equally incapable of lofty views or elevated 
 aims. If such an one happened to mix a little ethnol- 
 ogy with his theology, he gave to the world an irre- 
 sistible amalgam, which in his opinion precluded 
 argument and paralyzed retort. I suspect if all the 
 literature of this kind, printed in defence of Slavery, 
 could be gathered together, that against all natural 
 rules, a peculiar and disagreeable smell would be 
 noticed in the atmosphere, and that it would even be 
 perceptible in Heaven.
 
 x iv PREFA TOR Y NOTICE. 
 
 I do not know that the Pro-Slavery Politician was 
 a whit less absurd ; "but he had the advantage of con- 
 fining his argumentation to matters of earth and 
 sense, and of uttering low things from a lower stand- 
 point. He did not " pass the flaming bounds of time 
 and space ; ? ' but restricting himself to the somewhat 
 different atmosphere of Washington, he was content 
 to limit human progress by existing enactments, and 
 to plead precedent against the piteous appeals of 
 those who sued for redress in forma pauperis. He 
 had more than the respect of the proverb for " what- 
 ever is." He not only believed it to be " right," but 
 he proclaimed it, at the top of his voice, to be im- 
 mutable. "Whatever the Slaveholder asked for, he 
 was ready to accord ; and naturally the Slaveholder 
 soon learned that he could not ask fur too much. 
 
 The position of the Pro-Slavery Politician was, 
 although the Institution might be hard, cruel, a 
 breaker of hearts, a bender of bodies, and a destroyer 
 of souls, that all this wretchedness must be carried to 
 a sort of political profit and loss ; and although Slav- 
 ery had its evils, yet that it was better to endure them 
 than to fly to others — the endurance being unfortu- 
 nately the pious and patriotic perquisite of the Slave ! 
 The matter finally settled itself down into one hard, 
 unflinching formula — The Union must be preserved.
 
 PBEFA TOR Y NOTICE. xv 
 
 This was the end of controversy. This was the limit 
 of discussion. This was the Alpha and Omega of 
 our political gospel. This was the touchstone of 
 legislation. 
 
 Of course, political science being thus reduced to 
 its simplest elements, the Slaveholder having any 
 measure at heart, needed only to cry out that, if 
 denied, he intended to secede, to carry his point 
 with marvelous and triumphant celerity. Mr. 
 Buchanan was a ISTorthern man, but although he is 
 dead, the sad and mortifying truth must be spoken : 
 he had so disciplined himself in this school of what 
 may be called " unconditional surrender," that he 
 no more dreamed of resistance than he dreamed of 
 resigning. lie was no better and no worse perhaps 
 than his friends ; but lie had the misfortune to be 
 their representative. To the last moment of his ad- 
 ministration, Mr. Buchanan was faithful to the tra- 
 ditions of his party ; and while the bugle call of 
 sedition was sounding through half the Republic — 
 while its flag was defended by a handful of beleag- 
 uered and starving men — while the country stood 
 aghast at the unchecked rapidity with which Treason 
 was stalking over the land, this last, it may be hoped, 
 of all such Democratic Presidents, surrendered a Gov- 
 ernment which he had done nothing to save into the
 
 xvi PREFA TOR Y NOTICE. 
 
 hands of a Republican successor. The times of trial 
 and endurance, of the waste and the glory of war, of 
 painful vicissitude and final victory followed. As the 
 result of that extraordinary struggle, we have now, for 
 the first time in our history, a Government which, 
 being consistent with its avowed principles, may truly 
 be designated as "Democratic." As I write these 
 pages, I cannot sufficiently express the gratification 
 which I feel at the enormous mass of nonsense which 
 events have eliminated from our future political dis- 
 cussions. "When I began to write for The Tribune, 
 there was hardly a political virtue, hardly a funda- 
 mental social truth, hardly a time-honored maxim of 
 humanity, hardly an elementary principle of justice, 
 which we did not have to fight for as if they had been 
 discoveries. There was the ethnologist proving four 
 millions of men to be monkeys. There was the 
 " statesman " demonstrating that the Constitution 
 was framed expressly to sustain Slavery. There was 
 the clergyman showing Human Bondage to be as 
 necessary as Original Sin. There was the simpering 
 novelist depicting the pastoral pleasures of the plan- 
 tation, and the patriarchal felicities of the Blacks. 
 There was the lawyer pleading that, in certain 
 cases, the Habeas Corpus is good for nothing. And 
 under all there were crowds of prejudiced and un-
 
 PREFA TOR Y NOTICE. xv ii 
 
 reasoning men of every social grade, from the highest 
 to the lowest, who denounced every objector to this 
 condition of affairs as a destructive and a radical, 
 and who thought a flourishing trade with the South 
 worth all the morality ever propounded, from Plu- 
 tarch to Dr. Paley. 
 
 It would, doubtless, have been easier — I know it 
 would often have been thought in better taste — to 
 have taken a low and despairing view of public 
 affairs, and sadly to have predicted the second com- 
 ing of chaos. But, partly perhaps from a constitu- 
 tional habit, I was led to consider serious subjects 
 cheerfully ; although I hardly ever made a jest upon 
 the subject of Slavery without a feeling of self-rebuke. 
 But it must be remembered that the gentlemen upon 
 the other side were already in the field as mourners, 
 and had pretty much monopolized the business of 
 groaning. Xestor was with them, and so was Herac- 
 litus ; and if the country was to be saved by crying, 
 they were clearly designed to be the saviours. They 
 were angry often enough at finding serious subjects 
 lightly treated, and they did not relish a style which 
 sometimes made havoc of their dignity ; but, upon 
 the other hand, it may be said that there were those 
 who did not at all relish their mournful methods, and 
 who could not see that thev were taking anv verv
 
 xviii PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 promising way to avert the calamities which they 
 predicted. But I am sure that there was not a mor- 
 sel of ill-nature in the criticisms to which they were 
 subjected . 
 
 With these considerations, this little volume is pre- 
 sented to the reader, with a hope also, which may be 
 justly expressed, that he will remember the original 
 and temporary purpose of its contents.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Whenever the history of Journalism shall be truly 
 written, one of its most interesting chapters will be 
 that which traces the infancy and growth of that 
 potent creation of our century, the Leader — that is, 
 of the most important and conspicuous Editorial or 
 Editorials, printed in the largest type, and occupy- 
 ing the most prominent position. I say occupying, 
 though the axiom that "Where Macdonald sits is 
 the head of the table," applies here as well as else- 
 where. Since the Electric Telegraph obtained its 
 full development, the more prominent and interest- 
 ing dispatches, or the Editorial summary thereof, 
 will probably attract the first glance of a majority 
 of readers ; but the Leader soon commands and fixes 
 the attention of all. 
 
 The Editor is he whose fiat decides what shall and 
 what shall not appear, and in what garb, with what 
 
 (xix)
 
 xx INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sanction, complete or qualified, that which does ap- 
 pear shall be presented : he, in many cases, writes 
 but sparingly — in some, it is said, not at all. Proba- 
 bly, no person likely to be intrusted with the conduct 
 of an influential journal ever supposed himself quali- 
 fied, even if he had time, to discuss all the topics 
 which require elucidation in its columns ; hence, the 
 engagement of able, intelligent writers to treat of the 
 various themes which, from time to time, invite dis- 
 cussion, aside from those who, in the various depart- 
 ments — Literary, Commercial, Legal, Dramatic, Mu- 
 sical, etc., etc. — hold a more responsible and semi- 
 independent position. The writer of a leading article 
 is often a statesman of wide experience, or a scholar 
 of ripe culture, who volunteers, or, on solicitation, 
 consents, to elucidate a subject of which he is mas- 
 ter ; sometimes accepting, at others declining, com- 
 pensation therefor. More commonly, however, lead- 
 ing Editorials are written by those who have given 
 their youth to study and their earlier prime to ser- 
 vice in the humbler walks of the profession, in which 
 they have developed and perfected the capacities 
 which they now exemplify. They are scarcely a 
 tithe of the number who aspired to the position they 
 have achieved — \\\q vast majority having failed in the 
 attempt. Liberally compensated and accorded a just
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 and wide consideration, they are raised above ser- 
 vility or unworthy complaisance by the consciousness 
 that their widely-recognized talents ensure them em- 
 ployment elsewhere, if that now accorded them 
 should ever be withdrawn. The Republic of Letters 
 has few citizens more eligibly placed or more honor- 
 ably regarded than they. 
 
 Some members of this class are men of all work — 
 ready, at the word of command, to review the most 
 ponderous tome that embodies the latest and least 
 intelligible speculations in German theology or 
 Scotch metaphysics — to report a masquerade-ball, or 
 to chronicle the latest Paris fashions ; but the better, 
 if not more numerous, class do that work only (or 
 mainly) for which they are specially qualified, and 
 to which they are attracted by their studies, or their 
 tastes — often by both. 
 
 In the protracted, arduous struggle which resulted 
 in the overthrow and extinction of American Slavery, 
 many were honorably conspicuous : some by elo- 
 quence ; more by diligence ; others by fearless, ab- 
 sorbing, single-eyed devotion to the great end ; but 
 he who most skillfully, effectively, persistently melded 
 the trenchant blade of Satire was the writer of the fol- 
 lowing essays . Lowell's " Hosea Biglow " and " Bird-
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ofreclum Sawin," were admirable in their way, and 
 did good service to the anti-Slavery cause ; but the 
 essays herewith presented, appearing at intervals 
 throughout the later acts of the great drama, and 
 holding up to scorn and ridicule the current phases 
 of pro-Slavery unreason and absurdity, being widely 
 circulated and eagerly read, exerted a vast, resistless 
 influence on the side of Freedom and Humanity. 
 There are reprobates so hardened in iniquity as to 
 defy exposure, scout reproof, and meet malediction 
 with contempt ; but there was never yet a wrong- 
 doer so callous as to feel indifferent to being laughed 
 at. JSTo tyranny, no outrage, was ever yet panoplied 
 in mail so strong or so close, that the shafts of Satire 
 would not pierce it, and leave their barbs fixed in 
 the quivering flesh beneath. 
 
 The papers which follow are a part of the political 
 and social history of the last twelve eventful years 
 which ought to be preserved in a convenient, accessi- 
 ble form — a part which will be found livelier read- 
 ing than most History, and hardly less instructive 
 and profitable. It has been widely asserted that the 
 Editorials of The Tribune were among the chief 
 incitements to the late Civil War. It is well, there- 
 fore, that many of the most pungent and exasperat- 
 ing of those Editorials should be collected and pub-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 lislied in this volume, so that our children may judge 
 of the provocation they afforded to Secession, and 
 the consequent desperate, bloody struggle for the 
 lasting dismemberment of our Union. 
 
 Wit has oftener sped its arrows in the service of 
 Despotism and Oppression than in that of Liberty 
 and Humanity. The ISTegro has long been its favorite 
 target ; his repulsive color, his uncouth features, his 
 shambling gait, his idiotic merriment, and his gro- 
 tesque politeness, have all been portrayed and exag- 
 gerated in defense of his enslavement, or in ridicule 
 of any attempt to excite sympathy for his sufferings 
 and invoke effort for his deliverance. " How can you 
 feel, or even affect, interest in such a caricature of the 
 human form ?" was the burden of pro-Slavery logic 
 throughout the last generation. 
 
 Our author met the traducers of the Black race on 
 their own ground, and vanquished them with their 
 own chosen weapon. Never compromising a princi- 
 ple nor truckling to a prejudice, he turned the laugh 
 on the jesters and set the public to mocking the mock- 
 ers. "While others demonstrated the injustice of man- 
 selling, he portrayed its intense meanness, its un- 
 speakable baseness, its monstrous unreason, in colors 
 that even the blind must perceive. He drew two 
 figures which no one could help abhorring, and, when
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 all had evinced their irrepressible loathing, he show- 
 ed the less repulsive to be the Slaveholder, and the 
 other his Northern ally, apologist and champion. 
 
 Such was the work to which he devoted his time 
 and talents ; to what purpose the following pages will 
 attest. 
 
 H. G. 
 New York, Feb. 1. 1-C9.
 
 TRIBUNE ESSAYS. 
 
 PERILS AND BESETTING SNAKES. 
 
 An institution morally bad seldom deludes the world 
 into the belief that it is practically a good one. 
 Wrong and injustice are not only insufferable, theo- 
 retically, but they have a hard way of rendering 
 nations, societies and individuals exceedingly uncom- 
 fortable. By the indulgence of petty vices, we may 
 sometimes lapse into a dreamy slumber, and thence 
 into decided decomposition ; but a continuous and 
 absorbing mistake, like that of Slavery, gives us no 
 peace, and makes our mornings and our evenings 
 full of disquietude and contention. 
 
 The Slaveholder, so far from securing for himself 
 and his family that soft and lassitudinous enjoyment, 
 the desire for which is his moving principle, is sur- 
 rounded by unseen perils, and is the constant victim 
 of nameless apprehensions. His retainers cannot 
 meet for prayer or for pleasure, without alarming 
 him ; a poor half-fed, half-clothed, half-sheltered and 
 hard-worked toiler cannot look sulky but his master 
 1 (1)
 
 2 DOMESTIC DANGERS. 
 
 sees in that black face a general insurrection ; a 
 ^Northern newspaper arriving at the post-office is 
 savagely squinted at as if it were an infernal ma- 
 chine ; and the very chit-chat of the market and the 
 tavern is scrupulously sifted in search of abolition 
 sentiments. The great house is tremulous with 
 alarms, and stands always in dread of the humbler 
 quarter-houses. There is a revolution on foot in the 
 garret. There is a gunpowder plot in the cellar. 
 Betty is putting arsenic into the soup in the kitchen, 
 and Sam is secreting a rusty musket in the stable. 
 All this reconciles us to blundering Irish servants, to 
 half cooked breakfasts, and to half-blackened boots, 
 to the innumerable inconveniences attending free ser- 
 vice on which our Southern friends are perpetually 
 descanting. There is a pleasure in feeling compara- 
 tively safe. There is rapture in the conviction that 
 your throat is decently assured from the knife of the 
 assassin. 
 
 How easily the slaveholder is frightened, and how 
 thoroughly, helplessly and hopelessly he is frightened, 
 is proved by the astonishing willingness which he 
 exhibits to hang his two-legged chattels. His public 
 spirit in this regard is remarkable ; and the recent 
 alarms of insurrection have furnished us with many 
 notable instances of such magnanimity. To kill a 
 dog that has worried sheep is not uncommon ; but 
 then no dog is worth one thousand hard federal dol- 
 lars, nor has Governor Wise made any enraptured 
 prophecy of a rise in the canine market. The truth 
 is that all the fuss and flurry, the public palpitation
 
 DISCOMFORTS OF THE SYSTEM. 3 
 
 and panic, the excitement and executions which we 
 have witnessed, prove with a rigidity of logic of which 
 statistics would be incapable, the pitiable weakness 
 of the Slave System. Such events as those which 
 we have been obliged to record, render all apologies, 
 excuses, extenuations and sophistries of no avail. 
 They knock our twaddling friend, Mr. Richard 
 Yeadon, as flat as his own style ; they make ludi- 
 crous the elegant simplicities of Mr. Simms, and 
 they demolish the card-castle theories of Mr. Cal- 
 houn, reared with so much patience, and at such an 
 expense of time, of thought, and of ingenuity. And 
 most especially do they dissipate the Abrahamic fan- 
 cies of good President Lord, who, with a great deal 
 of theology and an infinitesimal infusion of Chris- 
 tianity, has proved black to be white, to the satisfac- 
 tion of himself, of six other doctors of divinity, and 
 of The Journal of Commerce. In the multitude of 
 his bondmen the patriarch found strength, but the 
 bigger the gangs of the plantation, the greater the 
 weakness of the whole establishment. In South 
 Carolina, this species of property has reached a 
 point beyond which accumulation seems to be im- 
 possible ; yet the State is in the last stages of con- 
 structive pauperism, and would not have a doit to 
 cross itself withal, did it not keep watch and ward 
 with blade and blunderbuss. Abraham walking 
 through his fields with a revolver in one hand, a 
 cowhide in the other, and a bowie-knife between his 
 reverend teeth — who can imagine such a preposter- 
 ous figure %
 
 4 THE DANGERS OF INVASION. 
 
 AYe have said that these insurrections as they are 
 called, or rather the fears of them, demonstrate the 
 weakness of the whole system of Slavery — a weakness 
 that ramifies in every direction, and is felt in finance 
 and in faith ; in personal character and in the public 
 character ; in manners, habits, and all the phenomena 
 of social life. This is true of it in a time of peace, 
 when there is no pressure from without, and no ex- 
 traordinary demand upon the resources of the State. 
 Comparatively, at such a time, an indulgence in cow- 
 ardly stupidities may be harmless. But a war is by 
 no means impossible. We have vapored and swag- 
 gered and played Pistol ; we have indulged in the 
 pleasing luxury of Ostend manifestoes ; and, in theory 
 at least, we have demolished most of the reigning 
 dynasties of Europe, just as effectually as we have 
 demolished Greytown. 
 
 But suppose the dogs of war should become too 
 strong for the Marcy of the future, or should grow 
 restive in their leashes, with no Palmerston to restrain 
 them. In the event of war, have our readers con- 
 sidered how frightful would be the results of an inva- 
 sion of the Southern country ? That there would be 
 invasion nobody can doubt ; nor can any one sup- 
 pose that a sagacious enemy would strike at us in 
 the strongest places. Then, indeed, the noblest natu- 
 ral resources of the country would only prove its bit- 
 terest curse. It would be better to be without great 
 gulfs, if they only invited the menacing fleets of the 
 enemy ; without mighty rivers, if they merely served 
 for the transportation of hostile flotillas ; and, with
 
 THE INTERESTS OF THE NORTH. 5 
 
 the threatened country in no better situation socially 
 for defence than the South would be, the invitation 
 would be inevitable, and the chances eagerly im- 
 proved. 
 
 With a sparse white population extending over an 
 immense territory, a repulsion of military and naval 
 forces would be, under any circumstances, difficult ; 
 but how would those difficulties be increased and 
 complicated by the presence of masses of irritated 
 and despairing men, hopeless of happiness save from 
 the ruin of a country which had proved to them only a 
 stony-hearted stepmother ! The imagination shrinks 
 from the contemplation of scenes in which the cus- 
 tomary horrors of war are aggravated by those of a 
 servile insurrection — conflagration, massacre, and 
 wide-spread ruin ! It is not enough to say that in 
 such a contest we should be victorious, for victory 
 would be obtained at a cost frightful to estimate — 
 at the expense of a depleted treasury and a dimin- 
 ished population. Those who sneeringly ask us what 
 the Xorth has to do with Slavery, had better devote 
 a few moments of leisure to a contemplation of those 
 contingencies ; and should they have any difficulty 
 in coming to a conclusion, we have only to refer them 
 to the condition of South Carolina during the War 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 January 8, 1857.
 
 6 THE PRESIDENT BESIEGED. 
 
 INAUGURAL GLORIES. 
 
 Tnn gentlemen who do the didactic and the reflect- 
 ive for the picture-newspapers, have enlarged in sen- 
 tences, more or less leaden, upon the moral grandeur 
 of the inauguration spectacle ; and have with patriotic 
 pride speculated upon the wonder, not to say envy, with 
 which the bedizened Embassadors must have gazed 
 upon the fire-companies and the Pennsylvania militia. 
 Admitting that we had a fine melodrama on the 
 fourth instant, we have now come naturally to the 
 farce. We certainly do not think that the Diplo- 
 matic Corps ever witnessed at home anything like this 
 scramble for place, this contest for collectors! dps and 
 clerkships, this pother about po^t-omces : in short, 
 if we may use a coarse word, this grand grab for 
 provender. The Malakoff was not more closely in- 
 vested than the White House is now ; and we verily 
 believe that no Russian soldier in that stronghold was 
 ever in half so much danger of his life as Mr. Bu- 
 chanan is at the present time. We can easily imagine, 
 without personal observation, (for we have only asked 
 for the appointment of our friend Cass,) how the poor 
 President is baited and bullied and beset; how the 
 hungry beggars do invade the privacy of bed-cham- 
 ber, of library and of parlor; how the perpetual 
 knocking at the portals sounds in his ears like the 
 unmentionable gentleman's tattoo — a reveille of con- 
 tinually-recurring wretchedness. We all know what 
 a chronic bother are the little boys and girls who 
 come into our areas for broken victuals: but what
 
 THE PERILS OF OFFICE. 7 
 
 are they to swarms of adult mendicants, swarming 
 from all quarters and bawling for more cold pieces of 
 patronage than any President ever had or ever will 
 have to bestow ? We never before fully appreciated 
 the nursery line which bade our childhood "Pity the 
 sorrows of a poor old man." 
 
 We do not know that the quadrennial mania is any 
 higher now than upon previous outbursts ; but as the 
 republic expands, there are more offices to bestow, 
 and, of course, a great many more people to fill them. 
 We only refer to the matter now, to ask these tor- 
 menters of the President if it be really their desire to 
 kill him? — if they are bent upon moral murder? — 
 upon an assassination by worrying ? Is Mr. Buchanan 
 to be drawn like a badger ? — to be hunted like a fox ? 
 to be pestered, perplexed, harassed into his sepulchre? 
 Are they in league with Mr. Breckinridge to take 
 oil the President ? If not, let them raise the siege 
 and withdraw their eager forces ? His Excellency is 
 an old man. He may bear his years bravely, but we 
 should remember the proverbial ounce which breaks 
 the camel's spine at last. We hear from Washington 
 that the President is showing marks of senility, and 
 that his friends are really uneasy about his health. 
 If this be so, it should require no Hippocrates to in- 
 form them that the best treatment of the illustrious 
 patient will be found in their immediate departure 
 for the rural districts. They can leave behind them 
 their petitions — the certificates of their virtues, the 
 affidavits of their capacities, the evidence of the gross 
 incompetency of their rivals ; and Mr. Buchanan with
 
 8 A MERCHANT OF MEN. 
 
 such aid can make up his mind without a personal in- 
 spection of their lean and hungry faces. The double 
 distilled extract of rats which they gave to the Presi- 
 dent at the National Hotel, was sanative in compari- 
 son with this procession of spectres around his official 
 chair ! 
 
 The nation has twice felt the death of a president 
 to be an extraordinary misfortune. In both instances 
 it lost a good executive officer, and in both found the 
 Constitutional compensation for the loss to be but a 
 dubious solace. The two Yices have turned out badly, 
 and we do not want a Third Accidency. 
 
 March 17, 1837. 
 
 MR. BENJAMIN SCREWS. 
 
 A friend has sent us the business card of a gentle- 
 man in jSTew Orleans. It is not the custom of this 
 newspaper to advertise gratuitously, but in this case 
 we so far depart from our rule as to give this pleas- 
 ing announcement without expense to Mr. Benjamin 
 Screws. It is as follows : 
 
 BENJAMIN SCREWS, 
 $UjJf0 Qvoktx, 
 
 WILL KEEP CONSTANTLY ON HAND 
 
 FIELD-HANDS, IIOUSE-SERVANTS, CARPENTERS AXD 
 BLACKSMITHS, 
 
 OFFICE— No. 159 GRAVIER STREET, 
 
 :zsr_h:w o:r.t_, exists.
 
 A WORD FOR SCREWS. 9 
 
 Now we do not intend to speak harshly of the en- 
 terprising Screws, as some of our more ardent breth- 
 ren might do. We know it to be the custom of negro- 
 owners to snub and to cut the negro-broker ; but for 
 our own part, if human beings must be purchased, 
 and if this two-legged locomotive merchandize be 
 absolutely necessary in social economy, and if without 
 it this blessed Union cannot possibly be preserved, 
 we do not see but that somebody must deal in it, and 
 why should not that somebody be Mr. Benjamin 
 Screws as well as another ? 
 
 Our Southern friends are really too hard upon the 
 Slatters and the Screws. As well might we at the 
 North turn up our noses at our butchers and sneer 
 at our bakers. As well might a Wall street gentle- 
 man, in a tight place, flout the accommodating philan- 
 thropist who lets him have money to pay his note 
 withal. You are in New Orleans and you want to 
 buy a carpenter. Screws has first-rate ones con- 
 stantly on hand. Your wife tells you that Venus, 
 the cook, is really getting too old, and you take this 
 superannuated piece of goods to Screws and exchange 
 her for a more youthful article, paying such boot as 
 Screws and ecpiity may demand. "Who will say that 
 Screws is not a public benefactor I — a most useful and 
 worthy member of society ? We shall defend Screws. 
 We see him in his office constantly striving to keep 
 up a full assortment ; we see him endeavoring to 
 strengthen himself in the department of " house serv- 
 ants ;" we see him laying in a fresh stock of black- 
 smiths, or adding to his already large and well-selected 
 1*
 
 10 SCREWS DOES niS DUTY. 
 
 collection of field-hands ; we see him inditing an ad- 
 vertisement of large and late importations from Vir- 
 ginia, calculated, lie trusts, to please the most fastid- 
 ious taste, both as to quality and price. This can be 
 no light labor. 
 
 Screws does not get his little profits for nothing. 
 He has to keep his eye out when the coffle-gang comes 
 in ; he must watch the market ; he must buy to please 
 the preferences of his customers ; he must select 
 healthy parcels ; he must be artistic in picking out 
 the pretty packages. In addition to this, Screws, be- 
 ing naturally a man of tender feelings, is exceedingly 
 harrowed and rasped in the gentler departments of 
 his soul by witnessing painful partings between the 
 goods — the shrieks of the prime mother ; the sobs of 
 the warranted housemaid ; the agonies of the Al 
 carpenters and the griefs of the superior blacksmiths. 
 This renders the business of Screws peculiar; for 
 nobody ever saw two cotton-bales distressed at the 
 idea of parting, and the emotion of separated sugar- 
 boxes is yet to be observed. 
 
 Screws is in precisely the condition of the soft- 
 hearted fish-wife, who is obliged to flay the eels alive, 
 or in that of the good-natured butcher, whose custom- 
 ers must have lamb in the season. But Screws has 
 a public duty to perform, and he performs it. It is a 
 discredit to human nature that, after all these services. 
 Screws should be so shamefully treated. He receives 
 no vote of thanks, no service of ponderous plate, no 
 canes with inscribed heads, no pistols with the grati- 
 tude of the donors. The customers of Screws pay him
 
 A FASHIONABLE ASSORTMENT. H 
 
 his money, and then instead of asking him to dinner, 
 or to partake of the friendly drink, instead of tenderly 
 squeezing his hand upon parting, they shun him as 
 if he were fever-stricken. A hard time of it has 
 Screws ; and if we could do anything to alleviate his 
 woe, and bring negro-brokerage into good repute, 
 perhaps we would. Unfortunately for Screws, we 
 cau not. Society has prejudices which are impreg- 
 nable. 
 
 We must, however, try to correct a notion 
 which is totally unfounded. The prevailing impres- 
 sion is that Screws deals altogether in black goods ; 
 and these being considered of a low and degraded, 
 although useful kind, the reputation of the business 
 among the genteel has suffered accordingly. This is 
 all very unjust. A gentleman in New Orleans, in 
 writing to his correspondent in New York, says : "If 
 you have any prejudices against buying black car- 
 penters or smiths, Screws can furnish you with white 
 ones, or those who are nearly so." Our readers will 
 see that Screws deals in white folks. He is no mere 
 " nigger"-broker, although with commendable mod- 
 esty he so writes himself upon his business card. 
 
 In still another department, Screws might be use- 
 ful. The New Orleans gentleman to whom we have 
 referred, wants a wife. He had commissioned his 
 New York friend to find him one, but Screws almost 
 tempted him to withdraw the order. " From some 
 samples," he writes, " which Screws showed me this 
 morning, I am half inclined to recall my commission 
 to your firm to furnish me with a wife, as I saw one
 
 12 A PUFF WITHOUT PRICE. 
 
 or two almost agreeable enough to satisfy even my 
 fastidious taste. Price, S2,000 each. But I will not 
 withdraw my commission, as you may supply me 
 without the outlay of so much ready money. Besides, 
 the two ladies I saw were from Virginia, and I do 
 not much like the F. F. Y." Here now is an open- 
 ing for Screws. He can go into the wife-selling busi- 
 ness. But, alas ! upon further reflection, we remem- 
 ber that he is in it already ; nor has it enhanced his 
 respectability a morsel. 
 
 Well, Screws must struggle on as well as he can ; 
 and since he cannot be respectable, must content 
 himself with getting rich, which, no doubt, he will 
 do, unless several of his most valuable parcels should 
 abscond, or a few of his choice samples die of grief or 
 fever. Meanwhile, we have endeavored to give him 
 a hoist in the world, for which we have no doubt he 
 will be duly grateful. But he need not trouble him- 
 self to write us a letter of thanks. It always gives 
 us pleasure to assist the meritorious. We believe 
 that very few of our subscribers deal in the staple 
 commodity of Screws, but if any of them want to buy 
 a man or a woman, we advise them to call at " Ko. 
 159 Gravier street, Xew Orleans," before purchasing 
 elsewhere. 
 
 April 1-1, 1857.
 
 MR. MASON'S MANNERS. 13 
 
 MR. MASON'S MANNERS. 
 
 What are good manners ? What is politeness as 
 distinguished from rusticity ? Miss Leslie has writ- 
 ten a little elementary book intended to teach our 
 Yankee girls how to behave themselves everywhere 
 — in the church, in the drawing-room, in the railway- 
 car, and at the table dlwte. Mons. de Meilhauval has 
 also compiled a Manuel du Scavoir, which is said to 
 be a great polisher, but we have never seen it, and 
 therefore, for all the good Monsieur might have done 
 for us, we remain in our original ursine condition. 
 
 But if we have books for brides and bridegrooms, 
 with treatises upon every manner of incoming and 
 outgoing, incident to human life ; if we have com- 
 plete letter-writers and vade-mecums for all kinds of 
 persons, why should not our ministers plenipotentiary 
 and our embassadors extraordinary have a manual of 
 as much authority as that of General Scott is with 
 infantry ? Why should they not be taught to go 
 through their paces, their genuflexions, their advances 
 and their retreats % How must we have suffered in 
 the estimation of polite Europe for the want of such 
 a work, to the compilation of which we do respect- 
 fully entreat Mr. Peter Parley to devote his declin- 
 ing years ! Might not such a volume, however ele- 
 mentary in its inculcations, have shown to John 
 Randolph, of Roanoke, {clarum et venembile no- 
 men /) the impropriety of approaching in a pair of 
 buckskin breeches the enthroned Majesty of Mus- 
 covy ? or of falling before Royalty upon his knees ?
 
 14: A MINISTERS MANUAL WANTED. 
 
 For performing these two feats, the Lord of Roa- 
 noke drew eighteen thousand dollars from the treas- 
 ury of his country, and did that country no conceiva- 
 ble service whatever. Might not a little previous 
 study have saved Minister Ilannegan from devoting 
 himself more to Bacchus than to Vatel, Puffendorf 
 and Wheaton, and from being kicked out of the prin- 
 cipal taverns near the court to which he was accred- 
 ited ? Might not such a volume have saved James 
 Buchanan (with due reverence his name is here men- 
 tioned) from the gross impropriety of the Ostend Con- 
 ference ? Might not such a volume have persuaded 
 a certain Secretary of Legation not to desecrate the 
 sacred seal of Columbia ? Might it not have whee- 
 dled and coaxed another Secretary of Legation into 
 paying his debts before leaving Paris, so that shop- 
 men would not then have inquired of every Ameri- 
 can purchaser, when the American Diplomatist in- 
 tended to return ? Pray let us have " The Diploma- 
 tist's Own Book !" 
 
 We have been betrayed into these suggestions by 
 seeing mentioned in the newspapers a painful error, 
 into which the Honorable John Y. Mason, the august 
 representative of this country near the Court of Louis 
 Bonaparte, recently fell. We wish to speak with 
 tenderness of Mr. Mason, because, notwithstanding 
 his innocence of the vernacular of Gaul, he has shown 
 a great desire to acquit himself creditably, by array- 
 ing himself upon court-days in the small-clothes and 
 cocked-hat proscribed by the late Mr. Marcy. It is 
 also understood that he would rather stay in Paris
 
 MR. MASON'S ABSENCE OF MIND. 15 
 
 than come homo, for a reason that he has ; that he is 
 not personally a devotee of the principle of rotation, 
 and that as for resigning he will see Mr. Buchanan 
 — — ■ first, 
 
 But this is a weakness, if it be a weakness, with 
 the whole diplomatic body. In fact, we think we 
 can hear Mr. Buchanan chanting to our friend Cass : 
 
 Why do n't the men resign, my Cass — 
 
 Why do n't the men resign ? 
 Each one seems coming to the point, 
 
 But never sends a line. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan ought not to be so impatient. Sup- 
 pose that he were abroad, and did not want to come 
 home ; how would he like to be pricked in the 
 tender parts of his constitution ? 
 
 But the reader may fancy that we are never com- 
 ing to the point. It is not a point at all. It is the 
 back of a chair. Of a chair, we believe, at the Tuil- 
 eries. And of a chair with an empress in it — an em- 
 press descended from a Scotch merchant and an Hi- 
 dalgo of the bluest blood of Spain. ISTear that chair 
 thus imperially occupied, sits the Representative of 
 the United States of America, Perhaps he is stand- 
 ing ; but that makes no difference, for the back of 
 the chair might have been a high one. He might 
 also have been masticating the weed of his beloved 
 Virginia ; but details, however important, are denied 
 us. Suddenly he throws his arm about the back of 
 the chair of H. S. M. ! Oh, heavens! what next? 
 "Will not that arm descend upon that snowy and
 
 10 THE EOGERSVILLE FLOGGING. 
 
 swan-like neck, which we have all so much admired 
 in engravings ? Goodness gracious ! what might have 
 followed ? From the chair-back to that other back, 
 and so on ! Depend upon it we were only saved by 
 good luck from a war which all the cunning of diplo- 
 macy could not have averted ! 
 
 " Oh, Diamond ! Diamond ! thou little knowest the 
 mischief thou hast done !" cried Xewton when an ill- 
 conditioned cur overthrew a candle, and burned all 
 the crooked mathematical computations of years. 
 " Oh, John Y. Mason !" say we, " thou little knowest 
 what mischief thou wert in danger of doing !" The 
 venerable Benton once said of Embassador John : 
 " If the man has a belly -full of oysters and a hand- 
 ful of trumps, he will thank God for nothing more !" 
 If that hand had been " going it better " or " nary 
 pair " on that fatal night, we should have been saved 
 from this national discredit. 
 
 August 13, 1857. 
 
 THE GREAT ROGEKSVILLE FLOGGING. 
 
 We gave the other day the First Chapter in the 
 History of the Great Flogging behind the Second 
 Presbyterian Church in the town of Rogcrsville, 
 Tenn. — a flagellatory event which will hereafter se- 
 cure for that edifice, heretofore humble and unknown, 
 honorable mention in ecclesiastical annals. We 
 showed how the "boy" of Xetherland — Deacon of 
 the church aforesaid, and colonel of some regiment,
 
 AN IMPENITENT BOY. 17 
 
 the number and arms of which are to us unknown — 
 was properly chastised beneath the shadow of the 
 sacred eaves. The object of this whipping was to 
 produce in the " boy " a penitent frame of mind ; to 
 extract from him a confession of the name of the evil- 
 minded and Bad Samaritan who had helped him to 
 run away. 
 
 ]Sow we propose — this being one of those cases 
 which demand profuse details — to give the Second 
 Chapter. The tongue of the " boy " remained dumb, 
 lie groaned and bellowed in the most pusillanimous 
 manner at his stripes, in such a sonorous way, in 
 fact, that the soft-hearted neighbors had serious 
 thoughts of interfering, and of rescuing the weak- 
 minded floggee from the strong-armed flogger. But 
 there was a certain other " boy " — venerable and sil- 
 ver-haired this " boy " was — and it occurred to the 
 Deacon-Colonel that this ancient juvenile knew some- 
 thing of the running away and hiding of the first- 
 named "boy." "Boy" Anthony bore peculiar rela- 
 tions to Deacon Netherland. In by-gone days, when 
 that present stern champion of the Presbyterian 
 Church was in his swaddling-clothes, the "boy" 
 Anthony had helped to nurse him, had played with 
 him, had carried the sucking Colonel upon his shoul- 
 ders a hundred times. 
 
 Certainly poor old "boy" Anthony, under circum- 
 stances less pressing and less dangerous to the Presby- 
 terian Church, might have hoped for a little mercy 
 — a little mollifying recollection of the old times — a 
 little yielding to gentle reminiscences. But the spirit
 
 18 A NOBLE CASTIQATION. 
 
 of Ketherland was up. Here was the Second Presby- 
 terian Church in Rogersville rocking to its founda- 
 tions, to say nothing of the blessed structure of our 
 political institutions, which was vibrating in the most 
 alarming manner. So Xetherland smothered his emo- 
 tions and sternly subdued the promptings of pity, and 
 determined to extract the secret from the breast of 
 Old Anthony. He gave him up to be coaxed by the 
 seductive " cat " into a confession. Anthony was 
 taken by a negro-trader into an adjoining county. 
 It was the blessed Sunday — but the better the day 
 the better the deed. They conducted Anthony into 
 a stable. Pie had not the honor to be flogged behind 
 the Second Church, but he did have the honor to be 
 flogged in a stable — an edifice similar to that in 
 which, about nineteen centuries ago, our Saviour 
 was cradled. lie was carried, the poor "boy "An- 
 thony, into a loft, and the ceremonies commenced. 
 This holy and acceptable living sacrifice was stripped 
 to nakedness, stretched on a plank, his arms tied to- 
 gether under a plank, his feet to a post, his head to a 
 brace, so that the old " boy " could not move at all. 
 Now for the instrument of flogging. It was no 
 common utensil. It was no vulgar cat-o'-nine-tails. 
 It was a carpenter's saw. Carpenters are scripturally 
 classical. Joseph was a carpenter. Hence the theo- 
 logical propriety of using a saw. 'Tis a Mississippi 
 invention, and all honor to the gallant State which 
 introduced it ! Well, they were rather hard on the 
 "boy!" The neighbors closed their windows that 
 they might not hear his cries. The women wdiim-
 
 THE FLOGGING RENEWED. 19 
 
 pered — as the women will — till the owner of the sta- 
 ble stopped the proceedings, probably being ashamed 
 to have them noticed by his horses. The trader was 
 disgusted, and carried Anthony off to have his polish- 
 ing completed in Rutledge. The slave went into fits, 
 but for all these, he was taken to a jail and the whip- 
 pings were renewed. The sheriff interfered. The 
 stony-hearted jailer interfered. So the whipper was 
 compelled to break off, and Anthony after waiting a 
 week to be healed, returned — by a singular coin- 
 cidence — upon a Sabbath evening to his home. 
 
 Now it is quite a remarkable fact, that in the opin- 
 ion of the neighbors, all this labor of the trader was 
 ill-expended, and that Boy No. 2 knew nothing of 
 Boy No. 1, his fugacities and hidings. Hence, all 
 this perspiration, this exertion, and even this Sab- 
 bath-breaking, was labor lost. Because if Boy No. 2 
 had nothing to tell — and it is certain that, in spite 
 of his tortures, he did tell nothing — what was the 
 use of whipping him 1 It was a sheer squandering 
 of saws, blood, muscle and whips, to say nothing 
 of the needless harrowing of Colonel Netherlands 
 feelings. 
 
 However, the Colonel showed himself to be a regu- 
 lar Roman. He did not wince when poor Anthony 
 dragged his mangled body home on that Sunday 
 evening. He snapped his fingers at the Rev. Sam- 
 uel Sawyer when that weak-minded priest censured 
 him. He defended the deed. He called upon the 
 church to dismiss the Rev. Samuel, and the church 
 obeyed.
 
 20 WHAT JOIIN MITCIIEL WANTED. 
 
 Thus ends the Second Chapter in the History of 
 the Great Rogersville Flogging. We have written 
 it in no lightness of spirit, if with some lightness of 
 speech. There are certain human inconsistencies and 
 foibles, so terrible and degrading, that we greet them 
 with a laughter which is akin to tears. 
 
 September 5, 1857. 
 
 MR. MITCIIEL'S DESIRES. 
 
 A mysterious "philosopher of Massachusetts some- 
 where has remarked, that " consistency is the vice of 
 little minds." If this aphorism is to be accepted, 
 then we may suppose Mr. John Mitchel's intellect to 
 be of gigantic proportions, and his brain by several 
 ounces heavier than that of Webster or of Cuvier was 
 found to be. For of all the erratic men of a race 
 notoriously erratic, Patriot Mitchel has turned the 
 most bewildering flip-flaps. As a political artist, he 
 may be said, like some celebrated painters, to have 
 changed his manner : and his last manner is precisely 
 the opposite of his first. 
 
 The denouncer of English tyranny ; the champion 
 of Irish liberty ; the persecuted for freedom's sake ; 
 the man who nearly thrust his neck into a hempen 
 cravat in his eagerness to emancipate Ireland ; this 
 man is about to start a newspaper somewhere at the 
 South, solely devoted to apologies for oppression, to 
 vindications of absolutism, to eulogiums of Slavery.
 
 IIIS PASSION FOR PLANTATION'S. 21 
 
 New light lias broken upon the soul of Jolm. He 
 has been permitted, by a benignant Providence, to 
 behold the errors of his early career, and to recog- 
 nize the exceeding beauty of broad plantations well- 
 stocked with broad-backed " niggers." Since his con- 
 version, John has grown in Pro-Slavery grace with 
 a rapidity really marvelous. Since he made his first 
 startling confession of his yearning for one planta- 
 tion and one gang of fat field hands, John has ad- 
 vanced his pretensions, and now expresses a desire 
 for two plantations and two gangs of adipose chattels. 
 
 This is all very well. While one is wishing, it is 
 just as cheap, and a great deal more fascinating, to 
 wish largely, and moderation in this atmospheric 
 architecture has never been a Milesian characteristic. 
 At the same time, we advise the neighbors of this as- 
 piring patriot to be on the alert. One of George the 
 First's Dutch mistresses, being hustled by a London 
 mob, called out from her carriage : " Do n't hurt us, 
 good peoples ; we come for all your goots /" " Yes, d — n 
 you, and for all our chattels, too," was the reply. Mr. 
 Mitchel may succeed in convincing the Slaveholders, 
 who are sadly in need of smart champions, that he 
 has come for their good ; but if he continues to ex- 
 hibit such an overweening propensity for " all their 
 chattels, too," they may not only consider him too 
 expensive to be indulged in, but they may also har- 
 bor a suspicion of his disinterestedness which would 
 be painful. They may insist upon the rule that 
 " half 's lair." 
 
 Mr. Mitchel, if we may judge by his prospectus,
 
 22 AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERT. 
 
 has entered upon his new duties with commendable 
 spirit. It is always pleasant to witness the fresh zeal 
 of these novices. It is seldom that they stick at any- 
 thing. They do not simply go the whole hog, hut a 
 whole herd of whole hogs. Slaveholders, born and 
 bred in the midst of Slavery, and who have hereto- 
 fore suffered themselves to be pretty enthusiastic ad- 
 vocates of the institution, stand aghast at their own 
 moderation when they listen to men who come among 
 them, and who volunteer to assist them. When the 
 visual orbs of such are purged of any remaining film 
 of free notions, and the John Mitchels see Slavery 
 (as they say) for themselves, they always discover 
 more beautiful things in it than were ever dreamed 
 of by the Slaveholder. To tell the truth, they gener- 
 ally overdo the matter, and are more rapturous than 
 is absolutely necessary. When they say, as John 
 does, that Slavery is the finest institution in the 
 world ; that it is vastly more promotive, than Free- 
 dom, of the prosperity of a State ; that it is the best 
 tiling for the master and the best thing for the slave, 
 why they talk hyperbolical nonsense, and are re- 
 garded by Southern men who hear them with pro- 
 found contempt. 
 
 Those who have had the best and most extended 
 opportunities of studying the institution know that 
 such talk is mere babble. The man who is listened 
 to with the greatest respect is he who, while he sees 
 no remedy for the evil, admits that an evil it is. 
 Therefore, we conjure Patriot John, by all his hopes 
 of a seat in Congress, by his love of many planta-
 
 Mli. MITCJIEL'S COMMERCIAL VIEWS. 23 
 
 tions, by his peculiar passion for corpulent negroes — 
 by all these we conjure him, to moderate his raptures. 
 Otherwise, people will be apt to call him an old 
 humbug. 
 
 In pursuance of our advice, we think that Mr. 
 Mitchel had better say nothing more of the reopen- 
 ing of the African Slave-Trade. If one people are 
 to go to Africa fur slaves, why may not another peo- 
 ple go to Ireland for the same commodity % We hope 
 we shall not offend Mr. Mitchel's Hibernian sensi- 
 bilities by the question, but how would he like it if 
 a French ship should carry off from the coast of Ire- 
 land, and into Slavery, a select assortment of his 
 aunts, uncles and cousins ; in fact, the cream of the 
 Mitchel family ? But the Africans are black, and 
 the Irishmen are white — when they are not very 
 dirty. True enough ; but color has not heretofore 
 saved the Irish people from the most terrible oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 We suppose that a certain town -major Sirr — John 
 may have heard of him — flogged white backs with 
 as much gusto as John will flog black ones, should 
 he come to own them. But the Africans are shift- 
 less and degraded. Well, we have heard it just 
 intimated that some Irishmen are not, after all, 
 models of smartness and prudence. But then, Afri- 
 cans cannot help themselves. We should like to 
 know how well the Irishmen have helped themselves 
 for many centuries. We have no desire to speak 
 with the slightest disrespect of the many noble efforts 
 of that people to throw off the yoke ; but when an
 
 24 DIPLOMATIC DUTIES. 
 
 Irish patriot, as Mitchel professes to have been, argues 
 that the black man is not fit for freedom because he 
 is not free, it is perfectly proper for us to ask this 
 Irishman why the rule is not applicable to the condi- 
 tion of his own countrymen. But, out of our respect 
 for an unhappy land, we will not pursue the subject. 
 Many and grievous have been the burthens of Ire- 
 land ; she has now another to bear in the apostasy 
 of a man whom she once delighted to honor. 
 
 September 9, 1857. 
 
 MR. MASON'S MANNERS ONCE MORE. 
 
 Anatomists have been much bothered to deter- 
 mine the uses of the pineal gland and the spleen ; 
 and what these mysterious organs are in the body 
 physical, embassadors, ordinary and extraordinary, 
 are in the body politic. When a respectable Boston 
 merchant, more remarkable for his knowledge of 
 " domestics " than of diplomacy, was appointed by 
 our Government to St. James (where he cut a sump- 
 tuous figure and spent double his salary for the honor 
 of his country), he had a painful recollection of hav- 
 ing somewhere read, or at some time heard, that an 
 embassador is " a person sent abroad to tell lies for his 
 country ;" a service which he did not care to under- 
 take. To solve his doubts, he went to Mr. Edward 
 Everett, who is authority in Boston for every point, 
 from a disputed passage in Euripides to the config-
 
 A NEW WAT TO PAY OLD DEBTS. 25 
 
 uration of the great toe of a statue, and asked him 
 simply if he should be obliged to tell the lies afore- 
 said. Mr. Everett promptly responded in the nega- 
 tive. So Mr. Lawrence went to London, and gave 
 those excellent dinners which to this day are recalled 
 with grateful salivary glands by those who partook 
 of them. 
 
 Thus we have excellent authority for rejecting as 
 a scandalous old libel, the mendacity theory. But 
 there is yet another, the mendicity theory, which has 
 lately been received with some favor. An embassa- 
 dor is sent abroad in order that he may make money 
 enough to pay his debts ; and it is understood that 
 the present august representative of this country at 
 the Court of Napoleon III., is retained in office ex- 
 pressly that he may " realize " to that pleasing extent. 
 Our readers, particularly in these times of monetary 
 pressure, will agree with us that no more commend- 
 able motive could actuate a man to do duty in short 
 breeches upon gala-days at court ; and at any rate, 
 we are certain that the creditors of the gentleman 
 alluded to will coincide with us in the opinion. 
 
 As there is very little for an American minister to 
 do in Paris, save to disport himself upon proper occa- 
 sions before the imperial eyes, we do not see why 
 Mr. Mason should not have the pay as well as an- 
 other, provided there be no worthy Democrat who 
 owes more aud has less to pay it with. In such case, 
 the shortest and hardest-up man should be allowed 
 the privilege of procuring for American travelers, 
 tickets of admission to see the Beast of the Tuileries.
 
 26 SCANDAL UM MA ON A TUM. 
 
 But Mr. Mason's claim must be considered as para- 
 mount until some Democrat entitled to write jpau- 
 perrimus after his name shall dispute it. 
 
 Under these circumstances, what cruelty is it to 
 Mr. Mason, and what injustice to his creditors, to 
 circulate false tales about his demeanor before roy- 
 alty, thus touching him upon a most tender point, 
 and, as it were, sticking pins through his court-stock- 
 ings directly into the embassadorial calves ! And to 
 impeach his conduct, too, at that Court of all others ; 
 a Court where everything is conducted upon princi- 
 ples of the very pinkiest propriety ; a Court which 
 maintains a grave Chamberlain expressly to teach peo- 
 ple how to behave themselves, which official has writ- 
 ten a hand-book of manners, to which Mr. Mason no 
 doubt gives his nights and days, just as young per- 
 sons desiring a good style of writing English, " must 
 give their nights and days to Addison !" And to 
 charge him, too, with hugging the Empress of that vir- 
 tuous realm — an offense which, constructively, might 
 be considered capital, and which might have obliged 
 the offender to part with his head — a portion of the 
 body necessary to the man if not to the embassador ! 
 And to impute to Mr. Mason this offence, when his 
 fate was in the hands of James Buchanan — that 
 mirror of continency, that more than Joseph, that 
 Pamela of Presidents ! 
 
 But the story, incredible as it first appeared, came 
 to us so well authenticated that, careful as we are, 
 we published it with comments appropriate to the 
 terrible disclosure. But let us not be lightly blamed
 
 A FRIGHTFUL FALSEHOOD DENOUNCED. 27 
 
 •when it is considered that The Richmond Enquirer, 
 a journal usually so careful of the honor of the F. 
 F. V., also gave the narration publicity. We both 
 relied upon the alleged authority of The London 
 Court Journal, "which is your very Sir Oracle on 
 scandals connected with palaces. As we were de- 
 ceived into doing injustice to Mr. Mason, we accord 
 him the amplest reparation in our power. 
 
 Know all men, women and children by these pre- 
 sents, that Embassador Mason did not hug the Em- 
 press. Two Virginians residing in Paris — whether 
 creditors or not does not appear — have written, the 
 one to The National Intelligencer, the other to The 
 Richmond Enquirer, indignantly denying the truth 
 of the scurvy story ; while the editor of The London 
 Court Journal has solemnly declared over his (or 
 her) own hand, that the hugging paragraph never 
 appeared in that newspaper. " The matter being 
 beneath the notice of His Excellency," these two 
 friends in need and friends indeed, have rushed to 
 the rescue, and Mr. Mason's character is upon the 
 courtliest of legs again. 
 
 Indeed, out of this furnace of affliction (his friends 
 say that the story has " saddened him ") Mr. Mason 
 has come burnished and refulgent and brighter (a 
 great deal) than our new cent. He ought to thank 
 the enemy who devised this scandal, for it has pro- 
 cured him several of the strongest puffs which he 
 ever received in his life, and that, too, just in the 
 nick of time. It seems that of all the diplomatic 
 body he is the pet of the Emperor, and also (in a
 
 28 A CERTIFICATE OF CHARACTER. 
 
 strictly Platonic way) of the Empress. "Whether, 
 like Mary of Argyle, he is " loved for his beauty, but 
 not for that alone," we cannot say ; but of the affec- 
 tion there can be no doubt. Here is the certificate : 
 
 " I know that on the 1st of January last, when 
 the Emperor received, all the foreign dignitaries, he 
 greeted the American minister in the most cordial 
 manner ; and after expressing his best wishes for the 
 continuance of good feeling between the two govern- 
 ments, concluded by hoping that he (Mr. Mason) 
 would remain at his court for the coming four years. 
 These words were heard by the Russian Embassador, 
 who told our Minister that it was his duty to repeat 
 the words thus addressed to him in his official capac- 
 ity, to his Government, but Mr. Mason, with the 
 modesty of true merit, has, I am sure, remained 
 silent upon the subject." 
 
 We rejoice that Mr. Mason's " modesty " has not 
 kept this valuable information from the Cabinet at 
 "Washington, where it will produce an excitement. 
 Mr. Buchanan will, of course, act upon the recom- 
 mendation of Napoleon, as the preference of that 
 monarch ought to be conclusive. So much for Mr. 
 Mason as a diplomatist. But it is as a man of man- 
 ners, of polish, of civility, of the best breeding, that 
 he gets the cleanest certificate. So far from being a 
 big bear, he is Chesterfieldian, and as punctilious as 
 a professor of etiquette or a Chinese mandarin. In- 
 stead of needing instruction himself, he is just the 
 man to teach others. Here is his " character " as 
 given in The Richmond Enquirer :
 
 A RESPECTABLE GENTLEMAN. 29 
 
 " In any question of manners, lie possesses the kind 
 sensibility to prompt, and, unimpaired, the just fac- 
 ulty to discriminate what, as regards the occasion, it 
 seems most proper and befitting to do or to avoid." 
 
 There is no name given, but we know the writer 
 of this to be a gentleman by the fine language which 
 he uses. It reminds us of a reply sent by a courtly 
 negro to an invitation, in which he regretted that 
 ''circumstances repugnant to the acquiesce would 
 prevent his acceptance to the invite." JSTow we know 
 why they want Mr. Mason to stay at the Court of 
 France. They want him there " to show them how 
 to do it." Like Mr. Turveydrop's, his deportment is 
 beautiful. Should stern policy demand his recall, 
 let him be made Master of Ceremonies at the White 
 House, and with a happy blending of " foreign airs 
 and native graces," show the ruler of this realm to 
 his people. 
 
 October 2, 1S57. 
 
 PRESIDENTIAL POLITENESS. 
 
 "When we parted, in by no means a heart-broken 
 state, with Mr. Pierce, and settled ourselves to bear 
 as best we might the reign of Mr. Buchanan, the gen- 
 eral opinion was that we had made a change for the 
 better. There was a notion that Mr. B. was a more 
 respectable man than his predecessor ; or, at any rate,
 
 30 MR. PIERCE RECEIVES A BIBLE. 
 
 that he would he more forbearing in his treatment of 
 his antagonists, and less likely to do hard, ungener- 
 ous and ungracious things. In fact, despite the little 
 Ostend escapade, Mr. Buchanan ran very much upon 
 the merits of his respectability and figured in the 
 multitudinous speeches of his champions as a vener- 
 able pacificator. It must be confessed that he has 
 done very little in that way thus far. He seems to 
 exhibit rather the querulousness than the placidity of 
 old age. On the contrary, Mr. Pierce was particu- 
 larly polite, and often advanced the most indefensible 
 opinions in language of more than sophomorical ele- 
 gance. "When at his worst in public policy, he was 
 most dulcet in his demeanor ; and he vetoed necessary 
 measures with commendable suavity. Mr. Buchanan, 
 we regret to observe, is rather snappish, and too much 
 inclined to snub the humble petitioners who approach 
 the throne. The different characters of the last and 
 of the present President may receive illustration from 
 the following facts : 
 
 Last January, when Mr. Pierce was about to retire 
 from the presidential glees and glooms, he received 
 from the American Bible Society a copy of the Holy 
 Scriptures, " as a token of their high regard for the 
 office which he held." We do not know to whom 
 the Society could more appropriately have made the 
 donation than to one who, during his administration 
 of public affairs, was singularly unmindful of many 
 of the teachings of The Book. Uncharitable people 
 might sav that Mr. Pierce's case was like that of the 
 man who, upon being asked by a distributor if he had
 
 MR. PIERCE'S GRATITUDE. 31 
 
 a copy of the Bible, produced two leaves, with the 
 apologetical remark, that " he had no idea that he 
 was so ' near out.' " 
 
 But in all respects the gift was creditable to the 
 Society, and we hope that it w T ill prove profitable to 
 Mr. Pierce. A suspicious and touchy man, however, 
 upon receiving it might have resented the presenta- 
 tion as implying a suspicion of his sore need of the 
 instructions of the volume, and of his lack of a copy 
 of it. But Mr. Pierce behaved in no such ungracious 
 way. On the contrary, he sat down at once and 
 wrote a charming letter of acknowledgment to the 
 Society, paying the handsomest compliments to the 
 book in particular and to the Christian religion in 
 general. To be sure, he said some things in it which 
 rather puzzle us ; albeit we suppose that they are 
 perfectly plain to The Journal of Commerce and other 
 sheets less benighted than our ow r n. After putting in, 
 as became a sound Constitutional Democrat, a re- 
 minder " that in our political institutions there is no 
 union of Church and State," Mr. Pierce informs us 
 that " Christianity animates our nation ; it is the 
 true spirit of good government ; it is the character- 
 istic and peculiar quality of modern civilization — the 
 all-pervading principle of our laws, the sentiment and 
 the moral and social existence of the people of the 
 United States." 
 
 This is well expressed ; and we are not surprised 
 that it gives our friend Forney's newspaper, from 
 which we copy it, much calm satisfaction. But the 
 ease and accuracy with which it is to be interpreted
 
 32 TEE WRONG KIND OF CERISTIANITT. 
 
 will depend upon what kind of Christianity Mr. 
 Pierce refers to. The truth is that there are several 
 varieties now in vogue ; and when presidents write 
 upon theological subjects, they should be careful to 
 let us know to which particular kind they are allud- 
 ing. If Mr. Pierce in the above elegant extract re- 
 ferred to the new Christianity invented by the Dr. 
 Posses, expounded by the Pev. Brownlows, and prac- 
 tically exemplified sometimes behind the Presbyterian 
 meeting-house in Pogersville, Tenn., why then the 
 meaning of the sentence is as plain as a pike-staff. 
 That is the Christianity which " animates our na- 
 tionality," and is too much " the all-pervading princi- 
 ple of our laws" — a Christianity which does not let 
 the oppressed go free; but which chases them with 
 blood-hounds, or with the hardly milder myrmidons 
 of the law ; a Christianity which, if it does not sanc- 
 tion, fails to rebuke, adultery, cruelty, and one great 
 continuous theft of the earnings of the poor. But if 
 Mr. Pierce refers to that other Christianity of older 
 date, which inculcates good-will to man, then we 
 confess that his words are as mysterious to us as if 
 they were written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Still 
 this has nothing to do with the manner of the letter 
 which all will admit to be remarkably civil. 
 
 How different the style in which Mr. Buchanan 
 received his present ! Certain gentlemen in Connec- 
 ticut remarking with pain that he seemed to be igno- 
 rant of the principles of the Constitution, as well as 
 of his official duties, prepared and sent to him a little 
 memorial, in which some of the simplest of these prin-
 
 UNGRATEFUL Mil. BUCHANAN. 33 
 
 ciples and duties were pointed out in plain language. 
 The donation was not a magnificent one, it must be 
 confessed, and not worth half so much as those big 
 cheeses which it used to be the fashion to present to 
 presidents. But the donors " gave all ; they could 
 no more ; though poor the offering was." That Mr. 
 Buchanan would have found a study of the paper 
 profitable, we confidently aver. But instead of de- 
 voting himself to it like a good scholar, he ungrate- 
 fully wrote to the Connecticut gentlemen a letter, the 
 burthen of which was, " Thank you for nothing !" — a 
 letter the very opposite of what may be called genial, 
 and as puckery as a persimmon before the frost. 
 
 Some writer (French, of course) says that he prefers 
 bad morals to bad manners ; and without going to 
 that extreme, Ave must say that suavity in a public 
 officer is by no means to be despised. The mistress 
 of the White House is said to be a well-bred young 
 woman ; and we advise Mr. Buchanan to entrust his 
 more delicate correspondence to her. Female tact 
 will amply atone for any lack of political knowledge. 
 
 October 10, ia57. 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 
 
 In these days of general and wide-spread modesty, 
 we dote upon impudence. We are pleased to see or 
 to hear from a man who, in disregard of all the de- 
 cencies of public life, approaches the administration 
 2*
 
 34: MR- WALKER JUSTIFIED 
 
 with a front of brass, and with lingual abilities of the 
 curliest serpentine order. We have said many things 
 sharp and severe of Mr. "William Walker, the distin- 
 guished pirate. If our memory serves "us, we have 
 held him up to the public as one who, by all right 
 and law, should be suspended from that plant so dif- 
 ferent from all other trees, and which bears a fruit 
 not yet classed by the horticulturists. ]S"ot to put too 
 fine a point upon it, we have thought that if it were 
 right to hang anybody, it would be eminently fit and 
 proper to hang William Walker. 
 
 We beg pardon of our readers for this mistake. 
 We have not understood William. We have not, we 
 confess, made proper allowance for that sublimity of 
 insolence which amounts to a virtue ; for that pano- 
 ply of " niggerism" which enables any pro-slavery 
 adventurer to place himself at once in confidential 
 relations with the Government ; for that catholic prin- 
 ciple which permits any discontented Yankee to trans- 
 mogrify himself into a Spaniard, a Hottentot, or a 
 Nicaraguan. Our political estimate was too narrow. 
 We should have understood that the reigning mon- 
 arch of that empire — so extensive and powerful — was 
 by no means required to keep himself permanently 
 squatted upon his august throne ; but that he might 
 give himself leave of absence from the Imperial do- 
 main whenever pleasant or convenient ; that he might 
 run away, and so live to fight another battle ; that 
 his departures from the realm, albeit sometimes com- 
 pelled by the ingratitude of his subjects, and an occa- 
 sional bayonet probe a posteriori, urged nothing
 
 AND DEFENDED. 35 
 
 against bis legitimacy. Be it known to all people, 
 then, that the present and perpetual Executive of the 
 Republic of Nicaragua is now a wanderer and an ex- 
 ile ; but, whether with or without the pomps of power 
 and the modes, forms and shows of authority, that he 
 is still Governor, and is not, by reason of his truancy 
 from his dominion lessened in his authority by the 
 ninth part of a hair. Are we not right in admiring 
 the stern persistence which can maintain itself under 
 such circumstances? The king is dead — long live 
 the king ! 
 
 Sweet William has written to the Hon. Lewis Cass 
 — at this moment, unless dead, our Secretary of 
 State — upon terms of equality, and as one great func- 
 tionary should write to another. William appears 
 to consider himself a modern Themistocles, quite en- 
 titled to what he calls " the rights of hospitality." 
 He does not happen to have a Secretary of State near 
 him just about this time, and thus he is compelled to 
 discard etiquette and to communicate in pi'ojpria per- 
 sona. He is quite pained to learn that Mr. Cass in- 
 tends to prevent his return, with his " companions," 
 to his own Principality of Nicaragua. He is still 
 more hurt to learn that there is a rumor that he de- 
 signs to violate the Neutrality Laws — popularly sup- 
 posed in the least well-informed parts of the United 
 States to be still in existence. 
 
 Now, in spite of his palaver, it is necessary to bring 
 this marauding William up with a round turn ; to 
 tell him that, politically, he is a humbug, and that, 
 practically, he is a felon. Any disreputable corsair
 
 36 WHY NOT, KINO WILLIAM? 
 
 can write to Mr. Cass. Gentlemen of a burglarious 
 turn of mind, sent to a seclusion from this wicked 
 world, may open a correspondence with Mr. Secre- 
 tary. Pens, ink, paper, three-penny stamps are 
 among the commonest and cheapest of conveniences. 
 William may write and so may we. It is in our 
 power to send word to the Secretary that we have 
 subjugated Orange county, in the State of New York, 
 and that hereafter in that bailiwick the jurisdiction 
 of the United States will not be acknowledged. Per- 
 haps our letter, however, would not be telegraphed 
 to the morning papers. Therein "William has the 
 advantage of us. Beaten, expelled, exiled, ruined, 
 dethroned, he can still write to the Government of 
 the United States. So much for having re-estab- 
 lished Slavery where it had been abolished. 
 
 The " Republic of Nicaragua," according to Wil- 
 liam, is "the Republic of Walker." Although the 
 last vestige of his authority has disappeared in that 
 State — although he is neither sent for nor wished for 
 — he still assumes to be the Governor of that ilk. 
 How shall we with ordinary patience treat this bit of 
 brazen assumption ? If the people of Nicaragua are 
 his admirers, and passionately desire to have him 
 once more ruling over them, why, in the name of all 
 that is reasonable, does not William at once rush into 
 the arms of his affectionate subjects ? Why does he 
 need "companions?" And why, if he cannot give 
 up the delights of friendship, should the "compan- 
 ions" carry rifles, knapsacks, bayonets and cartridge- 
 boxes ? Why should they not sail in peaceful galleys
 
 MR. WALKER MARCHES. 37 
 
 toRealejo? Why should not these "jolly compan- 
 ions" march into Leon waving olive-branches or white 
 flags? Your country calls you, "William, and you 
 should not disregard her entreaties. Go and win ! 
 But why write to the Secretary of State ? 
 
 Nothing strikes us more forcibly than the eminent 
 consideration with which "Walker regards the Neu- 
 trality Laws of this country. He, the exiled Nica- 
 raguan, is the guest of the United States ; and can 
 he possibly disregard its statutes ? We do not know. 
 We are afraid lie will, if he can. Before he became 
 a Nicaraguan, he was, if our memory serves us, a 
 Lower Californian and a Sonorian. lie repels with 
 " scorn," and also with " indignation," the idea that 
 he intends any violation of our laws. But how does 
 he propose to go to Nicaragua ? Solitary and alone ? 
 Unarmed ? "We fancy not. He can only depart for 
 that country from these shores with an armed reti- 
 nue ; and we do not place much confidence in the 
 assertions of thieves that they intend to purloin upon 
 quite legal and Christian principles. The crime of 
 which "Walker professes such an abhorrence, he com- 
 mitted, as all the world knows, in 1853. And he 
 will commit it again, if he is allowed the opportunity. 
 Let us have no more nonsense ! 
 
 November 10, 1837. 

 
 38 SCREWS AS A PLAINTIFF. 
 
 BENJAMIN'S SECOND NOTICE. 
 
 Screws again — B. Screws, Esq. The well-known 
 B. Screws. 2sot to go into untimely refinements, 
 Benjamin Screws. The individual doing business in 
 Gravier Street, Isew Orleans. The only trader here- 
 tofore putted in these columns without being dis- 
 tinctly ranked as an advertiser. The man who deals 
 in the cerebrums and the cerebellums, the skulls, the 
 wind-pipes, the chests, the abdominal regions, the 
 legs, the heels, the great toes, and the little toes of 
 his fellow-creatures. The man who sends out a card, 
 announcing his large and well-assorted stock of hu- 
 man goods, who has the warranted cook-maids, and 
 the blacksmiths, and the carpenters, and the pretty, 
 wasp-waisted, bright-eyed little yellow women, for 
 that matter, if you will but please to call for them. 
 Everything choice, solid, muscular, fascinating, and 
 even voluptuous, upon the premises of Benjamin 
 Screws. Twice we have given Mr. Screws a notice, 
 and our readers may well be weary of him. But we 
 feel it to be our duty to stand by Screws as a well- 
 marked biographic phenomenon of the century. The 
 great flesh-broker is in trouble, and at such an hour 
 it is not for us to desert him. lie is at present in a 
 sore state of litigation, brought on by his efforts to 
 furnish the inhabitants of Louisiana with Al house- 
 maids and field-hands, and to make everything pleas- 
 ant in the homes of New Orleans. 
 
 Screws is now in the noble attitude of a plaintiff. 
 Heretofore we have considered him as a defendant.
 
 THE ANGUISH OF SCREWS. 39 
 
 "When last we had occasion to speak well of him, 
 Screws was in that receptacle popularly and in com- 
 mon parlance known as " the jug." Screws, in his 
 intense and unwavering exertions to supply every- 
 body with " field-hands, house-servants, carpenters 
 and blacksmiths,"' had sold the boy Toby to Colonel 
 Hardy. Toby, instead of being a good, patient, hard- 
 working and generally useful boy, had the audacity 
 to die of the measles. Toby, before the measles, and 
 before passing into the broking hands of our friend 
 Screws, was owned by one Whitfield, of Mississippi. 
 Whitfield sent Toby to Screws to be sold. And 
 Screws sold him. And Colonel Hardy (of what 
 regiment is not stated) bought him. And Toby 
 suffered himself to catch the measles and died, not- 
 withstanding his benefactor, B. Screws, Esq., had 
 warranted him sound in limb, wind and muscle. 
 Actually popped off with the measles ! Imagine the 
 anguish of B. Screws, Esq. ! Imagine the greater 
 anguish of Colonel Hardy, who had nothing but a 
 cadaver, when he fancied he had paid $1,350 for a 
 tip-top nigger ! Imagine the still greater anguish of 
 Mr. Whitfield when he heard that Toby was dead 
 and Benjamin Screws would not, except upon legal 
 compulsion, pay him over the $1,350 — Toby's price. 
 There seems to have been a great deal of distress all 
 around. Whitfield was distressed for the $1,350 ; 
 Colonel Hardy was distressed at having only the 
 fatal measles, when he expected a fine field-hand ; 
 and dear Benjamin Screws was distressed, because he 
 had, in a thoughtless moment, compromised his char-
 
 40 SCREWS ' 1'BO UBLES. 
 
 acter as a negro-broker by disposing of a measly 
 African. 
 
 " Send me my 81,350," wrote Whitfield. " I can 't 
 do it," wrote Benjamin in reply. " Toby," he con- 
 tinued, " is dead — of the measles. I warranted him 
 against the measles and all other cutaneous disorders. 
 He had one of them, however, and his life has paid 
 the penalty of his audacity. Hardy says I must pay 
 him and not you." Whether or not friend Screws 
 
 ended with " d Toby," we cannot say. Very 
 
 likely he has, in the most unnecessary manner, con- 
 signed Toby to that fate before this. 
 
 Well, to make a long story short, Whitfield, having 
 an eager appetite for his money (as who has not in 
 these days ?), walked B. Screws, Esq., to the calaboose, 
 upon a charge of embezzling. The benevolent Screws 
 was actually locked up. And all because nigger Toby 
 had the measles. The report from which we copy, 
 that of a New Orleans newspaper, states that Mr. 
 Screws was " paraded before the public under no 
 very pleasant relations." Whitfield wanted the 
 $1,350 ; Hardy wanted the $1,350 ; and, of course, 
 Benjamin Screws did not passionately desire to pay 
 $2,700, to say nothing of the loss of his lawful com- 
 missions. It was a dead lock. But we think we have 
 the key to unlock it. 
 
 It is evident that all this trouble comes of Toby's 
 willfulness in dying of the measles. He had a grudge 
 against Whitfield for selling him ; against Screws fur 
 broking him ; against the Colonel for buying him ; 
 so he died ! It served him rightly, the ungrateful
 
 SCREWS A FACT. 41 
 
 black person ! What would be thought of an ordin- 
 ary servant, who, in the height of the season, should 
 have the meanness to go away and catch the measles, 
 and die just to avoid working ? 
 
 When Screws was haled before the court, the 
 judge said : " Go, Benjamin ! thou art innocent." 
 And he did go, and stirred up his stock, we suppose, 
 in a lively manner, by way of venting his feelings. 
 But he did not stop with the floggings, the paddlings 
 and the picklings which the law allows. He had 
 been hurt in his good name. The tenderest portions 
 of his constitution had suffered an abrasion. So he 
 brought Whitfield to account " for falsely and mali- 
 ciously charging him with embezzlement." This 
 civil action for incivility is still pending in New Or- 
 leans ; and we hope to report that Benjamin Screws 
 has recovered enormous damages. 
 
 Many persons have supposed Benjamin Screws to 
 be a myth — a fabulous personage — a creation of 
 this newspaper. But it becomes more and more 
 certain that Screws is a veritable being. We append 
 his card, with an apology for not reproducing it in its 
 original elegance — an act of justice which our typ- 
 ical resources will not permit. Here it is, as well as 
 we can give it : 
 
 " Bex j. Screws, Negro Beokee, will keep con- 
 stantly on hand, Field-Hands, House Servants, Car- 
 penters, Blacksmiths. Office, No. 159 Gravier St., 
 New Orleans. References : Shade F. Shatter, Thomp- 
 son, Allen & Co., Maccaboy & Bradford, New Or- 
 leans." 
 
 November 2G, 1857.
 
 42 MB. R JOHNSON'S ELEGANCIES, 
 
 THE REVERIES OF REVERDY. 
 
 We have made a discovery — a literary discovery. 
 One of the sweetest and prettiest writers in this land 
 of Hail Columbia, is the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, of 
 Lyndhurst, near Baltimore, in the Commonwealth of 
 Maryland. When, as became watchful journalists, 
 we underwent the perusal of the proceedings of the 
 Palace Garden Democracy, we found Judge Parker 
 not fascinating, his only joke being green with the 
 moss of several centuries, and his serious, alarming 
 and hortatory passages, so intolerably, consummately 
 and miraculously dull, that we were nearly in as 
 much danger of coma as the Union — Heaven bless 
 the dear old venerable concern ! — is of dissolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Judge Parker does not appear to be one of your 
 brilliant men, the sort of person to hang up in a dark 
 alley. lie is solid, we suppose, and sensible, and 
 practical, perhaps, and able. But not a shiner — 
 at least not in a report. Then there was the Hon. 
 Jefferson Davis, who intimated that we Republicans 
 are men of low " instinct," Mr. Davis being, we sup- 
 pose, a man of instinct high, lofty, elevated, sublime, 
 towering, soaring and tall. This disrespectful lan- 
 guage did so discompose, disarrange and irritate our 
 minds, that we incontinently vowed to read no more 
 of Jefferson Davis, so that we missed all his serene 
 gems and blushing flowers, and were compelled to fall 
 back upon Reverdy. He was, as the young ladies 
 lisp, " be-you-tiful." A kind of frisky Dr. Johnson,
 
 HIS LETTER IS GOOD. 43 
 
 we should say, stately, but smiling ; sesquipedalian, 
 but fascinating ; plethoric, but pretty. 
 
 The epistle of Reverdy to the New Yorkers is 
 good. As we perused his well-padded sentences, we 
 were so solaced by sound that we ceased to look for 
 sense, but suffered ourselves to be borne upon the 
 tide of his eloquence, quiescent and unresisting. 
 When .Reverdy described the wreck and ruin of 
 Dissolution, we could hardly go on, and yet, some 
 strange fascinating power fixed our right orb on the 
 page, while the left organ of vision performed a series 
 of vibrating winks at a curiously rapid rate. These 
 phenomena were accompanied by an almost irresisti- 
 ble desire to place the thumb to the nose. Dissolve 
 the Union, says Reverdy, and you are physically, 
 morally, socially and economically " done for." lie 
 uses no such vulgar language, but that is what he 
 means. He says to us : " Dissolve, and your down- 
 fall commences, and rapid will be its jyr ogress." A 
 progressive downfall, Heaven save us ! must be some- 
 thing perfectly awful, and suggests the dire catas- 
 trophe of Jack and Gill and the well-known pail of 
 water. 
 
 But hearken to the Baltimore Jeremiah ! Hav- 
 ing smashed the Union, he paints the cruel conse- 
 quence of the division to the Northern half, or, to 
 speak more accurately, two-thirds. Our " magnifi- 
 cent commercial marine will be one no longer." 
 Minus the Stars and Stripes, it will go at once to 
 the celebrated locker of D. Jones. We shall " dwin- 
 dle to the feebleness of a German principality." We
 
 44 EXTREMELY GOOD 
 
 can only " traverse the deep by permission of the 
 great nations of the world." " The charm of your 
 enterprise," says Jeremiah Johnson, " will be broken, 
 the foundation of your strength destroyed, and you 
 remitted to worse than infantile imbecility." A 
 pretty prospect, indeed ! 
 
 Mr. Johnson concludes with " total ruin," and thus 
 finishes the most melancholy epistle which we have 
 read for many a day. We will do him the justice 
 to say that in the water-cart style he is easily first. 
 Choate is lurid, but Johnson is moist. The only 
 encouraging thing which he says is, that the Kansas 
 excitement is permanently closed ; and he exults 
 thereat. If he really thought so, he might have 
 made his letter somewhat shorter and a trifle gayer. 
 Why doleful dumps should now the Johnsonian mind 
 oppress ; why he should continue to sigh, and sob, 
 and groan, and grunt, and cry, and choke ; why he 
 should persist in shouting fire, now that the fire is 
 extinguished ; why he should not, the danger past, 
 come out of the tombs, shave himself, and put on a 
 clean shirt and a smiling face, he may know, but we 
 certainly do not. 
 
 Docs he like the luxury of woe ? Does he find 
 tears sweet? and sighs pleasant? find apprehension 
 comforting ? We advise him to bid farewell to idle 
 fears, and to wipe his eyes with a star-spangled pocket 
 handkerchief. Let him profit by the example of 
 John Van Buren, who wrote to the Palace Garden 
 to say that he could not come to the meeting, but 
 sent his best love and encouragement. John may
 
 BUT MOURNFUL. 45 
 
 sometimes swear and sometimes laugh, but he knows 
 altogether too much to cry. So, upon this occasion, 
 he comes bravely up to the scratch, and does not 
 doubt at all. lie is in the most altitudinous spirits. 
 He sees victory in the distance preparing wreaths for 
 the inevitable and triumphant Democracy into a par- 
 ticularly large chaplet for himself. Now, we like 
 pluck, and we must say that the Prince presents a 
 contrast very much in his own favor to the dyspep- 
 tic Mr. Reverdy, who must watch over that sensitive 
 nature of his carefully, or he will be doing himself 
 an injury in the next dangerous month of November. 
 We thought that the fashion of lugubriosity had 
 gone out, and that our public men of the Democratic 
 party were about to show a little valor, and aftect a 
 confidence in the stability of the Union, even if they 
 possessed it not. But they get worse and worse. 
 The Hon. Rufus Choate, as we understand, now 
 wears a hair shirt, fasts for seven days together, and 
 spends all his leisure hours in oifering prayers for the 
 preservation of the Union. The Hon. Edward Ever- 
 ett has been a stranger to happiness for several years, 
 and here turns up the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, by not 
 a little the most frightened man in the Confederacy. 
 Now, we are for a modicum of fun, and cannot pos- 
 sibly see the use of fingering our eyes, snuffling and 
 trembling, like boys seeing, or expecting to see, a 
 ghost. Care, too, which remorselessly killed the cat, 
 will kill these sensitive patriots, unless they better 
 control themselves. We, therefore, recommend to 
 Mr. Reverdy Johnson some light purgative medicine,
 
 46 MB. FIELDER'S FORESIGHT. 
 
 regular hours, cheerful society, and a reasonable effort 
 to rely, just the least in the world, upon Divine Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 October 21, 1858. 
 
 THE FORESIGHT OF MR. FIELDER. 
 
 A vocalist of the last generation, celebrated in his 
 day, and called Incledon, while listening to the per- 
 formances of Braham, was accustomed to wish that 
 his old music-master could come down from heaven 
 to Exeter and take the mail-coach up to London, " to 
 hear that d — d Jew sing." Mr. Herbert Fielder, of 
 Georgia, who is the latest champion of disunion, and 
 who appears to have muddled himself into something 
 like sincerity by too much reading of Mr. Calhoun, in 
 a pamphlet which he has put out, and for which he 
 charges the incredibly small sum of fifty cents, utters 
 a similar wish. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Fielder admits that Gen. AYashington, 
 in a certain document usually called " The Farewell 
 Address,'' strongly deprecated the dissolution of the 
 Union. In the course of his disquisition, Mr. Fielder 
 supposes Washington to descend from heaven, with 
 or without the aid of a parachute, but still, we sup- 
 pose, in full regimentals, with what Mr. Fielder calls 
 " important dispatches." So changed are we, accord- 
 ing to Mr. F., that the ang-el Washington would not 
 know at first where to alight. But Mr. F. is certain 
 that after hoverinjr over the land for a while and tak-
 
 MR. FIELDER PROVES TIIIXGS 47 
 
 ing sights at us, we suppose with a telescope, Wash- 
 ington would drop upon the Slave side of the line 
 and immediately call a Disunion meeting. " Should 
 the experiment ever be made," sajs Mr. Fielder, " that 
 would be the result." 
 
 Unfortunately it is not violently probable that the 
 experiment will ever be made. The second advent 
 of Washington, in spite of Mr. Fielder's invocation, 
 is not an event which will occur this week or next. 
 We shall wait some time, if we wait for Washington 
 to come down to help us ; and Washington himself 
 might object to such a mission. However, in the ab- 
 sence of this illustrious ghost, Mr. Fielder undertakes 
 the patriotic duty of enlightening this great nation. 
 Pie proves to a demonstration that the Southern 
 States are down-trodden, bleeding and bound — com- 
 pletely under the thumbs or toes of the North — slaves, 
 vassals, serfs of the commercial States ! " There she 
 sits" — " she" meaning the North — " levying tribute on 
 the Southern agriculturist, to clothe in costly purple 
 and feed on sumptuous repast the lordly manufactu- 
 rer." Quite touching ! But those who are taking out 
 their handkerchiefs may put them up again, for Mr. 
 Fielder immediately goes on to prove that the South- 
 ern States are the most prosperous, enterprising, in- 
 telligent and the happiest communities in the world. 
 The benevolent and sympathetic reader is thus placed 
 in a most uncomfortable position, and does not know 
 whether to grin or to groan. But as he has paid his 
 half dollar, he has, we suppose, the right to choose. 
 
 Mr. H. Fielder, we will do him the justice to say,
 
 48 AND STILL PROVES THEM. 
 
 is a first-rate hater. He throws down his glove in the 
 preface with an unmistakable sincerity. " I hate the 
 Xorth," says Mr. II. Fielder, ferociously. " I love 
 the South," says Mr. H. Fielder, tenderly, not to say 
 amorously. Having thus proclaimed his freedom 
 from all possible unworthy prejudices, he advances 
 with zeal, demonstrating the prosperity and prostra- 
 tion of the South with a sort of ambidextrous logic, 
 which would have astonished Archbishop Whately. 
 He opens, indeed, with a burst of amiability, and a 
 sort of grim politeness, soothing to consider. " It is 
 optional," says Mr. Fielder, " with the public to read 
 the title-page, and to throw it (the book) down with- 
 out a perusal, or to read it." 
 
 Herein it will be seen that Mr. Fielder's pamphlet 
 differs from all other pamphlets heretofore ushered, 
 or hereafter to be ushered, into this reading world. 
 We cannot sufficiently appreciate Mr. Fielder's ob- 
 liging condescension. We will, however, do him the 
 justice to say, that he is occasionally entertaining and 
 sometimes remarkably pretty. For instance, when 
 he speaks of the doughfaces, who, poor fellows ! are 
 doing their best, he forcibly and eloquently says : 
 " The voice of our friends at the North, if we have 
 any there, (ungrateful doul >t ! ) is as feeble, compared 
 with that of the enemy, as Mould be the force and 
 power of a cooing turtle-dove upon a solitary oak in 
 the forests, when a thousand hungry eagles with 
 whetted beaks and distended claws were already on 
 the winjr for the assault.*' One turtle-dove with a 
 thousand eagles — a thousand hungry eagles, a thou-
 
 FIELDER'S VIEWS. 49 
 
 sand eagles with whetted beaks, a thousand eagles 
 with distended claws — one turtle-dove assailed by 
 such a winged host would be, we admit, in a condi- 
 tion of considerable peril. "We introduced the pas- 
 sage to show Mr. Fielder's mastery of style, which 
 is a most convenient accomplishment when one has 
 very little to say and a desire to say a great deal. 
 But we pity the doughfaces. The whole body of 
 them thus compared to one miserable, little lonesome 
 pigeon ! 
 
 We will do Mr. Fielder the further justice to say, 
 that he really does seem to consider Human Slavery 
 to be altogether beautiful. It is evident that if he 
 were not Fielder he would be a field-hand — if he were 
 not a slave-owner he would be a slave. He does not 
 seem to think that there is any material difference 
 between the rapture of owning and the rapture of 
 being owned. Slavery is sweet alike to his mental 
 and his religious constitution. He duly lugs in the 
 Holy Scriptures. He quotes, " Cursed be Canaan !" 
 as if it had never been quoted before. We have short, 
 biographical notices of isoah, Ham, Shern, Japheth, 
 Abraham, Hagar, Jacob, our old friend Onesimus, 
 and our old friend Philemon. One of his pages bris- 
 tles with Biblical references : Gen. ix. ; Lev. xix., etc., 
 etc. The dear old "doulos " is again trotted out. The 
 creature-comforts of Southern chattels are duly and 
 admiringly dwelt upon. The blankets of the Black, 
 his raiment, his pork and his pone when he is well, 
 and his potions and pills when he is sick. Then his 
 condition is contrasted with that of white workmen
 
 50 JOEy MITCHEL. 
 
 at the Xorth, who arc, as usual, described as ragged 
 and ruined, as paupers or prisoners, as starving or 
 stealing. 
 
 We fancy that we have met with something like 
 this line of argumentation before. Mr. Fielder takes 
 it up with an enthusiasm which leads us to suppose 
 that he considers it to be a novelty. If he does, he 
 is very much mistaken. 
 
 We think we may say, in conclusion, that so far as 
 Mr. Fielder is concerned, the Union is already dis- 
 solved. The case now stands thus : Thirty-two sov- 
 ereign States versus Herbert Fielder, Esq., of Georgia. 
 Mr. Fielder has not, at the latest dates, proceeded so 
 far as to seize the public arsenals, post-offices, revenue 
 cutters, etc., but we presume that he will do so at his 
 earliest convenience — that he will elect himself to all 
 necessary offices, and so found a Republic which will 
 knock the ideal of Plato to splinters, and afford to an 
 admiring world a revival of the glories of Sparta, 
 Athens, Assyria, Carthage and Rome. 
 
 November IS, 1S53. 
 
 MR. MITCHEL'S COMMERCIAL VIEWS. 
 
 Among the most consistent philosophers at present 
 engaged in the support and defence of Human Slavery, 
 we must certainly rank that illustrious patriot, John 
 Mitchel, the Irishman, who is at present grinding in 
 the slaveholder's mill, and who will be transferred,
 
 BUYING MEN A BUSINESS 51 
 
 when his owners are ready, to the mill at Washing:- 
 ton, in which the grinding will be worse and the pay 
 proportionately better. Those who are not over-nice 
 in their moral notions, who like to behold perversion 
 perfect, and who find a fascination in the utter wreck 
 of humanity, will be enraptured to learn that Mr. 
 John Mitchel has reached the lowest depths of men- 
 tal degradation, and is now about the most beauti- 
 fully unpleasant person connected with the American 
 press. 
 
 In his way — which is not a very fragrant way — he 
 is now positively accomplished. We do not think 
 that any future offenses of his can be ranker or smell 
 higher than that which has now been committed. 
 lie is laudably ambitious to sink ; but we believe that 
 his ambition should, and in the nature of things must, 
 now rest satisfied. When a man honestly believes — 
 and, of course, Mr. John Mitchel is honest — in man- 
 stealing and man-selling, it is exceedingly creditable 
 to him to have the moral courage to avow his belief 
 promptly, plumply and plainly, without circumlocu- 
 tion or extenuation. " I am a villain," said an Irish 
 actor in a barn, with knit brow and general truculent 
 physiognomy. " That's a fact !" exclaimed some ad- 
 miring critic in the gallery. " You lie !" responded 
 the indignant histrion. 
 
 But Mr. John Mitchel does not so answer, when 
 his frank avowal meets with a similar response. He 
 puts on his sweetest smile, makes his best bow, and 
 blandly acknowledges that he is a villain — a traitor, 
 and proud of his treason — a kidnapper, and proud of
 
 52 AND A VERY GOOD BUSINESS. 
 
 his kidnapping. His brazen boldness is the most de- 
 licious tiling of its kind which has ever come to our 
 knowledge ; except through the pages of Jonathan 
 Wild the Great. He makes us think of the old 
 Border Ruffian of Scotland, who " sae rantingly, sae 
 dauntingly" danced round the gallows-tree. We are 
 indebted to him in this prosaic time for a new sensa- 
 tion. A champion of Irish Emancipation transmogri- 
 fied into " a nifjo-er-drivin"; Yankee," and still yearning 
 for new gangs and fresh niggers, is an object for any 
 traveling menagerie, and cannot be gazed upon with- 
 out awe, and other sensations too numerous and too 
 peculiar to be mentioned. 
 
 We do not know that our readers will be at all 
 surprised when they learn that this Irish patriot has 
 plainly avowed himself the champion of the African 
 Slave-trade. He is more Southern than the extremest 
 Southern soldier of Slavery ; and like most converts 
 of the kind, he makes an ass of himself in avowing 
 his conversion. Southern gentlemen who have here- 
 tofore deluded themselves into the belief that they 
 were tolerably faithful to the Institution, are lectured 
 with tremendous severity by this Irish brave, and are 
 reminded by him, with more vigor than modesty, of 
 their duties. They are told, in fact, that they lack 
 " pluck," which is, we suppose, the most mortal insult 
 which can be offered to your genuine Southron ; that 
 until they come out boldly for piracy — that is for 
 what the civilized world has agreed to consider as 
 piracy — they are a set of wooden spoons, talking 
 much, it is true, about chivalry, but without one par-
 
 IMPORTATION OF MEN. 53 
 
 tide of chivalry in their composition. Such frank- 
 ness is delightful to us ; hut the slave-mongers of the 
 South, who have clone their best to be bad, and have 
 honorably struggled to be models of inhumanity, may 
 think it a little unkind and altogether undeserved. 
 
 For our part, although South Carolina has small 
 love for us, we will not stand calmly by and hear her 
 thus slandered, without saying a good word in her 
 defense. We say plainly to John Mitchel, that he 
 does the slave-holder gross injustice. "We do not be- 
 lieve that they lack a relish for piracy. On the con- 
 trary, we believe that they would engage in it with 
 commendable alacrity, if they thought that it would 
 pay expenses. They probably understand their own 
 business quite as well as Mr. John Mitchel under- 
 stands it ; and if they are satisfied that a given course 
 of action will not be profitable, they cannot be ex- 
 pected to engage in it simply to gratify him. 
 
 Mr. Mitchel propounds a theory of negro-importa- 
 tion in a gay, rollicking, humorous spirit, in which 
 the blood-thirstiness of the thug is agreeably dashed 
 with the overflowing humor of the Hibernian. He is 
 especially funny about the king of Ashantee, who has 
 a lot of " fine cheap fellows for sale," and Mr. Mitchel 
 proposes, in his light way, " to patronize the king of 
 Ashantee." He plants himself upon what he calls 
 " the human-flesh platform," and gloats and giggles 
 over his horrible theories, as we may imagine the 
 king of Dahomey dilating with rapture as he puts 
 the last skull upon one of his amiable pyramids. Well 
 is it to be merry and wise, but we suppose that we
 
 54 FATHER LUDOVICO. 
 
 must not blame this poor Exile of Erin for being 
 merry, and otherwise. If a man must eat the bread 
 of dependence, we will not grudge him the marma- 
 lade of merriment. 
 
 December 1, 1858. 
 
 FATHER LUDOVICO'S FAXCY. 
 
 The Popes of Home have accomplished some very 
 tough and apparently hopeless work in their day ; 
 and this historical fact, we suppose, emboldened the 
 present papal chairman, to lend his sanction — possi- 
 bly without due consideration — to an enterprise ap- 
 parently Utopian, which has been initiated in Naples. 
 For there is in that charming city a certain Father 
 Ludovico, a monk, who is highly zealous and par- 
 ticularly interested in the conversion of Ethiopia — 
 it never having been the luck of the weak-minded 
 Ludovico, to peruse those overwhelming ethnologico- 
 theological exercitations manufactured by our divine 
 Southrons, in which it is distinctly proved that, al- 
 though " a nigger/' whether he be or be not a human 
 being, can "get religion," yet that it must be an in- 
 ferior religion, not founded upon the intelligence of 
 the professor, but something of the nitrous-oxyde de- 
 scription, inhaled by the sable convert, and making 
 him "feel good," he knows not how or why. This 
 process has, indeed, been found wonderfully effective;' 
 and we are not, therefore, startled to find our re-
 
 MANUFACTURING CHRISTIANS. 55 
 
 ligious contemporary, The North Carolina Presby- 
 terian, asking the masters of that State why, in the 
 name of common sense and the very cheapest econ- 
 omy, they do not stir up a revival ; because, as The 
 Presbyterian justly observes, " The market-value of 
 a pious slave is greater than that of an impious one, 
 while a lively faith improves his personal appear- 
 ance" — plerophory being followed by pinguiosity, 
 and solemnity by sleekness. 
 
 But the species of religion admired and cultivated 
 in North Carolina, and especially in Rogersville, 
 Tenn., — where the sweet-souled Colonel Netherland 
 gave his negro that beautiful basting behind the 
 church, which, through these columns,- has passed into 
 history — this species is one which Father Ludovico 
 does not appear to fancy. He clearly has not em- 
 braced the American notion that a black body who 
 cannot read his Testament, and to whom the hymn- 
 book is a jumble of hieroglyphics — who has a good 
 opinion of the Deity, but a much clearer one of his 
 driver — who works out his salvation by spading and 
 digging faster and more steadily than his profane 
 fellows — who grows safely stupid as he grows sweetly 
 saint-like — is as fit for heaven as circumstances will 
 admit. On the contrary, the good Ludovico begins 
 with the head, and so ingeniously works his way 
 down to the heart. Kor does he shrink from solv- 
 ing the problem under the most adverse circum- 
 stances. He does not select negroes who have by 
 c< >ntact caught a color of civilization, and who have 
 been morally if not physically bleached.
 
 56 THEY ARE MANUFACTURED. 
 
 Padre Ludovico sends for his negro-neophytes di- 
 rectly to Africa, and brings them, burned black by 
 Equatorial suns, with skins of ebony, and blubber- 
 lips, and frizzled-hair, and the Ebo shin so enlarged 
 upon by General "Wise — brings them to Naples ! Pie 
 knows that the heads are rather hard, but he feels 
 perfectly satisfied that if he can get anything into 
 them, it will have small chance of getting out again. 
 So Father Ludovico goes cheerfully to work with his 
 black possibilities. He teaches them Latin, Italian, 
 French and Arabic, adding to this polyglot process, 
 instruction in geography, arithmetic, physics, chemis- 
 try and elementary geometry. Having thus trained 
 these animals in secular accomplishments, he adds 
 to their stock of knowledge "the doctrine of the 
 Catholic Church," and sends them home to Christian- 
 ize Africa. And very successful is the Father Ludo- 
 vico with his animals, in spite of their facial angles 
 and bone-bound brains. At a recent exhibition of 
 the cultivated beasts, everybody was charmed ; the 
 Cardinal- Archbishop of Naples was delighted ; the 
 Prime Minister was in raptures, and " several other 
 distinguished personages " were filled with admiration, 
 as the achievements of Padre Ludovico quite over- 
 shadowed Mr. Rarey's equine triumphs, and plunged 
 all previous monkey-trainers into oblivion and human 
 contempt. And what Father Ludovico is doing, the 
 Abbe Olivieri is also doing at Naples, for the negress- 
 es, so that when Africa is christianized, it seems 
 highly probable that it will be done rather after the
 
 THE VIEW OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 57 
 
 fashion of Rome, than the fashion of Rogersville, in 
 the State of Tennessee. 
 
 We know that it is exceedingly wrong, although 
 not quite so unpopular as it was two or three years 
 ago, to say one word in praise of the Horn an Church, 
 or in extenuation of its alleged errors. But, what- 
 ever may be urged against it, nobody can dispute its 
 boldness, and activity, and far-reaching sagacity. In 
 the enterprise under consideration, we have another 
 added to innumerable previous instances of its faith 
 in human culture ; a faith transcending the most re- 
 condite speculations of the ethnologist ; the daintiest 
 exegesis of our Doctors of Divinity ; the most stal- 
 wart prejudices of the white race ; a faith in the human 
 soul and not a faith in this or that tint of epidermis. 
 
 To draw the conclusion of the congenital, heredi- 
 tary and hopeless imbecility of a race, from that por- 
 tion of it which, for more than a century, has been 
 so busy in helping others that it has had no time to 
 help itself — which has been systematically and perse- 
 veringly brutalized — which has been surrounded by 
 the light of human civilization, and yet continually 
 and cautiously blindfolded, is to blunder in the begin- 
 ning, middle and end of the whole matter. 
 
 Yv r e hope the Presbyterian Church South, and all 
 other Southern churches, will duly consider the ex- 
 ample offered by the " Babylonian Dame." Fas est 
 ah hoste doceri — it is just the thing to be taught by 
 an opponent. AYe can imagine the surprise, and 
 even the consternation, which would ensue, if the 
 
 3*
 
 58 MR. CHOATE'S RELIGION. 
 
 population of the quarter-houses should be summoned 
 by the overseer — this one to receive a French gram- 
 mar, and that, Lmdley Murray, and the other, Malte- 
 Brun. We would not plunge into the middle of 
 things in such a reckless way, but would set out with 
 due simplicity, with primers and pictures, and good 
 serviceable horn-books. " But," interpose the Patri- 
 archs, "teach them their letters, and they will all 
 run away !" Well, if fit to ran away, able to run 
 away, and desirous of running away, why should they 
 not run away ? 
 
 February 2, 1859. 
 
 MR. CHOATE OX DR. ADAMS'S SERMONS. 
 
 The Essex Street Church, in the city of Boston, en- 
 joys the pastoral supervision of the Rev. j^ehemiah 
 Adams, D. D., and the distinguished confraterniza- 
 tion of the Honorable Rufus Clioate — a combination 
 of felicities which hardly any ecclesiastical body of 
 this age or of any country can boast. The twenty- 
 fifth anniversary of the settlement of Dr. Adams was 
 held last Monday evening, and Mr. Choate made a 
 beautiful speech upon the occasion, in which he prin- 
 cipally advised the congregation to study the Greek 
 and Roman languages, and by no means to abstain 
 from the perusal of Shakespeare. Passing to a con- 
 sideration of the ministry of Dr. Adams, Mr. Clioate 
 declared that its chief charm for him had been, that 
 the Doctor had never preached anything but pure
 
 HIS CREED STATED. 59 
 
 and undefiled religion, and had never hurt the feel- 
 ings of the Honorable Mr. Choate, who said : 
 
 " Never in an introductory prayer, never in a 
 hymn, occasionally, or in the ordinary course of pub- 
 lic worship, never by an illustration in any sermon, 
 by any train of association, right or wrong, have I 
 been carried back into the world that I had left." 
 
 From this it will be seen how exceedingly Mr. 
 Choate has enjoyed his religion, and how much the 
 church must have enjoyed him, and how perfectly 
 serene everything must have been in Essex Street. 
 This is why the Rev. ISTehemiah Adams has been pre- 
 sented by his congregation with a piano-forte, valued 
 at $i00 ; and with $2,000 in hard cash, and " other 
 valuable articles." In truth, Mr. Choate argues the 
 matter with great profundity. Hear him ! 
 
 " The great concrete of practical politics, the work- 
 ings of our special confederated system, the laws and 
 conditions of our very artificial nationality, will he — 
 the clergyman — permit me to enquire whether or not 
 his deep studies, aliunde et diverso intuitu, have en- 
 abled him to know anything of them ?" That is to 
 say, a clergyman may understand Shakespeare and 
 should understand Greek and Latin, but politics he 
 cannot understand. "He will," said Mr. Choate, 
 " have learned from his Bible that the race of man 
 is of kindred blood ; but he cannot know how far 
 these glorious generalities are modified by civil so- 
 ciety." 
 
 Mr. Choate is clearly advancing. Some years ago 
 he discovered that the " generalities " of the Declara-
 
 60 IS TT RIGHT? 
 
 tion of Independence were glittering. And now he 
 Las discovered that the generalities of the Holy Bible 
 are glorious. In fact, if we understand him at all, 
 he would cut off the clergyman from all interest in 
 human affairs, from all observation of a government, 
 without which there could be no churches and no re- 
 ligion, from a judicious direction of the political sym- 
 pathies and emotions of his parishioners, from all at- 
 tempt to save them from passion and selfishness in 
 their politics, and from a bad conscience in their po- 
 litical relations. Now Mr. Choate has read more than 
 most men in history, as is evident enough from the 
 countless historical allusions which crowd his ora- 
 tions ; and he knows that in no age at all remarkable 
 for spiritual progress and the development of relig- 
 ious liberty, have piety and politics submitted to the 
 divorce which he proposes. If we would have our 
 religion worth anything — if we would secure for it a 
 practical influence and a computable value — we can 
 no more separate it from our politics than we can 
 separate it from our domestic relations. If there be 
 in this question of Slavery no moral element — if it 
 be perfectly indifferent in the sight of God, whether 
 we are humane and brotherly and benevolent, or the 
 opposite, so we do but join the church of the Rev. 
 Dr. Adams — then Mr. Choate is right and his pastor 
 is right. But this is substantially suggesting that in 
 politics a man cannot go morally wrong. We have 
 hardly reached that point ; but we cannot, of course, 
 keep pace with Mr. Choate. For it seems to us, that 
 if politics have invaded the pulpits of New England,
 
 THE MASTER MINDS ENGROSSED. 61 
 
 the invasion has been strictly limited to matters of 
 common morals. By the discussion of these, we should 
 be very sorry to have Mr. Choate disturbed. 
 
 April 2, 1859. 
 
 UNIVERSITY WANTED. 
 
 Tiie foundation of a seat of learning, in which for 
 many successive generations the youth of a nation 
 may learn the Greek and Latin languages, with a 
 sprinkling of Conic Sections, and a mild flavor of 
 Campbell's Rhetoric, is a matter which occupied the 
 minds of our fathers, and not seldom appeals to the 
 pockets of us, their degenerate descendants, inasmuch 
 as it is the fashion, upon all possible occasions, in all 
 proper and improper spots, to found what is called a 
 University, and to invite juvenile aspirants to enter 
 for the purpose of induction, deduction and seduction, 
 within its thrice-consecrated walls. We are, there- 
 fore, not at all astonished to find The Louisiana 
 Democrat declaring that the subject of " A Southern 
 University" is now " engrossing the master-minds of 
 the South," which means, of course, what it modestly 
 declines to express, that it is universally engrossing 
 the attention of the whole Southern intellect ; for all 
 Southern minds are well known to be master minds. 
 Harvard is to be rivaled, and Yale is to be knocked 
 into a common hedge-school. " The South," says The 
 Democrat, " must establish a University where our
 
 62 THE ENVIOUS NORTH. 
 
 sons can drink deeply." We believe that they have 
 not drunk sparingly in those institutions of learning* 
 already established ; but The Democrat does not al- 
 lude to cock-tails and punches ; for when it speaks of 
 " drinking deeply,*' it refers to " the pure streams of 
 learning." In favor of that particular tipple T/ie 
 Democrat is arguing. 
 
 " Where our sons," it goes on to say, " may drink 
 deeply from the pure streams of learning, without 
 imbibing the poisonous waters of bigotry and fanati- 
 cism — where the high-toned, chivalrous youth of this 
 sunny land can receive the highest collegiate degrees 
 without submitting to the galling restraints forced 
 upon them in Northern institutions, by men who are 
 at variance with their principles, and envious of their 
 beautiful, luxurious and wealthy home." 
 
 Of course, it is necessary to have a college where 
 there shall be no sunrise prayers and subsequent reci- 
 tations ; where the Commons table shall be adorned 
 by early turtle and late lamb ; where it is the pre- 
 scribed privilege of Freshman and of Sophomore to 
 pull the presidential nose, or to assault an offending 
 tutor. It is a college in which every Freshman may 
 be called to recitation by his private and personal 
 Sambo, and may even employ a learned " nigger," if 
 he can find one, to " coach'" him through Euripides 
 and Cicero. This is the college which is to knock 
 into a sort of classical and mathematical Cartli 
 dear old Harvard and always respectable Yale, Dart- 
 mouth, which produced Ruins Choate, and all other 
 Northern seminaries whatever. No wonder The
 
 THE FILIAL POLLARD. 63 
 
 Louisiana Democrat looks forward to such a founda- 
 tion " with pleasant emotions," and anticipates " a 
 new impetus to the science, learning and literature of 
 a great country." 
 
 A Southern University ! What a pleasing notion ! 
 How suggestive of exegesis, cumulative and conclu- 
 sive, concerning Joseph, Abraham and Moses, Paul 
 and Onesimus, illustrating the true significance of 
 " doulos" and historically, critically and classically 
 proving that " a nigger" is not a white man — a posi- 
 tion which, considering that nobody has disputed it, 
 our Southern philosophers seem to be over eager to 
 establish — bursting upon us with rekindling ethno- 
 logical light, and sweetly and sagely conducting us to 
 a serene acquiescence in the sanctity of slaveholding ! 
 This is what a Southern University would do ; this 
 is why a Southern University should be established ; 
 this is why our contribution to the scheme — one brass 
 cent — may be had by any person bringing the proper 
 certificate, upon call, at the counting-room of this 
 Journal. 
 
 April 20, 1S59. 
 
 MR. POLLARD'S "MAMMY." 
 
 There are many instances of filial piety recorded, 
 and very properly recorded, in history. The reader 
 will please recall that which has most warmly touched 
 his sensibilities, or most closely captivated his memory 
 — of some Athenian son or Roman daughter, Olustri-
 
 64 COMFORT FOR DR. ADAMS. 
 
 ous for obedience or devotion — and when contempla- 
 tion has warmed him into an admiration of the An- 
 cients and an inclination to depreciate the Moderns, 
 we shall triumphantly bring forward Edward Pollard, 
 of Washington, in the District of Columbia, Esq., as 
 the champion, in this behalf, of the present day. Mr. 
 Pollard has printed a pamphlet in defence of the 
 proposition to re-open what may be most properly 
 called the African Man-trade. Of Mr. Pollard's ar- 
 guments in this production we cannot speak, for 
 many reasons, the chief of which is that we have not 
 seen them. But what Mr. Pollard may think of the 
 slave-trade is of small consequence when compared 
 with his filial devotion ; and the expression of that 
 feeling we have seen, for it has been disintegrated, if 
 we may say so, from the main work, and, in the highly 
 respectable character of an Elegant Extract, is now 
 making a fashionable tour through the newspapers. 
 
 We trust that the Reverend Doctor Adams has 
 seen this wandering small paragraph ; that it has 
 rendered moist his venerable eyes, and warmed the 
 cockles of his ancient heart. For it appears that 
 when Mr. Edward Pollard was a boy, his father had 
 not merely the happiness to possess such a son, but in 
 addition to this blessing in tunics, Mr. Edward Pol- 
 lard's father — not to put too fine a point upon it — 
 owned niters. As Mr. Edward Pollard lives in 
 Washington, and is therefore, prima facie, an impov- 
 erished office-holder, the presumption is that the black 
 diamonds are no longer retained as heir-looms in the 
 Pollard family, but have been sold by papa Pollard,
 
 POLLARD'S INFANT NURTURE. 65 
 
 and sent to enjoy themselves upon the sugar-planta- 
 tions, or to paddle and plash in the rice-swamps. 
 Edward Pollard, Esq., has therefore the inestimable 
 privilege of indulging in the Pleasures of Memory, 
 and the way in which he does it is creditable to his 
 heart. He sighs not for the stalwart field-hands, 
 worth one thousand dollars apiece ; he mourns not 
 for the yellow hand-maidens with taper waists and 
 languishing eyes; he weeps not for the coachman 
 who guided his father's chariot ; the laundress who 
 got up his infant linen ; the cook who prepared the 
 domestic hominy ; or the scullion who scrubbed the 
 ancestral floor. 
 
 From these treasures, worth, in the aggregate, a 
 very handsome sum of money, Edward Pollard, Esq., 
 turns to drop a tear upon the grave of his " mammy." 
 " Mammy" was Edward Pollard's nurse. From the 
 sable heart of " mammy" he first drew his snowy sus- 
 tenance. In the dark arms of " mammy" he tasted 
 the titillation of his first dandle. From the black 
 hand of " mammy" he received his initial corn-cake. 
 Her voice chanted his vesper lullaby and summoned 
 him to his matin ablutions. Mr. Pollard " confesses " 
 — although, under the circumstances, we do not see 
 the necessity of the qualification — that he is not 
 ashamed of his affection for his " mammy." She died ; 
 for all " mammies" — even the " mammy" of Mr. Pol- 
 lard — were or are mortal. Then came her sepulchral 
 honors. "Wiping the copious tears from his eyes, Mr. 
 Pollard informs us that " in his younger days" he 
 made " little monuments over the grave of his mam
 
 60 POLLAED '8 MA TURE ORA TITUBE. 
 
 my." How many he made he does not inform us. 
 What material he used, we are not told ; but we know 
 that infant architects have a partiality for mud. 
 
 And now Mr. Pollard, discarding the sentimental, 
 waxes savage. Standing over the grave of his " mam- 
 my," and suddenly getting angry without any appar- 
 ent occasion, he cries : " Do you think I could ever 
 have borne to see her consigned to the demon aboli- 
 tionists ?" There is really no need of all this vehe- 
 mence. We perfectly understand the case. We ap- 
 preciate Mr. Pollard's feelings. We know that he 
 could not have bome it. For who then would have 
 ministered to his necessities ? Who would have 
 darned his juvenile hose \ Who would have rocked 
 his cradle ? Who would have " run to catch him 
 when he fell, and kissed the place to make it well ?" 
 And, moreover, had " the demon abolitionists" caught 
 Mr. Pollard's " mammy," he is perfectly certain that 
 they would have " consigned her lean, starved corpse 
 to a pauper grave." From which we infer that 
 in addition to the mud memorials heretofore men- 
 tioned, as erected by Mr. Pollard, in the first gush of 
 childhood's sorrow, he has since placed over the grave 
 of " mammy" something very splendid in the way of 
 a mausoleum. For, as we have already noticed, 
 "mammy" is no mure; and Edward Pollard, Esq., 
 to use his own most charming language, can "only 
 look at her through the mist of long years." She died 
 without the aid, assistance or cruel commerce of" the 
 demon abolitionists," and Mr. Pollard, who appeal's 
 to be an elderly gentleman, has to pay a washing-bill
 
 A QUASI ORPHAN. 67 
 
 every Saturday, and as he d — ns the laundress in re- 
 spect of buttons, remembers " mammy" and conjures 
 up the image of " the dear old slave." He recalls 
 how, when his " mother" scolded him, his " mammy" 
 protected and humored him ; and seems, in his deso- 
 lation to have come to the conclusion that this is 
 rather a weary world. There appears to be nothing 
 to do but to put Edward Pollard, Esq., out to nurse — 
 dry-nurse or wet-nurse, according to circumstances — 
 and to strive by every tender art to divert his mind 
 from the distracting memory of the original " mam- 
 my." Of all the poor white people in Washington, 
 he seems to be in the lowest spirits — if we except Mr. 
 James Buchanan. 
 
 Whether the result of Mr. Edward Pollard's grief 
 for his " mammy" will re-open the African Man-trade, 
 is more than we can determine. The connection be- 
 tween his bereavement and that branch of commerce 
 we have been somewhat at a loss to discover. We 
 have been able to conclude only that there now exists 
 at the South a dearth of " mammies," and that Mr. 
 Pollard, having felt through long years the want of 
 that most useful article, seeks to replenish the market 
 by the importation of what we may call the raw ma- 
 terial. Left himself an orphan in respect of " mam- 
 my," at a tender age, with his locks unkempt, with 
 his face dirty, with his mouth pitifully gaping for 
 gruel, and with his trousers torn, he looks forward to 
 future Pollards — still, if we may use the figure, mere 
 shrubs — in a like condition of emptiness and squalor. 
 He seeks, like a true philanthropist, to provide for
 
 G8 ECCLESIASTICAL TRADERS. 
 
 their great want; and when the importation com- 
 mences, "mammies" will, we suppose, be regularly 
 quoted in the Prices Current. Meanwhile, Mr. Pol- 
 lard's case must be attended to by the charitable. A 
 pair of " mammies" — one for him and one for the 
 White House — should be purchased at once by a 
 subscription. 
 
 May 18, 1839. 
 
 A CHURCH GOING INTO BUSINESS. 
 
 Yes, and such a business ! None of your vulgar 
 huckstering ! your piddler-pedlery ! your small bar- 
 ter of such insignificant commodities as rice, cotton, 
 corn or tobacco ! Had the General Assembly of the 
 Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which met at 
 Evansville, Indiana, on the 28th of May, a.d. 1859, 
 speculated in steamboats, or sold plantations, or 
 played bull or bear with dubious stocks, somebody 
 might have protested against making God's house a 
 house of merchandise ; but the Assembly, jealous of 
 its dignity and emulous of ecclesiastical decorum, 
 traded in nothing meaner than men, and thus pre- 
 served from the scandal of a censorious world the 
 respectability of Cumberland Christianity. This is 
 more pleasing to the fastidious mind, because, as we 
 perceive, a decent demeanor before the world is rigidly 
 inculcated by the Cumberland creed, the professors 
 of which were warned by the Moderator, just before
 
 THE LIGHTS OF THE WORLD. 69 
 
 the adjournment, " to walk circumspectly before the 
 community in which they were sojourning." This 
 Mentor might, indeed, have used the spirited words 
 of General Bombastes Furioso : "Adieu, brave army ! 
 don't kick up a row." He did, indeed, with charm- 
 ing modesty, remind the General Assemblers, that 
 they were " the light of the world," and he, we pre- 
 sume, may be regarded in some sort, as a pair of 
 snuffers, charged with the responsible duty of keep- 
 ing the wicks clean from death's-heads and climbers. 
 We suppose that his advice was heeded, and that the 
 reverend members smoked their cigars and took their 
 toddies discreetly ; for we do not hear of any of them 
 in the calaboose — and now for the mercantile specu- 
 lation of the Cumberland Church ! 
 
 It seems that Brother Davis, late the Treasurer of 
 the Assembly, is no more, he having yielded to the 
 Great Extinguisher sometime ago. The Cumberland 
 Christians could have borne their bereavement with 
 tolerable equanimity, if Brother Davis, in the hurry 
 of his departure, had not forgotten to settle his 
 accounts, and had remembered to leave money 
 enough behind him to discharge a balance against 
 him. To speak plainly, although it is painful so to 
 speak, Brother Davis died a defaulter ; and the Trus- 
 tees, as became faithful stewards, forthwith took out 
 that carnal weapon called a writ ; secured that 
 worldly result, a judgment; and, finally, obtained 
 against Brother Davis's Administrator that persua- 
 sive document styled an execution. But an execu- 
 tion against a dead Treasurer, even of the Cumber-
 
 70 BROTHER DAVIS'S ESTATE. 
 
 land Presbyterian Church, is of small value, unless 
 the sheriff can find something satisfactory where- 
 upon to levy. So that officer, casting about, discov- 
 ered a small lot of " niggers " formerly the property 
 of Brother Davis, which the Administrator had put 
 out of his possession by some kind of hugger-mugger, 
 but which he disgorged, so to speak, upon receiving 
 a bond of indemnity. Then the General Assembly 
 of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church went into 
 market overt, with its little flock of niggers, and 
 did, with many invocations, we suppose, of God's 
 blessing on the transaction, dispose of the same at 
 public vendue, and receive the consecrated cash 
 therefor. 
 
 The affair, however, is not yet comfortably settled. 
 The Administrator threatens an action. The Widow 
 Davis threatens another action. So that the pur- 
 chase-money remains in the ark of the tabernacle, 
 nor will it be safe for the Assembly to spend a dime 
 of it until all manner of courts of common law and 
 eke of equity, have passed a great variety of decrees, 
 issued a large assortment of injunctions, received 
 various verdicts, listened to many a long-drawn plead- 
 ing and prosy argument, and increased the sheaf of 
 rebutters and rejoinders, sur-rebutters and sur-rejoin- 
 ders, to gigantic proportions ; and as these luxuries 
 of the law are expensive, it is not improbable — we 
 say it dolorously — that every individual "nigger" 
 will be used up in fec^, retainers and other costs, 
 before the affair is terminated. 
 
 And what then will become of the missionary work
 
 CHARITY BEGINS AT IIOME. 71 
 
 of the Cumberland Presbyterian Assembly % For, 
 be it known to the reader, that, when the Assembly 
 had completed this small transaction, and run off its 
 stock of human beings at tolerably high rates, it sol- 
 emnly dedicated the net proceeds to the missionary 
 cause. "We do not know in what particular part 
 of the world it is proposed to oblige Heaven and 
 favor Christianity, by the noble expenditure of this 
 money ; but for once, we hope that the obdurate 
 King of the Cannibal Islands will be left to his fate, 
 and that the Cumberhmder will remember that char- 
 ity begins at home. As these fortunate " niggers " 
 have been permitted, by the wisdom of the Cumber- 
 land Church, to devote themselves to the work of 
 extending the arena of the faith, they should at least 
 have the chance of reaping some benefit, personally, 
 from the transaction ; so that, when Kentucky has 
 been thoroughly Christianized and converted, at their 
 personal expense, they may receive, as the result of 
 their devotion, fewer ilo<T2:in2;s and fuller fare. 
 
 But, we ask with great deference, must it not be 
 to each of these favored bondsmen a source of pure 
 and proud satisfaction to know that, in the provi- 
 dence of God, they, the lowly, the oppressed, and the 
 degraded, have been permitted to become living sacri- 
 fices upon the altar of the Cumberland faith ? "When 
 one of them shall sec a new pine steeple glittering 
 with fresh and radiant paint, as it shoots into the 
 air, he may take off his hat, if he have one, and ex- 
 claim : " That is my leg !" When a precious pente- 
 costal season arrives, and the crop of Cumberland
 
 12 SELF-DEVOTION OF THE CHATTELS. 
 
 Christians is fast ripening for a glorious harvest, how 
 pleasing it will be for one of the Presbytery's negroes 
 to cry : " Behold the work of these ten stubbed fin- 
 gers and of these brawny arms ! I am Paul and 
 Apollos — behold the glorious increase which God 
 has given !" 
 
 Here, then, is another evidence of the unnumbered 
 blessings of Slavery ! Which one of all of us, fervid 
 as may be our devotion, and tender as may be our 
 sympathy with the benighted and gall-embittered 
 world, will do for the Great Cause what these Ken- 
 tucky negroes will do ? When the clinking boxes 
 are going up and down the aisles, and with much 
 fervor and noise we deposit our sixpences and shil- 
 lings, we undoubtedly experience a thrill of satisfac- 
 tion at our own generosity, and are much soothed by 
 the calm approbation of our own consciences. But 
 who of us would be willing to mount the auction 
 block, and to listen to the " going, going," until we 
 finally heard that we were " gone V Where is the 
 pious and portly pillar of some prosperous Cumber- 
 land church who, as the doxology ended, would not 
 feel uncomfortable upon being told that the mission- 
 ary cause required his sale, incontinently, and that 
 he must, instead of going home to the piping-hot 
 joint and subsequent pudding, be disposed of to the 
 highest bidder ( Would he not protest ? And if he 
 should swear a little, do you think the Recording 
 Angel would u^e indelible ink ? So selfish, so shrink- 
 ing from self-devotion, so mindful of our own ease, 
 so careless of the souls of our brethren, does this
 
 THEIR PERFECT RESIGNATION. Y3 
 
 pernicious freedom make us ! Whereas, we suppose 
 that these poor negroes submitted to their fate with- 
 out a murmur, and blessed the pious hands which 
 felt their muscles and saw the light of Christian love 
 in the eyes which examined their teeth. Some natu- 
 ral tears, perhaps, they shed as they inarched from 
 home, or from all of home which they had possessed ; 
 but a couple of prayers, or a hymn or two, made 
 everything serene, and they submitted to their destiny 
 with all the sweetness of religious resignation. 
 
 But, as we have said, the final disposition of the 
 sacred funds is yet uncertain. The Cumberland Gen- 
 eral Assembly is holding on with faithful tenacity ; 
 but the heirs of the defaulting Treasurer are still 
 active. If, then, holy negroes should by and by learn 
 that they have not so much benefited the church as 
 the lawyers, the information may cost them a pang. 
 We are afraid that they will be apt to consider them- 
 selves wasted and squandered. If we ever hear of 
 the end of this matter, we shall take the liberty of 
 informing our readers. 
 
 June 13, 1859. 
 
 A NEW LAUGHIXG-STOCK. 
 
 Beally, the gods are good. If Pan is sometimes, 
 as during the present season, a little niggardly, or 
 red-eyed Mars unusually rampant, have we not always 
 Mourns with us, and reason to bless the sensitive divin- 
 4
 
 74 PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT. 
 
 ities that banished him from Olympus ? What an 
 intolerable world this would be, if all the fools were 
 out of it ! But we need not fear for the succession, 
 while the sunny sections of this confederacy contin- 
 ue to produce such a crop of choice ones, born to 
 the motley. The last and finest fool who has wan- 
 dered here, is an ancient gentlemen from New Or- 
 leans — a certain General Palfrey — who left Massa- 
 chusetts half a century ago, and who came to Boston 
 to celebrate the last Fourth of July. Had he but 
 made his festive and anniversary visit sooner, he 
 might have eaten dinner at the Revere House with 
 the Hon. Benjamin F. Hallet, and filled himself at 
 that peripatetic and perennial fountain of dish-water. 
 Had he even given notice of his intention of visiting 
 Boston, different arrangements might have been made. 
 Unfortunately, his guide took him to the Music Hall. 
 Unfortunately, Mr. George Sumner was the Orator 
 of the Day. Unfortunately, Mr. George Sumner did 
 not know that the New Orleans gentleman was in 
 the house, and so missed the opportunity of gratify- 
 ing an illustrious personage. Unfortunately, Mr. 
 Sumner, instead of spouting in a safe and general 
 way, after the old fashion, discussed freely and ear- 
 nestly the Dred Scott decision, and did not speak in 
 very affectionate terms of Mr. Chief Justice Taney. 
 To this, General Palfrey was obliged to listen. His 
 too officious friends had probably conducted him to 
 a front seat, so that egress would have been difficult; 
 and pleased or displeased, he was compelled to stay. 
 If Mi*. George Sumner had been speaking in New
 
 A PATRIARCH GRIEVED. ?5 
 
 Orleans, or even in Washington, the General might 
 have silenced him by knocking him down ; but such 
 an experiment, however sweet, safe and effectual else- 
 where, would have been a perilous one in Boston. 
 So the martial veteran was forced to keep quiet. 
 We do not understand why he did not go into con- 
 vulsions. His escape from apoplexy appears to us 
 little short of miraculous. But he did escape, and 
 the oration delivered, went down to Faneuil Hall, 
 with a sour stomach and a feeble appetite for his 
 dinner. Here he masticated in grim wrath until 
 somebody gave, as a toast, " Cotton Cloth," or " Cot- 
 ton Culture,'' or " Cotton Gins," or " Cotton Hats," 
 or " Cotton Something," and the company called 
 upon General Palfrey to respond. He arose. He 
 pulled out the plug — if we may use the expression 
 — and deluged the company with molten lava. lie 
 relieved himself. ' ; He thought," says the report, 
 " that it was rather hard to be invited to a celebra- 
 tion for the purpose of hearing the laws of the United 
 States trampled under foot." He considered Mr. 
 Sumner's oration ill-timed, and " he was not afraid 
 to say so." Of course he was not afraid. He knew 
 how perfectly safe he was in Boston. He knew that 
 no tar-pot was babbling in the neighborhood. He 
 knew that the company would keep their feathers to 
 sleep upon. He knew that no bludgeon would drum 
 a retaliating tattoo upon his reverberating cranium. 
 He knew that no committee would wait upon him 
 and warn him to leave Boston within twelve hours. 
 Of course he was not afraid,
 
 76 SO W IT MIGHT HA YE BEEN. 
 
 But suppose that at a Fourth of July dinner in 
 New Orleans, some ardent New Englander, having 
 listened to a spicy and spasmodic attack upon his 
 opinions, or to some concentrated sneer at the home 
 of his love and honor, should dare to rise and to re- 
 tort. Imagine the riot ! Picture the excitement ! 
 Think of the glassy shower thickening around those 
 fated brows ! What meetings would there be ! What 
 ardent and active committees ! "What thunderous reso- 
 lutions ! With what rapidity would the imprudent 
 Norman be hurried from the dinner-table to the jail, 
 and from the jail to the railway station ! Nay, the 
 unfortunate offender might fare worse. His house 
 might be ransacked and his shop plundered ; his fam- 
 ily might be insulted, or might read in the morning 
 papers that its head had been hung from a lamp-post, 
 or that the pistol or the knife had done the work of 
 the halter. 
 
 Oh, it is all very well for some wandering patriarch, 
 the owner of a score or two of black men, when he 
 comes within our borders, to assert and to exercise 
 freedom of speech in a way which makes us very 
 sick, if it docs not make us very savage. We must 
 sit and quietly listen while some inane babbler blas- 
 phemes our religion, sneers at our policy, questions 
 our patriotism, di.-torts our motives, and insults our 
 common-sense. It has not occurred, thus far, to these 
 tindery folks, that their blundering nonsense is as dis- 
 agreeable to us, especially upon the Fourth of July, 
 as the plainest Anti-Slavery discourse could possibly 
 be to them. That is because we do not employ their
 
 THE PRIVILEGE OF IMBECILITY. 77 
 
 own practical and unscrupulous method of protest. 
 That is because, when we are insulted, we keep our 
 tempers, and too often hold our tongues. 
 
 We suppose that this singular lack of common 
 courtesy, this disinclination to take what they are so 
 willing to give, exhibited by Southern men frequently 
 upon occasions in themselves insignificant, may be 
 attributed to a certain brutality of intellect, to be 
 observed also in some of the lower forms of animal 
 life. The old gentleman who made such a distress- 
 ing show of himself in Faneuil Hall is not to be 
 despised, for he is a human being. Foolish and 
 weak as he is, he is still " a man and a brother." 
 If Providence has not bestowed upon him the ordin- 
 ary intelligence of humanity, or if his opportunities 
 have been so limited that he cannot deport himself 
 decorously at a civilized dinner-party, we should re- 
 gard this Thracian as we do the inmates of a lunatic 
 asylum, or of a school for feeble-minded youth. jSTo 
 moral law commands us, however, not to laugh at him 
 in our sleeves ; and if such law existed, it would not 
 be respected. But we will be contented with a quiet 
 giggle. When a bull-dog has lost all his teeth, he 
 may growl as deeply as he pleases. When he has 
 not lost his teeth ; when he can bite as well as snarl, 
 and proposes to exercise the biting faculty upon our 
 calves, it may not be amiss to brain him. But an 
 ancient Tray, like General Palfrey, should be privi- 
 leged to go through the whole gamut of growls, and, 
 to vary the performance, if he pleases, by a solfeggio 
 of snarls.
 
 78 THE GENERAL MOLLIFIED. 
 
 This view of the matter seems to have been that 
 of the Faneuil Hall committee. General Palfrey 
 was, after all, not angry enough to run away without 
 finishing his dinner — he was too old a dog for that 
 — so that after the repast was over, and people were 
 deserting the banquet-hall, a small sort of a lawyer 
 got upon his legs and " proposed a toast compliment- 
 ary to the General/' Then somebody called for the 
 inevitable three cheers. Then others shook the Gen- 
 eral by the hand, so that he went back to his tavern 
 quite mollified, and reassured that there was still a 
 little dough left in Boston. We think that herein 
 the more sagacious spirits of the company pursued 
 a judicious course. Had General Palfrey ambled 
 away in his wrath, nobody can tell how the trade of 
 Boston might have suffered. And if there was policy 
 in these little attentions, there was also humanity. 
 This native of Boston was spared the pain of feeling 
 that flunkeyism had altogether died out in the city 
 of his nativity ; and he will return to his crescent 
 home to tell his neighbors that while the public men 
 of New England are hopeless traitors, the gentlemen 
 who eat the public dinners are not bad fellows to 
 break bread with after all. 
 
 July 11, 1859.
 
 A RELIGIOUS JOURNAL. 79 
 
 A CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN NEWSPAPER. 
 
 We have recently printed in these columns several 
 articles upon tlie newspaper press of the South and 
 West, and have amused ourselves, if not our readers, 
 by a little oft-hand dissection of what may be prop- 
 erly termed the morbid anatomy of journalism. We 
 have observed in these sheets almost incredible igno- 
 rance, and certain radical vices, which are more to 
 be deplored than an innocent disregard of the rales 
 of taste and of grammar. In the course of our re- 
 searches, we are sorry to say that we have found the 
 secular papers, in the cheap qualities of good nature, 
 good sense and veracity, far in advance of those which 
 are printed avowedly for the promotion of the Chris- 
 tian religion ; and of all the sacred emissions which 
 we have had the misfortune to notice, we think The 
 St. Louis Observer to be the most curiously unen- 
 lightened and the most miraculously illiterate. 
 
 The Observer is the organ of the Cumberland 
 Presbyterian Church — a considerable society, num- 
 bering many professors in Kentucky, Indiana and 
 Missouri. It was this Cumberland Presbyterian 
 Church which, when its treasurer died a defaulter, 
 sold his negroes upon an execution, and then voted 
 the money to the cause of missions ! Upon this pious 
 vendue The Tribune made a few comments which 
 have not met with the approbation of The St. Louis 
 Observer, wo are sorry to say ; which have, in fact, 
 excited the choler of that meek and lowly publica- 
 tion to a degree quite incompatible with coherence.
 
 80 THEY DID SELL THEM. 
 
 "We find, indeed, in the rantipole observations of 
 The Observer, no attempt at a denial, but an extenua- 
 tion of the facts upon which our remarks were based. 
 The " niggers " were sold : the church took the money : 
 the church voted the cash to the missionary cause. 
 We should have been glad of a plain refutation of 
 the whole tale, and should unquestionably have been 
 gratified in this regard, if the facts had not been too 
 patent to be concealed by the utmost prodigality of 
 falsehood ; if the Rev. Milton Bird, (O musical 
 name !) who is the editor of The Observer, had not 
 known that mendacity would only make matters 
 worse, by giving the children of sin and unrighteous- 
 ness an opportunity of showing to an uncharitable 
 world, that some Cumberland Presbyterians to the 
 solace of man-selling join the luxury of lying. 
 
 The Observer, leaving the matter of the man-ven- 
 due as it was, we are at liberty and leisure to luxu- 
 riate to fatness — if laughing will make one fat — upon 
 the extraordinary literary performance of the Rev- 
 erend Milton Bird, who is jealous of other birds, and 
 declares, that our article was manufactured at the 
 suggestion "of some buzzard about Evansville." The 
 actual expression of the Rev. M. B. is coarser than 
 this, but as we only print a secular newspaper, we 
 cannot afford to be as free in our speech as a Cum- 
 berland Presbyterian when he denounces what he 
 calls "the intermeddling of ungodly men."' 
 
 The Reverend Bird, imprimis, remarks that this 
 journal is "like an irritable hedge-hog rolled up the 
 wrong way, and pierced by its own prickles.'' Good
 
 AN ANGRY BIRD. 81 
 
 — metaphorically and zoologically good ! It is then 
 emphatically stated by the gentle Bird that "we 
 deserve to he skinned with a hackle, and smeared 
 with aqua-ibrtis." Probably. And yet it would be 
 painful. We are thankful, therefore, when The Ob- 
 server of St. Louis — we were at first fearful that 
 Brother Bird would be here immediately with the 
 necessary implement and fluid — we are thankful, we 
 say, when The Observer had the goodness to observe : 
 " But we forbear !" Only he does n't forbear. lie 
 immediately calls somebody in Evansville, Ind., " a 
 pole-cat.'' Also "a buzzard." Likewise "a cynic." 
 And to conclude, " yellow-eyed." " A cynical pole- 
 eat" crossed upon "a yellow-eyed buzzard," would 
 produce a treasure indeed for a meandering me- 
 nagerie. 
 
 The Reverend Milton Bird, after these trifling in- 
 dulgences in epithet, grows " 'umble " after the man- 
 ner of Mr. Uriah Ileep ; for, crooking the hinges of 
 his knees, he expresses himself piously, as follows : 
 " Tv r e trust in God to keep us humble, and give us a 
 spirit of forbearance and kindness towards those who 
 injure us." We say " Amen 1" The Eev. Bird has 
 evidently a very high idea, if not of the goodness, at 
 least of the omnipotence of the Creator. Meanwhile, 
 the humility not having arrived, the Bird continues 
 to be slightly abusive and boldly figurative in its 
 song. "We are told that The Indiana American and 
 and The Tribune have " to the utmost of their bil- 
 ious capacity, discharged the pent-up contents of 
 their gorged livers." Excellent again ! "We are get-
 
 82 ^ VITUPERATIVE SONGSTER. 
 
 ting stronger and stronger ! All who do not see the 
 propriety of supporting missions by selling " niggers," 
 are declared to be " violent, bitter, selfish, and in a 
 morbid, unbalanced, disordered state of mind," 
 " pouring out slime, gall and vinegar " " But let us 
 pray for our traducers and persecutors," says The 
 Observe) 1 , suddenly changing its tone, " that they may 
 repent of their sin and find forgiveness, and escape 
 the doom of all liars (here the ferocity breaks out 
 again), " who have their part in the lake that burn- 
 etii with fire and brimstone."' "We do not object to 
 being made the theme of good men's prayers, but if 
 the Reverend Milton Bird will be kind enough not 
 to pray for us, and if he will mention our wish to 
 the other members of the Cumberland Presbyterian 
 Church, we shall not only feel much obliged, but 
 more comfortable. 
 
 The Reverend Milton Bird then proceeds to com- 
 municate to us the following information: '"The 
 Gospel wages no war on the external organism of 
 society." Ah, indeed ! The Gospel wages no war 
 then against crime in its manifold forms — no war 
 against covetousness and greed — no war against the 
 selfish policy of tyrants, whether crowned or mere 
 whip-crackers and "nigger "-drivers — no war against 
 brothels and gambling hells and grog-shops — no war 
 against infidelity to marriage vows or the theft of 
 woman's chastity — no war against that man who 
 though cased in a legal panoply, treads under foot 
 the widow and the orphan — no war against the world 
 — no war against the flesh — only war against the ri-
 
 THE APOSTLE PA UL CITED 83 
 
 diculous unwillingness of sundry reprobate human 
 beings to join the Cumberland Presbyterian Church ! 
 And the Rev. Milton Bird thinks that in this view 
 of the duty of a church, he is sustained by the Apos- 
 tle Paul ! We know that it is a vain wish, but would 
 that we could see the Great Missionary to the Gen- 
 tiles and the Reverend Milton Bird face to face for a 
 few moments ! We can fancy the Saint of St. Louis 
 opening his pocket-testament and airing a little text 
 from Ephesians, another small scrap from Romans, 
 another small scrap from Colossians, a fourth bit from 
 Timothy and a morsel from Peter : but no mortal 
 mind can conceive the terror of the rebuke which 
 would cause the Reverend Milton Bird to howl with 
 repentant anguish, and to request the favor of a small 
 mountain to cover him. 
 
 The audacity of such men as he is, must be an 
 apology for the introduction of such an illustration. 
 Poor praters, they know not of what — coarse, unen- 
 lightened gabblers of sublime teachings, very dear to 
 the heart of humanity — polluting with the unsavory 
 messes of social shame and sin the golden vessels of 
 the altar — making the Father's house a house of 
 merchandize and a den of thieves — encouraging 
 mockery, exciting skepticism and confirming unbelief 
 — narrow, without pity, and zealous, without brains ; 
 there is nothing for it, but to leave them to the bit- 
 ter laughter of the satirist and the unspeakable com- 
 miseration of the wise. Grace may indeed supply 
 the deficiencies of the mere intellect, while the heart 
 remains tender : but what grace can rescue liim whose
 
 84 JUDGMENT OF THE DEPARTED. 
 
 heart grows hard as his head grows soft, and who in- 
 creases in selfishness as he decreases in intelligence ? 
 
 July 25, 1859. 
 
 X1L NISI BOXUM. 
 
 The old and amiable rule of speaking only with 
 kindness of the dead, is one which, in this world of 
 small comity, we have no wish to disregard ; although 
 it is one the final violation of which is simply a ques- 
 tion of time and the natural result of historic doubts. 
 All character is dubious. There may be those who 
 with perfect honesty do not admire Fenelon, and do 
 admire Diderot or Voltaire. Indeed, it is only when 
 a human career is closed that we are in a position to 
 estimate its value, purport and upshot. The public 
 life of a public man is public property. We may not 
 indecently hasten to draw his frailties from their 
 drear abode ; but the mere fact that he has gone to 
 that account to which indeed the meanest and most 
 magnificent natures must go. certainly affords no au- 
 thority for slandering the living. Jf the late Mr. 
 Rufus Choate, while he succeeded as nisijyrius law- 
 yer, failed as a statesman, we do not know that this 
 give- Mr. Edward Everett, who has also failed as a 
 statesman, the right to stand in Faneuil Hall and to 
 censure to the best of his not inconsiderable ability, 
 those who have been more f< >rtunate. Mr. Choate may 
 "have had little fondness for political life, and no 
 aptitude whatever for the out-door management, for
 
 UER ULO US CO MP LA TNT. 85 
 
 the electioneering legerdemain, for the wearisome 
 correspondence with the local great men, and the 
 heart-breaking drudgery of franking cart-loads of 
 speeches and public documents to the four winds, 
 which are necessary at the' present day to great suc- 
 cess in a political career." " Still less," Mr. Everett 
 went on to say, " was he adroit in turning to some 
 personal advantage whatever topic happens to attract 
 public attention — fishing with ever freshly -baited 
 hook in the turbid waters of ephemeral popularity." 
 
 If such language as this should fall from a young 
 man just entering upon public life — from a young 
 man hoping to be representative, or senator, or presi- 
 dent — we might consider such an expression of opin- 
 ion to be at once candid and courageous ; but com- 
 ing from an old man — from one well versed in the 
 arts which he denounces — the " electioneering leger- 
 demain," " the wearisome correspondence with local 
 great men," "the heart-breaking drudgery of frank- 
 ing cart-loads of speeches and public documents " — 
 from one who if he has not been " adroit in turning 
 to personal advantage topics happening to attract 
 public attention," has not been averse to the attempt 
 — coming from such a man may not these opinions 
 and their somewhat querulous expression be rather 
 the result of disappointment than of any peculiar 
 public purity. We do not know anybody who has 
 written more ' ; letters to local great men " than Mr. 
 Everett, and some of these which we have seen were 
 so full of feeble complaint that they would ill bear 
 publication. We do not know anybody who in his
 
 86 EACH IN JUS PLACE. 
 
 day was more willing to improve topics " happening 
 to attract public attention.*' 
 
 Everybody will remember that when filibustering 
 "happened" to be in fashion, Mr. Everett was a fine 
 filibuster. Everybody who heard it will remember 
 the Plymouth speech, in which Mr. Everett declared 
 that " the work must go on," by which he meant, 
 that the " manifest destiny " of the United States was 
 to conquer and annex the kingdoms and republics of 
 South America. Everybody who ever heard of it, 
 will remember how Mr. Everett subscribed for the 
 Sumner testimonial, and how he afterwards attrib- 
 uted the indiscretion to illness. Surely no gentleman 
 whose personal history is crowded with incidents like 
 these, is in a position to sneer at " the distinguished 
 active statesmen of the day." Xor did the memory 
 of Mr. Choate require any such apology. A lawyer 
 in great practice, exceedingly devoted to his profes- 
 sion, and relying upon its emoluments to meet a per- 
 sonal expenditure which was always large and fre- 
 quently improvident, he preferred to give his time 
 snatched from the duties of the bar to liberal studies, 
 or to the preparation of "discourses on academic oc- 
 casions." And because he did so, and trusted to the 
 wise instincts of his nature — because he knew him- 
 self, as others knew him, to be in place rather in the 
 court-room, than in the senate-chamber — it does not 
 follow that other men with a more positive taste and 
 talent for public employment, were either his moral 
 or his intellectual inferiors. 
 
 Moreover, if his political aspirations had been never
 
 .1/7?. CHOATE'S PECULIAR POLITICS. 87 
 
 so ardent, lie entertained fatal opinions, which in the 
 heat and hurry of his speech he continually betrayed. 
 If he cared for any democracy, it was the old democ- 
 racy of Athens. If he believed in any constitution, 
 it was in the unwritten constitution of Great Britain. 
 He sneered at the Declaration of Independence. He 
 girded and jibed at the most limited alliance between 
 humanity and politics. Slavery is the surest touch- 
 stone of political character at the present time, and 
 the test was fatal to Mr. Choate. He thought to be 
 enslaved was the best for the blacks, and that to en- 
 slave them was the best fur the whites. The people 
 of Massachusetts were not of his mind ; but we will 
 do him the justice to say, that for the opinion of the 
 people of Massachusetts he cared very little. There 
 was an inherent love of paradox in his nature, which 
 a long practice in the courts did not, of course, dimin- 
 ish. Clear-headed men were not deceived by the ful- 
 mination or the fulgidities of his rhetoric. He was 
 careless of personal consecuiences, and would at any 
 time risk success for the sake of startling. In avoiding 
 political duties or in unfitting himself to discharge 
 them — in suffering himself to drift into the turbid 
 and alien waters of sham-democracy — in seeking 
 with scoffs and sneers to silence the discussion of 
 great questions — in timidly avoiding the conflict 
 when danger was at its height, Mr. Choate did noth- 
 ing worthy of imitation or eulogy. 
 
 AYe are not permitted to avoid the duty of saying 
 all this thus plainly, but the responsibility of any 
 pain which we may give to any honest admirer of
 
 88 -'1 DANGEROUS EXAMPLE. 
 
 Mr. Choate, must be borne by his Faneuil Hall Eu- 
 logist. It is better that we and those who are of our 
 mind should be thought harsh or unfeeling, than that 
 the young men of America should be made to believe 
 that this life which has now closed affords them the 
 best example — that the syren sentences of Mr. Everett 
 should mislead them from the path of public duty — 
 that his example and his words should beguile them 
 into an avoidance of their political responsibilities, into 
 a contempt for the theories, or an admiration for the 
 general practice of our government ; into lives se- 
 cluded, sybaritical, and proudly, boastingly shallow 
 and useless. The times are full of great occasions, 
 and suggest great duties to the sinewy and courage- 
 ous nature. AVe can spare something of scholarship, 
 something of intellectual elegance, something of fas- 
 tidious taste ; but too many noble minds have already 
 been smitten, too many lives once full of promise have 
 been wasted ; our short history already records too 
 many tragedies for the sensitive, and too many come- 
 dies even for the most inveterate satirist. 
 
 July 29, 1S50. 
 
 TWO TOMB-STONES. 
 
 As a general rule, human beings in selecting the re- 
 wards of their own labor prefer cash to tomb-stones 
 — a fact which Mr. Thomas Moore noticed in his 
 monodv on the death of Sheridan. If a master me-
 
 MONEY BETTER Til AX MONUMENTS. 89 
 
 chanic should assemble his journeymen-carpenters, 
 and should say to them : " My dear fellows and de- 
 voted friends ! I have noticed the extreme vigor with. 
 which you plane and the splendor of your sawing, 
 and how charmingly you hit the nails on their heads. 
 I shall not insult you by offering you money, which 
 you would only foolishly squander if I should give it 
 to you ; but I have determined, if you will only work 
 for me during your natural lives, and work well and 
 not grumble, to give to each of you the prettiest 
 grave-stone in the world, with the most nattering in- 
 scriptions setting forth your many virtues, and par- 
 ticularly how you cheerfully worked for me without 
 making any charge therefor. All of which, I doubt 
 not, will be satisfactory to your ingenuous minds." 
 Our own impression is that the famous hammerers 
 and dexterous sawyers would decline the offer as one 
 unsuited to their modest taste. 
 
 At the South, however, and under the beautiful 
 influences of the institution, it seems to be different 
 — a grave-stone being the great object of life with 
 the faithful African. At least such appears to be 
 the opinion of The Fayetteville (1ST. C.) Observer. The 
 editor of that newspaper recently had occasion to go 
 into a grave-yard, doubtless for purposes of moral re- 
 flection and philosophical study, and while there he 
 actually discovered in the corner allotted to slaves, 
 '■two marble tomb-stones." What proportion these 
 "two" monumental wonders bore to the undistin- 
 guished resting-places of less fortunate chattels, we 
 are not told ; but they so attracted the attention of
 
 90 " MT OWN GOOD LUCY." 
 
 this able editor, that he immediately ■went home and 
 wrote a leading-article on the subject, headed, " What 
 is African Slavery ?" He seems to have come to the 
 sage conclusion, that whereas the system allows an 
 occasional grave-stone to a departed slave, it is alto- 
 gether a beautiful system, to be sustained by the 
 united intellectual, moral and political energies of 
 the Republic. He writes, evidently, upon the pre- 
 sumption that free negroes never have their mortal 
 lives cheered by the prospect of monuments after 
 death, and that they must therefore be unhappy — a 
 grave-stone being the one thing w T orth living for, or 
 rather worth dying for. His dilations upon these 
 points are charmingly humane and sympathetic. 
 
 Tomb-stone Xo. 1 was erected " by the mistress of 
 the family over the remains of a most valuable serv- 
 ant and friend, and it bore the inscription, " My Own 
 Good Lucy." There is consideration, there is loving 
 requital for you! Twenty, perhaps thirty, it may 
 have been fifty years of chamber-work or of kitchen- 
 work, of dress-making or of hair-dressing, of daily 
 obedience and of hourly devotion ; and when the 
 wearisome toil is over, and the faithful feet can no 
 longer come at call, and the loyal hands can no longer 
 minister, all this service is repaid by a place in the 
 back settlements of the cemetery, and an epitaph of 
 the Lvdia Languish description ! Ample reward ! 
 Who would not have been "My Own Good Lucy," 
 "most valuable" (say 81, 000) before death, and so 
 sincerely (we have no doubt) lamented afterwards. 
 There has been nothing like it since Byron gave
 
 'MARK THE PERFECT MAN." 91 
 
 his dog a monument at Newstead. No wonder the 
 Fayetteville man did write his touching article to let 
 a weeping world know all ahout "My Own Good 
 Lucy." 
 
 Tomb-stone No. 2 was inscribed : " Uncle Haery. 
 Mark the Perfect Man !" Now, we are at a loss to 
 decide what this inscription means. Does it refer to 
 " Uncle Harry" physically ? Was he what a dealer 
 would pronounce " sound " and Al for the New Or- 
 leans market ? We suppose not, for he is spoken of 
 by The Observer as " an old man." He was a Bap- 
 tist. He could read his Bible, and he did read it. 
 It is also mentioned that his wife was " an excellent 
 cook" — a remarkable combination of merits in "one 
 lot !" Whether "the excellent cook," if dead, has a 
 grave-stone, or, if living, a fair prospect of that orna- 
 mental remembrance to solace her stewing and boil- 
 ing labors, we are not informed. 
 
 Such stuff as this The Fayetteville (N. C.) Observer 
 prints is always caught up by the dough press, and 
 especially by the dough-religious press, and is pa- 
 raded ostentatiously as if it really meant something. 
 So far as it goes towards proving anything touching 
 the slave system, its good influence upon the master, 
 its justice to the slave, its information is worse than 
 useless, for it deludes some honest, well-meaning and 
 weak people out of the common sense with which the 
 institution should be considered. Nobody says that 
 there are not benevolent masters. Nobody says that 
 there are not contented slaves. Nobody says that 
 there are not individual cases in which the relation
 
 92 VIRGINIA CROAKING. 
 
 is a happy one. But nobody upon the authority of 
 these isolated instances, appealing to sensibility rath- 
 er than sense, should judge of a system which must 
 be theoretically bad, and is known to be bad in 
 practice. 
 
 September 1, 1359. 
 
 THE PERILS OF PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Mr. Cboakek, in a chronic condition of alarm, lends 
 to one of Goldsmith's comedies much of its vivacity 
 and mirth ; and the dreadful fright of a certain Mr. 
 Matthews, member of the Virginia Legislature, is 
 comic enough to temper the austerities of the recent 
 tragedy. "We knew that John Brown would be a 
 name wherewithal to conjure several generations of 
 undutiful infants into obedience at bed-time, just as it 
 has jostled children of larger growth into unwinking 
 watchfulness, and scared the Commander of the Crus- 
 tacea into unoyster-like volubility. The fearful fore- 
 bodings of our Virginian friends do not surprise us. 
 It is perfectly natural for them to dread the sponta- 
 neous combustion of The Tribune in their post-ofHces 
 — the explosion of infernal machines in their cellars 
 — poison in the kitchen, or rifle-balls flying through 
 the drawing-room windows. Sir Boyle Roche re- 
 garded it as one of the principal perils of the Irish 
 Rebi llion that gentlemen might any morning awake 
 with their throats cut; and the apprehensions of the
 
 MR. MATTHEWS' MEDICINE. 93 
 
 Virginian chevaliers — not to mention particularly 
 those of their wives — must be inconsistent with balmy 
 and restorative slumber. Under such perilous cir- 
 cumstances, no vigilance, however suspicious, can be 
 thought untimely ; nor is it strange, while others are 
 fearful of death in the pot, that the Hon. Mr. Mat- 
 thews should fear death in the primer. Such, it ap- 
 pears, is precisely the nature of his apprehension. He 
 dreads not only New Englanders, but the gifts they 
 bring with them ; he distrusts alike their reading- 
 books and their rifles ; their spelling-books and their 
 swords ; • their penmanship and their pistols. The 
 Hon. Mr. Matthews, having directed his mind to the 
 philosophy of education, has discovered that there is 
 a constitutional as well as an unconstitutional way of 
 teaching the mystery of " a, b, ab ;" that rebellion 
 may be fomented by the words which signify to be, 
 to do, or to suffer ; and that fire and slaughter may 
 lurk in the Rule of Three. So the Hon. Mr. Mat- 
 thews, no doubt after profound and unutterable pon- 
 dering, has offered in the Virginia Legislature a 
 Resolution — a startling Resolution — a very remarka- 
 ble Resolution. Here it is : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Committee of Schools and 
 Colleges inquire into the expediency of reporting a 
 bill, prohibiting School Commissioners throughout the 
 Commonwealth from subscribing to any teacher, male 
 or female, who hails from the North of Mason and 
 Dixon's line, unless they shall have resided in the 
 State of Virginia for at least ten successive years 
 previous."
 
 94 STBANGE NEGLECT. 
 
 The fact that Mr. Matthews should consider such 
 a motion as this necessary to the salvation of the 
 State, would seem to show that Northern teachers, 
 whether male or female of sex, are rather a formida- 
 ble body in Virginia. May we be permitted, without 
 violating any moral, political or religious law, to ask, 
 humbly, of course, and only honestly seeking infor- 
 mation, how it has happened that Virginia, having 
 children to teach, has fallen into the egregious error 
 of sending abroad for teachers ? Why have not na- 
 tive acquirements been respected ? Why have native 
 talents been left unemployed ? Why has the infant 
 population of that enlightened State been committed 
 to the tender mercies of Yankee school-marms ? Why 
 has she permitted the unholy hands of " servile' 1 New 
 England pedagogues to box the ears of her children, 
 or to apply the tingling birch to the tenderer portions 
 of their constitutions ? While protecting bivalves, 
 why has the Governor of that State neglected her 
 boys \ What is a steam-packet running to France in 
 comparison with well-educated girls ? Was ever such 
 fatuity I Where were the native, well-born, orthodox 
 teachers "hailing from south of Mason and Dixon's 
 line" — good, safe, responsible guides in petticoats or 
 pantaloons, with sound Constitutional principles and 
 proper views of the Christian religion i 
 
 We have heretofore thought that a demand in the 
 market indicated a dearth. But Gov. Wise knows 
 better the resources of his State than we do. lie 
 knows that it is needless lor Virginia to send to the 
 North for gifted persons to teach the steps of a quad-
 
 THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE. 95 
 
 rille, the value of a semi-breve, the art of embroider- 
 ing, or the mysteries of water-colors. He is a mirac- 
 ulous arithmetician, but he has fellow-citizens who 
 can cipher as well as he. Does he absorb all the 
 grammatical knowledge of the State 2 And if he can 
 so bravely brandish that celebrated weapon, known 
 as the Sword of Virginia, has he not fellow-citizens 
 capable of flourishing the instrument of flagellation, 
 and of long experience in the art of chastisement 2 
 But perhaps we do not do justice to the Honorable 
 Matthews and the Honorable Wise. We ought cer- 
 tainly to take into consideration the recorded opinion 
 of the philosopher last named. He has made innu- 
 merable discoveries ; and one of them, we believe, is 
 the vanity of all human knowledge. He is dubious 
 in respect of reading, and he regards writing with 
 distrust. In that Public School System which others 
 have weakly respected as the safe-guard of society, he 
 sees only danger to the Republic. He despises books. 
 He loathes newspapers. He believes in good, safe, 
 sound, substantial ignorance, with the same fervor 
 with which less enlightened men have regarded hu- 
 man knowledge. He sees in human culture only 
 human misery. He is the legitimate successor of 
 Mr. John Cade. 
 
 ]S"ow there may be those who look upon these opin- 
 ions of Gov. Wise with horror or contempt ; but he 
 shall not lack in these columns defense, or at least 
 extenuation. He is, we confess, our model slave- 
 holder. If Slavery is to be perpetuated — if God, the 
 Bible, the laws, public policy, political economy, all
 
 96 THE BEA UTY OF CONSTANCY. 
 
 demand its continuance — then ignorance, no matter 
 how dark or how deep it mar he, is bliss, and wis- 
 dom is folly. Why should a man-owner be well- 
 educated ? Will mental cultivation make him a bet- 
 ter driver, a better breeder, a better bargainer when 
 he has occasion to sell women or to buy men ? Why 
 should he industriously acquire a refinement which 
 will unlit him for the sterner duties of his daily 
 life? 
 
 A man may be a capital task-master — an adept in 
 flogging, and a connoisseur in pickling, without being 
 a Bachelor of Arts. A mistress in Virginia, although 
 she may be incapable of mental exertion, may thank 
 fortune for her imbecility, for she can bear with pa- 
 tience wrongs and falsehood which would drive a 
 cultivated woman to insanity. There is a certain 
 redeeming fascination even in a consistency of crimes. 
 If we were in Virginia, compelled to witness every 
 hour the crowding evidences of human folty — the le- 
 galized negation of all that rescues our common na- 
 ture from contempt — the ambition to win all things 
 without the resolution to win them by earnest effort 
 — the folly which supposes that violent passions have 
 power to repeal the laws of nature — wc would ask 
 of Providence if by no miracle wrong could be reme- 
 died and right established, that we might partake of 
 the besotted destiny of our neighbors, and might for- 
 get forever that wc were not made like the beasts that 
 perish. To this condition Gov. Wise would reduce 
 his fellow-creature.^, black and white, in Virginia. 
 lie is risrbt. If black men arc to remain beasts, it
 
 A NEW MISSIONARY. 97 
 
 must be upon the condition that white men shall share 
 the bestiality. 
 
 January 10, 1S0O. 
 
 JOSIAH'S JAUNT. 
 
 Various forms of polite invitation are upon record, 
 such as, " Will you come to the bower I have shaded 
 for you ?" " Will you walk into my parlor ?" as the 
 spider said to the fly. " Will you come and take tea 
 in the arbor ?" etc., etc. Another matter of momen- 
 tous importance, to be discussed and decided only in 
 full family Sanhedrim, is whether the Smiths shall 
 be asked and the Browns shut mercilessly out. But 
 it is a still more solemn affair when a Sovereign State 
 wishes to give a party, to determine upon the choicest 
 and most enticing formulas of bidding, as well as the 
 particular guests to be bidden ; and we cannot, there- 
 fore, pretend to estimate the gratitude which Massa- 
 chusetts should feel for Mr. Josiah Perham, who may 
 be called the Brown of International Visiting, and 
 whose exploits in the department of public festivity 
 are worthy of this particular mention. Three ideas, 
 it would appear, have entered the brain of Josiah, 
 viz. : 
 
 1. Massachusetts and Virginia are not upon thee- 
 and-thou terms ; 2. If Virginia would but pay Mas- 
 sachusetts a visit, partake of her comestibles and her 
 potables, and listen to the chief orators and brass 
 bands of Boston, a return of ancient good feeling
 
 98 WILL YOU TAKE TEA? 
 
 might be reasonably anticipated ; 3. I, Josiali Per- 
 ham, am just the gentleman to engineer this exceed- 
 ingly delicate business. Whereupon, Josiah kindly 
 desiring to save all possible trouble, resolved himself 
 to be, pro hac vice, the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
 setts, and accordingly wrote a polite billet to the 
 Hon. John Letcher, Governor of Virginia, inviting 
 the principal inhabitants of that State, the Repre- 
 sentatives, the Hangmen and other public servants, 
 to come immediately to Boston, to join in a grand 
 Constitutional Jubilee. Nothing could exceed in 
 delicacy the terms of this missive. Knowing the 
 depleted condition of the general Virginia purse — 
 not as yet distended by the much-desired-but-not-as- 
 yet-built European-and-Old-Dominion steamers — Jo- 
 siah, in his note to Governor Letcher, considerately 
 promised to send " free tickets for all, or nearly all, 
 the journey from Richmond to Boston," leaving the 
 gratuitous cock-tails and juleps to the care of the 
 Mayor of Boston, after the arrival of the way-worn 
 and thirsty pilgrims. In this amiable letter, the en- 
 terprising Josiah dwelt in an eloquent way upon a 
 variety of topics, and notably upon the warm friend- 
 ship of the " sage of Monticello " (meaning Thomas 
 Jefferson) for the " sage of Quincy " (meaning John 
 Adams). "Wherefore, in order that " common friend- 
 ship may be made strong and mutual confidence 
 greatly increased," Josiah mentions the fact of the 
 " free tickets,"' and reiterates seductively his request : 
 " Will you come and take tea in the arbor V 
 
 Now, when this polite summons, so festively differ-
 
 NO. 99 
 
 ent from the subpoenas which Virginia is wont to 
 send to Massachusetts, was received by the Hon. 
 John Letcher, he seems to have been either fright- 
 ened or delighted ; for he instantly sent a special 
 message to the Legislature, communicating to them 
 the communication of Josiah, which was treated with 
 due respect, being first laid upon the table and then 
 ordered to be printed. The private note of Perham 
 thus rose at once to the dignity of a full-fledged Pub- 
 lic Document, and as such will occupy a prominent 
 place in all future histories of Virginia. The ages 
 will know that there was a Josiah — that he was 
 hospitable — that he asked Virginia to take tea in 
 Boston, and, alas ! that Virginia would not come, 
 and did not even send her decent regrets. At this 
 moment, to speak metaphorically, Josiah's great 
 Union tea-pot is remarkably cold and his arbor dis- 
 mantled. 
 
 Before concluding to come to tea, the sages of Vir- 
 ginia waited for the opinion of that arbiter of all 
 elegant things, the Editor of The Petersburg (Va.) 
 Express, who, after due pondering, has decided that 
 until Massachusetts shall have repealed sundry laws 
 " hostile to the South," Virginia will not drink a 
 Massachusetts cock -tail, will not eat a Massachusetts 
 dinner, will not sleep between Massachusetts sheets. 
 Undoubtedly a stunner for Perham ! Virginia is not 
 to be " honey -fuggled " even by free tickets. For the 
 present, the benevolent Josiah is floored ; but, full as 
 we are of sympathy for Perham, in a condition of 
 languishing disconsolation, with his lights fled, and
 
 100 HAPPY FAMILIES. 
 
 his garlands dead, and Lis banquet-ball deserted, we 
 advise Lira to proceed, as fast as Lis emotions will 
 permit, to tLe MassacLusetts State House, tLen and 
 tLere to request of Senators and Representatives tlie 
 immediate repeal of all " legislation Lostile to tlie 
 SoutL," in order tLat Lis tea-party may " come off." 
 In tins way more tLan one bird will be slain by 
 Josiab's missile. TLe Union will be cemented ; 
 agitation will cease ; Governor Letcber will fold to 
 Lis manly bosom Governor Banks ; the brass-bands 
 will blow ; the flags will flutter ; tLe gifted talkers 
 of eitlier State will be relieved of tbeir verbal drop- 
 sies, and all will go considerably more merry tLan 
 any number of marriage bells, while brethren united, 
 like birds in their little nests, with many tears of 
 joy, will bless the name of Josiah, surnamed Per- 
 ham, the Dispenser of Free Tickets and Peace- 
 Maker-General to the States of Massachusetts and 
 Virginia ! 
 
 And yet will Josiah permit us to whisper to liim 
 a word of caution \ He is, no doubt, a veteran show- 
 man, and may in his day have domesticated in a 
 single cage a Happy Family of cats, rats, owls and 
 rabbits. He may rely upon his long experience, but 
 has he seriously considered the consequences of his 
 proposed re-union ? We will imagine Virginia ar- 
 rived, washed, dressed, coek-tailed, and breakfasted. 
 "We will imagine Mr. Perham marching the illus- 
 trious consignment of Free Ticketers to the Com- 
 mon. Can Le tLen be sure of Lis animals '. Suppose 
 Governor Banks, in saluting the Perham pilgrims,
 
 J. P. IS SNUBBED. 101 
 
 should say something unpleasing to the Southern 
 ear ? Is Josiah sure that his jolly visitors would 
 not lapse into their orginal savagery \ Would not 
 snap their revolvers, flourish their bowie-knives, and 
 swing stalwartly their sticks ? Josiah would not cer- 
 tainly feel good if a battle-royal should ensue. What 
 would he do with the dead bodies of his Virginians, 
 particularly if the Directors of the Railways should 
 raise technical objections to Free Corpses % Of course 
 the State of Virginia would not permit her gallant 
 dead to be quietly interred in Yankee soil. Of course 
 the remains would be sent for ; and, of course, Josiah, 
 as the instigator of the fatal fray, would be called 
 upon to foot the bill. What a doleful termination 
 of the Josiah-Jubilee ! 
 
 We notice that last week the Massachusetts House 
 of Representatives considered Mr. Perham's gratui- 
 tous public services, and did not very highly approve 
 the same, being undoubtedly of the opinion that it 
 could do its own inviting without outside assistance. 
 Josiah, like most public benefactors, was scurvily 
 treated. One Haskell thought Perham " a fool." 
 One Shaw insisted that he was a " nuisance." Upon 
 this a lively debate ensued, but the question of " fool " 
 or " nuisance " was not put to the House. It seemed 
 to be agreed that he was either the one or the other ; 
 and, whether brainless or a bore, we can easily under- 
 stand why the Virginia Legislature — not the Massa- 
 chusetts — treated his invitation with a certain degree 
 of respect. 
 
 February 21, I860.
 
 102 SCRAMBLES OF THE BIOGRAPHERS. 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL BATTLE. 
 
 If poor Mr. Choate could rise this morning from the 
 dead — and many of his admirers believe that he is re- 
 strained from returning rather by lack of inclination 
 than lack of power — he would find an exceedingly 
 inky battle raging over what would have been his 
 remains if he had not arisen. But Mr. Choate un- 
 doubtedly expected to have his life taken after he left 
 it ; for it is the fate of all great men to be picked up 
 at last by hungry biographers, who pacify their appe- 
 tites as soon after the lamented demise as possible, 
 and then provide for themselves annuities by the ex- 
 hibition of the skeleton. That there should be jeal- 
 ousies in the distribution of the net proceeds of any- 
 body's death, is as natural as it would be to find a 
 company of hyenas making a division of their game 
 without regard to Christian principles or Chesterfield- 
 ian good manners. When Dr. Johnson had given his 
 valedictory roar, how many rushed forward to ear- 
 mark the body — Hawkins, Mrs. Reynolds, Boswell, 
 Mrs. Piozzi ! What a scrambling there was, what a 
 scene of anecdote-snatching ! How everybody claimed 
 to have been robbed by everybody else of priceless 
 stories and of invaluable reminiscences ! It rained, 
 pamphlets, and the air was thick with recriminations. 
 That Dr. Johnson did not walk upon such provoca- 
 tives, goes far to invalidate his own doctrine of 
 ghosts; for, with his good will, we do not believe 
 that Boswell would have been permitted upon a sin- 
 gle occasion again to get comfortably drunk, or the
 
 A REMINISCENT COLONEL. 103 
 
 Thrale to forget lier departed brewer in the arms of 
 her Italian tiddler. Still, there were reasonable ex- 
 tenuations of the biographical mania then, and such 
 are not wanting in the case to be presently consid- 
 ered. 
 
 In these matters of life and death, the biographer 
 who is active enough to be the first in the market, 
 will dispose of a dozen editions before those of less 
 alacrity have printed their initial chapters. The 
 Reminiscences of Choate, put out by Colonel Edward 
 G. Parker, have, among other merits, that of novel- 
 ty ; and although they have not escaped censure in 
 critical circles, they are entertaining. But Colonel 
 Parker is in trouble. He is censured by The Atlcmi- 
 tio Monthly y he is cut up by The (London) Satur- 
 day Review ; he is rebuked by Mr. Joseph Bell, who 
 has Mr. Choate's memory in his special keeping ; and 
 he is treated by The Boston Courier very much as 
 Captain Lemuel Gulliver was by the first Yahoos 
 whose acquaintance he had the pain of making. Un- 
 less Colonel Parker — who is not of the Regular 
 Army, but in the Militia Service of Massachusetts — 
 shall make a great deal of money by the sale of his 
 publication, he will wish that he had fallen upon his 
 own sword, before venturing into the battle of print. 
 The " family " is dreadfully angry. To speak indi- 
 vidually, Mr. Joseph Bell is disgusted, and has writ- 
 ten a special epistle to The Courier informing the 
 world of that fact. Colonel Parker's poor little book 
 is declared to be " an outrage on the living and the 
 dead." Colonel Parker has already retorted upon
 
 10-i A STRUGGLE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " the family " and The Courier, and, in time, if they 
 have not done so already, " the family " and TJie 
 Courier will retort upon Colonel Parker. With a 
 reasonable economy of ample materials, we see no 
 ground for believing that this controversy will be 
 terminated during the lives of the parties, and it 
 may, being a family matter, as well as a matter of 
 money, be continued by their heirs, executors and 
 administrators. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Life of Mr. Choate appears to be 
 of proprietorship as doubtful as that of vulcanized 
 rubber, out of the harassing uncertainties of which 
 Mr. Choate, when alive, made a snug sum enough in 
 the courts. Only one thing is certain. "We are ex- 
 horted " to wait and get the best ;" to reserve our 
 money and minds fur the genuine Family Biography 
 which is now in course of preparation ; and to exert 
 as much shrewdness and caution in possessing our- 
 selves of the real article, as if we were purchasing the 
 Macassar Oil or the Aromatic Scheidam Schnapps. 
 "We have had a tolerable experience of advertising 
 expedients in our day, but we confess that we have 
 observed nothing neater than this. The Duello of 
 the Dictionaries is child's play compared with it. 
 
 In the meantime, while suffering ourselves to be 
 entertained by Colonel Parker's " Reminiscences," 
 we await with impatience the Family Biography. 
 Everybody knows what a capital character a man re- 
 ceives when his relatives write his life. We antici- 
 pate nothing less than the portliest of folios, unspeak- 
 ably dignified from title-page to colophon — a grave
 
 TEE FAMILY CIIOATE. 105 
 
 and stately narrative — a story heroical, of which the 
 central figure will be Mr. Choate, more like Jupiter 
 Amnion than a member of the Suffolk Bar. The 
 family is right. Pray what does the world want of 
 Mr. Choate in his shirt-sleeves ? Of Mr. Choate 
 laughing, chatting, cracking jokes % of Mr. Choate 
 careless of money, of appearances, and of his chir- 
 ography ? of Mr. Choate in his character of human 
 being, fond of the same food and drink which nour- 
 ish and cheer ordinary creatures ? The real Family 
 Choate will be of incomputable altitude, with a voice 
 like Olympian thunder, and an eye of flame divine. 
 The eloquence of the real Family Choate will be 
 more than Demosthenean, Ciceronian, Burkean. The 
 law learning of the real Family Choate will surpass 
 that of Pothier, Eldon, Story and Shaw, C. J. The 
 classical learning of the real Family Choate will rival 
 that of Porson and Daeier, of Bentley and Parr. 
 The piety of the real Family Choate will be some- 
 thing approximating to the apostolic. With every 
 virtue, and without a fault, he will be placed in the 
 Biographic Pantheon which is so inexpressibly digni- 
 fied and so portentously dull. 
 
 Xow, speaking simply for ourselves, and with no 
 wish to interfere with the family arrangements, we 
 must say that we have never found such biographies 
 too edifying. We like Clio well enough, in a home- 
 spun gown, writing with a plain, honest goose-quill, 
 of human lives and of earthly achievements. In our 
 estimate of a public man, we do not deem it advisa- 
 ble to begin bv taking it for granted that he was of
 
 106 TRUTH WANTED. 
 
 perfect character. The world thinks as we think, 
 and has always thought so. It does not care to have 
 its heroes always in full dress. Writers of biogra- 
 phy have too often befooled mankind — have too often 
 given us some sublime creation of their own fancies, 
 something painfully virtuous, something 
 
 " Too bright and good 
 
 For human nature's daily food." 
 
 Mr. Choate's biography may not be worth writing at 
 all, for his life was not an important one to man- 
 kind ; but if we were to elect his biographer in view 
 of our own entertainment and instruction, we should 
 vote not for the family, but for Colonel Parker. 
 
 March 17, 1800. 
 
 MR. BANCROFT ON THE DECLARATION OF INDE- 
 PENDENCE. 
 
 Mr. Rufus Ciioate, deceased, has left upon record 
 his opinion, that the ethics of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence are merely " glittering generalities." Mr. 
 Caleb dishing, muzzy and mazy as he is, in thought 
 and expression, has contrived to assert, with tolerable 
 clearness, that in his opinion " all men are not born 
 free and equal." Mr. Charles O'Connor is of the 
 same mind. So in his day was Mr. John C. Calhoun. 
 Of course there is nothing to be astonished at in this 
 resort to arrogant paradox. These gentlemen, living 
 or dead, having determined beforehand to defend a
 
 THE DOCTRINES OF THE DECLARATION. 107 
 
 Lad system, could begin the work in no other way 
 than by ignoring the axioms of the Revolution. Not 
 until the broad humanity of the Declaration had been 
 explained, philosophized and sophisticated to mere 
 nothingness, or to something sadder, were these trai- 
 tors to universal humanity able to repeat, without 
 blushing, sentiments too revolting to be suddenly and 
 nakedly promulgated. Their dismal conclusions, 
 which dogmatically forbid all hope of the equality of 
 man, in view of any human government, will here- 
 after be read with wonder, and are too signal a de- 
 parture from the traditions of the Republic to be 
 presently or speedily forgotten. Their most natural 
 refutation is to be found in the steady, the intuitive 
 convictions of the American mind. 
 
 The doctrines of the Declaration of Independence 
 are not to be comprehended in all their beauty and 
 sublimity by the closest study, any more than they 
 are to be wasted away by the shrewdest verbal criti- 
 cism of the letter of the instrument. Great as were 
 the abilities of those who framed it, they were — and 
 any men would have been — unequal to the task of 
 condensing into words, of confining within sentences, 
 the great idea of political equality which informed 
 the general American reason and heart. They left 
 us a letter, noble only because it was the exponent of 
 a noble spirit. The letter might be perverted and 
 controverted — might be faithful to the ear of the 
 world, but altogether false to its hope — but the spirit 
 would remain, incapable of a double sense, and use- 
 less to palterers.
 
 108 BANCROFT VS. CIIOATE. 
 
 "We did not need it, but we are happy to have the 
 opinion of Mr. George Bancroft, the best known of 
 our historian?, that the Declaration was not " a tissue 
 of glittering generalities." Mr. Bancroft contradicts 
 the late Mr. Rufus Choate point blank, and in words 
 which are curiously responsive to those of that advo- 
 cate ; for Mr. Bancroft says distinctly that the Decla- 
 ration " avoided specious and vague generalities." 
 Again, those who have been misled by the indignant 
 or contemptuous repetition of the phrase "higher 
 law," will have ampler opportunities of exhibiting 
 their virtuous horror when they read what Mr. George 
 Bancroft has written. " The bill of rights which it 
 (i. e. the Declaration) promulgated, is of rights that 
 are older than human institutions, and spring from 
 the eternal justice that is anterior to the State." lie 
 must possess very rare powers of distinction who can 
 find any substantial dirference between " the higher 
 law" and the "rights that are older than human in- 
 stitutions" — rights that "spring from the eternal jus- 
 tice that is anterior to the State." 
 
 But Mr. Bancroft goes still further; nor can we 
 forbear the pleasure of quoting his own admirable 
 words: "Two political theories," says he, "divided 
 the world ; one founded the Commonwealth on the 
 reasons of State, the policy of expediency; the other 
 on the immutable principles of morals. The new Re- 
 public, as it took its place among the powers of the 
 world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality 
 and unchangeableness of freedom, virtue and right. 
 The heart of Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and
 
 THE GLAD TIDINGS. 109 
 
 of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity ; 
 the assertion of right was made for the entire world 
 of mankind, and all coming generations, without any 
 exception whatever ; for the proposition which ad- 
 mits of exception can never be self-evident." More- 
 over, and in illustration of the glad tidings and their 
 universal application, Mr. Bancroft says : " The as- 
 tonished nations as they read that all men are created 
 equal, started out of their lethargy, like those wdio 
 have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly 
 hear the dimly-remembered accents of their mother 
 tongue." 
 
 Mr. Bancroft, it will be seen, does not speak with 
 the fashionable timidity of dyspeptic students. He 
 does not maunder about races, nor take refuge within 
 the cheap defenses of ethnological sciolism. His po- 
 litical philosophy " makes the circuit of the world" — 
 his political morality is applied to " the entire world 
 of mankind, and all coming generations, without any 
 exceptions whatever." After Mr. Cushing's pilfer- 
 ings from encyclopedias and stereotyped nonsense 
 about white and black and yellow races — after the 
 intolerable conceit, ignorance and inhumanity of his 
 imitators — after the inconclusive conclusions of text- 
 twisting and text-splitting doctors of divinity — after 
 the ignoble efforts of fools and of knaves to extenuate 
 a moral wrong by appeals to physical distinctions — 
 it is pleasant to find a man like Mr. Bancroft adher- 
 ing to a sensible and simple construction of the axi- 
 oms and adages of honest and fearless Republicanism. 
 These trimmers — these torturers of plain words, of
 
 HO AN OPEN LETTER. 
 
 plain morality into tenth century sophistications have 
 now their answer, and they have it from a very high, 
 if not from the highest quarter. 
 
 June 27, 1860. 
 
 MODERN CHIVALRY— A MANIFESTO. 
 
 We read in one of the noblest of English poems that 
 " a gentle knight came pricking o'er the plain ;" but 
 we do not read, in whatever other way he made an 
 ass of himself, that he published three close columns 
 of nonsense in any newspaper of the period. He dab- 
 bled in blood, and not in ink ; he brandished a sword, 
 and not a goose-quill ; he murdered infidels, and not 
 his vernacular ; he was invincible in respect of drag- 
 ons, but he recoiled from the perils of authorship ; 
 and as he was much more expert at riding than read- 
 ing, he never seems to have thought it necessary to 
 quote, by way of justification, from any of Doctor 
 Caleb Cushing's Cyclopedias whenever he slaughtered 
 Paynims and ravished their wives. Our modern chev- 
 aliers are vastly more accomplished ; and whatever 
 prowess they may hereafter exhibit upon the gory 
 field, it must be admitted that they make war by 
 proclamation with irresistible, or perhaps we may say 
 with irrefragable vigor. 
 
 AVe do not remember in the history of Chivalry 
 anything like " An Open Letter to the Knights of the 
 Golden Circle," which has just been printed in The
 
 A GATHERING OF THE CLANS. HI 
 
 Richmond Whig, by Sir George Bickley, President of 
 the American Legion and K. G. C. Since Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, there has been no filibuster so accomplished 
 as Knight George. In urging his men-at-arms to 
 rush to the rendezvous, he strengthens his appeal by 
 quoting from history in the most miscellaneous man- 
 ner, and by using terms the most recondite and sci- 
 entific, lie speaks of the days of Nimrod, Ashur, 
 Fohi, MLzraim, Athotes, Memnon, Solomon, Hiram, 
 Uleg-Beg, Gengis Khan and Psammeticus, as if they 
 were only of yesterday, or the day before. He makes 
 an oft-hand allusion to Pyramids and Sphynxes with 
 an ease which is perfectly tremendous. We do not 
 know any Doctor of Divinity who has exhibited such 
 perfect familiarity with the intentions of the Al- 
 mighty. He uses all the hard philosophical terms 
 with as much ease as if he had been born under the 
 Portico, swaddled in the Lyceum, educated in a Ger- 
 man University, and subsequently adopted and nur- 
 tured in sesquipedality by Jeremy Bentham. He 
 evidently means to invade Mexico according to all 
 the laws of Logic and Mental Philosophy. Thus we 
 are told that Asia and Africa " have long since passed 
 from fetichism to analyticism, and finally to synthet- 
 icism" — in consequence of which interesting trans- 
 mogrification the Knights of the Golden Circle are 
 invited to meet, on the 15th of September proximo, 
 on the beautiful banks of the Rio Nueces. All diffi- 
 culties are to vanish before " the energetic analyses 
 of the Americans ;" and in the opinion of Sir George 
 Bickley, K. G. C, the entire Mexican army will fiy
 
 112 SIR GEORGE DISGUSTED. 
 
 like cravens from the very first round of "pnre syn- 
 tlieticisms" to which he proposes to subject it ; nor do 
 we blame him if, as he admits, at such a prospect, 
 " his heart swells." We should think it would. We 
 do not wonder, when thus he meditates the easy glories 
 of charge, with Webster in one hand and Worcester 
 in the other, that he also declares that unless his gal- 
 lant knights do their duty, "future ages may well 
 reprobate our dereliction." Our own opinion is that 
 future ages will by no means let them off so easily ; 
 and will be satisfied with nothing less than penalties 
 only to be expressed in words of ten syllables. 
 
 Sir George touches upon one exceedingly interest- 
 ing point. All adventurers who leave the scenes of 
 their nativity to grapple with fortune in foreign lands 
 have a pet grievance. vEneas was fairly smoked out 
 of house and home, or the world would have had no 
 Rome. Sir George Bickley, K. G. C, is also mounted 
 upon his injuries. As " a Christian," as " a consistent 
 man," as " an energetic Anglo-American," he is much 
 displeased with the difficulty of enforcing the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law in Boston. " The conflicts between 
 the State and Federal authorities" have rasped the 
 more delicate parts of his nature. Although not a 
 medical man, he volunteers the opinion that, " as a 
 nation we have been poisoned." The Republican 
 party has " grown to colossal proportions." The F. 
 S. L. cannot be executed — not Botts, nor Yancey, 
 nor Wise could, as President, execute it. The crimes 
 of the Xorth are manifold. It is guilty of a popula- 
 tion of twentv millions, while the South has but
 
 POO it MEXICO! 113 
 
 twelve. In respect of land, it is equally reprehensi- 
 ble — seventy-five acres to a man, while the South has 
 but forty-five. " Be we men," Sir George would have 
 said, if he had thought of it; "Be we men and suffer 
 this dishonor ?" Alas ! the poor South, oppressed by 
 all the rules of arithmetic, the victim of a pitiless nu- 
 meration — what can she do better than to throw her- 
 self for safety and for succor into the amorous arms 
 of Sir George Bickley, K. G. C., President of the 
 American Legion ? lie is the Moses for her money. 
 lie will show her the green pastures and the still 
 waters — a Canaan of coffee, of corn, and of cotton ; 
 a Paradise of tea and tobacco, of sugar and rice — 
 where there will be " work for all," and more es- 
 pecially for " niggers " — where there will be " free 
 religion," (Doctors of Divinity growing, as we are 
 told, spontaneously in the poorest soil) — w r here there 
 will be " free education" — two Universities, we sup- 
 pose, in every shire-town, each with a full cwps of 
 presidents, stewards, tutors, bell-ringers, bed-makers 
 and professors of Greek. 
 
 Then, too, there is unhappy Mexico — the heart of 
 Sir George is undergoing a horrible hemorrhage on 
 her account ; and the ears of Sir George are filled 
 with her cries for " help." He proposes, his Knights 
 of the Golden Circle assisting, to give her " a rank 
 among nations" — to rescue her from "the brigand 
 and barbarous brutes who now burn, pillage, murder 
 and destroy her" — and a very handsome thing it is 
 in him to offer to do it. Therefore, let Bickley's 
 Braves all be " on the south bank of the Rio Xueces by
 
 114 SIR GEORGE'S FORETHOUGHT. ' 
 
 the loth of September — there to organize and await 
 the action of our friends in Mexico." There will be 
 a pleasant march — there will be just fighting enough 
 to sustain the interest of the expedition — and then for 
 a revel in the Halls of Montezuma, with no end of 
 liquor and ladies ! We can see Sir George now, in 
 our mind's eye, with a monopoly of two sefioritas and 
 a private bottle of aguardiente, surrounded by the 
 chiefs of his army, and martially and melodiously 
 whistling Yankee Doodle. If this will not give 
 Mexico " rank among nations," we do not know what 
 will. What the rank will be we leave the reader to 
 determine. 
 
 But Sir George, like a prudent commander, directs 
 his Golden Knights not to come to the south bank of 
 the Rio Nueces empty-handed. They are requested 
 to bring with them " wagons, mules, oxen, horses, 
 cattle, spades and blankets." Nothing is said of " two 
 towels and a spoon." Perhaps the last is at least 
 included under the general head of " instruments," 
 which the knights are also requested to provide. But 
 we are afraid that the word has no such pacific signi- 
 fication. " Instruments," we fear, mean revolvers and 
 rifles, bayonets and blunderbusses and bowie-knives, 
 powder-flasks and bullets. If not, why does Sir George 
 inform us that in good time his " emigrants" will beat 
 the sword and the rifle, the cannon and the lance, 
 into agricultural implements % This will, after peace, 
 be, of course, the proper and poetical thing to do ; but 
 how can it be done without, if we may say so, the 
 raw material? How can you make a cannon into
 
 CASH, THE FIRST REQUISITE. 115 
 
 " an agricultural implement," if you have no cannon 
 to begin with ? We defy Sir George Bickley, K. G. 
 C, to do it. 
 
 It must not be supposed that any body who pleases 
 can join this gallant " emigration." In the first place, 
 every knight must bring to the Rio Nueces not less 
 than " twenty dollars" in hard cash. O discourag- 
 ing regulation ! A man may be bold — a man may 
 be brave — but unless he can by begging, borrowing 
 or stealing raise twenty dollars, his room will be 
 better than his company on the banks of that shining 
 river. But we have still more discouraging intelli- 
 gence. Sir George gives timely notice that none but 
 respectable men can march under his colors. He will 
 have no "rowdies." We are not sure that he will 
 not confine his enlistment to church-members in good 
 standing. Those gallant men, therefore, in this city 
 and elsewhere, who propose to consecrate themselves to 
 this knightly work, will see the necessity of instantly 
 commencing their purgation, and of looking about to 
 see which of their friends has twenty dollars in cash 
 to spare. For cash, after all, is what Sir George will 
 stand most in need of. To slaveholders he makes a 
 most piteous appeal, calling upon them in the name 
 of all that is good and great to draw their pocket- 
 books instantly, and to send to Col. 1ST. J. Scott, of 
 Auburn, Ala., the neat sum of one million five hun- 
 dred thousand dollars. We are afraid that it is just 
 possible that Col. Scott will be obliged to wait awhile 
 for that money ; and our advice to Sir George, if he 
 really desires to be the Alexander of Mexico, is to
 
 11G THE USE OF EX-P11ESWENTS. 
 
 courageously make up his mind to defray all the ex- 
 penses out of his private resources, which are un- 
 doubtedly unlimited. 
 
 TVe beg leave, most respectfully, to call the atten- 
 tion of our friend, Mr. Buchanan, to this Proclama- 
 tion. It may divert his mind from a too constant 
 contemplation of his recent misfortunes ; and he may 
 pleasantly employ himself during the brief remainder 
 of his official existence, either in assisting or arresting 
 this expedition — it really makes no difference which. 
 Should he determine to try a new sensation, and for 
 once insist upon a rigid execution of the laws, we be- 
 seech him not to begin with a Proclamation, for in 
 that particular line of warfare he cannot for a mo- 
 ment compete with Sir George Bickley, K. G. C. 
 
 July 26, 1S60. 
 
 MR. FILLMORE TAKES A VIEW. 
 
 Ex-Presidents are undoubtedly beings vouchsafed 
 to us by way of confirming the truth of that Scripture 
 which declares that though one should rise from the 
 dead, yet would not men believe. Ex-Presidents, to 
 be sure, are not always exactly dead ; and even Mr. 
 John Tyler, who never during his official days had a 
 superfluity of vitality, has recently shown the usual 
 sign of life in a decayed politician, and has written a 
 letter. The Ex-President, therefore, may be consid- 
 ered not so much dead as " done for." lie is like an
 
 A LETTER TO SOMEBODY. H7 
 
 old coat, past service when skies are clear, but pretty 
 sure to be brought out in rainy weather — a garment 
 shabby, but passable in a fog ; split here and there, 
 but in all its looped and windowed raggedness better 
 than total nakedness; or to pursue the figure, fit 
 enough to be straw-stuffed and hoisted upon a pole to 
 terrify the croaking crows. Of these relics, it may be 
 said, that while there is life in them, there is a letter. 
 We learn accordingly that Mr. Fillmore, from that 
 very library, we suppose, which witnessed his Know- 
 Nothing adjurations, wrote upon the 19th of Decem- 
 ber, 1SG0, an epistle to Somebody, which only now 
 do we find emerging from Somebody's pocket and 
 creeping into the public journals. It appears that 
 Somebody requested Mr. Fillmore to go to the South 
 as a Grand Plenipotential Pacificator. For that high 
 office by Somebody was Mr. Fillmore nominated, and 
 by Somebody was he unanimously confirmed at a 
 Union meeting held by Somebody expressly for the 
 purpose. Mr. Fillmore is urged to undertake this 
 "patriotic mission." He may smell tar and see pros- 
 pective feathers. He may have a fearful dream of 
 being ordered "to leave within four-ancl-twenty 
 hours." Fie may feel an uncomfortable rail between 
 his august legs, or a still more uncomfortable cravat 
 of the hempen variety around his highly respectable 
 neck. So he has issued in his own behalf and has 
 served upon himself a writ of ne exeat. If the Union 
 can be saved by letter-writing he has sheafs of pens 
 and quarts of ink and reams of paper at its service ; 
 but if the Union can only be saved by a danger-
 
 118 WHAT MR. FILLMORE WANTS. 
 
 ous journey in mid-winter, why the Union may he 
 damned. This is what Mr. Fillmore with much ver- 
 bal gentility and chaste circumlocution, says ; and it 
 is the most sensible thing he ever said in his life. 
 Ex-Presidents can be better employed than in going 
 upon tom-fool errands for anybody. 
 
 But while declining to travel for the benefit of the 
 public health, Mr. Fillmore is willing to talk in that 
 behalf, and to talk, as we think, in a discreditably 
 loose way. Here is what Mr. Fillmore "wants." 
 " "What I want," says he, " is some assurance from 
 the Republican party, now dominant in the North, 
 that they, or at least the conservative portion of them, 
 are ready and willing to come forward and repeal all 
 unconstitutional slave laws, live up to the compro- 
 mises of the Constitution, execute the laws of Congress 
 honestly and faithfully, and treat our Southern breth- 
 ren as friends. When I can have any such reliable 
 assurance as this to give, I will go most cheerfully 
 and urge our Southern brethren to follow our exam- 
 ple, and restore harmony and fraternal affection be- 
 tween the jSorth and the South." 
 
 In order fully to estimate the unspeakably amiable 
 and redundantly fraternal spirit of this tid-bit, from 
 which it appears that Mr. Fillmore is anxious to pre- 
 serve the peace by quarrelling with his neighbors, \vc 
 must bear in mind the posture of public affairs. The 
 strongholds of the Government in the hands of the 
 rebels; the American flag dishonored by the hostile 
 artillery of thieves and pirates; the country assailed 
 bv land-rats in the Treasury aud bv water-rats in
 
 A LITTLE BEHINDHAND. HQ 
 
 Pensacola Bay ; the Constitution defied by delegates 
 in convention, and by mad and drunken rioters with 
 arms on their shoulders ; Senators false to their oaths, 
 and eaten up by undignified passion striding from 
 that chamber which has been the scene alike of their 
 promises given and of their promises broken ; the 
 country wantonly alarmed, and its great interests 
 gratuitously threatened because law-abiding men will 
 not submit to law-breaking men ; at this moment, 
 when we are to be bullied out of the right of suffrage, 
 and scared into an abandonment of our dearest fran- 
 chise, Mr. Fillmore, who breathes the same air and 
 treads the same soil with us, lectures us upon our 
 short-comings and our sins, and drawls out his stale 
 reproaches as if he were our keeper or our king. He 
 is out of date. He learned the fossil formula, which 
 for the hundredth time he reiterates, long ago, when 
 he was in a public place, if not in the public service. 
 "When he was in fashion, it was also the fashion to talk 
 as he talks now. He assumes that the Republican 
 party is not ready to repeal unconstitutional laws ; is 
 not ready to live up to the compromises of the Con- 
 stitution ; is not ready to execute the laws of Congress 
 honestly and faithfully ; is not ready to treat our 
 Southern fellow-citizens as such. This, we upon our 
 part rejoin, is something worse than mere gratuitous 
 abortion. It is the vulgar and uncharitable gossip 
 of the pot-house ; it is the small change of political 
 sneaks ; it is the weak and artless subterfuge of crea- 
 tures with an irresistible propensity to crawl, and with 
 just sense enough to be ashamed of the degradation ;
 
 120 ASKING TOO MUCH. 
 
 of men whose souls are in the stocks, and who have 
 the prices-current written upon their hearts. 
 
 But if Mr. Fillmore be really in earnest, we should 
 like to ask him why we are to be driven at the bay- 
 onets' point to the stools of repentance which he has 
 been kind enough to arrange for us ? Were the lamps 
 so nearly burned out, and were we such incorrigible 
 sinners that nothing could bring us to a sense of our 
 perilous state but the traitorous pranks and headlong 
 perjuries of South Carolina ? Does Mr. Fillmore be- 
 lieve that the North, intelligent and honest as he 
 knows it to be, will refuse one jot or tittle of what it 
 honestly owes to its unfortunate fellow-citizens of the 
 South \ For ourselves, we think that demands thus 
 far have been made upon us altogether too loosely, 
 and even inexplicitly. We are to humble ourselves 
 as sovereign States have rarely been humbled by the 
 crudest misfortunes of war ; and with the hot haste 
 of recent converts in the political church, we are to 
 repeal laws, already old upon our rolls, at the demand 
 of volunteer advisers, and in deference to the ex-parte 
 dictum of ex-Justices and the theoretical decisions ol 
 amateur commentators. If these laws, of which 
 Southern grumblers and their Northern allies com- 
 plain, were presently oppressive and intolerably griev- 
 ous, we might extemporise extraordinary legislation, 
 and make hot haste to redress the injuries which we 
 have heedlessly inflicted. What sharp agony, what 
 recent insult, what shame new and impossible to be 
 suffered has forced South Carolina into an attitude 
 of crime? How many .-lave- has she lost by the
 
 THE EAGLE SAFE. 121 
 
 operation of Personal Liberty Laws ? Which of her 
 citizens have they impoverished by a penny ? 
 
 Mr. Fillmore in declining to go to the South will 
 never have the smallest cause to regret a decision 
 which has saved from fresh mortification the evening 
 of his life. No eloquence of his could have quieted 
 the insane rage of the Charleston oligarchy. No 
 astute compromises, though he had carte blanche upon 
 which to write them, would have satisfied the ambi- 
 tious politicians of South Carolina. He might have 
 gone upon his mild mission with his portfolio full of 
 pretty bills and possible amendments ; but he would 
 have returned, if at all, leaving behind him the same 
 madness, with a new element of mockery. 
 
 January 20, 18C1. 
 
 "A BANNER WITH A STRANGE DEVICE." 
 
 Ouk obligations to the Anarchy of South Carolina 
 are too enormous to be expressed. Bolted she has ; 
 quite a large amount of our personal property has she 
 taken with her, but she has left our dear old bird. 
 She has spoiled the gridiron, but she has spared the 
 goose. We have him still, beak, talons and feathers ! 
 For us, dis-United States though we may be, he will 
 continue to soar and scream and spread his wings. 
 From our banner a star or two may madly shoot, and 
 a stripe or so may fade ; but we keep our bird — crea- 
 ture called by our name — our pet fowl, so admired 
 and respected in the principal Courts of Europe. He 
 G
 
 122 SNAKES AND LADIES. 
 
 has not nullified. Without him we had been bank- 
 rupt in our blazonry, hard up in our heraldry, a col- 
 orless, flagless, standardless, buntingless, pennonless 
 people. With him we may indulge in dreams of fu- 
 ture glory to some extent gratifying. Let us indulge ! 
 
 The Southern Confederacy, it would seem, is sick 
 of ornithological devices. In cropping the eagle, it 
 crops the whole feathered race. There were birds to 
 be had for the catching — buzzards, vultures, condors, 
 adjutants, flamingoes, parrots, daws — but it will have 
 nothing to do with them. In its present melancholy 
 condition of political chlorosis, it has a stomach only 
 for snakes. At Montgomery the other day, after the 
 Convention had concluded its pleasing labors of dis- 
 integration, the lovely ladies presented a banner to 
 the delegate?, whereupon was embroidered, probably 
 by their own delicate digits, a huge rattle-snake, so 
 done to the life, that by the mere force of the imagi- 
 nation, he was distinctly heard to rattle. "In Jwc 
 signo vinces, Mr. President !" said the ladies, or rather 
 they Mould have said so, if they had understood Latin. 
 " To be sure !" the President responded. The whole 
 scene must have been a pretty one. 
 
 Snakes and ladies ! The conjunction may not ap- 
 pear to the fastidious a particularly felicitous one. 
 There is an old, a very old story of a snake and a 
 lady, and of a short but important conversation be- 
 tween them respecting the edibility of a certain apple, 
 in the course of which the slimy creature observed: 
 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, 
 then your eyes shall be opened ; and ye shall be as
 
 TUB CURSE OF REBELLION. 123 
 
 gods, knowing good and evil." We have all read of 
 what happened after the fatal bite. We all under- 
 stand what that little pippin has cost us. Adam se- 
 ceded, under a strong pressure, from the garden, and 
 none of his descendants have been so fortunate as to 
 return to its enchanting scenes. The snake has not, 
 it appears, in spite of all his bruises, amended his old 
 habit of oily lying. He whispers still to the ambitious 
 and the discontented and the restless : "Bite and be 
 brave ! Bite and be presidents, generals, dukes or 
 kings ! Bite and be happy ! Bite and be as gods !" 
 
 Under the combined influence of ambition and 
 whiskey, the Confederated Adams are yielding to the 
 blandishments of the serpent. In the wreck of social 
 happiness, in the destruction of a free government, in 
 the chaotic dissolution of all political institutions, in 
 the shame and sorrow and alarm of intestine broils, 
 in the rule of madness, under the heavy hands of ir- 
 responsible dictators, or tossed about at the caprice 
 of insurgent mobs, the amateur revolutionists of the 
 South may find that bitter in the belly which was so 
 sweet in the mouth, and may learn that it is easier to 
 rouse than to quiet the father of lies. Have they for- 
 gotten that other text : " Because thou hast done this, 
 thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast 
 of the field ; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust 
 shalt thou eat all the days of thy life ?" Whatever may 
 be the temptation of cotton, it is hardly probable that 
 foreign nations will fall violently in love with the 
 rattle-snake. They will fear to meet him in every 
 bale ; they will find him printed on every shirt ; and
 
 124 NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE. 
 
 they will rank the flag upon which he is painted with 
 the black banner of pirates or the threatening devices 
 of Asiatic barbarians. 
 
 Let the Southern Confederates, then, revise their 
 blazon ! They have a large variety from which to 
 select — lions, leopards, pelicans, unicorns, bears, 
 griffins, dragons — the whole menagerie of heraldry. 
 Why will they endeavor to introduce such a disagree- 
 able creature as the rattle-snake into the society of 
 Christian nations ? If they must have one on their 
 flag, the King of Dahomey is the foreign potentate for 
 their diplomacy. 
 
 January 31, 1861. 
 
 A SOUTHERN DIARIST. 
 
 Who would not, if he could, read history in perpetual 
 diaries, and so have done forever with philosophic 
 historians and historic philosophers ? Who will not 
 join with us in the regret that Noah kept no log ? 
 AVI 10 does not prefer Pepys to Clarendon or Hume ? 
 Who can assure us that Walter Scott's Journal will 
 not be read long after his romances in prose and verse 
 have been forgotten? Who would barter Byron's 
 memoranda, smirched and hasty, for a dozen Childe 
 Harolds, and a regiment of Laras, and who would 
 not buy back from the ashes to which mistaken friend- 
 ship consigned them, those Memoirs burned by Tom- 
 my Moore, which would have been cheaply saved to 
 English literature by the destruction of all the peer's
 
 HUNGERING FOR HOSTILITIES. 125 
 
 poetry ? And who will not be enchanted to learn, 
 that amidst the war of revolution, the din of disunion 
 and the noise of nullification, an ingenious gentleman 
 of Columbia, S. C, is keeping a " Journal" and print- 
 ing it by bits in The Yorhville Enquire? 1 , thus — to 
 use his own noble language — " attempting to sketch 
 the rapidly-changing features of the times as they 
 vary under the influence of events whirling into no- 
 tice so telegraphically." Better writing than this we 
 have never read, and if the gentleman goes on at this 
 rate, we know well enough who will be the Xenophon 
 of the war. 
 
 The business at Columbia, as we gather from this 
 journal, is principally campanological. They have a 
 new bell in that city, and they ring it continually. 
 On Tuesday, 8th ult., they rang it for the secession 
 of Florida. On Thursday, 10th ult., they rang it for 
 the secession of Mississippi. On Friday, 11th ult., 
 they rang it for the secession of Alabama. On Sun- 
 day, the 13th ult., they do not appear to have troubled 
 the bell-rope at all. Upon the 9th ult., having heard 
 of the flight of the Star of the West, the diarist ex- 
 claims : " This intelligence did not surprise us. We 
 were already looking the reality of war in the face." 
 Were they? And did they relish the prospect? 
 Smoking cities, blockaded ports, famished wives, 
 starving children, insurgent negroes — did they like 
 the picture ? Like it ? How can any one be so sim- 
 ple as to put the question ? Like it ! We tell you 
 that they pine and pant to be persecuted ; they prefer 
 to be wounded; they will be much obliged to the
 
 126 VENUS WITHOUT MARS. 
 
 gentleman who may shoot them ; wounds will be 
 welcome ; gore will be glorious ; houselessness sweeter 
 than hospitality. " A long and bloody war" looms 
 before the rolling eye of the editor of The Yorkville 
 (S. C.) Enquirer as the sun-rise of the millennium. 
 An ounce of lead in his clavicle would, we fancy, ma- 
 terially mitigate his ardor. 
 
 It was upon Saturday, Jan. 12, while " hundreds 
 were engaged in training with pistol and rifle," the 
 afternoon being, as we are told, " vocal with the mu- 
 sic of preparation," that the diarist made the follow- 
 ing entry : " If it were conceivable that all our men 
 could be killed, South Carolina need not despair ; her 
 women can defend her !" The imagination is thus 
 carried back to the Amazonian regiments, to the pet- 
 ticoated squadrons of the King of Dahomey, to Boadi- 
 cea and Joan of Arc. It is rather a drawback to find 
 that the Lady Lancers, the Amazonian Artillery, the 
 Female Fusileers, the Sweet Sappers, the Modern 
 Miners, the Pretty Pioneers, the Side-saddle Cavalry, 
 will not be wanted until "all our men are killed." 
 Not being a woman, and still less a she-soldier, we 
 cannot undertake to speak with absolute accuracy ; 
 but we should be a little dubious about the female 
 fighting after the quietus of all the men. How will 
 Mrs. Col. Cotton be able to lead the Heavy Mothers 
 to the charge, when her dear departed no longer ani- 
 mates her by his martial smile ( How will Arabella, 
 of the Light Artillery, deport herself at the gun*, 
 when Augustus sleeps in a soldier's grave ? Who be- 
 lieves that the Maid of Saragossa would have rain-
 
 A POOH OLD MAN. 127 
 
 med the great cannon with such astonishing virulence, 
 if there had been no gallant gentlemen looking on ? 
 
 To return to our Diary. On Monday, 14th ult, 
 we find the following discouraging entry : " The war 
 does not progress." As the hart panteth after the 
 water-brooks, and as the thirsty soul panteth after the 
 whiskey barrel, so does this man of memoranda pant 
 for blood. Monday the fourteenth was a " blue Mon- 
 day" indeed. .Nothing to ring the bells for ; no ex- 
 cuse for extra libations ; even the small-pox subsiding 
 — how monotonous in Columbia must that day have 
 been. Something of the solitary sensations of Rob- 
 inson Crusoe must have come over our jotting gen- 
 tleman, for his diary comes to a dead stop. He ceases 
 suddenly to chronicle " the rapidly changing features 
 of the times in Columbia," and begins to abuse Mr. 
 Buchanan as " a poor old man." This we cannot but 
 regard as a gratuitous insult. Poor, Mr. Buchanan 
 is not. Old, he may be ; but we are ready to wager 
 dollars against dimes that the President is not half so 
 old as he appears to be. The mistake is a natural 
 one. Good guessers, familiar with his proclamations 
 and messages, and computing his years from his 
 drivel, would undoubtedly think him somewhat 
 older than Old Parr ; but we have good reason 
 for believing that he is very little, if at all, past one 
 hundred. At any rate, he is old enough to be spared 
 the insults of those whom he has served well, if not 
 wisely ; whereas he seems to be rather worse off than 
 Shylock was on the Pialto. Southern gentlemen must 
 swear, we know, but why call poor old Mr. Buchanan
 
 128 HIDEOUS INGRATITUDE. 
 
 a liar and a dog ? 'T is inexpressibly shameful. If 
 we were Mr. Buchanan, we would turn anchorite; 
 we would retire to some secluded cave, and there, 
 over a moderate allowance of the choicest wheat 
 whiskey, would we strictly meditate the thankless- 
 ness of mankind. What more, we beg leave to ask, 
 in behalf of an injured old gentleman, and outraged 
 O. P. F., would the Seceders have of the President ? 
 Has he not been theirs — corpus, unmentionables and 
 all ? Do they know a friend when they have one ? 
 For them a Fond Functionary has given up reputa- 
 tion, self-approval and a respectable place in history, 
 a re-election, sound sleep and a good appetite. What 
 more would they have ? Do they want their servant, 
 just sinking into the gaping grave, to close his cheq- 
 uered existence by committing a great number of 
 enormous pei juries ? "Will they not be fond of him 
 unless he will forswear himself? "Will they keep no 
 faith with this too confiding ally? lie has loved 
 them to doting. And what is his reward ? Poor 
 old man ! 
 
 February 4, 18C1. 
 
 DR. TYLER'S DIAGNOSIS. 
 
 "We are happy to perceive that in these days of ex- 
 citement, one moderate man — one exceedingly mod- 
 erate man — the most moderate man of modern times 
 — a man without the slightest pretension to ability of 
 any sort, is still in full possession of his inkstand and
 
 YOURS TRULY. 129 
 
 pen, if not his tongue. We need hardly say that we 
 allude to John Tyler, of Virginia, whose recent visit 
 to Washington, if it has not saved the Union, has at 
 least produced a correspondence enlivened by the united 
 abilities of Mr. Tyler and Mr. James Buchanan. That 
 correspondence, too precious not to print, is now be- 
 fore us. Seven elegant epistles have been added to 
 the literature of our language, and of these we beg 
 leave to offer to the eager reader the following com- 
 pendious abstract : 
 
 No. I. Mr. Tyler informs Mr. Buchanan that he 
 has taken lodgings at Brown's Hotel, in order to pre- 
 serve the peace of the country ; and wishes to know 
 when he can be " received " at the White House. 
 
 No. II. " This evening at eight o'clock, or to-mor- 
 row morning as early as you please," responds the 
 hospitable B. 
 
 No. III. Mr. Tyler represents to Mr. Buchanan 
 that " his health is too delicate to make it prudent for 
 him to encounter the night air." He will therefore 
 call in the bright, rosy morning. 
 
 No. IV. '-Why is the 'Brooklyn' frigate sent South, 
 Mr. Buchanan ?" fiercely asks Mr. J. Tyler. 
 
 No. Y. " An errand of mercy and relief," responds 
 our beloved B. 
 
 No. YI. " Why are you planting cannon at Fort 
 Monroe ?" interrogates J. T. 
 
 No. VII. " I will inquire and let you know," re- 
 plies J. B. 
 
 Here the thing breaks off. We have no words in 
 which to express our sense of the exceeding astuteness, 
 G*
 
 130 THE STATUS QUO. 
 
 courtesy, vigor, elegance, profundity, conciseness and 
 general anti-sesquipedality of these letters. We are 
 only troubled to think that so dignified a beginning 
 should have had so lame and impotent a conclusion. 
 If Mr. Tyler had only followed up the struggle with 
 Xumber Eight — if our President had but sent off 
 Xumber Xine — if Mr. Tyler had then countered with 
 his Ten — if Mr. Buchanan had immediately got in 
 his Eleven, to be followed by a smart delivery of Mr. 
 Tyler's Twelve, who knows what these champions 
 might have accomplished after a mutual polishing, 
 we will say up to Round CXL ? As it was, Mr. Tyler 
 could only write to the Governor of Yirginia, to say 
 that he had nothing to say — to report that he had 
 nothing to report — to inform his Excellency that there 
 was nothing of which to inform him. " I have great 
 confidence," observes Dr. Tyler, " in the action of my 
 pill called the ' status quo.' Mr. Buchanan promised 
 to take the ' status quo,' but no ' status quo' would he 
 after all take ; in consequence of which Executive 
 disinclination, the President is in a state of 'status 
 qu<>,' I am in a state of ' status quo,' Virginia is ditto, 
 and the country is ditto." Thus terminated Dr. Ty- 
 ler's visit, and to Virginia did he return with his de- 
 spised and ill-treated bolus. We are sorry to notice 
 that he was not " admitted into the inner vestibule 
 of the Cabinet." To be sure we do not exactly un- 
 derstand what an " inner vestibule" may be ; but we 
 are satisfied that it is such a sanctum sanctorum, such 
 a place of places, and such a closet of closets that if 
 Mr. Tyler had therein met Mr. Buchanan, and had
 
 AN IX FA XT GOVERNMENT. 131 
 
 suddenly presented the " status quo" in a mild me- 
 dium of Monongaliela to the President, what with the 
 surprise and the spirits, the "status quo" would have 
 glided down the Exeeutivc oesophagus into the Exeo- 
 utive stomach, and so in a state of chyme through the 
 Presidential pylorus into the next proper place in the 
 Presidential person — and all with the happiest possi- 
 ble effects. But it is useless to speculate. What is 
 the value of a doctor, when the patient pitches his 
 medicines out of the window ? "What could Dr. Tyler 
 do when Mr. Buchanan steadily refused to take his 
 physic ? " What could he do," says the reader, " but 
 write another letter to somebody else ?" Sir, or Mad- 
 am, that is precisely what he did. 
 
 February 8, 1S61. 
 
 THE MONTGOMERY MUDDLE— A SPECIMEN DAY. 
 
 Me. Thomas Carlyle has given somewhere a droll 
 and piquantly cynical description of a new-born baby, 
 with its pink skin, its irrelevant motions, and its many 
 and meaningless wants. A new Government, when 
 extemporized, not because it is needed, when rather 
 it starts from a stercoraceous bed of corruption and 
 venality, is always the object of laughter to settled 
 States and solid statesmen. In its assumption of 
 regal airs, in its strut and swagger, in its monkeyfied 
 politics, it reminds us of nothing more forcibly than
 
 132 THE BUSINESS OF BEGINNERS. 
 
 of " The Two Eight Kings of Brentford"' in " The 
 Rehearsal :" 
 
 1st lung. Hasten, brother King, we are sent from above. 
 
 2d King. Let us move, let us move — 
 Move to remove the fate 
 Of Brentford's long united state. 
 
 1st King. Tarra, ran tarra, full cast by south. 
 
 2d King. We sail with thunder in our mouth ; 
 Busy, busy, busy, we bustle along. 
 
 Or if we may be permitted to make another quota- 
 tion from the same pregnant play, it shall be this : 
 
 King's Phys. What man is this that dares disturb our feast. 
 Drawcansir. He that dares drink, and for that drink dares die ; 
 And knowing this dares yet drink on, am I ! 
 
 AVe suspect that there are a sufficient number of 
 Drawcansirs in the Southern armies who not only dare 
 drink, and dare die for drink, but who would be very 
 apt to die without drink ; yet we take it for granted 
 that the men of Montgomery are all solid philoso- 
 phers, who leave liquor to the poets and the common 
 soldiers, and whose sole and sublime amusements are 
 the construction of paper Constitutions, the begetting 
 of bodies politic, the evocation of cash out of chaos, 
 and the general transmogrification of a small slice of 
 the late Union into a Confederacy. The millinery 
 department of Mr. Jefferson Davis's new political 
 concern seems, however, to make the weightiest drafts 
 upon the Southern Congressional intellect. A nation 
 without a flag is no nation at all — that sublime truth,
 
 THEN, UP WITH THE BANNER! 133 
 
 at least, lias dawned upon the Southern Confederated 
 mind. Confederate Curry, of Alabama, the other 
 day brought a bushel of flags, of striped and of starry 
 flags, of white, red and blue flags before the Congress, 
 and exhibited them to the delegates just as that ab- 
 horred creature, a Yankee peddler, shows his rainbow 
 merchandize to the old ladies. One he dwelt upon 
 affectionately, as it was " designed by a gentleman of 
 rare intellectual endowments ;" and upon its ample 
 and variegated folds the eagle was preserved in all 
 his plumed and pugnacious perfection. The name 
 of the rare and intellectual gentleman is not given ; 
 but with all the rarity of his intellectual powers, his 
 pipe was soon put out, so to speak, by a lady, who 
 sent a piece of patch-work which was exceedingly 
 admired — a remarkable fact, since it is said to " pre- 
 serve much of the resemblance of the dear old flag," 
 which we should not think would make it exceedingly 
 beautiful in the eyes of thieves and traitors. The 
 Congress, being much dazzled by all this display of 
 bunting, referred the whole subject to the Flag Com- 
 mittee, which, without delay, has created and reported 
 the necessary banner. Thus the Confederacy is pro- 
 vided for in that respect at least, and what more can 
 it desire ? 
 
 Cash, clearly ; for even a Southern Confederacy 
 cannot live upon loquacity alone. Cash, therefore, 
 the Congress has proceeded to raise, or rather, not to 
 speak with frightful inaccuracy, has resolved to raise, 
 to the extent of fifteen millions, whenever anybody 
 with more bullion than brains will lend that triflina*
 
 134 MAKING THE MARE GO. 
 
 sum for eight per cent. One cannot but notice the 
 exceeding modesty of this proposition, and particu- 
 larly the high rate of interest which the Confederates 
 promise to pay. The Rothschilds will be upon their 
 knees for that loan, and, with tears in their eyes, the 
 Barings will beg for it. But what we exceedingly 
 wonder at, is the moderation of Congress. "Why limit 
 the "raise" to $15,000,000? Why not resolve to 
 borrow $150,000,000 ? It will be just as easy to ob- 
 tain the larger sum as the lesser, and it hardly appears 
 respectable for the new nation to set itself up in busi- 
 ness upon a petty fifteen million capital. "What will 
 the pickings and stealings, so necessary for the devel- 
 opment of patriotism, be worth with such a trifling 
 stock as that to filch from % "Why it will hardly keep 
 some men, heads and fronts of the Confederacy, too, 
 in pocket money for a quarter ! Do you suppose that 
 peculators who only stood by the United States while 
 there was a dollar in the treasury, which they could 
 " convey," will render their inestimable services for 
 any such petty plunder ? 
 
 Then, too, we are sorry to say that the Congress, 
 on this same specimen day, wasted its precious time 
 in hearing petitions for patents, and in referring them. 
 Now when we consider that discovery and invention 
 are shown by the facts and the figures to be quite out 
 of the Southern line, we cannot but regret to see the 
 energy of the Congress Ayasted in raising a Patent 
 Committee at all. \\\ 185(5 — and other years will 
 show a like proportion — South Carolina took out St Vt n 
 letters patent; Georgia, nine j Florida, one; Ala-
 
 THE MARE GOES BUT SLOWLY. 135 
 
 bama, eleven ; Louisiana, twenty-four / all the Slave 
 States, two hundred and ninety-one against one thou- 
 sand nine hundred and eighty-two taken ont by the 
 Free States. There would seem to be several things 
 making more imperative demands upon the Confed- 
 erate Congress than a Patent Office. 
 
 A poor but honest State, struggling with financial 
 difficulties, and striving in good faith to secure a po- 
 sition in the family of nations, is worthy of the respect 
 of all mankind ; but a State seeking existence at the 
 cost of a cruel and unnecessary rebellion ; a State false 
 to its traditions, and traitorous out of mere petulance, 
 must be very strong indeed in money, men, and all 
 other material resources, in order to maintain itself. 
 The South cannot complain that it has been slandered 
 by its foes. It stands to-day self-accused and self- 
 convicted. From its own newspapers, and from the 
 speeches of its leading men, and by their own pas- 
 sionate confession, we can prove it behindhand in 
 commerce, in intelligent agriculture, in letters and 
 in popular enlightenment. Governor Wise has said 
 this over and over again, in numberless letters, of his 
 own State of Virginia; and what is true of Virginia 
 is true of her Southern sisters. Do the really intelli- 
 gent men of these unfortunate States, imagine that 
 acts of Congress, whether in Montgomery or in "Wash- 
 ington, will bring wealth, industry, prudence, energy 
 — lines of steamers, miles of railway, great commercial 
 centres ? Secede, and secede again, but the curse and 
 blight of Slavery will still remain ! It will be a les- 
 son to the world ; it will fill a sad but priceless chap-
 
 136 UNITED WE STAND. 
 
 ter in history ; but we may well ask that our erring 
 brethren may be spared the sorrow and mortification 
 of teaching it. 
 
 March 11, 1861. 
 
 READY-MADE UNITY AND THE SOCIETY FOR ITS 
 PROMOTION. 
 
 It is a pleasant thing for brethren to dwell together 
 in unity. There can be no mistake about it. The 
 Scriptures say so, and " The American Society for 
 Promoting National Unity" backs up the Scripture ; 
 so that the thing may be considered as good as settled. 
 Especially when we consider that Samuel and Sidney 
 Morse, Hubbard Winslow and Seth Bliss indorse the 
 Society, and that in so doing they approve the Scrip- 
 tures. Gentlemen amorous of unity could not cer- 
 tainly have done a more sensible thing than to begin 
 by uniting themselves. It is all very proper. The 
 Patent Soap has its Company, and so has the cele- 
 brated Paste Blacking — and why not Unity ? — not a 
 Unitary Home, for that the gods forbid ! — not a Uni- 
 tarian Unity, for that would hardly suit those mem- 
 bers whose names are as yet published — but what we 
 may call a Religious-and-Political Unity — designed, 
 as we are informed, to make everybody of one mind 
 with everybody else upon the subject of Slavery — that 
 mind being also The Journal-of- Commerce mind, the 
 bias of which is, -\ve presume, not uncertain. 
 
 We are inclined to think that The American Unity
 
 AFTER THE ABOLITIONISTS. 137 
 
 Society has cut out rather more work for itself than it 
 will be able to accomplish during the remainder of 
 the present century. It is morally impossible for men 
 to be united upon this topic. The man who owns a 
 man will never agree with the man who is owned. 
 Here is the first fatal split ; and nine hundred Morse 
 Societies, working for nine thousand years, could not 
 alter that primal, elementary and discouraging fact. 
 Even though men who do not own slaves may now 
 and then agree with slave owners, yet the number 
 even of these must always be small, compared with 
 the number of those who do not so agree. People 
 who cannot read Greek, and who have not been en- 
 lightened upon the signification of a certain little 
 Greek word of six letters, will not unite upon this 
 point with gentlemen whose consciences are in their 
 lexicons. 
 
 The Society of ^National Unity intends to go to 
 work upon what in medicine would be called a coun- 
 ter-irritant plan. According to The Journal of Com- 
 merce, the Society is " to employ a small army of tal- 
 ented lecturers to follow in the wake of or to precede 
 Abolition lecturers, to pluck up the Abolition tares, 
 and destroy them." Well, this is one way of promot- 
 ing Unity, we must confess. "We should very much 
 like to see Mr. Morse's " small army of talented lec- 
 turers" wrestling with Mr. Parker Pillsbury, and hold- 
 ing high debate with Mrs. Lucy Stone. How the 
 " talented lecturers" would fare in the scrimmage, or 
 in what woeful plight they would come out of it, we 
 can easily imagine ; but how these mighty debaters,
 
 138 MISINTERPRETING THE FATHERS. 
 
 stirring up villages, distracting societies, and making 
 the squabble chronic, -would promote Unity is more 
 than we can see. 
 
 The American Unity Society has " briefly indicated 
 its views" in what it calls a " Programme." It be- 
 gins with an attempt, cold-blooded, specious and de- 
 liberate, to falsify history — not a very good way of 
 promoting Unity, we would suggest. We quote from 
 the " Programme :" 
 
 " The popular declaration that all men are created 
 equal and entitled to liberty, intended to embody the 
 sentiment of our ancestors respecting the doctrine of 
 divine right of kings and nobles, and perhaps also the 
 more doubtful sentiment of the French school, may 
 be understood to indicate both a sublime truth and a 
 pernicious error. Men are created equally free to do 
 the will of God, and will be equally rewarded by him 
 according to their deeds. But they are not created 
 equal in personal endowments, nor in their relations 
 to providential arrangements." 
 
 There are so many falsehoods in these few lines, 
 that we hardly know where to begin their exposure. 
 But, in the first place, we say that no honest construc- 
 tion of the text warrants the assertion that our fathers 
 referred, in these great sentences, to the divine right 
 of kings and nobles alone. They do not say anything 
 about "government" in the beginning. They start 
 with a pure, bold, naked abstraction, independent of 
 governmental forms altogether. Read the words: 
 " "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
 are created equal ; that they are endowed by their
 
 WHY GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED. 139 
 
 Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among 
 these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
 There is the proposition. "What follows ? " That to 
 secure these rights, governments are instituted." JSTot 
 rights for government, but government for rights, 
 higher, holier than the government itself. Govern- 
 ment is secondary to right — that is what Thomas Jef- 
 ferson meant to say, and did say, with a clearness 
 which no guess nor gloss can obscure. 
 
 Then see how these new " Unitarians" dishonestly 
 — yes, that is the word ; we shall not change it — dis- 
 honestly muddle the great charter ! " Men are qvq- 
 &tedf?>ee to do the will of God, and will be equally 
 rewarded by him." That is : a man is free to go 
 to a prayer-meeting, to toil without wages, to live 
 wretchedly, and to have no hope but in death — that 
 is doing the will of God ; but he is not free to better 
 his condition ; he is not free to run away, he is not 
 free to keep his own wife from concubinage, nor his 
 own children from vendue. He will be " equally re- 
 warded by God" — was there one man in the Ameri- 
 can Congress who understood " equal" in that sense ? 
 We do not believe that there was ; and we do not be- 
 lieve that Morse & Co. believe so. "What is that ugly 
 word " Liberty" doing in the Declaration % Liberty 
 applies only to political status. Except in purely 
 theological discussions, what has " a free and equal 
 slave" to do with Liberty ? Ah ! say Morse & Co., 
 the Fathers meant by using that word to refer to 
 " the more doubtful sentiment of the French school." 
 "What is this " doubtful sentiment ?" "Why are not
 
 140 PROVIDENCE AND FATE. 
 
 Messrs. Morse, Winslow and Bliss a little more ex- 
 plicit ? Why do they undertake to slander, not 
 Thomas Jefferson who had Gallic proclivities, but 
 such a man as John Adams, who hated French poli- 
 tics and French reforms ? It would not have been 
 altogether safe for Mr. Samuel J. B. Morse to have 
 told John Adams that the Declaration to which he 
 had deliberately set his hand, incorporated any 
 " doubtful sentiment of the French school." We can 
 imagine the old man kindling into sublime wrath, and 
 with fiery energy pouring out hot words of scorn and 
 of refutation. We can imagine him exclaiming: " No, 
 sir ! I did not mean any doubtful sentiment of the 
 French school — I meant the undoubted sentiment of 
 the old Saxon school ; and I yet stand by my faith, sir !" 
 We presume that our readers have already had 
 enough of the "Programme." We promise not to 
 detain them much longer, but here is a gem of a sen- 
 tence : " It is," so say the Programmarians, " by con- 
 founding the providential with the moral, instead of 
 regarding the former as means wisely employed by 
 the latter, that men become infidel and radical in 
 their schemes of reformation." What are the men 
 who say this? Are they Platonists or Christians? 
 Do they hold to the divirux providentiae, fatalis dis- 
 positio? Do they literally interpret the maxim, 
 "Whatever is, is right ?" Does "providential" mean 
 something moral sometimes, and sometimes immoral, 
 but whatever its character, in its sense of fatal, provi- 
 dential? If so, then Apuleius telling dirty Platonic 
 stories was as good a Christian as Prof. Morse is.
 
 THE FAMILY GUNS. 141 
 
 But there is something so hideous in this hair- 
 splitting, in these quiddities and quodlibets with 
 which men strive to cover the immorality and the im- 
 policy of Slavery, that we do not care at present to 
 pursue the subject. There is more " richness" in the 
 " Unitary Programme ;" but let these reflections suf- 
 fice at least for to-day. 
 
 March 28, 1861. 
 
 A PRIVATE BATTERY. 
 
 We find the following paragraph in the Charleston 
 (S. C.) correspondence of a contemporary : 
 
 " A salute was fired this afternoon by Captain James "W. 
 Meriditk's private battery in honor of the ratification of the 
 Constitution by South Carolina, and the hoisting of the Con- 
 federate States flag." 
 
 Well, in the rapid onset of nineteenth century civi- 
 lization, beautifully bewritten and philosophized as it 
 has been, Charleston does outrun !N"ew York. There 
 are a hundred things which are handy to have in the 
 house. Mr. Toodles knew it ; Mrs. Toodles knew it ; 
 we all know it. But do ever the most prudent of us 
 think of providing, keeping, maintaining, casting, 
 mounting, loading, priming and discharging a private 
 battery? There were private fortifications, as we 
 have been informed, in the Middle Ages. There were 
 certain counterscarps, ravelins and moats in My Uncle 
 Toby's garden, which might be generically classed 
 under the head of " Private Battery." Burglars go
 
 142 A WIFE'S ARMS. 
 
 about with their pockets full of six-shooters — real pri- 
 vate batteries. But in these peaceful times, at least 
 in these peaceful regions, we buy pots, pans, kettles, 
 cooking-ranges ; but we do not buy private batteries. 
 Mrs. Younghusband does not say to the lord of her 
 bosom : " My love, there is the nicest little Paixhan, 
 second-hand and dirt-cheap, just round the corner — 
 and the man throws in the balls, my dear — and I 
 have found saltpetre going for a song, in a charming 
 shop, and sulphur for nothing at all, and we can grind 
 our own powder, love ! and Tommy will help us to 
 cast bullets, and, bless my soul ! there is a small-arms 
 manufacturer just below us, with the neatest swords 
 that you ever saw — and do not forget to remind John 
 that we are out of cartridges, and really the gardener 
 is omite behindhand with his ditch. We may be as- 
 saulted to-morrow, Mr. Younghusband. I wish you 
 would not be forever neglecting our defenses." 
 
 Does this sort of small talk season the South Caro- 
 lina cakes and coffee ? Obviously — for has not Mr. 
 James W. Meredith put up, erected and established 
 a private battery ? Where did he get his guns ? 
 Really, we do not know ! lie cast them, we suppose. 
 South Carolina has every blessing which the Creator 
 has ever bestowed upon any State — why should she not 
 have one more, to wit, a brass mine ? She expects all 
 the results of human ingenuity to come begging for bar- 
 ter at her door — why should not trampers arrive there 
 now and then with a few seventv-sixe- at a bargain ? 
 Perhaps Mr. James W. Meredith bought the guns 
 and gave his note for the purchase money. Perhaps —
 
 DOMESTIC INTBENCHMENTS. 143 
 
 But why should we speculate? Why should the 
 fact — that is to say, the exceedingly remote fact — that 
 these private guns may be pointed at our private and 
 particular business and bosoms, discompose us into 
 querulous interrogatory ? It will be a long time, we 
 fancy, before we shall see Mr. James W. Meredith's 
 guns gaping in this neighborhood. That battery is a 
 fixture. It is for the protection of Capt. Meredith, 
 Mrs. Meredith and all the little Merediths! Old 
 Meredith maintains a battery that he may breakfast, 
 dine, sup, sleep, sow, reap and nog at his ease. It 
 will be an improvident procedure, and one which we 
 hope Mi's. Captain will not consent to, for Meredith 
 to permit the battery to go off the place. " We nei- 
 ther borrow nor lend batteries," should be the Mere- 
 dith legend. "Buy your own batteries," should be 
 the steady answer upon application for a loan. 
 
 It is not all of us who can afford the luxury of a 
 " Private Battery." We have seen fearful statistics of 
 the actual cost of discharging once a single gun. To 
 say nothing of the expense of private gunners and 
 swabbers and rammers and powder-monkeys. But 
 Meredith can do it, we suppose. Meredith can keep 
 horses and slaves and private batteries — no end of 
 them, to be sure ! Meredith's cotton is not mortgaged 
 up to the last sprout. Meredith is flush. A whole 
 day's bombardment would be a bagatelle to Mere- 
 dith. 
 
 Of what description are Meredith's guns ? Upon 
 our life and soul, we do not know. How many ? 
 We really do not know. Long Toms, Swivels, Car-
 
 144 THE MEAN AND MISE11LY NORTH. 
 
 ronades ? Again, we say we do not know. How 
 should we ? We have never kept a Private Battery. 
 
 April 12, 1861. 
 
 SOUTHERN NOTIONS OF THE NORTH. 
 
 The Southern States have heretofore known little 
 enough of the North ; from which we infer that our 
 summer visitors from those regions have either been 
 too intent upon their juleps, or too much engrossed in 
 purchasing merchandize, to carry back for the en- 
 lightenment of their stay-at-home neighbors much 
 valuable fruit of intelligent observation. We remem- 
 ber to have met and to have conversed with a clever 
 Yankee woman who undertook to teach the ideas of 
 half a dozen boys and girls to shoot, upon a Yirginian 
 plantation. She told us that the general opinion of 
 those about her was that we are so poor and so mean 
 that we are ready to do almost anything for a shilling, 
 and absolutely anything for two shillings and six- 
 pence. So we find at this time the Southern news- 
 papers roaring in a fussy and fiery way about "hordes" 
 of Northern "mercenaries" sent to cut the general 
 Southern throat. Upon these two words innumerable 
 changes are rung, and of them two comments will 
 dispose. 
 
 " A horde," according to our idea, is a gang of men 
 intent upon plunder ; and " hordes" usually go where 
 there is something beside "niggers" to steal. Rome 
 was a fair prize for the Goths ; but all the Confeder-
 
 THE NORTHERN MERCENARIES. 145 
 
 ate States together would hardly furnish " loot" enough 
 for a pair of rapacious regiments — certainly not enough 
 to tempt men from the comforts of home to the dis- 
 comforts of the field. Nine-tenths of the wealth of 
 the South is in fancy human stock ; of no particular 
 value to the soldier of fortune — of no value at all to 
 the patriotic Northern volunteer. Mercenary, indeed ! 
 These noble soldiers who have just left home and 
 comfort and their loved ones to fight the battle of 
 the Constitution, asking no recompense but the 
 consciousness of rectitude — mercenaries! If so, then 
 Warren and Washington, then Hamilton and Schuy- 
 ler were mercenaries ! If so, who would not be a 
 mercenary ? 
 
 The men of the North know indeed the value of 
 money. They know what it will do ; and they know, 
 as Southern rebels will find out to their cost, just the 
 right time to spend it. History hardly records such 
 a profuse, yet enlightened liberality as that which the 
 Northern States have exhibited. It is hardly an ex- 
 aggeration to say, that the entire wealth of cities and 
 towns, of private corporations and of individuals, has 
 been tendered to the Government upon its own terms. 
 We do not believe there are ten thousand persons in 
 Massachusetts who have given nothing or done noth- 
 ing for the cause. And that which is true of Massa- 
 chusetts is true of every other free State. Mercena- 
 ries, indeed ! We do not have to put the screws upon 
 our bank directors here to obtain a public loan. There 
 is a race of giving and a competition of munificence. 
 
 This in time will, we hope, satisfy our quondam 
 7
 
 146 FATAL MISTAKES. 
 
 brethren in Virginia, South Carolina and other terri- 
 tories of the United States, that we are not so miser- 
 ably poor as they have been kind enough to suppose. 
 After all we have given to the sacred cause of Law 
 and Order, we have still a dollar or so left ; and can 
 even borrow a little should our present stock fail us. 
 But we have hardly touched the popular pocket yet. 
 So the sooner the subjects of Jefferson Davis stop lay- 
 ing that particularly flattering unction to their souls 
 — that silly notion that we are exceedingly poor — the 
 less they will by-and-by be disappointed. Our prop- 
 erty is n't fugacious — has n't two legs — does n't run 
 away or get sick and die. 
 
 Another Southern notion is that the moment we 
 begin to be pinched and bread to grow dear, we shall 
 all be under the domination of King Mob and his 
 army of starving artisans. They do not seem to take 
 into account the fact which they will be sternly com- 
 pelled to take into account ere long, that war will 
 make employment for our able-bodied men. If there 
 should he mobs the law will put them down, just as 
 at the South mobs put down the law. 
 
 Still another Southern mistake is that the rebellion 
 has a powerful party at the ISTorth. Slavery once had 
 such a party; but men, whatever may be their Pro- 
 Shivery views, do not care to be themselves slaves. 
 The Xorth is pretty well united now by a common 
 danger. Here and there a grumbler pursues his avo- 
 cation, but he is careful not to be loud in the indul- 
 gence of his favorite pastime. Thus far, there is really 
 no difference of opinion worth mentioning.
 
 "DE LUNATICO INQUIRENDO." 147 
 
 One Southern newspaper now before us says : " The 
 North is mad." In one sense, it certainly is — some- 
 what angry it certainly is ; but we have all around 
 us at all hours of the day and night, cumulative evi- 
 dence that there is a method in this Northern mad- 
 ness. For lunatics, we arc getting on remarkably 
 well. From that eminent lunatic, Winfield Scott, 
 down to private dotards in the ranks, there is no 
 alarming evidence of insanity. Northern theories of 
 liberty and of human equality seem to be hardening 
 into pretty substantial practice. 
 
 The tone of the Southern newspapers, when speak- 
 ing of the wealthy, intelligent and patriotic North as 
 one great anarchy, and of the Northern people as " a 
 godless mob'' of " Puritans, Freelovers, Abolitionists, 
 Mormons, Atheists and Amalgamationists," has given 
 the gentlemen who have cast away the slave-whip for 
 the sword quite a mistaken notion of our resources as 
 well as of our character. Consequently, having said to 
 us in the elegant language of Marshal Rynders, " We 
 do n't believe a word in your d — d philanthropy," they 
 consider that by saying so they have floored us. "We beg 
 leave to announce to them that they will find no free- 
 love in our fire-arms, no irreligion in our revolvers, 
 no theories in our bombardments, no Mormonism in 
 our musketry, no cant in our commissariat, and no 
 niggardliness in our military chests. We are not wild 
 Indians — we are not all mulattoes — we are not all 
 mere shop-keepers — we are not all misers — we are 
 not all mobocrats — some of us at least are honest
 
 148 FALSE CHARGES. 
 
 men, with no particular inclination to be beaten, but 
 with a decided inclination to resist injury. 
 
 April 29, 1801. 
 
 ALEXANDER THE BOUNCER. 
 
 All great men have their weak side. Alexander of 
 Macedon was given to grog. Alexander, of Georgia, 
 Y. P. C. S., is given to gammon. His weakness is 
 " to say the thing that is not" — this being the peri- 
 phrastical way in which Dean Swift's fastidious 
 Houyhnhnms always spoke of falsehood and of falsi- 
 fiers. The Hon. V. P. Alex. Ham. Stephens upon 
 arriving at Atlanta, Ga., was "received by a large 
 crowd ;" and in return he ungratefully made a speech 
 calculated largely to delude the " large crowd," and 
 considerably to lower himself in the estimation of 
 old-fashioned folk with a prejudice in favor of the 
 truth. From a great variety of mendacities, we select 
 the following as being, to use the words of Goldsmith, 
 the " damnable bounce" of the occasion. 
 
 " A threatening war is upon us, made by those who have 
 no regard for right. "We fight for our homes ! They for 
 money. The hirelings and mercenaries of the North are all 
 hand and hand against you." 
 
 Xow, Stephens, what did you mean by that ? Is 
 not Washington just as much the home of the Massa- 
 chusetts man as of the Georgian ? You took a pretty 
 long journey to Yirginia to persuade men from the
 
 ALEXANDER CROSS-EXAMINED. 149 
 
 path of honor and of loyalty. "Were you at home 
 there? And if so, why are not our [New York and 
 other regiments at home in Washington ? And be- 
 ing there, to defend what should be the home of every 
 true American citizen, and is to all intents and pur- 
 poses the home of his representatives, by what au- 
 thority, upon what pretense, do you call these con- 
 sistent and courageous men " mercenaries and hire- 
 lings !" "What is the " hireling ?" One who serves 
 for wages. Has the Seventh Regiment gone to Wash- 
 ington upon a money-making excursion ? Have all 
 these brave fellows enlisted for the sake of pay, which 
 is about as muchj?er annum as some of them could 
 at their proper avocations make in a month — to say 
 nothing of risk to health and life — nothing of absence 
 from their families ? " Hirelings," forsooth ! When 
 you go to the Confederate treasury to draw your 
 quarter's salary, O Alexander — mind, we do not say 
 that you will get it — pray will you then be a hireling ? 
 
 Mercenaries are those who are " retained as serving 
 for pay" — as, for example, Jefferson Davis, Alexander 
 H. Stephens and other Confederate notabilities — for 
 pay of some kind they certainly intend to get, either 
 in praise or power or pence. The soldiers of the 
 United States may receive a pittance; but if this 
 sweet squad of Confederate officials are not merce- 
 nary, why are our brave militia-men mercenary ? — 
 our soldiers extemporised from the field, the factory 
 and every haunt of industry \ Answer that question, 
 Alexander ! 
 
 The rapidity with which an Italian buffo-singer can
 
 150 ECONOMY OF THE TRUTH. 
 
 deliver the words of his song is tediously slow in com- 
 parison with Mr. Stephens's volubility of untruths. 
 If we might speak a little coarsely, being somewhat 
 provoked, we would say that he lies like lightning. 
 He told the Atalantese a succession of Munchausen 
 stories — how Maryland had resolved "to a man to 
 stand by the South" — how " all the public buildings 
 in Washington have been mined for the purpose of 
 destroying them" — how an attempt had been made 
 " to burn the whole city of Norfolk" — how only the 
 interposition of Providence prevented a second " con- 
 flagration of Moscow." All these agreeable and in- 
 genious fictions and Fernando-Mendez-Pinto-ish rec- 
 reations were strangely diversified by strong threads 
 of piety and patronizing allusions to the Deity, com- 
 plimentary observations on Providence, with little 
 prayers here and there interpolated. In fine, a more 
 curious olla of a speech we, who have read many 
 speeches, do not remember. So having finished — 
 that is, having exhausted his invention — the Vice- 
 President went to bed to dream in a good, improving, 
 orthodox way of Ananias and Sapphira. 
 
 Mercenaries of the North ! — hirelings of New Eng- 
 land, of New York, of Pennsylvania ! " Goths and 
 Vandals" though, according to Gov. Pickens, you be, 
 pray, whatever may happen, try to tell the truth. 
 See what a mean figure V. P. Alexander cuts, stand- 
 ing in a tavern balcony, retailing silly gossip to his 
 gaping dupes! 
 
 A lie is like a tumbler of soda-water. It foams 
 and frizzes, and is palatable at first, but in a moment
 
 SLAVE-HOLDING CHIVALRY. 151 
 
 is only fit to be thrown out at the window. Thus far the 
 Southern Confederacy has been mainly maintained 
 by public fibs, by private fibs, by the fib telegraphic, 
 the fib editorial, the fib diplomatic, the fib epistolary 
 and the fib oratorical. We think that there must 
 have been many Gascons among the original founders 
 of South Carolina, and if so, how have they improved 
 upon their ancestors ! — upon those worthy people who 
 did now and then tell the truth by accident ! 
 
 May 11, 1861. 
 
 ROUNDHEADS AND CAVALIERS. 
 
 "What is chivalry ? What is a chevalier ? Why, be- 
 cause a person is a man-owner should he be styled a 
 horseman ? Or why call him a chevalier, if you come 
 to that, simply because he is an ass ? What is there 
 in the fact that a man is tolerably white and lives in 
 Virginia, by the toil of others, which should induce 
 The London Spectator, for instance, to liken him to 
 Prince Rupert or to Peveril of the Peak ? Or to go 
 further back, if you look into the charming pages of 
 Froissart, you do not find that Sir Robert de Namur 
 tarred and feathered anybody ; that John of Gaunt 
 owned "niggers ;" that Sir Charles de Montmorency 
 was addicted to cock-tails before breakfast, or that 
 Lord Robert d'Artois was a tavern-brawler. The 
 fascinating chronicle tells you of "honorable enter- 
 prises, noble adventures and deeds of arms ;" but 
 such really do not remind you of anything done by
 
 152 OLD DOMINION CHEVALIERS. 
 
 Preston Brooks, or Henry A. "Wise or John Tyler. 
 Even if the English " Cavaliers"' did " plant Maryland 
 and Virginia," which is not true, although so often 
 and so confidently asserted, the condition of very con- 
 siderable portions of both of those States would seem 
 to indicate a sad deterioration of the blood, through 
 the admixture of that of several Royal African houses 
 and overthrown black Stuarts. With all their faults, 
 neither few nor small, the English cavaliers were 
 gentlemen, and did neither mean things nor cruel 
 ones, as the Virginia cavaliers continually do. The 
 English cavalier would have been ashamed to get into 
 a tempest, torrent and whirlwind of wrath with a 
 woman — ?ome small school-mistress, perchance, who 
 had offended him by going to conventicle ; the Eng- 
 lish cavalier would have thought it a work below his 
 condition to arrest pedlars or to confiscate their packs ; 
 the English cavalier would have scorned captious and 
 unreasonable disloyalty to a long-established govern- 
 ment ; and the English cavalier, with as many pecu- 
 lations on his shoulders as now weigh down those of 
 Floyd, would hardly have attended at any court ex- 
 cept a Court of Justice. In short, the English cava- 
 lier was generally a gentleman, and the Virginian 
 cavalier is generally not a gentleman — a pretty broad 
 distinction. This Virginian gentleman, as the vulgar 
 error paints him — frank and generous to a fault, of 
 speckless honor, and even of a religious turn, quick 
 to resent a vile action, no matter where or by whom 
 committed — this Sir Roger de Coverley, of the Xew 
 "World, does not now exist, even if he ever existed;
 
 MISREPRESENTING THE PURITANS. 153 
 
 and figure as lie may in those dreadful novels which 
 only Virginians can write, his form and embodiment 
 could not be found in the Old Dominion, although, 
 for his production, a considerable premium were of- 
 fered to the exhausted treasury of that province. lie 
 is a myth now, perhaps he always was. 
 
 Then, again, it is a great mistake to suppose that 
 the opposition to slavery-extension, which the North- 
 ern States exhibit, is purely a Puritan feeling ; for a 
 deal of it is of old Dutch origin ; and more of it has 
 grown up in spite of Puritan predilection for a literal 
 interpretation of, and a strong respect for, the Hebrew 
 Scripture. The truth is, so far as the Scriptural argu- 
 ment is concerned, that the Puritanical spirits are at the 
 South, and holding slaves there by virtue of perverted 
 texts out of Genesis and Deuteronomy, and fine-spun 
 theories about the curse of Canaan. The Puritan 
 error, if such existed, happened to be precisely the 
 error into which the philosophical and religious slave- 
 holder always tumbles. He is the fanatic. He it is 
 who, honestly perhaps, opposes his crude and inter- 
 ested convictions to the decision of the rest of the 
 world. He it is who repeats a spectacle — too often, 
 alas ! exhibited — a spectacle of the fondness with 
 which human nature clings to a delusion all the more 
 fondly because it is a delusion. All the world knows 
 that the moral and economical argument is upon our 
 side. Nobody supposes it to be right to enslave men, 
 except those who have either a direct or indirect temp- 
 tation to enslave men. Which is nearest to that dark 
 side of the Puritan character which Southern news-
 
 154 SLAVE-HOLDING SUICIDAL. 
 
 papers sneer at — Dr. Fuller or Dr. Wayland ? How 
 much of a Hebrew was Dr. Channing ? On which 
 side is the Rabbi Raphall himself? 
 
 Men seem inclined to take it for granted that the 
 hostility to slavery is simply a religious one, and that 
 every Abolitionist has become so through his moral 
 convictions alone ; as if economy had had nothing to 
 do with the matter ; as if it had been left undemon- 
 strated that Slavery is bad policy ; as if there had not 
 been a strong appeal to the Anti-Slavery pocket as 
 well as the Anti-Slavery heart ; as if such books as 
 " The Impending Crisis" had never been written or 
 never read. But now all arguments against the insti- 
 tution have been left behind by the fatuity of slave- 
 holders themselves, who by their rude violence to the 
 Constitution, and their intolerable disregard of the 
 popular verdict, have shown that Slavery makes them 
 the enemies of peace, of law and of order, and is 
 therefore, through its influence in this way, the enemy 
 of, and inconsistent with, social happiness. This re- 
 sult, no matter from what point it may be viewed, is 
 utterly unnecessary. This Rebellion has come to 
 demonstrate how terribly damaging Slavery is to so- 
 cial character. The best friends, not merely of hu- 
 man, but especially of Southern happiness, are those 
 who seek to stay the hands of this madman, bent so 
 resolutely upon self-destruction. 
 
 June 6, 1861.
 
 WISES FLURRY. 155 
 
 WISE CONVALESCENT. 
 
 TViten t , a few days since, we heard from Gov. Wise, 
 he was in the hands of his medical man, taking his 
 pills and potions with a perseverance and a punctual- 
 ity which seems to have heen rewarded ; for his Ex- 
 cellency is now clothed at least, if not in his right 
 mind, and is making speeches with all that lunatic 
 force which has always, in the day of his bodily health 
 and strength, characterized his frenzied eloquence. 
 lie took the held in his finest fulgurant style, at 
 Richmond, Ya., on the 1st inst., though it is only 
 lately through The Charleston (S. C.) Courier that he 
 reaches us in red-hot report. lie followed Jefferson 
 Davis, and in the matter of fuss and fire, he floored 
 that official completely. In pure, unmitigated and 
 sublimely inventive mendacity, we are inclined to 
 think that Mr. Davis can give the Virginian any 
 odds, and then vanquish him ; but in the beautiful 
 art of saying nothing and of seeming to say a great 
 deal, Wise is still unsurpassed, nay, unapproached by 
 any mortal. In this speech, he is especially sangui- 
 nary ; for he spouts a campaign through the whole 
 of it, and puts us to the stand in a peroration. It is 
 all « lire," " blood," " the Lord of Hosts," " fiery bap- 
 tism," " rivers of blood," and at the end of this, our 
 inconsistent though brilliant orator, adds : " Be in 
 no haste — no hurry and flurry." ]STo flurry, quoth 
 he ! — that from a man vho lives, moves and has his 
 being in a flurry — who is, so to speak, an embodied 
 flurry ! No hurry — that to men who have precipi-
 
 156 -KB- DAVIS HtCOIIEREXT. 
 
 tated this wicked war, because they knew that the 
 least delay would he fatal to their criminal hopes ! 
 because they were afraid to give the Southern people 
 an opportunity of thinking! because time would surely 
 show their injuries to be imaginary ! Xo hurry and 
 flurry ! Why, without these there would have been 
 no secession of Virginia at all. Flurry was the be- 
 ginning of it, and hurry was its consummation ! 
 
 Both orators upon this occasion — both Davis and 
 Wise — seem to take it for granted that Virginia has 
 been dreadfully injured by the military movements 
 of the Government in that State. They graciously 
 permit us to fight, but insist upon themselves select- 
 ing the field, planning our campaigns, and directing 
 all our movements. For example, Davis, who has 
 made Virginia the battle-field quite as truly as we 
 have accepted it as such, says : " Upon every hill 
 which now overlooks Richmond, you have had and 
 will continue to have, camps containing soldiers from 
 every State of the Confederacy ; and to its remotest 
 limits every proud heart beats high with indignation 
 at the thought that the foot of the invader has been 
 set upon the soil of Old Virginia." That is to say : 
 this General Davis has transported his forces — horses, 
 foot-soldiers and artillery, to Virginia, to menace, and, 
 if he can, to capture the Federal Capital, and when 
 we meet him nothing daunted, he tells the Virginians 
 that ice have invaded their State ! There is an inco- 
 herence about this which can hardly be referred to 
 the utmost possible saturation in whisky. We should 
 have permitted the unmolested concentration of one
 
 YANKEE COWARDICE. 15 7 
 
 or two hundred thousand men upon this sacred soil 
 of Virginia — we should have allowed Washington to 
 fall an easy prey to the Confederate Army — we should 
 have gone on considering a hostile State as neutral, 
 while she was forging weapons for our destruction ; 
 but as we did not do this, as we saw fit to meet the 
 enemy upon his own soil before he could by his pres- 
 ence pollute ours, we are invaders, we are merce- 
 naries, we are assassins, we are incendiaries. Why do 
 not the lire-eaters of Virginia, instead of complain- 
 ing, thank us for giving them so large a provision of 
 their favorite diet ? What would they have said of 
 us if we had kept quietly at home ? 
 
 It is a blunder for a military man to boast. War 
 is to a considerable extent a matter of fortune and 
 mere chance — something at least which military his- 
 torians admit, although they may not be able to de- 
 fine it — must always be taken into account. Gover- 
 nor Wise says that he is " a civil soldier " — he is not, 
 certainly, a soldier military enough to avoid say- 
 ing : " Your true-blooded Yankee will never stand 
 still in the presence of cold steel." To this we can 
 make no retort without falling into the same error ; 
 but we may safely suggest that men are not likely to 
 run from an enemy whom, of their own free will and 
 mere motion, they have traveled several thousand 
 miles to meet. And when our armies have " ex- 
 tended their folds" — we quote the Wise words — 
 " around Virginia as does the anaconda around his 
 victim," we beg leave to suggest that the State has 
 quite as good a chance of remaining a victim as of
 
 158 DR. RUSSELL'S MISFORTUNES. 
 
 becoming a victor. " The tools to him who can use 
 them ;" but when a man or State or army has none, 
 what then is to be done ? Governor "Wise tells his 
 soldiers to " get a spear — a lance ! Manufacture your 
 blades from old iron, even though it be the tires of 
 your cart-wheels. Get a bit of carriage-spring and 
 grind and burnish it in the shape of a bowie-knife, 
 and put it to any sort of a handle, so that it be strong 
 — ash, hickory or oak.*' This looks desperate. When 
 Gov. Wise says, " Take a lesson from John Brown !" 
 when he condescends to say this, we think that a 
 slightly milder style of boasting would be safer and 
 more becoming. 
 
 June 19, 1861. 
 
 SLAVE-IIOLDEirS HONOR. 
 
 Dr.. William IT. Russell, the peripatetic philosopher 
 and friend of The London Times, complains, if we 
 may credit a telegram from Cairo " that his corres- 
 pondence has been tampered with by the Rebels, his 
 letters being altered, and in some cases not sent at 
 all."' Had this fact come sooner to the knowledge of 
 Mr. Russell, it would, we fear, have diminished his 
 relish for that celebrated bottle of Old Madeira which 
 he drank near Charleston, and his appetite for the 
 excellent official dinners eaten by him in Montgomery. 
 If anything could diminish the self-satisfaction of 
 The Thunderer, we should think it would be the 
 publication of the fact that, for so many weeks, and
 
 STEALING FROM "THE TIMES." 159 
 
 upon such a subject, its sacred columns have been 
 controlled by Davis, Cobb, and Benjamin. If any- 
 thing could change to something like an inclination 
 that stern neutrality which has puzzled us all, we 
 should think it would be the discovery that in its 
 august person, The Tunes has been made the victim 
 of petty larceny by the descendants of Prince Rupert 
 and other cavaliers. It may be an extenuation when 
 a man intends to pick your pocket, that in pursuit of 
 his purpose, he asks you to dinner, and accomplishes 
 his nefarious project while you are cutting his mut- 
 ton and sipping his champagne. We wish The 
 Times joy of its high-toned thieves, of its larcenous 
 cavaliers, of its cut-purses all of ancient families, of 
 its sneaks all with unexceptionable pedigrees ! Mr. 
 Russell is already at the West, and will soon be again 
 at the North. "We can promise that in neither quar- 
 ter will his letters be in danger. He may write them 
 with the perfect assurance that they will go forward 
 to their destination unopened, and of course unalter- 
 ed. We may be fanatics, but we do not steal ; we 
 may be mere shop-keepers, but we do not tamper 
 with the mails ; we may be bigots, but no letters are 
 opened in our Post-Oflices as they are in those of 
 England and Russia. 
 
 The stercoraceous power of Slavery to develop all 
 the cardinal virtues, has received another illustration. 
 Seedy patriots of Alabama, very much in debt to the 
 North, where distance from home lent an enchant- 
 ment to their persons, and a power as of triple brass 
 to their faces, feeling, when the miseries of maturity
 
 160 DARGAN' S LAW. 
 
 came upon them, at once a disinclination and a dis- 
 ability to meet their bills, have counseled with the 
 Lord High Chancellor Dargan of their State as to the 
 propriety and legality of repudiating. There never 
 was such a Chancellor for sagacity and profundity 
 and erudition as Dargan is. Dargan says at once : 
 "Do n't pay a red cent. These Northern creditors 
 are public enemies. In the name of Justinian, I 
 charge you to withhold the cash ! The Law of Nations 
 forbids payment and so do I ! If you pay so much as 
 a sixpence to your Northern creditors, I will have 
 you indicted !" Pleasing opinion ! Every debtor re- 
 fuses at once to pay, every bank to collect and every 
 public notary to protest. 
 
 Now, as between distinct and independent nations, 
 actual belligerents, Dargan is right in his law, al- 
 though it is a very barbarous law at the best. The 
 hardships of war have been in many ways mollified, 
 yet this vestige of ancient and savage hostilities still 
 remains. But under the circumstances of the present 
 conflict, there are two considerations — one moral and 
 the other legal — which will suggest themselves to 
 every intelligent and just man, even in the Confeder- 
 ate States. How far, in the first place, have these 
 hostilities been precipitated merely for the sake of 
 avoiding just pecuniary obligations? How many 
 men have become big-voiced Secessionists, because 
 their pockets were empty and their promises to pay 
 imminent ? Whatever hoar and antiquated Law, in 
 the person of a perjured Chancellor, may say, the 
 man who rebels in order that he may repudiate, is
 
 A REPUDIATING REBELLION. 161 
 
 both a traitor and a swindler, and worthy of the 
 jail should he escape the gibbet. In spite of Law, 
 he is still a liar, and no possible number of pre- 
 cedents can give him a sweet character. In a time 
 of peace, as in a time of war, he would find some 
 specious and sneaking excuse for avoiding his pro- 
 mises to pay. 
 
 In a war like the present there is no reason why 
 obligations as between man and man should not re- 
 main in full force. It is true that Alabama has as- 
 serted herself to be an independent State, but so, for 
 most of the essential wants of trade, she has always 
 been. Our merchants could only sue her citizens in 
 her own courts, except under accidental circumstan- 
 ces. She does not pretend, no seceding State can 
 philosophically claim, to have so altered her political 
 relations that foreign creditors cannot collect de- 
 mands in her own courts. It is claimed that the State 
 of New York is a belligerent, and as a component 
 part of the American Union, she undoubtedly is ; 
 but it is not claimed, and it cannot be with truth, that 
 hostilities exist between the States of New York and 
 Alabama. The very tenacity with which Southern 
 men cling to their doctrine of State Rights, is against 
 them in this matter. "Why should the merchants of 
 the separate States suffer by the acts of the General 
 Government ? 
 
 No : we believe that every honest Southern mer- 
 chant — and there must be such' — will pay his debts 
 if he can, and as soon as he can hereafter if he cannot 
 pay them now. This will, indeed, be the only safe
 
 162 THE FUTURE OF IiEPUDIATOJtS. 
 
 course for a business man in these parts to pursue. 
 Whenever peace is restored — it does not matter for 
 the purposes of the argument in the least upon what 
 terms — the Southern trader must come to New York 
 to buv, or to Philadelphia, or Boston. He must come 
 either with cash or clean hands, and something better 
 than a thief s record, if he would be sure of obtaining 
 merchandize. Every repudiator will be known at 
 the counters of trade, and instead of being wined, and 
 dined, and smiled upon, and trusted, he will be met 
 coldly, and as frigidly informed that the " terms are 
 cash." Repudiation will then be found to have been 
 a most costly luxury, and it is pretty certain that a 
 man who cannot command credit in New York would 
 be as badly off in Richmond or Charleston, although 
 these cities should become nourishing marts. The 
 taint of the swindler will stick to him, and those who 
 now applaud will be the last to trust him. Trade is 
 based upon private honor, and there is not a market 
 in the world which will not be shut against the mer- 
 chants of Alabama for fifty years to come. This is 
 the stubborn fact which no amount of bluster can 
 alter. 
 
 John B. Floyd, for instance, Brigadier-General, 
 Confederate Army, is there a single man doing busi- 
 ness in this city, no matter what may be his politics, 
 is there a single man who would trust John B. Floyd 
 to keep his cash \ who would give him any respon- 
 sible situation in his counting room ? who would even 
 allow him to be in the counting-room without some- 
 body to watch him? And really after this decision,
 
 THE GREGORIAN POLICY. ] 03 
 
 is there a tailor in New York who would trust 
 Chancellor Dargan for a pair of breeches ? States 
 repudiating their obligations must in the long run pay 
 for the little luxury. 
 
 June 23, 1801. 
 
 NO QUESTION BEFORE THE HOUSE. 
 
 We live in an age of extraordinary political exhibi- 
 tions ; and he whose appetite for novelty is the near- 
 est insatiate, will have no cause to complain of the 
 variety of the entertainment. As human nature for- 
 bids a perpetual torture and tension of anxiety, we 
 must sometimes laugh though matters may be at the 
 worst ; and the satirists of England have already 
 taught us to laugh at the British House of Commons 
 — a body with wonderful talent for impaling itself 
 upon the horns of a dilemma, and for wriggling it- 
 self out of the difficulty with no marked regard either 
 for dignity or decent consistency. There is a farce 
 called " The Two Gregories ;" but we do not believe 
 that off the stage there were ever two Gregories so 
 absolutely Gregorian as the Gregory of the Imperial 
 Parliament — the honorable member for Galway. 
 Gregory of Galway fell an early victim to the charms 
 of the Southern Confederacy, and loving, however 
 well, not in the least wisely, he was for its instant 
 recognition and admission into the community of in- 
 dependent powers. He put his passion into a motion, 
 and he put his motion before the House ; but when
 
 164 SINE DIE. 
 
 the time came for putting the unhappy motion to the 
 House, Mr. Gregory discovered that the House de- 
 sired to have nothing to do with the motion afore- 
 said. The demand for its withdrawal though civil 
 was peremptory. Mr. Gregory made an affecting 
 speech, complaining that the Southern Confederacy 
 was "accused of unwarrantable secession, and its 
 members were called traitors and perjurers." " "With- 
 draw !" cried the House. " I will," said Mr. Greg- 
 ory. "Sine die /" cried the House. " I will," said 
 Mr. Gregory. And the subject dropped. 
 
 Now, for our own part, although the manipulation 
 of this red-hot resolution might have been a delicate 
 and difficult business, we are sorry that it was not 
 kept in hand just a little while longer. Mr. Gregory 
 should have made another speech. He should have 
 informed the House and the world what, in his opin- 
 ion, treason is. He should have given his private 
 notion of perjury. He should have shown what there 
 is in the great American roguery which elevates it 
 to virtue — what there is in the forswearing of States 
 which differs from the perjury of individuals — in 
 what way our Government has provoked a civil war ; 
 or, if he failed to show that, how the Southern seces- 
 sion is to be taken out of the category of wicked and 
 noisome revolt. But the House was too wise to per- 
 mit debate. If it had done so, we should doubtless 
 have found some champion ready to utter disagree- 
 able truths, and to chop the invincible logic of the 
 facts. Then nothing but the want of clear statement 
 could have saved the make-shift management of a
 
 CONDEMNATION WITHOUT TRIAL. 165 
 
 few shop-keeping men from the contempt Avhich it 
 deserved, and from the indignation of the British 
 people. It would have been shown how many sacri- 
 fices — some of them, indeed, inconsistent with politi- 
 cal probity — have been made by the Northern peo- 
 ple, that, if possible, this conflict might be averted. 
 Tersely, but triumphantly, Congressional history 
 might have been adduced — Gag-Resolutions, Com- 
 promise Tariffs, Fugitive Slave Laws, Kansas-Ne- 
 braska bills and all ! It might have been shown, for 
 the truth is of record, that the Republican Party, 
 though exasperated as never political party was be- 
 fore, by gratuitous calumnies and unprecedented 
 wrongs, protested with its whole force against the 
 apprehension of slaveholders, as the excess of injus- 
 tice and of idle fear. An untried Administration 
 could do but little, except protest ; yet, by all fair 
 laws of political warfare, it was entitled to the bene- 
 fit of its protest, and to an opportunity of proving its 
 ability to carry on the government, and of its desire 
 to carry it on in a just and wise spirit. Certainly 
 a slow and cautious House of Commons would have 
 rated at its proper value the precipitancy of this 
 spasmodic uprising — would have weighed and found 
 wanting in all elements of integrity and honor, men 
 who commenced debate on civil affairs by drawing 
 the sword. After such an exposition, however bald 
 and defective, Mr. Gregory would hardly have talked 
 again of the cruelty and injustice of branding the 
 Confederate Catilines as perjurers and traitors. They 
 are both. No amount, no ingenuity of special plead-
 
 166 THE VERDICT OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 ing, can alter the patent and indelible fact. When 
 the history of these distracted times shall be written, 
 as it will be by those who are already gathering ma- 
 terials fur the labor, the petty contemporary interests 
 which now becloud men's judgments, will have passed 
 away. Should that history disclose the Confederate 
 Slave States as proper objects of Anglo-Saxon es- 
 teem and sympathy, and our own Government as 
 inhuman and unchristian, then the whole world is 
 all wrong as to right, and public morality is the 
 most pitiable of mistakes. If it shall be decided 
 that a civil war waged in the name of Freedom for 
 the extension of Slavery was holy, necessary and 
 just, we hope for consistency's sake, when civilized 
 Europe no longer calls itself Christian, and when the 
 Anglican Church has embraced the faith of Moham- 
 med, that such a decision will be made, and not 
 before. 
 
 Then, indeed, should a House of Commons yet re- 
 main in Great Britain, it will be perfectly proper if 
 any member is old-fashioned enough to speak of in- 
 ternational honor, for the Speaker to call him per- 
 emptorily to order, and to remind him that there is 
 " no question before the House." But now when we 
 consider the historical, the commercial, the literary, 
 and even the political ties which bind the best part 
 of the British with the best part of the American 
 people; when we remember too, that the English 
 Government has not thus far kept silence upon 
 American affairs, and lias announced a policy, or the 
 puzzling similitude of a policy ; when we reflect that
 
 NATIONS MUST SAVE THEMSELVES. 107 
 
 all the diplomacy of Downing Street cannot in this 
 contest keep England in an affected posture of cold 
 and unsympathizing neutrality forever ; we confess 
 that this shrinking from a sore subject assumes in 
 our eyes an unpleasantly craven aspect, and argues 
 a very un-English faith in hand-to-mouth expedients. 
 But while we feel thus, we feel, too, that if the Ameri- 
 can Republic cannot maintain itself without the en- 
 couragement, and we may say the patronage of for- 
 eign nations, the sooner it falls into final and hopeless 
 and undistinguished ruin, the better. God is said to 
 help those who help themselves ; and most nations 
 are respected in proportion to their ability to sustain 
 themselves without external leagues and amities. If 
 we can fight this battle at all, we can fight it alone. 
 Subsidies, arms, armies, the offerings of foreign States, 
 we have not asked for, and have neither wish nor 
 right to ask for ; but that moral countenance, the 
 best gift that one great nation can bestow upon 
 another, we have a right to expect from England ; 
 nor do we think it will be refused us by that portion 
 of the nation the good will of which is best worth 
 having. 
 
 June 24, 1361.
 
 168 LAY ON SOFTLY! 
 
 BELLA MOLLITA— SOFT WAR. 
 
 When Osric, the water-fly, called upon Hamlet to 
 arrange the tilt with Laertes, he did not forget to speak 
 in high terms of the latter as " an absolute gentle- 
 man, full of most excellent differences, of very soft 
 society and great showing — the card or calendar of 
 gentry." There are some men, and some of them are 
 journalists, who, having all their lives been accus- 
 tomed to speak of slaveholders and slaveholding in 
 their mealy-mouthed way, cannot now, in the very 
 tempest of the national danger, change to something 
 like a masculine tone. The Northern corpses upon 
 the fields of Virginia appeal to them in vain. Men 
 and women driven from their Southern homes because 
 of their Northern birth and blood, appeal to them in 
 vain. They shut their eyes to things vulgarly dis- 
 honest — to ignoble repudiations and gratuitous bank- 
 ruptcies, and to an oflicial treachery almost without 
 a precedent in history. " Fight !" they say to our 
 noble volunteers — " but fight with foils ! Fire ! but 
 fire with blank cartridges! Lay on, Macduff! but 
 lay on softly !" How many times already have we 
 been reminded that the rebel Southerners are our 
 brethren! This may be, according to certain codes, 
 a reason for not fighting with them at all ; but a con- 
 test once undertaken, we respectfully submit that they 
 have ceased to be brethren, and have become simply 
 enemies. Brothers who dispatch the wounded and 
 mutilate the slain are not of that intensely fraternal 
 pattern which is worthy of the highest reverence.
 
 THE SPOILS OF WAR. 100 
 
 They are entitled to whatever consideration the laws 
 of war permit — not one jot or tittle more. 
 
 But there is one particular of tender solicitude 
 which we confess we do not well understand; and 
 that is the hot haste in which some of our generals 
 return fugitive slaves. Why is this species of prop- 
 erty to be given up more than munitions of war ? A 
 black man who can dig, cook and assist in general 
 camp-work, is certainly quite as valuable to keep /"or 
 one's self and from one's enemy as a gun, a cask of 
 powder or a horse. Slaves in all ages have always 
 been among the spoils of war ; and if we can obtain 
 them without fighting for them, in fact, by their run- 
 ning to us, so much the better. If, by the fortune of 
 war, a Virginian rebel has his house burned, is it the 
 intention of Congress to soothe his grief by building 
 him another domicil ? Why not, if you are also bound 
 to restore to him his runaway negroes ? There may 
 be a difference, but we do not see it. 
 
 The truth is, the flippant gentlemen who undertake 
 to assure the South that this war at its honorable con- 
 clusion will leave slave property in statu quo, exceed 
 their commissions. They are promising utter impos- 
 sibilities. Under any circumstances — the Southern 
 Confederacy established or overthrown — the strength 
 of the institution of Slavery can never be what it has 
 been. The South is utterly bankrupt now ; but in 
 what a condition will it be when it has lost the ad- 
 vantage of perhaps half-a-dozen crops ; and is crushed 
 under an enormous public debt, which must be paid 
 by taxes on negroes or not paid at all ! On the other 
 3
 
 170 TAKING NOTHING. 
 
 hand, .admitting the States which have seceded to 
 have been reduced to -wholesome obedience to the 
 Constitution, Slavery can never again be an auto- 
 cratic, domineering and impudent power. On the 
 contrary, it will understand — for this is the lesson 
 which reverses will teach — it will understand, that it 
 holds its very existence by the tenure of good behav- 
 ior. In one of these ways or the other, Slavery may 
 be affected by the war. 
 
 And why not I Why should a war about Slavery 
 be begun, continued and ended, leaving Slavery just 
 where it was ( If the free States are to have no pro- 
 tection in the future from the aggressions of Slavery 
 — if all the weary work of the last thirty years is to 
 be done over again, with its agitations, excitements, 
 mobs and lynchings — with its corruption of the souls 
 of public men — with its quadrennial struggle and 
 with its G mgressii »nal conflicts, peace will be no peace, 
 and treaties misnomers. The Republican party in a 
 great majority in all the States in which it has an ex- 
 istence at all, lias always claimed that slaveholders 
 were unreasonable in their demands. "Will peace 
 bring no change '. If so, peace will bring either dis- 
 union or dishonor. 
 
 At any rate it does not seem to us that this is a time 
 in which to crook the hinges of the knee. For the 
 present the seceding States must be regarded exactly 
 as they are — as forsworn and mutinous members of 
 the Union, and as such entitled to no more considera- 
 tion than it may be politic to show them. A consid- 
 erable portion of the white population of these States
 
 FIGHT TNG WHILE WE FIGHT. 171 
 
 has forfeited its life. The returning supremacy of 
 the laws in any other land would he followed by 
 wholesale judicial executions, which by law written 
 and by law common would be justified here. We are 
 not aware that these criminals, after causing an 
 amount of suffering which the agonized mind refuses 
 to compute, are entitled to a sort of Jack Sheppard 
 sympathy, though it come from no higher source than 
 The Dai/ Booh newspaper. You may be reasonably 
 sure, when you hear a man bewailing the wrongs of 
 South Carolina, that he has no particular affection 
 for New York, though it may, by courtesy, call him 
 a citizen. 
 
 The time for soothing promises and carminative 
 compromises was when such negotiation was possible. 
 The patchers-up of peace had full swing — and what 
 did thev do ? They talked morning and evening, in 
 season and out of season, well and badly — but what 
 did they accomplish I They filled an immense num- 
 ber of pages in The Congressional Globe, but they 
 " took nothing." It was then proposed to fight — and 
 fight away ! say we, in God's name, and may He help 
 the right. Whatever may be the distresses and in- 
 conveniences of fighting, we should have thought of 
 them before beginning. 
 
 " How uncertain 
 The fortune of a war is, children know." 
 
 But about the cause in which we are engaged, 
 there is no uncertainty. The Government of the coun- 
 try is pitted against the government of the plantation
 
 172 COLLEGES COLLAPSING. 
 
 — Freedom against Slavery — Simple Right against 
 Complex Wrong ; and it is better to perish with the 
 Government, with Freedom and with Right, than to 
 yield for a single day to a coarse and arrogant domi- 
 nation. 
 
 July 31, 1801. 
 
 THE HUMANITIES SOUTH. 
 
 Abms have it all their own wav in the regions of 
 renegade revolt, throughout which the toga is uncere- 
 moniously discarded. Even the Rt. Rev. Father in 
 God, Polk, of Louisiana, as our readers already know, 
 has discarded godly lawn for golden lace and the Lives 
 of the Saints for Scott's Tactics. But now sadder 
 news comes to us. The Southern colleges and uni- 
 versities are giving up their erudite ghosts in every 
 direction. Upon the authority of The JVew Orleans 
 True 'Witness, a religious sheet, we have to state with 
 pain that Oakland College, a celebrated Haunt of the 
 Muses, is no mure — that La Grange College, a re- 
 nowned Seat of Learning in Tennessee, is also de- 
 funct — that Stewart College, an Academic Grove in 
 Tennessee, has also been cut down in the full foliage 
 of its usefulness — that the University of Mississippi, 
 at Oxford, is sitting like a bereaved mother, with no- 
 body at her generous bosom ; and that the Centenary 
 College, at Jackson, La., no longer dispenses crumbs 
 of culture in that part of the world.
 
 CLASSICAL LEARNING AT FAULT. 173 
 
 These venerable piles arc all deserted ; no more 
 their ancient rafters ring to the sonir of 
 
 "Propria qua' maribus had a little dog ; 
 Quid esse was his name."' 
 
 Sucking Southerners have ceased with tottering steps 
 there solemnly and studiously to pass over the Pons 
 Asinorum. The ardent youths have all gone to the 
 wars ; and the no less ardent Faculties have thrown 
 away their spectacles and followed suit. This, it 
 must be allowed, is a classical collapse and a mathe- 
 matical mischance, and a sad stroke to Sacred The- 
 ology ; and especially to that branch of the latter 
 upon which the Divine Institution of Slavery is 
 builded. Heretofore, it must be confessed, the Patri- 
 archs have leaned upon learning to the extent of their 
 acquirements. They have flogged and begotten yel- 
 low bastards, and then sold them not with caution 
 covert, but in market overt, without a misgiving ; 
 and they have done this upon strict Abrahamic prin- 
 ciples partly, and partly because the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans did so, to say nothing of the Barbarians. 
 
 But now ethnology, chronology, philology and ar- 
 ch reology have all come to grief in these demesnes 
 which they once did so illustrate ; and Dr. Fuller, if 
 he really does want to serve the cause, should at once 
 convert his useless lexicons and chrestomathies into 
 cartridges, and give his whole stack of ancient ser- 
 mons to the same sacred service. What is a classical 
 point to a Colt's pistol \ a text to a trumpet ? the Sa-
 
 174 THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE. 
 
 cred Canon to a rifled-cannon ? Philemon to fighting ? 
 why bother about Ham when you have a chance to 
 hammer the heads of the confoundedly illiterate Yan- 
 kee Doodles { 
 
 To be sure, it may be urged, that whereas the 
 Southern neophytes and other students have hereto- 
 fore mainly resorted for polish and illumination to 
 Northern seminaries, it is not wise, since they can 
 no longer do so, to permit the Southern rills of learn- 
 ing, however thread-like, to be choked. We take a 
 different ground. The South is fighting for the sweet 
 satisfaction of continuing in a semi-barbaric condi- 
 tion. It is attempting to found a republic, not upon 
 knowledge, but knavery. It means to ignore the 
 Law of God, sometimes called the Higher Law, and 
 why should it study theology ? It intends to tram- 
 ple upon the rights of man, and what has it to do 
 with law natural, civil or common ? It has surren- 
 dered itself to a coarse and be.-tial inhumanity, and 
 why should it crave the sweet influences of philos- 
 ophy and of poetry? It has need to study but one 
 science — the science of oppression — and the hard hu- 
 man heart, in that branch of learning, lias in all ages 
 been its own best teacher. It scoffs at all which has 
 made the Nineteenth Century the cultured child of 
 the past and the hopeful mother of the ages to come ; 
 and of what, value to such a nation will be the record 
 of human triumphs or of human reverses? Why 
 should it waste its time and treasure in the erection 
 of stately colleges and academic cloisters, when to the 
 brutal eve of its wealthiest citizens, the finest archi-
 
 DAHOMEY THE FOUNDER. 175 
 
 tccture is to be found in slave-huts and barraeoons ? 
 Why should it gather together libraries when there 
 is not one printed book of value in this world, which 
 is not an uncompromising reproach of that hideous 
 social system, and an irrefragable argument against 
 its possible perpetuity ? 
 
 No : in a slaveholding Republic ignorance is bliss, 
 and enlightenment must bring the torture of remorse 
 and the trembling of fear. The prototype of the 
 Southern slaveholder is the African King, who, 
 gleaming with palm-oil and glorious in a painted 
 skin, drives down to the shore his squalid files of 
 shivering captives, and sells them to the missionary 
 of civilization, whose pirate bark is anchored in the 
 offing. The Monarch of Dahomey is the real founder 
 of the Confederate States of America. Their en- 
 lightenment, their theology, their civilization, their 
 political economy, have all been learned of that hid- 
 eous and howling savage ; and all they are, and all 
 they pretend to be, and all they care to be, the 
 barbarians of the Slave Coast have been before 
 them. 
 
 Yes : they do well to give up their colleges ; they 
 will give up their churches next — and then — who 
 knows? — perhaps their clothes! Given the inde- 
 pendence of the Southern Confederacy, and who can 
 assure us that within a century the governor of 
 South Carolina will not kneel upon his naked knees, 
 in all the splendor of a tattooed skin to adore some 
 dirty little fetish idol I Xations that have been civil- 
 ized, and have lapsed into semi-civilization, are quite
 
 1VG NOTION OF A SOLDIER. 
 
 as likely to fall still farther backward as to go for- 
 ward ; and there is a Power presiding over the 
 world's affairs which can blight as well as build up, 
 and which has declared that they who causelessly 
 take up the sword, by the sword shall perish. 
 
 Southern statesmen and soldiers, unless the down- 
 fall which we have indicated shall be utterly precipi- 
 tate, will learn in lime that one idea of genuine politi- 
 cal equity is worth all the armies of Xerxes or Napo- 
 leon. The faith of the slaveholder is force, and so 
 is his philosophy. Hence his notion of a well-armed 
 soldier is of one who carries " one sword, two five- 
 shooters, and a carbine." This is actually the equip- 
 ment proposed in The Richmond Whiff for 10,000 
 men who are " to carry fire and sword into the Free 
 States." Why not add a full suit of chain-mail, a 
 bow with arrows, a tomahawk, a scalping-knife, a 
 lance, a dagger and a sword-cane ! This idea of 
 making a traveling arsenal of a soldier, is like a 
 stage-manager's notion of a pirate, who is invaria- 
 bly sent before the audience bending beneath weap- 
 ons, offensive and defensive, it is an old-fashioned, 
 barbarous conceit quite worthy of a people which has 
 given up its universities and colleges. It is not by 
 any means certain that we shall not have war-paint 
 next ; or, perhaps, imitations of those terrific paste- 
 board dragoons, wherewithal the unfortunate Chi- 
 nese did not scare away the forces of the British 
 Empire. The number of weapons which the stoutest 
 and most alert soldier can effectively use, even in 
 carrying fire and sword j is limited ; and we advise
 
 "THE TIMES" ON PLUNGING. 177 
 
 the Ten Thousand to restrict themselves to single 
 blades and a box of friction-matches for each. 
 
 August 9, 1802. 
 
 THE CHARGE OF PRECIPITANCY. 
 
 Tup: London Times says : " Though civil war is the 
 most frightful of all wars, the Americans plunged into 
 it with less concern than would have been shown by 
 any European State in adopting a diplomatic quar- 
 rel." In this little gem of malicious generalization, 
 there is a lurking fallacy which divests the thunder 
 of all its terrors ; and which proves that a newspaper 
 may be sufficiently pompous and at the same time in- 
 sufficiently philosophical. ''The Americans" — one 
 would like to inquire civilly what this newspaper 
 means by " Americans." Who " plunged" first — the 
 United States or the Confederacy? Or did both 
 plunge simultaneously ? Can a man who finds a thief 
 in his chamber, and who jumps quickly from his bed, 
 be charged with immoral " plunging V Were the 
 measures of the Buchanan dynasty justly answerable 
 to the censure of over-velocity ? Did we not diplo- 
 matize I debate % hold conventions and propose com- 
 promises? Was not this continued long after the 
 Charleston batteries rendered the reinforcement of 
 Gen. Anderson impossible ? It is shameful to libel 
 us in this way. Xo people ever shrunk from a war 
 as we have shrunk from this. The seceding States, 
 by the very act of secession, closed the door of adjust-
 
 178 TOO GOOD-NATURED BY HALF. 
 
 ment in our face. The Convention of South Carolina 
 passed the Ordinance of Secession on the 20th of De- 
 cember, 1860, at fifteen minutes past one o'clock in 
 the afternoon ; and since that day and hour there has 
 not been a moment when that State would, nay, 
 when she consistently could, diplomatize. It is true 
 that she sent her commissioners to Washington after- 
 ward ; but she sent them as the representatives of an 
 independent State. Then, indeed, we were not pre- 
 cipitate enough. We contented ourselves with de- 
 clining to receive this absurd commission, but we did 
 not send its members instantly to prison, as we should 
 have done, and as any other government would have 
 done. Imagine three Irishmen arriving at St. James's 
 with information that an Irish Republic had been 
 established, of which they were the accredited repre- 
 sentatives, charged with proposals for the dismember- 
 ment of the British Empire ! They would be locked 
 up as lunatics, or worse ; while we permitted men 
 whose errand was a studied insult to our sovereignty, 
 to depart in peace. Was there any "plunge" here ? 
 If so, it was a very mild one. 
 
 The attitude of South Carolina from the first was 
 a declaration of war. The act which consummated 
 her treason afforded no basis of reconciliation. It 
 contained just eighty-two words. It was a naked de- 
 fiance of the United States; and could no more bo 
 explained away than a blow can be explained away 
 among men of honor. It was a conclusion of the 
 pleadings, and an offer of the ordeal of battle. North- 
 ern men who had squandered their political fortunes
 
 BUT NOT HUMBLE ENOUGH. 179 
 
 in the service of the South wept, persuaded, dissuaded 
 and exhorted. There was flux of line speech — an 
 avalanche of propositions! At all this South Caro- 
 lina laughed, as, to he candid, she had a right to 
 laugh. Of the wisdom or good taste of these appeals, 
 we say nothing ; but we do say that they were made ; 
 and that the public mind of the North was at one 
 time in a condition which caused those who while 
 they loved peace well, loved honor better, to tremble. 
 Who, then, can fairly say that we "plunged" into 
 this contest with unconcern I 
 
 But we committed, it seems, another offense. South 
 Carolina merely indulged in treason — our crime was 
 leze-majesty against taste. Our newspapers " heaped 
 every conceivable opprobrium upon Southerners." 
 We did not sufficiently bate our breath. We did not 
 softly enough whisper our humbleness. It was found 
 that, Shylocks as we were, there was a lower depth 
 of concession into which money could not tempt us. 
 To tell the truth, we were a little afraid of the sar- 
 casms of our European critics, and we shrunk from 
 the insolent leading-articles wherewithal, if we had 
 been false to truth and honor, The Times would have 
 regaled us. We thought that in the presence of such 
 crimes, indignation was a virtue. Our catalogue of 
 past grievances was a long one, and when the culmi- 
 nation of them came, a people accustomed to no cen- 
 sorship of speech, uttered its convictions with a rude 
 energy which offended none but trimmers. To our 
 credit be it said, we were a little out of patience. It 
 was South Carolina that half murdered our Senators
 
 180 PERFECTL T NA TUBAL. 
 
 in the Capitol ; it was South Carolina that rifled mail- 
 bags, impressed our sailors, banished our citizens, and 
 always stood ready to defy the general Government. 
 We only lost our equanimity when a State which for 
 nearly a century had been receiving our bounty with 
 one hand and smiting us with the other, abandoned 
 even the forms and shows of loyalty, and placed her- 
 self in an attitude of unmistakable high treason. We 
 were called upon to taste the bitter fruit of our latitu- 
 dinarian policy — of our compromises and concessions 
 — of patched-up peace and hollow truces. Then, we 
 admit, we did not measure our words. We were in a 
 condition too perilous fur politeness of parlance. We 
 became plain and downright, and called a spade a 
 spade. It may have been wrong, but for all that it 
 was very human. 
 
 But this ready Jesuit of the London press having 
 done the North all the mischief of which insinuated 
 censure is capable, smilingly adds: "We consider 
 that the course of events in the United States has 
 been perfectly natural, and that Americans have only 
 done what Englishmen or any other people, under the 
 same conditions, would have done also." The world 
 is vide ; intelligence crowds ; the size of newspapers 
 is limited ; and one is at a loss to consider, why a lead- 
 ing metropolitan journal should waste so much space 
 in proving that Americans have acted as any other 
 people under the same conditions would have acted. 
 If in the management of our atfairs we have not fallen 
 below the standard of human intelligence, but on the 
 other hand have done the precise thing which wo
 
 THE ASSASSINATION PROJECT. 181 
 
 were compelled to do, then we are at liberty to fall 
 hack upon the merits of the original question, and to 
 demand of foreign nations a rigid and unswerving 
 neutrality. Governments are not to be conducted 
 by any infallible laws of success and failure; it is 
 enough for all the purposes of international comity 
 if we, in the midst of our many distractions, approxi- 
 mate to what is just and prudent. The right inten- 
 tion and the resolute endeavor should secure the re- 
 spect if not the alliance of every Christian nation. 
 
 September 8, 1SG1. 
 
 THE ASSASSINATION. 
 
 Mr. Edward Everett, in his eloquent and patriotic 
 addre>s before the Mercantile Library Association in 
 Boston last Wednesday evening, admitted that in his 
 opinion there was a plot to assassinate Mr. Lincoln 
 before his inauguration, but with characteristic amia- 
 bility, Mr. Everett added : " wholly without the priv- 
 ity, I cheerfully believe, ot the leaders of the Secession 
 movement." One is loth, in these days of mental de- 
 pression, to interfere with the " cheerful belief" of 
 any man ; but is there a person of clear perceptions 
 who does not also, if not cheerfully, at least certainly, 
 believe that intelligence of the taking-off of the Presi- 
 dent would to-day be received with rapture by " the 
 leaders of the Secession movement" in Richmond ? 
 We must estimate men as thev are. "Would there be
 
 1S2 THE TEACHING OF THE PAST. 
 
 anything more shocking to the moral sensibilities in 
 the assassination of a President than in the assassina- 
 tion of a Senator? Does Mr. Everett, or any other 
 gentleman, remember to have read in any Southern 
 newspaper, or to have heard from any Southern states- 
 man, a disavowal of the championship of Preston 
 Brooks ? If so, he has been more fortunate than we 
 have been. We know, from our own observation, 
 that the perpetration of that crime, concerning which 
 Mr. Everett improved many occasions to speak elo- 
 quently and properly, gave sincere pleasure to more 
 than one Southern " leader."' That Brooks meant mur- 
 der, we have never doubted — the manner and the per- 
 sistency of the assault would have proved so much in 
 any ] lolice court this side of the Potomac. That Brooks, 
 if he had accomplished murder, would have been in- 
 dicted, tried, convicted and executed, he may think 
 who pleases. The judicial record shows that the pen- 
 alty imposed upon the culprit was shamefully dispro- 
 portionate to the crime of which he was found guilty. 
 Many a man has gone to prison for life for precisely 
 the same offense, and many, we suspect, for a lesser 
 one. Mr. Brooks died in his bed, and outside the 
 jail; and his mourning friends have erected to his 
 green and fragrant memory a sky-pointing pyramid. 
 For what I Why, for attempting an assassination. 
 Would they have done less for its accomplishment \ 
 
 There is hardly "a leader" — that is, a man who 
 plays at being a leader of this crazy Confederacy — 
 who has not fought duels, or engaged in bar-room 
 brawls, or headed a lynching of some luckless Aboli-
 
 A QUEST [OX ABLE COMPLIMENT. 1S3 
 
 tionist. Does Mr. Everett find it in his kindly nature 
 even to believe, if these notable guides had been in- 
 formed of the projected murder of the President, that 
 they would have lifted a finger for its prevention? If 
 not, then they were at any rate morally assassins, and 
 did in theory aid and abet. Would lewd and un- 
 known fellows have undertaken such a momentons 
 enterprise without the sanction, tacit or implied, of 
 their superiors in social position ? This is a question 
 which the thinking reader can answer for himself. 
 
 October 21, 1861. 
 
 STRIKING AN AVERAGE. 
 
 A certain newspaper emits the following gem of 
 well-informed charity : " The people of the Southern 
 States, if no better, are no worse, and certainly no 
 more foolish than the average of mankind." Con- 
 sidering that the Average of Mankind eats its guests 
 and even its grandfather ; worships idols ; goes in its 
 own skin ; cannot comprehend that two and two 
 make four ; is brutish, ignorant, sensual, thievish, 
 gluttonous, improvident and superstitious, our pol- 
 ished friends in Richmond will pant with pleasure 
 at this comprehensive compliment. To us it seems 
 about as foolish as the average folly of mankind. But 
 if this writer, as we suppose, meant to say that the 
 people of the seceding States, are no lower in the 
 scale of civilization than the people of the other
 
 1S4 DEFINITION OF SECESSION. 
 
 States — the people of the State of Massachusetts, for 
 instance — then we take issue, and deny the truth of 
 Ids assertion. In support of this denial, we refer to 
 the Census Report, passim. If it shall be asserted 
 that a people without schools can be as well educated, 
 or a people without churches as religious, as a people 
 with many schools and churches, why, he who as- 
 serts it must be foolisher than that great fool, the Ave- 
 rage of Mankind ! 
 
 Without repeating here the Statistics of Mr. Olm- 
 sted, who is a keen observer, we beg leave to refer 
 the reader to the travels of ''Porte-Crayon" in the 
 Southern States, illustrated by his own clever pen- 
 cil, and published in Harper's Monthly Magazine. 
 The author is a Southern man, and so far an inter- 
 ested witness ; and we are sure that nobody would 
 have believed, but for his decisive testimony, in the 
 barbarism to be found in North Carolina. 
 
 But it is most convenient to argue directly from 
 the point of Secession. The fact that it is a great 
 crime without provocation, and a blunder almost idi- 
 otic, knocks both nails on the head and clinches 
 them. Secession is Wickedness and Ignorance. On 
 the one hand, it is Passion. Pride, Ambition and 
 Greed. On the other, it is Folly and Stupidity. The 
 Seceders may not be any worse than the Hottentots, 
 but in a certain sense they arc no better. 
 
 It will be said that Massachusetts has talked of 
 seceding. This is not true. Certain men, some of 
 them of tolerable culture, but none of them of much 
 political account, may now and then have spouted
 
 VIRGINIA DEMOCRACY. 185 
 
 nonsense ; but the popular mind of Massachusetts 
 has never even approximately assented to the doc- 
 trine. Her leading- statesmen have always ardently 
 disavowed it, and the Union has been a cherished 
 sentiment of her people. 
 
 But it will be said that the people of the Southern 
 States have been deluded by the Southern aristocrats. 
 So much the worse for their wisdom ! Kobody ever 
 thought a flock of sheep to be a flock of philosophers, 
 because with multitudinous bleat they followed a silly 
 bell-wether to destruction. Besides, what are the se- 
 ceding States doing in this age and domain of De- 
 mocracy, with Aristocrats % Jefferson's Virginia, the 
 pet daughter of Democracy, gone to the deuce to 
 please her Aristocrats ! 
 
 But no : again it will be said, you do not under- 
 stand. The Virginian kind is a Democratic-Aristo- 
 cratical Democracy — a Despotism tempered by mint- 
 juleps, plug tobacco and " niggers." You must not 
 suppose for a moment that the man with one nigger 
 is obliged to obey the man with one thousand niggers 
 — he only obeys because he delights to do so. Only 
 he knows, this forlorn man with one nigger, if he 
 offends the man with one thousand, that a dozen 
 scamps with no niggers at all will be hired by the 
 well - supplied Aristocrat to tar - and - feather, shoot, 
 stab or hang, the poor man with one nigger. That's 
 all ! That is Virginia Democracy ! As for South 
 Carolina, why. we confess that she is our pet State. 
 She never babbles of Democracy. Quoad niggers 
 and poor whites, her refined, learned, rich, polished,
 
 186 SLAVERY'S DEMANDS. 
 
 nice, noble Aristocrats believe in a Despotism, beside 
 which that of the Metternich school ripens into a 
 kind of genial liberalism. Let her alone, and in five 
 years we shall have the Court Guide of her Emperor 
 illustrated by the names of Prince Pod, the Count 
 of Cotton-Plant, Sir Robert Rice, and of many es- 
 quired gentry. What will become of the Average 
 of Mankind, poor fellow ! then, and in those swampy 
 regions, we can only guess ; but we are disposed to 
 think that there will be a rise in the whip-market of 
 the Empire. 
 
 It has been one of the chiefest causes of negro slav- 
 ery in this country that it has demanded of the Xorth, 
 as well as the South, a general muddle of the human 
 intellect, as the only safe, proper, constitutional cure 
 of our complaint. This was natural, but none the 
 less disgraceful. Thank God that at this end of the 
 land at least, we shall hear no more, or not much 
 more, of this dismal sophistry — this never-ending, 
 still-recurring jangle of Inferior Races — of the Curse 
 of Canaan — of the Compromises of the Constitution, 
 of which nobody can give us the name and nature. 
 The swift besom of war has swept away much of this 
 rubbish. A\ r e stand more nearly upon the ground of 
 solid truth than we have for half a century past. 
 This is at least encouraging. 
 
 October 22, 18(51.
 
 DISMAL FOREBODINGS. 187 
 
 THE COMING DESPOTISM. 
 
 The roving prophet of the great London newspaper, 
 in a late letter, foretells remorselessly the downfall of 
 the liberty of the Press in America. He has had con- 
 versations with some Army-officer who told him that 
 presently the army would come to New York, and 
 suppress, by violence, all criticism of military move- 
 ments. After the accomplishment of this enterprise, 
 we are told, the Army will proceed to establish a 
 Despotism and exalt a Dictator. After this — but 
 here the prophet stops, most provokingly, we think ; 
 for while the fit was on him, it would have been 
 obliging if he had treated us to a couple of columns 
 more of the mysterious future. It is merely tantaliz- 
 ing to have a Bickerstaff at all, if we are to be put off 
 with less than ten hundred Olympiads. And yet, 
 for our own humble part, we must confess to a toler- 
 able degree of quietude. The newspaper press is its 
 own champion aud watchful sentry ; and it will take 
 care for that liberty by the tenure of which it exists. 
 The task is not, indeed, so hard a one as it was in 
 England not many years ago, when Lord Eldon was 
 accustomed to send to Newgate every editor who 
 thought Bonaparte a better general than the Duke 
 of York. In the advance of civilization, certain facts 
 become philosophically settled ; and among these is 
 the fact that when one newspaper is tyrannically 
 suppressed, ten, still more obnoxious, are sure to take 
 its place. It may happen, indeed, as a matter of 
 mere military policy, that the Government may feel
 
 188 THE LIMITS OF CENSORSHIP. 
 
 compelled, during the existence of actual war, to con- 
 trol the circulation of journals openly in the interest 
 of the enemy ; but the right to do this, by no means 
 implies the right to prevent the discussion, in good 
 faith, of any public policy. Xo Government can be 
 expected to become the common carrier, in a time of 
 extreme danger, of libels aimed at its very life. But 
 there is an easily perceptible distinction between an 
 attack upon the existence of a Government, and a 
 criticism of its measures. Every Administration ex- 
 pects and tolerates opposition. It is the mischievous 
 hostility which is not content with less than a blow 
 at the whole political fabric, which must be restrain- 
 ed. This distinction the American people, ever jeal- 
 ous of their civil rights, well enough comprehend. 
 
 It is easy, certain things being conceded, to suppose 
 plausibly enough certain other things. Given an 
 army itself so servile, and its leaders so corrupt as to 
 attempt the destruction of newspapers, and we have 
 an army likely, in some mad moment, to attempt the 
 overthrow of the Constitution. If we are in peril of 
 this we cannot avoid it ; for it is a danger incident 
 to our position. But on the other hand, it seems to 
 us that now. when we arc asking so much of our 
 citizen-soldiers, it would be the extreme of disci mrtesy, 
 childishly to suspect them. "We have called them 
 from domestic happiness and the ease and safety of 
 peace ; we have asked of them the utmost of sacrifices 
 in the greatest of causes; and, luring them only by 
 the gathering cry of loyalty to liberty, we have placed 
 in their hands the ark of the Constitution. It is
 
 WHY WE ARE FIGHTING. 189 
 
 no time for distrust. It is no time for foreboding. It 
 is no time, Heaven knows, in a sneaking spirit of 
 cynical suspicion, to doubt the honor and worthiness 
 of human nature. When soldiers like ours, Freemen 
 all of them in blood and bone, who never knew a 
 master before, are submitting with hardly a solitary 
 murmur, to the extreme rigor of military discipline, it 
 is but fair to presume, that only an indelible and 
 paramount affection for free institutions could have 
 called them to the held, or kept them there. 
 
 It is easy to hint and to insinuate. But where is 
 the general officer who has given in the past, any 
 sign or token that he contemplates any such usurpa- 
 tion ? And by what right is it assumed that well- 
 educated and intelligent soldiers can be seduced into 
 becoming the mere instruments of a single ambitious 
 and unscrupulous man ? We have not undertaken 
 war for the sake of war, nor would fifty years of fight- 
 ing make it palatable to the national mind. The 
 genius of our people is no more military than that 
 of the people of England. We can fight but we pre- 
 fer peace. Moreover, those who speculate in this 
 loose way upon the future of the Republic, leave out 
 one essential element of fair calculation. The loyal 
 States are not in arms because they are eager for 
 political novelties and bent upon political experiment. 
 They are in a position of the most thorough and ab- 
 solute conservatism. They are contending under the 
 sway of no insane fancies, and they are the dupes 
 of no brilliant dreams. The Revolted States, it is 
 true, are entering upon untried fields, and engaging
 
 190 UNFAIR JUDGMENT. 
 
 in the pursuit of phantoms; but we know just where 
 we are, and just what we are seeking. 
 
 There is the Constitution as the Fathers of the 
 Republic framed it. There are the laws which they 
 enacted, and the laws which we have enacted. Be- 
 fore us arc our political duties not complicated and 
 dubious, but simple and easy to be understood. We 
 bring to this great trial a sober sense of the value of 
 human liberty, and we strike no blow without a 
 thought of the blessings of freedom. It is not in 
 such a school as this that we are to unlearn all the 
 lessons of our history; it is not under such influences, 
 that we are to surrender our most creditable preju- 
 dice- ; it is not while we are desperately clinging to 
 the traditions of the Republic, that we are to fling 
 ourselves at the feet of a despot. When foreign na- 
 tions judge us, we claim something on the score of 
 character. It is grossly unfair, and no better than 
 sheer trifling with historic examples, to predicate our 
 future upon the fate of less enlightened and more 
 turbulent states. We claim that our social problem 
 is not perplexed by the presence of large masses of 
 hungry and ignorant men, to whom any change 
 may prove, or may seem, a blessing. Is it then for 
 nothing that our populations are, as a rule, well 
 educated? Is it for nothing that we have a more 
 general diffusion of intelligence than can be found 
 in any other land? Arc all our multiplied institu- 
 tions of learning and religion impotent for good 
 influence upon the popular mind and morality '. If 
 £0, let us hear no more of the blessings of knowl-
 
 GOOD OMENS. 191 
 
 edge ! Let us do our best to bring back the old 
 mediaeval midnight! let us burn our school -houses 
 and our libraries ! let us, with what stomach we 
 may, own that man is a fool, from head to foot, 
 and make the best of a bad matter by having at 
 least a hollo w laugh at our own ridiculous destiny! 
 For ourselves, whatever of good-hap or sorrow the 
 future may hold, we do not yet bate one jot of heart 
 or of hope. Why should we, at a moment like this, 
 when the people are proving that patriotism and self- 
 devotion are not empty words % And why should we 
 insult honest men, who are giving their lives and 
 fortunes to the cause of human freedom, by speculat- 
 ing upon the chances of their all becoming slaves ? 
 If they were fighting for plunder, if any unhallowed 
 dream of personal aggrandizement called them to the 
 field, we might suspect their integrity. Moreover, 
 while the General Government is thus assailed, we 
 find every loyal State calmly carrying on its politi- 
 cal administration, preserving the peace within its 
 borders, and levying large taxes which are cheerfully 
 met by the citizens. As the parts are, so will the 
 whole be. The political stability of the States will 
 insure that of the Union ; and when that fails us, 
 it will be time to fear a Dictator, and not till then. 
 
 November, 7, 1SG1.
 
 192 OUR DEAR BRETHREN. 
 
 ABOLITION AND SECESSION. 
 
 The war has put some over-nice gentlemen in a pretty 
 pickle. These are hard times for Mr. Facing-Both- 
 AYays. For several years he has been blandly re- 
 peating : " Our Southern Brethren ! Our poor, in- 
 jured, forbearing Southern Brethren !" But the 
 Southern Brethren having so unmistakably gone to the 
 bad — having surrendered themselves to the most un- 
 fraternal antics — having fallen feloniously upon that 
 Constitution which has been Mr. BothAYays' private 
 and public and particular pet — he is forced to look 
 about him for something to admire, and, as ill-luck 
 will have it, he finds his ancient enemies, " the Abo- 
 litionists " (as he calls them), working devotedly for 
 his poor Constitution, while he — where is he ? Not 
 merely outside the caucus, but pretty nearly outside 
 all creation ! 
 
 In this hot struggle there seems to be nothing 1 in 
 particular fur him to do, except to utter warnings 
 which nobody heeds, and to give advice which every- 
 body laughs at. Jie falls into a rage, and begins an 
 indiscriminate damnation. To the pit he consigns 
 the North, and to the same torrid place he sends the 
 South. lie calls loudly for "Union," but he cannot 
 find it in his heart to unite with anybody, and so he 
 goes on day after day blowing hot and cold, and tell- 
 ing his neighbor for the five-hundredth time that he is 
 no " Secessionist," but egad! he is no "Abolitionist." 
 He fancies that this is conservative, and so it is, of 
 brains; for in such boys' play, there will be but a
 
 NO ABOLITIONIST. 193 
 
 scanty expenditure of that article. He calls a meet- 
 ing, and resolves that he is a patriot, but that he i3 
 not an "Abolitionist." He issues an Address ex- 
 pressly to let the world know that he is not an 
 "Abolitionist." He nominates a candidate who is 
 "No Secessionist" and "No Abolitionist," and he 
 solemnly votes for that candidate as the representa- 
 tive of what he is pleased to call his " Principles ;" 
 when the lamentable truth is, that what he thinks to 
 be " Principles " is merely a hodge-podge of Notions, 
 Prejudices, Traditions and other lumbering Nonsense. 
 Having done this, he is satisfied. Things may go 
 from bad to worse, but he is as complacent as an old 
 lady who, having foretold a rainy day, wakes up to 
 find the windows of heaven wide open. 
 
 We are led to these reflections by the solemn fact 
 that in the Fifth Ward of the city of Boston, a little 
 meeting of Constitutional-Union-Democrats voted the 
 other evening, that they were for " the vigorous prose- 
 cution of the war," but that they were not " Aboli- 
 tionists." A more unnecessary disclaimer we can 
 hardly conceive of. It requires a modicum of brains 
 to be anything of the kind. But we cannot blame 
 these timid gentlemen ; nor will anybody blame them 
 who considers that an " Abolitionist " is also an Infi- 
 del, an Agrarian, a Foe of Human Government, a 
 Dupe of his Conscience, a Woman's-Bights-Man, an 
 Anti-Sabbatarian, a " Spiritualist," a Phrenologist, a 
 Water-Curer, a Vegetarian, a Fourierite and an Oppo- 
 nent of Tobacco and Capital Punishment. All Male 
 Abolitionists wear Beards. All Female Abolitionists 
 9
 
 194 WHAT NEGRO SLAVERY HAS DONE. 
 
 are " Bloomers." All of them being tainted by 
 ''Peace Principles" are avowedly in favor of Insur- 
 rection, with Fire, Bloodshed, Pape, Anarchy, and 
 a general whiz of everything. No wonder that a 
 smug-faced Constitutional-Union man, just as highly 
 respectable as it is possible for one of our fallen race 
 to be, takes all possible pains before he so much as 
 lifts a little finger for his country, to have it dis- 
 tinctly understood, though he may be in little dan- 
 ger, that he is not an " Abolitionist." His dudgeon 
 at the accusation is a portion of his respectability. 
 
 Now, it is no part of our business either to attack 
 or defend the American Anti-Slavery Society. It is 
 a distinct organization, and it is abundantly able to 
 take care of itself. But, before we consign to the 
 limbo of the wicked this poor word " Abolition," we 
 would like to ask, if there be in this whole State of 
 New York, for instance, one well-informed and con- 
 scientious person who is not an "Abolitionist \ n This 
 is the way to put it : 
 
 Here is this Negro Slavery ; it has been our tor- 
 ment and our curse, our daily and our nightly dan- 
 ger ; it ha- brought us to this shame before the na- 
 tions ; it has attempted to overthrow the institutions 
 which we love, and which our fathers founded; it 
 has changed peace to war, plenty to want, confidence 
 to doubt, and case to discomfort; it has wasted our 
 material wealth, and it has hardened the hearts of 
 our brethren against us; it has enfeebled the mind, 
 contaminated the pulpit, made dim the distinctions 
 between right and wrong, and discredited our demo-
 
 A QUESTION OF COMMON SENSE. 195 
 
 cratic professions which, but for this curse, would 
 have been the hope of the world ! God favoring, 
 circumstances permitting, the way opened by a Provi- 
 dence which will indeed be Divine, shall we not rid 
 ourselves of it and forever % Where is the intelligent 
 Northern man, we care not how he may politically 
 style himself, who will not say from the bottom of 
 his heart, to such a question, " Yes !" If this is to 
 be an " Abolitionist," we should like to look in the 
 face of the poor creature who will say that he is 
 not one. 
 
 This is no longer a question of morals. It has 
 rather become a question of common sense and of 
 common safety ; of ordinary prudence and the least 
 possible foresight. We are arguing for no particular 
 scheme ; we are demanding no hasty action ; we feel 
 as much as any the need of a circumspect policy ; 
 but upon the naked question of . " Abolition " or "No 
 Abolition," we believe that every honest, thinking 
 man will be ready to own himself an " Abolitionist." 
 Shall we send down this inheritance of division and 
 distraction to our children ? Are we such cowards 
 as to impose upon them a burthen which our fears 
 and weakness shrink from \ Shall the Union be re- 
 stored only again to be jeoparded ? Shall we have 
 done our whole duty well and wisely, if we transmit 
 to the next generation this frightful bequest of civil 
 quarrel 1 And has our day been so full of glory and 
 of historical achievement, that we can well afford to 
 throw away this golden opportunity of redressing the 
 injuries of an unfortunate race ? And yet men shun
 
 196 AN INSULT TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the subject and shrink from the problem, because its 
 solution is difficult, and strive, by a 8enseless babble 
 of Constitutional obligations, to be rid forever of the 
 matter. Is this brave, manly, or becoming ? 
 
 "We say " Xo !" And, if saying so puts us into 
 the " Abolition " category, we accept the place as a 
 place of honor. Many a good, brave, loyal man 
 shares our opinion ; many a citizen who has given 
 his blood as if it were water, and his money as if it 
 were dross, to the Republic, thinks as we do. And 
 by what right is such a patriot to be . classed with 
 traitors in arms against the Republic ? By what 
 law, even of the cheapest personal civility, do these 
 libelers couple the names of the sound and the rot- 
 ten, of law-abiders and law-breakers, of footpads and 
 freebooters, with the honest names of Christian gen- 
 tlemen ? And who are these new Mentors who as- 
 sume to direct, advise, censure, persuade and exhort 
 an immense majority of the voters of the Union — ar- 
 raigning their intelligence, questioning their motives, 
 imputing to them selfishness or silliness, venality or 
 incapacity ? Where is the record of their political 
 successes ? "Where were they when this storm was 
 gathering, that they did not by notable pilotage save 
 us from the cruel shore of death which threatens us ? 
 
 Abolition and Secession ! Light and Darkness, 
 Truth and Falsehood, Right and "Wrong, Fact and 
 Fallacy, are as nearly alike. Heaven help us if, in 
 these dark days, which are weighing down our very 
 souls, we shun truth because it is not pleasant, and 
 strive to exorcise this devil of Slavery, by the gibber-
 
 A TIPSY BRAVE. 197 
 
 ish nine times worn out and ninety times weaker 
 than water, which sham-conservatives so glibly utter. 
 Better fling at once every musket into the Potomac 
 and recall our gallant men, than to prate follies at 
 home, which will make their doughtiest deeds of 
 none effect ! If we must have the disgrace of a sub- 
 stantial defeat, let us meet it at once, and before 
 we have murdered — yes, that is the word — any 
 more men ! If we must yield at last to the slave- 
 holders, and think their thoughts and do their dirty 
 work, let us at least save our money, for that will be 
 a consolation in the lower deep of our degradation ! 
 
 November 9, 1801. 
 
 A BACCHANAL OF BEAUFORT. 
 
 The good news from the Naval Expedition has al- 
 ready, as to its more momentous details, been discussed 
 and digested ; but a distinguished person, deserving 
 of historical fame, who figured, or rather who fell at 
 Beaufort, will miss his immortality unless we ami- 
 ably give him a hoist. When Capt. Amnion, with 
 three gun-boats, visited Beaufort on the day after the 
 action, " but a single white man was found in the vil- 
 lage, and he was drunk." Such is the laconism of 
 the telegraph, than which nothing can be more teas- 
 ing ; for we are left utterly in the dark as to the name 
 of this cool reveler, who refused to intermit his liba- 
 tions to the god of whisky, even in the sulphurous 
 presence of the god of war. In a poem like Camp- 
 bell's " Last Man," namelessness might be artfully
 
 198 A RECREANT MOHAMMEDAN. 
 
 adopted to heighten the impression ; hut in matter- 
 of-fact annals the hiatus is to be censured and de- 
 plored. If some gentleman of a curious turn had 
 been intrusted with the dispatches, he would have 
 told us the title of this tipsy chevalier, who when all 
 else was lost, resorted to his bottle for consolation ; 
 and who was found with that glass weapon lying 
 empty by his manly side. These vinous views of 
 military duty are not novel, as the " cannikin-clink" 
 in Othello sufficiently attests. And does not the old 
 recruiting song say that 
 
 "A soldier's life, if taken smooth and rough," 
 is, surely, 
 
 '• A very merry, hey down derry sort of life enough ?" 
 
 When care came with our cruisers, corn-whisky 
 remained — not long, we fancy: but still lone: enough 
 for a triumphant wooing of oblivion. Others might 
 run, but thi- brave man could not — it was not in his 
 devoted legs to do it ; others might be craven but 
 he showed no lack of spirit ; and while the fugitives 
 left him to his fate, he slumbered as sweetly as ever 
 Anaereon did upon the thymy ground of Teos, and 
 was perfectly comfortable though twice a captive. 
 This singular circumstance is to us suggestive. 
 
 Sir Paul Rycaut relates of a certain vizier — name 
 given by Sir Paul, but by us forgotten — that after 
 taking Candia he discarded his good Mohammedan 
 temperance principles, and getting into a habit of 
 intoxication, was soon so stupid of brain and so he- 
 numbed as to his senses, that his superiors reformed
 
 A NEW METHOD OF WARFARE. 109 
 
 him by a judicious application of the bow-string. 
 !Nbw we have never favored letting cotton out of the 
 rebel ports ; but would it not be politic so far to relax 
 the vigilance of the blockade as to let the " cratur " 
 in? If the rebels will but promise to drink them — 
 and of that we need no assurance — why not let them 
 have all the strong waters they pant for? Why not 
 send them brandy in bombs, and " old wheat " under 
 a flag of truce I why not drop bottles of tipple into 
 their camps from our balloons I Who does not see 
 that we might have one of their Major-Generals in a 
 mania apotic in a week ! Then, of course, he would 
 fancy himself to be Alexander the Great, and in his 
 jollity he would kill some Col. Clitus, whose kinsman 
 would kill the General, and his cousins, in turn, Cli- 
 tus's cousins ; and so with a merry go-rounder of 
 murder, we should have half the commissioned offi- 
 cers of the Confederacy dead speedily. But this is 
 digression. We must return to the cup-captured 
 citizen of Beaufort. 
 
 We are apprehensive that Mr. Barnum has been a 
 little rash in offering a reward of $1,000 for the catch- 
 ing and caging and delivery at his Broadway estab- 
 lishment of this " last man" at Beaufort. If the Great 
 Showman was not in earnest, he should have remem- 
 bered how easily this curiosity may be caught, and 
 how soon a bold Gordon dimming may make prize 
 of such a lion in his liquor. It will be a pretty piece 
 of business if some fair morning a van should arrive 
 at the Museum door with the trenchant tippler of 
 Beaufort inside ! What would Barnum do % His
 
 200 TOTAL ABSTINENCE IN CAMPS. 
 
 constructive genius may extemporize tanks for whales, 
 or a sufficient tub for the hippopotamus ; but is he 
 prepared to maintain a creature who will require 
 puncheons upon puncheons of the choicest brands of 
 the best Bourbon ? The enterprise might prove ru- 
 inous. The clever manager might be obliged to raise 
 his prices, and that we know would break his public 
 heart. In three weeks he would be forced to offer a 
 reward of something more than $1,000 to anybody 
 daring enough to take the monster off his hands. 
 
 We are upon the eve of great events. Drinks, we 
 notice, have advanced to fifteen cents each in New 
 Orleans. What a famine price, or rather what a 
 drouthy price they must be held at, then, in Rich- 
 mond ! What would be the moral effect if the rebel 
 army were kept absolutely sober for a month ? Would 
 they advance to our lines with repentant tears in their 
 eye.-, and their demijohns, necks down and corks out, 
 in their hands, crying for quarter and a modest 
 quencher ? We are afraid not. Madness would prob- 
 ably rule the hour; and if the despairing sinners 
 came at all, it would be to run a desperate muck for 
 our spirit-rations. Their advance would be as im- 
 petuous as the rush of a caravan to a desert-well. 
 They would be dangerous, indeed ; fighting not for 
 glory, but for a glass of something comfortable. We 
 might find their raging thirst too much for our best 
 regiments as they came at us shouting "Liberty and 
 Liquor,"" Cocktails and the Confederacy" or some 
 other ardent slogan. 
 
 As for the Beaufort brave, as he is now a prisoner,
 
 COTTON VS. CONSCIENCE. 201 
 
 we hope that he will be tenderly cared for. He will 
 be valuable as an expert, should we be compelled to 
 hold any courts-martial of a particular and not pleas- 
 ant kind. He is entitled to soldierly courtesy, be- 
 cause he certainly did show a sort of courage, albeit 
 of the Dutch variety. The solitary situation in which 
 he was found should plead for him. His noble faith 
 in his Spirit-Friend, preserved while guns were boom- 
 ing and bombs careering, and the red eye of war was 
 unusually fierce and wide-open, shows him to be, in 
 his way, an uncommon man. Take him up tenderly, 
 lift him with care ! 
 
 November 22, 1S61. 
 
 CONCERNING SHIRTS. 
 
 We mark with wonder that a contemporary goes on 
 speculating and spinning, and spinning and speculat- 
 ing, until he involves himself in the following extra- 
 ordinary cocoon : " If this mad scheme of Emancipa- 
 tion were carried into effect, the necessity for cotton 
 would reintroduce the present system of labor in less 
 than ten years." This is what may be termed, in vul- 
 gar parlance, " a settler." TVe must have cotton — we 
 cannot have cotton without enslaving human beings 
 — therefore, we must enslave human beings. Of 
 course, morally, there is no limit to this style of logic. 
 Given cotton as a sine qua non, and everything favois 
 able to its culture becomes right, and equally, every 
 9*
 
 202 SANS SHIRTS— SANS EVERYTHING. 
 
 thincr unfavorable becomes wrong. Before the onmi- 
 potent need indicated, all must give way. There is 
 a necessity that knows no law, human or divine. 
 
 A starving man may steal bread — a freezing man 
 may steal a coat — and man in general, that he may 
 not starve or freeze, may steal other men. But there 
 is something worse involved in this proposition, viz., 
 a regenerated and disenthralled world returning to its 
 original sin for the sake of a shirt ! It is as if our 
 progenitors, Adam and Eve, had suddenly discerned 
 the shame of nakedness while in a condition of origi- 
 nal righteousness, and so desperately swallowed the 
 apple as the only way of getting themselves an outfit. 
 "We can imagine a world without light, or a world 
 without heat, but a world without cotton shirts is a 
 cosmographical impossibility. We may make good 
 resolutions, reform abuses, do unto others as the golden 
 rule directs, provided our shirts are not taken from us 
 thereby ; but when it comes to a matter of shirt or 
 no shirt, all moral considerations can only be immor- 
 ally regarded, and the height of virtue is to be 
 vicious. "We do not remember anything quite so ex- 
 treme as this in Machiavelli, Ilobbes, or The Fable of 
 the Bees. The sequitur, of course, is, that while some 
 men wear shirts, other men must be slaves ; or per- 
 haps it may be put thus : 
 
 I. "Without Shirts there can be no Men. 
 II. "Without Cotton there can be no Shirt. 
 
 III. Without Slaves there can be no Cotton, Ergo, 
 
 IV. "Without Slaves there can be no Men. 
 V. "Without Men there can be no World.
 
 FA TAL NA REDNESS. 203 
 
 VI. Without a World 
 
 But it would be painful and it is unnecessary to go 
 further. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the World actually re- 
 volves not upon an Axis but upon a Pod. It pro- 
 gresses because something is planted. A few bad 
 cotton crops and we are nowhere. What a cheerful 
 prospect ! 
 
 This is, of course, a change. There was a time 
 when shirts " save their own painted skins" — as the 
 amiable Cowper has it — " our sires had none." There 
 was a time when man struggled through his dark 
 destiny in a linen shirt. There have been great men 
 who still cut a considerable figure in history, who 
 knew not the blessing of a cotton shirt. It is reason- 
 able to suppose that Solomon in all his glory never 
 enjoyed that comfort, Alexander the Great tri- 
 umphed in a steel shirt, and tippled in a silk one. 
 Julius Cossar — poor man ! — went in wool. We have 
 some reason for supposing that Gen. Washington 
 himself always wore linen. 
 
 But the difficulty is that once having worn a cotton 
 shirt, mankind must continue to wear one, or cease 
 to exist. No more fig-leaves now ! No more purple 
 and fine linen ! No more leathern conveniences ! 
 We may, indeed, fancy that ours will he the privilege, 
 pitiable at the best, of going shirtless if we please, 
 buttoning our coats to the chin, after a shabby gen- 
 teel fashion. Not a bit of it. The eye of the De- 
 stroying Angel will pierce through broadcloth, and 
 discover our deficiency in Cotton Shirts.
 
 204 FINAL SU1BTLESSNESS. 
 
 The deduction of the Eternity of Slavery from the 
 Necessity of Shirts is not a pleasant one, but we must 
 take it as it comes. Once, in England, they used to 
 put the case a little differently. There it was said 
 that Man could not live by Bread alone, but must 
 have Rum with Sugar in it. Then the formula ran — 
 Ho Slaves, No Rum and Sugar. " D — it," said hon- 
 est John Bull, " in that case, I will fall back upon my 
 Beer and Brandy." This was easy to say, but when 
 it comes to going without a Shirt, John recalcitrates. 
 
 But, then, if Slavery cannot continue, is doomed 
 and justly doomed by God and Man to extinction, 
 what follows ? "Why, that we must resign ourselves 
 to Shirtlessness, or at least to Cotton Shirtlessness. 
 There is nothing more to say. The thing is fixed, 
 and very bad it is — for the washerwomen ! 
 
 December 7, 1801. 
 
 FAIR BUT FIERCE. 
 
 In the name of Zen obi a, Boadicea, Moll Flanders, 
 Jean d'Arc, and the Maid of Saragossa, we begin this 
 article ! 
 
 Now that Messrs. Mason and Slidell are " given 
 up," just, for all the world, like a pair of fugitive 
 " niggers," another vexatious question has arisen, viz : 
 Did the lovely Miss Slidell, upon the deck of the 
 Trent steamer, slap the face of the unfortunate Lieut. 
 Fairfax ? 
 
 ( J< mimander Williams, that gallant tar, who suffered
 
 THE GALLANT TAR. 205 
 
 such agonies on the occasion, was the recipient of a 
 dinner of the public variety on his arrival in Eng- 
 land. In his post-prandial speech, Commander Wil- 
 liams went at length into the above-mentioned ques- 
 tion, and made one of those nice distinctions which 
 would have been appreciated in a middle-age court 
 of love and honor. " Some of the papers," said this 
 briny Bayard, " described her as having slapped Mr. 
 Fairfax's face. She did strike Mr. Fairfax — but she 
 did not do it with the vulgarity of gesture which has 
 been attributed to her. In her agony, she did strike 
 him in the face three times." 
 
 And what does Commander Williams — sly dog, 
 Williams is, quite a lady's man — what docs he add % 
 Why, he says frankly : " I wish that Miss Slidell's 
 little knuckles had struck me in the face. I should 
 like to have the mark forever." There is something 
 more or less amorous in this frank confession ; and, 
 if there be an old, established Mrs. Williams, we 
 hope, for the sake of Commander Williams, that it 
 will not come to her ears. Williams, it seems, likes 
 to be smitten by the sex ; in that respect differing 
 from that other ancient mariner, Capt. Edward 
 Cuttle, who lived in continual dread of Mrs. Mc- 
 Stinger's " little knuckles." We wish this British 
 seaman good luck ; and trust that he may live to 
 be "slapped," though without "vulgarity of ges- 
 ture," by a great number of the finest women — and 
 that Mrs. Williams may not be one of them. 
 
 Two things in the explanation of the Commander, 
 our readers of a Chesterfieldian turn will notice.
 
 206 AN AGONIZED MAIDEN. 
 
 Miss Sliclell committed assault and battery — for 
 which at tlie Tombs they would have fined her 
 five shillings — without " vulgarity of gesture ; " and 
 she did it " in her agony." From this we infer 
 that Miss Slidell delivered her " one-two-three " 
 with a refinement, suavity, elegance and grace 
 which are at least rare in the Prize King. O happy 
 Fairfax, to be so struck by such little knuckles ! O 
 fortunate mariner, if you did but know it ! Williams 
 says that to be assaulted so gracefully and by such 
 little knuckles would make him forego washing his 
 face for the rest of a natural life passed in dreams 
 of that delicious moment. We agree with Williams, 
 although we are not of his marine susceptibility. 
 If one is to be slapped as to the cheek — we beg the 
 refined Williams's pardon — if one is to be struck, 
 "slapped" is vulgar — if one is to be assaulted at all, 
 one would choose to be assaulted by a fair dame, and 
 without " vulgarity of gesture." 
 
 Young ladies who read this newspaper, and we 
 hope profit by it, listen to our admonition ! This is a 
 world of mutation. You do not think now that you 
 will ever be called upon "in your agony " to "hit 
 out " at a naval officer three times; but this is a 
 world of extraordinary changes and chances, and you 
 may be compelled in your " agony " aforesaid, to ad- 
 minister castigation to a meandering husband, or im- 
 pertinent lover. Take a lesson from the exquisite 
 and scientific Miss Slidell ! Dear young ladies, when 
 you go reluctantly to your calisthenics, and when you 
 turn a deaf ear to the teacher who begs that you will
 
 A YOUNG WOMAN IX POSITION. 207 
 
 not neglect the cultivation of the biceps flexor cubiti 
 and the deltoid muscles, remember that the time 
 may come when you will regret your negligence — ■ 
 when, in fact, and not to put too tine a point upon it, 
 you may desire to assault somebody in pantaloons, 
 and may yet be afraid to do it. See what hard train- 
 ing — constant practice, we suppose upon Topsey and 
 Dinah and Phillis — has done for Miss Slidell ! Why, 
 the moment she gets into her " agony," she proceeds 
 as naturally to strike somebody, as if she had been 
 striking somebody all her life. See her squaring off 
 — no, that is vulgar — see her going through the pre- 
 liminary gesticulations before poor Fairfax ! It is a 
 subject for a picture. It should be put upon canvas, 
 and hung up in the Confederate Capitol — when there 
 is one. Miss Slidell, with flashing orbs and tangled 
 hair and crimson cheek and curling coral lips and 
 heaving bosom and small fist clenched — Williams says 
 that she didn't slap, and this proves that she did, not 
 to speak vulgarly, clench her fist — Miss Slidell with 
 her pretty feet in position, her shoulders well 
 thrown back, her " little hands " covering well her 
 " mug " and " peepers," if we may employ those coarse 
 words — she, the petticoated athlete, should be the 
 central figure of the piece. Then poor Mr. Fairfax, 
 looking sheepish, prepared for punishment, with "hit 
 me again," written upon every line of his countenance ; 
 while Williams, entering like a true Briton into the 
 spirit of the occasion, brings in the basins and the 
 sponges, and is ready to hold the lady's bottle ! Talk 
 no more of a dearth of historical subjects for the
 
 208 A CHANCE FOR TWO PICTURES. 
 
 easel! Why, the death of Nelson was nothing to 
 this! 
 
 Though we are, on the other hand, rather than else 
 inclined to the opinion that no living painter could 
 do justice to Miss Slidell's "agony." Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds managed Ugolino, but we do not think 
 that our whole National Academy, with the Sketch- 
 Club to boot, could adequately portray this Maid of 
 (New) Orleans in all the sublimity of hysterics. If 
 they are up to it, all we have to say is, that they do 
 not need plaster-heads of Medusa to paint from any 
 longer. Williams may be within reach of a clever 
 brush, as with ears long and erect, and admiration 
 driving stupidity from his countenance, he stands by 
 speechless with gratification (and a large variety of 
 other emotions) and wondering what this charming 
 young woman will really do next. And finally, a com- 
 panion-piece might represent Mr. Fairfax reporting 
 his dishonor to Commodore Wilkes, with this motto : 
 
 " Which when the Captain com'd for to hear it, 
 
 He was werry much astonished at what she had done." 
 January, 3, 1862. 
 
 BOBBING AROUND. 
 
 Tins Civil War has unsettled other things than the 
 political peace of the country ; it has played mischief 
 with the intellectuals of a great many people on both 
 sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and led to a wide-spread 
 impression that, contrary to all precedents, flax will
 
 THICKENING OF THE MUDDLE. 209 
 
 quench fire. "Why do n't you settle your differences ?" 
 roars The London Times. " Why do n't you make up 
 your quarrel ?" bellows the British orator. " Let 's 
 fix things !" observes the remainder-newspaper of the 
 Constitutional Union Party. "Niggers have noth- 
 ing to do with the war !" cries Brigadier This. " We 
 are not fighting for the niggers !" exclaims Adjutant 
 That. " iSTot at all !" responds some Congressional 
 Orator — " very far from it !" As for the policy of 
 the Government, so far as it is deducible from Mes- 
 sages, Reports, Speeches and the other usual sources 
 of information — who knows what that policy is? 
 For what with contradictory orders, and Laws of 
 Congress which gentlemen in epaulets think them- 
 selves at liberty to disregard, and what with British 
 conversion to Pro-Slavery, and the general overset- 
 ting of all past moralities appertaining to that insti- 
 tution, and what with the Wilkes complication, the 
 muddle has now become so general, that it is quite 
 time to recall, if we can, our scattered senses, and to 
 try to understand why we are fighting these expen- 
 sive battles, and enduring, with more or less fortitude, 
 these agonizing experiences. 
 
 One curse of war is, that after it has been waged 
 for a short time, the bustle of its management and 
 the pressure of its exigencies push out of sight, or 
 temporarily shoulder aside, its original causes. War 
 creates continually new complications. Substantially, 
 the affair of the Trent has nothing to do with the war 
 itself; and yet, in the matter, our officer did no more 
 than he thought himself absolutely obliged to do, and
 
 210 IGNORING THE NEGRO. 
 
 although, so far as we were wrong, we have made 
 haste to offer every satisfaction, yet this wrong, ve- 
 nial at the worst, to a pair of slaveholders, has been 
 sufficient utterly to abolish the Abolition sentiment 
 of England. Out of sight at once goes bleeding Af- 
 rica, and the poor blacks and emancipation ; and 
 this very England which two years ago was coddling 
 American fugitives from Slavery, is now threatening 
 so to interpose in this quarrel, that Slavery, in a fair 
 way to be abolished if we are not meddled with, shall 
 be a perpetuated nuisance and an eternal crime. 
 What are we to make of this odd compound of self- 
 ishness and sympathy, of this penny -wise philan- 
 thropy, of this cheap pity, which subsides into indif- 
 ference the moment it promises to cost a little more 
 than an annual subscription of a couple of guineas ? 
 
 However, fault-finding in such a case as this should 
 begin, like charity, at home. There is enough that 
 is comically curious here without going abroad in 
 search thereof. For instance : 
 
 Here is a newspaper — we mention no name, for it 
 would not be civil — but here is a newspaper suffi- 
 ciently noisy in behalf of the Union and Victory and 
 our Flag and Eagle ; which keeps rousing and rally- 
 ing our Brigadiers, and calling for action ; which is 
 a perpetual fountain of pretty predictions ; and is 
 generally as patriotic as possible ; while at the same 
 time, if the Governor of Massachusetts in his Annual 
 Message alludes to Slavery as the cause and the curse, 
 this same amiable journal at once begins to growl 
 out : No such thing — "niggers" have nothing to do
 
 THE SINCERITY OF WAR. 211 
 
 with it ! — let the " niggers" alone ! — hold your tongue 
 about Slavery ! — rally for the Constitution, but, as 
 you hope for peace, say not a word about Emancipa- 
 tion. It affirms that all the Abolitionists are fanatical, 
 enthusiastic, incendiary blackguards. If a Member 
 of Congress ventures to hint that to this same eman- 
 cipation you must come at last, that it will not do to 
 leave nine-tenths of the property of the insurgents 
 sacredly exempt from the perils of war, the poor 
 Member is instantly denounced as fiercely as he would 
 have been two years ago, and is at once written down 
 as both an ass and a pyromaniac ! 
 
 How long do gentlemen suppose that we can go 
 on in this way ? 
 
 Battles are earnest matters. Men are killed, a 
 great many of them, in battles ; and human life, at 
 least white human life, is worth something. War is 
 expensive, and dollars are dollars. There is no cause 
 under heaven of this quarrel but Human Slavery. 
 It matters not into what form of words you put it, or 
 whether you display or disguise it, but every child 
 knows that this insurrection is in the interests of 
 Slavery, and of a very mean kind of Slavery at that. 
 If we fight well we weaken Slavery, if we gain a bat- 
 tle, Slavery receives a blow ; our opponents are slave- 
 holders, and they are in the field avowedly as slave- 
 holders to redress wrongs said to be inflicted upon 
 them as slaveholders ; while the main purport of all 
 their manifestoes to the world is just this — that 
 Slavery is in danger, and that Slavery must be pre- 
 served. What fools, idiots, dolts, knaves, or good-
 
 212 WHAT SHALL WE DO? 
 
 natural asses are we, that we do not accept the issue 
 which is tendered to us, when such acceptance would 
 make us strong, not merely in the righteousness of our 
 cause, but in material and vital assistance and alli- 
 ances ! Can 't we afford to be strong ? Are we afraid 
 of success ? Do we shrink from victory ? 
 
 And what are we afraid of? Of the Constitution ? 
 "What kind of love for the Constitution is that which 
 invariably interprets it in the interests of its deadliest 
 enemies ? How are you to help the Constitution by 
 helping those who are bent upon its final demolition ? 
 What claim to constitutional consideration have these 
 reckless rebels, who have trampled the venerable in- 
 strument under their feet ? Is it to be all Constitu- 
 tion for them and no Constitution for us ? The 
 worst that we wish these banded and embattled fel- 
 ons is that they may get just what the terms of the 
 Constitution decree to them. We say plainly that 
 there is no other government under the sun which 
 would have hesitated for a moment — which would 
 not, long ere this, under like circumstances of nation- 
 al peril, have published a general edict of emancipa- 
 tion — which would not ere this have had in its ranks 
 tens of thousands of well-drilled and well-armed eiimn- 
 cipated slaves — and there are very few governments, 
 let us add, which would not have sedulously promoted 
 an uprising of the negroes, and which would not have 
 fought the white insurrection with a black one. 
 
 ihit we are nicer. The benumbing muddle is on 
 us still. "What shall we do ? — what shall we do ? — 
 what shall we do V we cry with incessant and inge-
 
 LETTING ALONE. 213 
 
 nious variety of inflection. " The poor blacks " — we 
 continue — " we cannot do anything with them — poor 
 creatures ! — on account of the Constitution, you know 
 ■ — and the Compromise Act, you know — and they 
 would cut all their masters' throats, you know !" So 
 we wait quietly for the masters to come and cut our 
 throats — which will be more agreeable to the forms 
 of the Constitution. Which cheerful work, with a 
 little pleasant violence to our wives and daughters, 
 with a small robbery of our treasure, with here and 
 there the burning of a sea-board city, we have no 
 doubt the man-owners will soon be ready to perform — 
 if we will only let Slavery alone ! 
 
 It is right to be taught by the enemy, always pro- 
 vided the terms of tuition are not too high. He tells 
 us that we should let Slavery alone. And be sure he 
 is a very sincere preceptor ! Accept the maxim — 
 let Slavery alone — assuage its wrath — give it a kiss 
 of toleration — and then see how long it will let you 
 alone ! 
 
 January S, 1862. 
 
 NIOBE AND LATONA. 
 
 We remember that when we were the reporter of a 
 respectable country newspaper, we were sent to take 
 notes of the doings of a Whig meeting, and of the 
 speech of a certain Southern orator who had been 
 sent for to come over and help us. After he had fin- 
 ished his nonsense, he approached our humble table
 
 214 MR> McMAIIONIS CLASSICAL. 
 
 with the front of Jupiter. " Sir," said he, " do you 
 intend to report my speech '?" " Certainly," was the 
 response. " Sir," he returned, " you cannot do it. 
 You might as well try to report red-hot balls." We 
 took him at his word ; wrote a respectable speech for 
 him and printed it, and thereby, we then did flatter 
 ourselves, saved for the Whigs at the election a very 
 pretty handful of votes. We have been reminded 
 of this little incident by reading " Cause and Con- 
 trast," which is a highly peppered pamphlet, the par- 
 turient pangs of which were borne by Mr. Thomas W. 
 McMahon, now of Richmond, in the United States, 
 Territory of Eastern Virginia, but formerly private 
 secretary of the Hon. Fernando Wood. 
 
 Mr. McMahon is a gentleman also whose acquaint- 
 ance with that rare work, " Lempriere's Classical 
 Dictionary," we can vouch for, since he compares 
 the South to Niobe and the North to Latona, and 
 since he also calls plain sea-faring " sporting with the 
 Nereides of the dee])." Now, why he should com- 
 pare the South to Niobe, we do not precisely com- 
 prehend, unless it is conceded by him to be stone 
 dead ; and why he should liken the North to Latona 
 we do not any better comprehend, unless he expects 
 us to shoot him and the rest of Niobe\s progeny. 
 But when Mr. McMahon is well-mounted upon his 
 rhetorical charger, he dashes ahead like a particularly 
 Headless Horseman; and no martingale of sense is 
 strong enough to stop him. That which puts him 
 upon his most perilous paces is the prosperity of the 
 North. One grievous fault in the character of Latona,
 
 HOW WE MADE OUR MONET. 215 
 
 is not so much that we have conspired against Niobe's 
 babies, as that we have " banks." Also " insurance 
 oilices." Likewise " stage-coaches, railroads and 
 steamboats." Moreover, " commercial emporiums, 
 prosperous and magnificent." 
 
 And how have we obtained all these comfortable 
 things ? The off-hand answer of a poor, plain man 
 would be, that we have banks because we have capi- 
 tal ; and insurances offices because we have some- 
 thing to insure ; that we have " stage-coaches " and 
 other criminal, though convenient, vehicularities, be- 
 cause we have something or somebody to carry, and 
 that our " emporiums " are " commercial " because 
 we have a commerce. But Mr. Thomas "W. McMa- 
 hon knows better than that. All these things have 
 come to us — 
 
 1. " From tlie tobacco plantations of Virginia and Tennessee." 
 
 2. " From the flowery and fruitful regions of Ojoelousas." 
 
 3. " From the sugar lands of Attakapas." 
 
 4. " From the silver shores of the Mississippi, perfumed 
 by groves of orange and citron." 
 
 5. " From " 
 
 But enough of this, though we leave a great deal 
 of excellent fooling unquoted. The truth is that as 
 " An ass once spoke, as learned men deliver," so he 
 is speaking now again. "What on earth has the Bank 
 of Commerce in this city to do with " the orange and 
 citron on the banks of the Mississippi V "What in the 
 name of common sense, or uncommon sense, has the 
 Erie Railroad to do with " the flowery and fruitful 
 regions of Opelousas ?" TVe are not aware that any
 
 216 BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. 
 
 gentleman in this " emporium " has gone into busi- 
 ness, and much less made money, because " the 
 silver shores of the Mississippi are perfumed " with 
 anything — orange, citron or river mud. If "the 
 picturesque and beautiful T. "W. HcMahon," as The 
 Richmond Enquirer calls him, had more of sense 
 and less of sonority, he would hardly have fallen into 
 the Hibernian blunder of enumerating the means of 
 wealth at the South as the causes of her poverty ; 
 nor would he have attempted to show that Niobe is 
 poor because she has had a monopoly of two of the 
 most valuable productions of the world. 
 
 It is difficult to see why Latona is to be thus shrew- 
 ishly berated because she has been a good customer. 
 If we have bought cotton, have we not paid for it 
 before spinning and weaving it ? If Latona has been 
 indebted to Kiobe for tobacco, we ask in the name 
 of Justitia — for we also like to be classical now and 
 then — we ask in the name of Justitia, and Themis, 
 and Equitas, and other goddesses, and all the appro- 
 priate gods — we ask, if Latona has not paid for that 
 tobacco, short-cut, long-cut, pig-tail, plug, Cavendish, 
 honey-dew, before chewing or smoking it ? And as 
 for cotton, the writer of this article has every reason 
 to believe that the shirt which he has on, when in its 
 original condition — its cottonian condition — was not 
 only bought upon what Thomas calls " the blessed 
 sea-island coasts," but was also bought at a price 
 fixed by the Blessed Sea-Island Coasters themselves ; 
 that they drew for the money, and that the bills were 
 cashed at maturity ; so that the shirt in question is
 
 THE McMAHON WARDROBE. 217 
 
 not — to be classical again — in the least a new Nes- 
 sus-shirt to the wearer, hut an honest garment to be 
 received from the washerwoman without remorse and 
 to be put on without a pang. 
 
 Now, can McMahon lay his hand where his heart 
 should be, and say as much of his shirt ? Is he sure 
 that the cloth of which his pantaloons are built, 
 bought, doubtless, by an enterprising Richmond tailor 
 in New York, has ever been paid for by the aforesaid 
 tailor ? Is he sure that he, the said McMahon, had 
 not on at the moment of penning his splendid produc- 
 tion, a pair of French boots bought in New York, but, 
 alas ! in New York never paid for ? Niobe owes us 
 millions upon millions, but how much do we owe 
 Niobe, O picturesque and beautiful McMahon ! If 
 the facts could be arrived at, we should be willing to 
 wager six cents that the pen with which this philoso- 
 pher wrote, the ink which he misused, the paper 
 which he spoiled, were all bought in New York, and 
 remain unpaid for ; and to this we will add another 
 wager of two-pence, that the press upon which this 
 brilliant pamphlet was printed, and the ink with 
 which it was printed, and the virgin paper deflowered 
 by its printing, were all bought in this or some other 
 Northern " emporium," and remain unpaid for. Con- 
 sidering all these things, we are willing to confess 
 that McMahon's blarney is about the boldest which 
 has recently come to our notice. 
 
 Everybody has heard this McMahon's style of 
 lamentation in private life. One man is thrifty, 
 industrious, intelligent, and, therefore, successful ; 
 10
 
 218 4 CALORIFIC PAMPHLETEER 
 
 while his neighbor is everything that he is not. Xo. 1 
 gets rich, builds a fine house, pays his debts, and 
 live:; in ease and contentment. Xo. 2 gets poor, hires 
 a squalid house, is turned out of it for not paying his 
 rent, lives at sixes and sevens with society, and think- 
 ing himself vastly injured, damns Xo. 1 as the source 
 of all his woes. He fancies that if Xo. 1 had re- 
 mained poor, he, Xo. 2, would by some fortunate bit 
 of prestidigitation have become opulent — and he 
 makes a fool of himself, and growls fiendishly at Xo. 1 
 accordingly. lie says in the language of madness 
 and drivel : " See that fellow — he has made his money 
 out of me — he rides in my carriage — he drives my 
 horses — he lives in my house, and he eats my food 
 and he drinks my wine, and he uses my plate, and 
 he wears my clothes." 
 
 " Two hundred and thirty one millions of dollars 
 were," says McMahon, "the annual dowry which the 
 South (Xiobe) cast at her (Latona's) feet.'' lie then 
 goes on in a dreadfully low-spirited style, to say that 
 the South is a pelican; that we are her progeny; 
 that she has drained her breasts to feed us ; and he 
 concludes by uttering other flapdoodle for the nour- 
 ishment of the liichmond mind. We congratulate 
 our provincial friends in Virginia upon the posses- 
 sion of such a warm writer in this cold weather ; and 
 we are confident that a copy of his pamphlet placed 
 near the feet upon going to bed, will be found equal 
 to the hottest hot-water jug ever corked up to lay 
 b tween the sheets. 
 
 January 22, l G J.
 
 BRO THE 11 A GAINST BROTHER. 219 
 
 SECESSION SQUABBLES. 
 
 The reckless dissensions of leaders have been the ruin 
 of half the revolts mentioned in history. It is not 
 impossible that Charles Stuart might have reached 
 London, however short might have been his stay there, 
 if he could have kept his Highland chieftains from 
 quarreling. The operations and efhciency of our own 
 Revolutionary Army were often seriously embarrassed 
 by the military intrigues of ambitious leaders ; and 
 nothing but the extraordinary good sense of Wash- 
 ington rescued us upon such occasions from temporary 
 discomfiture. Men who have thrown off the author- 
 ity of one Government, glide with but little grace 
 into loyalty to another ; and it is when the founda- 
 tions of society are broken up, that the aspiring ply 
 with the greatest and most mischievous assiduity their 
 schemes of personal aggrandizement. 
 
 We are not, therefore, at all- astonished to find that 
 the leaders of the Slaveholders' Rebellion are already 
 at loggerheads ; and as our sources of information are 
 their own newspapers, we accept as a fact what we 
 should have theoretically anticipated. The vice which 
 proved so fatal to the fallen angels has not spared 
 these their legitimate descendants — the little Lucifers 
 and the great Beelzebubs of the Man-Owner's Con- 
 spiracy. Richmond, if we may credit its journals, is 
 full of petty squabbles, and the serenity of men who 
 profess to be the architects of new and nobler institu- 
 tions is continually disturbed by the torments of an 
 unslumbering jealousy. We have written in our time
 
 220 DOMESTIC CRITICISM. 
 
 with sufficient asperity of our political antagonists ; 
 and if they have not always kept to the truth, why we, 
 it must be owned, have not always kept our temper ; 
 and yet we never, for his sins, castigated a Pro- 
 Slavery Democrat with a tithe of the virulent unction 
 with which The Richmond Whig assaults the Davis 
 Administration. The managers of that sheet know 
 best whether they can afford, in their present predica- 
 ment, to be hypercritical, and the pre-eminently fac- 
 tious of a faction; but as neither they nor those to 
 whom they appeal have ever submitted, either in 
 public or in private affairs, to the semblance of con- 
 trol, it is not probable that considerations of Confed- 
 erate safety will keep one pair of duelling pistols in 
 its case. The secession of those States "was partly 
 caused by a general passion for politics, which, in a 
 slaveholding community, commonly afford the only 
 avenue to distinction, and to the intelligent, the only 
 escape from an intolerable night-mare, and life-in- 
 death listlessness. 
 
 Secession, itself the offspring of politics, breeds in 
 its turn a progeny of parties, each prolific of cliques, 
 and each restive under guidance. Mr. Davis has not 
 warmed the stool of office, before this aspirant or that 
 newspaper seeks to push him from it ; and a score of men 
 think themselves as well entitled to the honor as he is. 
 Are not their necks as precious as his ? Why should 
 he come in for the robes of place, and they for ragged- 
 ness \ Why lie for eminence and they for obscurity? 
 They made him, great as he has grown; their votes 
 arc the meat upon which ho has fed.
 
 INTESTINE WRATH. 221 
 
 "Why," some scion of an ancient and dilapidated 
 Virginian house might ask, "Why is this man sov- 
 ereign and T only sergeant upon (a promise of) quar- 
 ter-pay ?" It is in this key — a kind of mad minor — 
 that The Whirj pipes its disaffection. "Why has n't 
 my advice been followed ?" asks the able Editor of 
 that paper. " Why does n't the army ravage Penn- 
 sylvania ?" And then it goes on frankly to declare 
 why. It is because the " Government" — which, of 
 course, is not expected to even go through the mo- 
 tions of governing — has been " wrangling with pop- 
 ular generals, and piddling over petty jobs." This 
 is acidulous as well as alliterative. The Whir/ then, 
 really quite after the manner of Junius, says : "A 
 child with a bauble, an old man with a young wife, 
 are partial illustrations of our deplorable folly." The 
 rage for fine writing has led many a Southern editor 
 into scrapes either droll or murderous ; but this man 
 of metaphor who has contrived to compare the Con- 
 federacy to a " bauble " and " an old man's wife " has 
 surpassed his predecessors as much in boldness as in 
 truth. 
 
 To say that The Whig is discontented, exasperated, 
 indignant and ferocious, is to say nothing adequate. 
 Its wrath mounts to an ecstacy. Summer and win- 
 ter have passed in dreary inaction. Disease and the 
 weariness of waiting have demoralized the Confeder- 
 ate camps. " The finest army ever assembled " has 
 "wasted away," and still The Richmond Whir/ has 
 borne it with a patient shrug. But no, patience being 
 no longer a virtue, but the most vicious of vices, The
 
 222 A HOUSE DIVIDED. 
 
 Whig takes off its coat, and delivers its right and 
 left at the culpable Cabinet, assuring its readers that 
 certain " reputed great men " are, after all, disrepu- 
 table little men, who must, unless this fine, fresh, 
 youthful Confederacy is to go to the deuce, be reform- 
 ed out of office, and give place to those who read The 
 Richmond Whig regularly, and profit by its admo- 
 nitions. It calls upon " Congress " to " see that other 
 departments perform their functions," and confident- 
 ly predicts that when " our side " gets inside, the vehi- 
 cle will move with admirable ease and celerity. But 
 if " Congress " should prove as incompetent as " Cab- 
 inet," nothing will remain to be done but for Mr. 
 Jefferson Davis to go up to the House, pistol the 
 Speaker, turn out the Members, and establish a Des- 
 potism tempered by cocktails and leading-articles. 
 
 This, then, is the Confederacy, so little compact 
 that even the perils of war and imminent destruc- 
 tion cannot unite it ! These are the men so little un- 
 selfish, so grossly self-seeking, that their own com- 
 panions cry shame upon their low ends and disrepu- 
 table aims ! These are the proofs of capacity for 
 maintaining political independence which the Rebels 
 offer to the powers of the world! President, Cabi- 
 net, Senators, Representatives, Editors, squabble like 
 a group of runaway boys over a bird's nest with 
 nothing in it! Why, this would make the most 
 brilliant victories barren ; what will be its effect when 
 thick-coining defeats, the occupation of great cities, 
 the dispersion of the Rebel armies, the seizure of 
 military strongholds, the complete command of coasts
 
 IMMINENT SUBDIVISIONS. 223 
 
 and rivers and gulfs, shall have brought that hitter 
 disappointment to which only despair can succeed? 
 Let the Rebel leaders look well to themselves then, 
 lest the popular petard which they have been cram- 
 ming with falsehoods and passions, give them a hoist 
 more lofty than agreeable. Half the citizens of the 
 South do not as yet know the alphabet of govern- 
 ment. In the political ethics of the plantation they 
 are well enough versed ; they have a dim notion of 
 governing by the aid of a long whip and a heavy- 
 handed overseer ; but of governing themselves, of 
 permitting themselves to be governed, they have no 
 more notion than had the Barons and Piobber- 
 Knights of the Middle Ages — the quarrelsome rag- 
 tag and bob-tail of chivalry that followed St. Louis 
 to Palestine. The doctrine of secession would be 
 found in the end monstrously inconvenient, even 
 though it should be at first triumphant ; for after 
 that, there would be " nothing but thunder." State 
 would recede from State, County from County, Parish 
 from Parish, Husband from Wife, and Copartner from 
 Copartner, until, at last, we should hear from their 
 farm in Xorth Carolina that Chang had seceded 
 from Eng, and that both were dead — the victims of a 
 mania for breaking things generally ! 
 
 March G, 1362.
 
 224 THE EMINENT " MELIUS." 
 
 " BIBLIUS. " 
 
 There is not in this world a sadder spectacle than that 
 which is presented by a seedy, second-hand clergy- 
 man, who has been turned out of his pulpit, writing 
 letters to the newspapers in favor of Slavery upon 
 Shen l-IIam-and-Japheth principles. It is astonishing, 
 considering what a poor figure such people cut, that 
 they will persist in cutting it. But they never learn 
 anything, and still stick to notions which were anti- 
 quated long before these choppers of cheap logic were 
 born. 
 
 For instance, here is the Rev. " Biblius " — for so 
 he signs himself — writing to The Boston Courier after 
 the interrogative, Soeratic fashion of Bishop Berke- 
 ley and President Lord, to inquire " whether Slavery, 
 as a variety of human government, does not stand im- 
 mutably in the will of God, during the present dis- 
 tracted and probationary state of earth and man, " 
 which seems to us very much like asking whether, 
 while we continue to sin, we shall not remain wicked. 
 The reverend writer is of the opinion that Congress 
 should initiate no measure of Emancipation, because 
 it would be an interference with "the predicted bless- 
 ings of Shem, the enlargement of Japheth, and the re- 
 straint of licentious Ham, for the better conservation 
 of the world, otherwise liable to revert to the state of 
 Babel." The reader need n't laugh. We say that 
 all this is before us, printed in serious black and 
 white. Here is a man in the Nineteenth Century 
 who is actually afraid of a new Tower of Babel!
 
 THE LICENTIOUS HAM. 225 
 
 "Why does ho not go farther? Why docs lie not pre- 
 dict that Emancipation will be followed, maugre the 
 rainbow, by another flood? or by a plague of boils 
 and blains ? 
 
 This threat of polyglot confusion is alarming. We 
 shall be found, some fine morning, talking Chinese to 
 our neighbor who understands only Choctaw. Both 
 the great dictionaries will become worthless. The 
 whole world will be given to lunatic jabber, and all 
 because of Emancipation ! But worse will follow. 
 Shem will be swindled out of his " predicted bless- 
 ings." Japhet will be ensmdlled, and not " enlarged." 
 " The licentious Ham " will break loose, and cut all 
 sorts of unscriptural capers. The prospect is un- 
 speakably dreadful ! The excellent " Biblius " thinks 
 that " study would doubtless have prevented the civil 
 war." But it is never too late to mend. Let us all 
 beg, buy or borrow dictionaries and go at it ! Congress 
 is always purchasing this thing or that — seeds, pic- 
 tures, patent plows — and why should n't it invest a 
 million or so, in these plenteous times, in lexicons 
 and chrestomathies ! Is n't it evident that if we are to 
 be saved, it must be, not by Major nor even by Brig- 
 adier Generals, but by sound professors of Hebrew. 
 
 At any rate, something should be done. The uni- 
 verse has not been in such a perilous condition since 
 the war of the Titans. Divine Providence is in a 
 dangerous way ; and it is certainly odd that our only 
 safeguard against " the premature catastrophe of na- 
 tions" should be communications in The Boston 
 Courier. Let us all go at our " Aleph-Beth-Gimmel " 
 10*
 
 226 CHIVALR T nYBERNA TES. 
 
 at once ; for if we do n't, who knows what mischief 
 may be done when Ham gets a good opportunity to 
 break Shem's head ! We do not think that we shall 
 hereafter support any man for the Presidency who is 
 not well up in his Hebrew, points and all. It will 
 never do to have Providence thwarted in this loose 
 way. 
 
 March 22, 1SC2 
 
 COLD COMFORT. 
 
 Do our readers remember a newspaper entitled The 
 Atlanta Confederacy? — a journal which has, even in 
 gloomy times, furnished us with matter for cheerful 
 comment. We are grieved to announce that this 
 once jovial sheet is now deeply " depressed at the 
 (Rebel) reverses sustained during the winter months/' 
 According to The Confederacy, the thermometer is 
 greater than the sword, and the traitors must not ex- 
 pect to win any more battles until hot weather is well 
 established. At present the Southern population is 
 " chilled, benumbed, and lifeless." At present the 
 Southern patriot " would scarcely move from a good 
 hickory log to dodge a cannon ball." Wait 'till the 
 mercury bobs up to above eighty degrees in the shade ! 
 Confederate valor is of a dormouse variety. Just 
 now, Chivalry is hybernating ! Poor Tom 's a-cold ! 
 He can 't be expected to thaw into invincibility until 
 about the middle of June. Then he will come out, 
 like a polar bear, lean but ferocious. " Then," says
 
 COLDER AND COLDER. 227 
 
 The Confederacy, he will "revel in his tropical glory." 
 lie is never irresistibly savage until lie sweats. He 
 cannot lie valorous save in Lis shirt-sleeves. In hot 
 weather " he pants for blood." At least, so says The 
 Confederacy. 
 
 On the other hand, according to this newspaper, 
 a Yankee is never half so valorous as when half 
 frozen to death. He does n't begin to show himself 
 until he shivers. He is nobody, unless the wind is 
 north-east. He is a sweltering zany at a tempera- 
 ture one degree above nothing. The solar rays are 
 more fatal to him than famine. When " the South- 
 erner revels in his tropical glory," the Yankee " wilts, 
 and goes under." " Mark what we say," exclaims 
 this military meteorologist, " the first battle on a hot 
 day, we will whip the fight." This is plucky, if not 
 precisely grammatical. It is evident that nothing 
 can save us but a providential succession of the 
 nastiest North-Easters. Under these circumstances, 
 perhaps our generals should receive instructions never 
 to fight except when it is chilly. To be sure, a good 
 many years ago it was not what you might have ex- 
 actly called cold at Concord and Lexington ; and we 
 believe overcoats were rather than else discarded at 
 Bunker Hill. We know something about warm 
 weather up here, planted as we are in close proxim- 
 ity to the Xorth Pole. We beg leave to assure our 
 brother of The Confederacy that we do not go in 
 bear-skins the year round. Exudation will not be a 
 phenomenon altogether new to us. We have that 
 rarity, " the hottest day of the season," even in these
 
 228 HOTTER AND HOTTER. 
 
 latitudes. What says the poet, Dr. Holmes ? " The 
 folks that on the first of May, Wore winter-coats and 
 hose, Began to say, the first of June, ' Good Lord, 
 how hot it grows !' : ' And that was in Boston, the 
 very nursery and ague-paradise of North-Easters. 
 
 If ninety degrees above, in the shade, were neces- 
 sarily fatal, we should have " a very dying time " 
 here in Xew York every Summer. One set of dog- 
 days would leave Manhattan a desert. Yet, some- 
 how, by virtue of straw hats, linen coats, and ice at 
 discretion, we do, some of us, survive surpassingly 
 high temperatures. We do not call ourselves absolute 
 salamanders — nor Shadrachs, Meshachs, and Abed- 
 negos — but we do not believe that the fiery sunbeams 
 of Secessia will quite singe the hair off our soldiers' 
 heads, nor that our braves will be driven to Sydney 
 Smith's extremity, of getting out of their ilesh to sit, or 
 stand, or do battle in their bones. Somehow, we can- 
 not think of our gallant fellows advancing with fans 
 in one baud and the rifle in the other. Tim- far, in 
 more than one light, they have shown themselves 
 cool enough. We hope it will not be entirely differ- 
 ent in June. 
 
 It is curious to notice the fatuity with which the 
 Rebels rely upon Hot Weather and the Yellow Fever. 
 It would be still more curious to see them upon their 
 knees praying for a pestilence — supplicating for 
 miasma — beseeching Heaven to change the propor- 
 tions of atmospheric air, and to diminish the quantity 
 of ozone — tenderly invoking the gentle ofiices of the 
 mea-les and fever-and-ague — sighing for the co-oper-
 
 LET IT FLOW! 229 
 
 ation of the small-pox — begging that fate may cut us 
 oil' from our quinine, and that every shell which they 
 discliarge may shiver at least one of our medicine- 
 chests. They do not seem to remember that if death 
 should become general, they might be called upon to 
 die just a little. Under the most favorable circum- 
 stances, in past years, acclimation has not saved them 
 from fatal, periodical epidemics — they have been 
 swept off even as if they were common mortals. 
 How will it be with the hot skies bending over their 
 dirty camps — with their Commissariat in confusion — 
 with the army-uniforms and blankets in rags — with 
 no habits among the men of self-restraint, and with 
 but little intelligence among the officers? "Will not 
 these "children of the sun," as The Confederacy calls 
 them, be in some danger of disease? The Atlanta 
 newspaper assures us that, under these circumstances, 
 u the current of life," in Southern arteries, '"Hows 
 with accelerated speed." It may iiow altogether too 
 fast. 
 
 This acute journalist is complacent in the opinion 
 that no Yankee will fight unless the weather be such 
 as to make u a heavy coat and thick boots " comfort- 
 able. To be sure, some of our army-coats have not 
 heretofore been of the heaviest, nor have our army- 
 boots been of the thickest — but let that go ! If The 
 Confederacy be right, it becomes us to make haste 
 and to do our fighting before the days of the dog-star. 
 If the Southron " dreads cold weather," now is the 
 time to give him a little brisk exercise. 
 
 April 30, 1862.
 
 230 MB. BE BOW'S VIEWS. 
 
 EXTEMPORIZING PRODUCTION. 
 
 Our statistical friend, Mr. De Bow, whose arithmet- 
 ical exploits in the manufacture of Census Reports 
 did not give the world a very lofty idea of his ve- 
 racity, whatever may have been the opinion of his 
 ingenuity, announces with some nourish that a black- 
 ing and lucifer-match-factory has been established at 
 Lynchburg, and that North Carolina has engaged in 
 the manufacture of pea-nut oil. Moreover, Mr. De 
 Bow lifts up his voice jubilantly in respect of eight 
 tan-yards in Louisa County, (State not named.) Also, 
 many females are " spinning upon old fashioned hand- 
 looms in South Carolina." Mr. De Bow spreads his 
 statistics, which are dreadfully meagre, over the 
 broadest possible surface, and brings up on bowie- 
 knives. They are turning out these valuable weap- 
 ons, it appears, with consummate alacrity, in Ports- 
 mouth, Ya. And this suggests a more careful ex- 
 amination of Mr. De Bow's new productions, which 
 prove to be principally bayonets, camp-stools, gun- 
 powder, tent-poles, bowie-knives, revolving pistols, 
 drums — and, we presume, fifes> and even flags. But 
 Mr. De Bow, while making up the rose-colored rec- 
 ord, and telling us that they are producing leather in 
 Albemarle and shoes in Madison County, does not 
 tell us how much leather nor how many shoes. 
 There are eight tan-yards in Louisa County; but are 
 they large or little tan-yards? and, above all, are 
 they new or old tan-yards ''. and, finally, are they tan- 
 yards in which leather was or is manufactured '{ We
 
 BUSHELS OF PINS. 231 
 
 should like to have a veracious answer to the ques- 
 tions, because, in war, shoes are of more importance 
 than swords, particularly in the course of a retreat. 
 One good side of sole-leather will be worth more to 
 the rebels than a small cargo of pea-nut oil. We are 
 the more particular on the subject of leather, because 
 we happen to know that there is a considerable de- 
 mand even in the Rebel States for Northern shoes, 
 about this time. Mind ! we do not say that there is 
 any supply — we only say that there is a demand. 
 
 But let us go back to De Bow ! In his whole 
 elaborate list we find only one manufactory of pow- 
 der, (in Charlotte County, Va.,) which is turning out 
 1,000 lbs. per diem. Besides, here the fallacy of the 
 De Bow computations is lamentably exposed in gen- 
 eral. One hundred thousand pounds of powder, 
 myriads of bowie-knives, mile-long and mile-wide 
 parks of artillery, innumerable camp-stools, and mil- 
 lions of bushels of tent-pins, add nothing, either in 
 times of war or of peace, to the actual wealth of the 
 country. Nothing so adds which is manufactured 
 simply that it may be almost simultaneously de- 
 stroyed. Once more we must call attention to the 
 fact that, physically and materially considered, war 
 is waste. The pound of powder which is blown from 
 a gun is gone forever, and can never by any possi- 
 bility be a pound of powder again. The shell which 
 bursts may kill a dozen of the enemy, but that is an 
 end of it — it will never kill any more. Human 
 industry, in many of its departments, works over 
 and over again the same materials — such as rags,
 
 232 ECONOMY. 
 
 iron, etc., etc. But this is not true of the materials 
 of war, or is so only in a limited sense. Hence any 
 prolonged military struggle requires both capital and 
 a continual reproduction of original material. War 
 works with a double mischief. It produces less and 
 consumes more than peace. Mr. De Bow, who is not 
 the most profound of economists, mistakes a petty, 
 spasmodic production, liable at any time to be inter- 
 rupted, for a steady supply sustained by capital in- 
 creased, or at least undiminished. He is of the eat- 
 your-cake-and-have-it school, which is not the most 
 accurate in the world. The Southern slaveholding 
 economists are always making this blunder. Gov. 
 Wise used to say despairingly to his lazy Virginians, 
 " Do n't you see, that if you raise 5,000,000 bushels 
 of corn you will be better off, you and your niggers ; 
 and that if you raise 500,000,000 bushels you will be 
 still better off." Southern enterprise has been for- 
 ever complacently contented with the discovery that 
 it wanted something — it has rarely gone to the labor- 
 ious length of supplying itself. It has felt the want 
 which has palsied the production of many a people 
 much more deserving — the want of intelligent and 
 well remunerated labor. Human beings, considered 
 simply as capital, with no reference to their human 
 rights, with no regard for the law of God's own ex- 
 press enactment, that the laborer is worthy of his 
 hire — human beings, held as horses or heifers are 
 held, can never be or produce permanent wealth. 
 Behind all apparent prosperity, there is always the 
 damnable fiction, which makes the most splendid
 
 THE TAX-YARDS. 233 
 
 results only a show and a sham. The collapse may 
 at any time come. There is nothing provident in Hu- 
 man Slavery — no saving for a rainy season — it is 
 all carpe diem in its philosophy and practice. You 
 cannot make black men or white men real estate 
 merely by a little loose legislation. Toward a gen- 
 eral recognition of this truth the whole world has 
 been struggling for eight centuries, and not without 
 success. Feudalism went first, although it made bet- 
 ter masters and more productive vassals than slavery, 
 and did not imbrute the noble by ministering to his 
 personal luxury. Slavery in the Roman Empire dis- 
 appeared like a mist before the sun of the new Reve- 
 lation. Men were not ashamed, even in the time of 
 Louis X., to manumit their vassals jpro amove Dei ' 
 while Dr. Fuller and his disciples desire to keep men 
 in eternal bondage for the same pious reason. The 
 one great question in Russia for half a century 
 has been, " How shall we be rid of serfdom ?" In 
 the United States, during their whole political ex- 
 istence, with a certain class, the one great question 
 has been, " How shall we conserve Slavery ?" Hence 
 we have been, too many of us, at one endless, horrid 
 grind of logic to prove — what all the rest of the world 
 was practically denying — that Human Slavery is 
 profitable ; and it has all ended in Mr. De Bow's 
 assertion, that there are " eight tan-yards in Louisa 
 County." In sheer disgust M - e quit the subject. "We 
 do not believe that eighty tan-yards will save Slavery 
 in this country, or, at last, anywhere else. 
 
 May 1, 1SG2.
 
 234 FASTIDIOUS MUNROE. 
 
 VERY PARTICULAR. 
 
 Me. Jonx F. MraraoE is the worshipful Secession 
 Mayor of New Orleans ; and although we cannot rec- 
 ognize any man as a public officer who has repudiated 
 his allegiance to the United States, yet, as somebody 
 must do the epistolizing on the insurgent side, Mun- 
 roe is perhaps as good as another for the purpose. 
 His exceedingly cool letter of the 20th ult. to Capt. 
 Farragut shows that he does not by any means intend 
 to be " diddled out of the sweets of his unfortunate 
 situation." He is quite ready to surrender the city, 
 but he wishes to do it genteelly ; like the unhappy 
 man at the Old Bailey, who insisted upon being 
 carried up the scaffold stairs, as he could not con- 
 scientiously in any way be a party to his own death. 
 So Mayor, or Ex-Mayor, or Mock -Mayor Munroe is 
 highly fastidious. As for pulling down the Secession 
 Hag, he cannot do it; for he says that his "hand 
 would be paralyzed at the very thought of such an 
 act." Also " his heart." This would seeni to settle 
 the matter; for, medically considered, paralysis of 
 the heart is no joke, and is really a sort of complaint 
 which it is not safe to indulge in oftener than three 
 times a day, if so often. After this, Mayor Munroe 
 begins to whimper in the following feeble stylo: 
 "You have a gallant people to administrate during 
 your occupancy of this city — a people sensitive to all 
 that can in the least affect their dignity and self- 
 respect. Pray, sir, do not fail to regard their sus- 
 ceptibilities."
 
 PERSECUTION OF LOYALISTS. 235 
 
 Olio ! Sets the wind in that quarter ? Will any- 
 body learned in the black art tell us by what necro- 
 mancy, thaumaturgy, prestidigitation, or whatever 
 you may call it, the boot has been so rapidly and 
 miraculously transferred to the other leg ? How have 
 the " susceptibilities " of Union men fared in New 
 Orleans, or anywhere else, for that matter, in the re- 
 volted States '? How in East Tennessee, for instance ? 
 In this very city of New Orleans, the putative Mayor 
 of which now bawls for mercy, and shivers with guilty 
 apprehension in his official robes, how safe has it been 
 for any man — ay ! or for any woman, to question the 
 morality of treason, or the duty of dissolution, or the 
 exceeding beauty of Slavery, or the omniscience of 
 Davis, or the invincibility of Beauregard % Why, it 
 was only the other day that we quoted from what 
 was once a respectable New Orleans newspaper, 
 ample evidence of the existence of a reign of terror 
 in that city. Men who refused to take up arms in 
 defence of the " Confederacy " were threatened with 
 the direst penalties — imprisonment, confiscation, or 
 even death ! Mechanics of Northern birth, who re- 
 mained loyal to their country, have been swindled 
 out of their wages, locked up, or forced to march in 
 the traitor ranks. Schoolmistresses have been treated 
 in more than one instance with excessive cruelty. 
 Clergymen, guilty only of fidelity to their ordination 
 vows, have been haled from their pulpits and ban- 
 ished. But why do we thus dwell upon special in- 
 stances i Can any honest and intelligent reader deny 
 that Secession, wickedly needless and unprovoked in
 
 230 CAPT. FAREAGUT SEES IT. 
 
 its beginning, has been coarse and blood-thirsty in its 
 progress ? and now, when our victorious arms are ad- 
 vancing once more to the establishment of law and 
 order, this mincing Mayor, who would not have lifted 
 one of his pens to save any Unionist from death at a 
 lamp-post, trusts that the "susceptibilities" of Seces- 
 sionists will be regarded ! We thought that we knew 
 something of magisterial impudence up tins way, but 
 we hereby renounce all laurels in that line. We have 
 nobody here to compete with Mayor Munroe ! Pray, 
 why did n't he go just a little further ? Why did n't he 
 make a pension for life, a bonus of $100,000, a gold 
 snuff-box, and a gift of five hundred " niggers," the 
 inexorable condition of his surrender? Why didn't 
 he insist, while he was about it, upon having Capt- 
 Farragut's sword ? Why did n't he stipulate that the 
 Secession banner should remain flung to the breeze 
 — should not be pulled down at all — should still 
 flaunt and flutter to soothe "the susceptibilities" of 
 the late Mayor of jScw Orleans? 
 
 Then there was one other thing which stirred up 
 " the susceptibility " of this ill-treated gentleman. 
 "The city is yours," he writes, witli indignation, 
 "by the power of brutal force." This is shameful. 
 To be sure, we have never heard of besieged cities 
 taken in any other way but "by the power of brutal 
 force ;" but New Orleans, we suppose, should have 
 been an exception. We should have captured it by 
 some kind of human weakness. But Capt. Farragut 
 did not see the matter exactly in that light. He 
 went to work in the old-fashioned way, which was
 
 THE HUMANE PIKE. 237 
 
 certainly reprehensible. The truth is, when a city is 
 taken, it is absolutely necessary that somebody should 
 pull the flag down — it 's a way they have in war. 
 Another truth is, that if the Secessionists are so ex- 
 ceeding susceptible, they should secure the comfort 
 of their own delicate nerves by setting us a good ex- 
 ample. There is a certain guerrilla chief, Morgan by 
 name, who is hanging Unionists at the West in rather 
 a free and easy, not to say reckless way ; and lately 
 he varied his murderous performances by hanging a 
 boy ! There also seems to have been a good deal of 
 unnecessary butchery of our wounded at Pittsburg 
 Landing, and upon other fields. If the susceptible 
 citizens of New Orleans will form a General Sus- 
 ceptible Society for the Promotion of Humanity and 
 the Prevention of Scalping, with Albert Pike for 
 President, perhaps the next time they are called 
 upon to apprehend — not really feel — the miseries 
 which have been inflicted on others, they will be just 
 a trifle manlier in their appeals. Above all, they 
 should suppress Mayor Munroe at once. He ie evi- 
 dently too " susceptible " for the wear and tear of 
 public life. 
 
 May 6, 1S62.
 
 238 GOING/ 
 
 PRUDENT FUGACITY. 
 
 It is an unquestionable fact, that a considerable prej- 
 udice lias always prevailed in military circles against 
 running away ; and yet it must be said, upon the 
 other side, that when stampeding is more favorable 
 to health and longevity than staying, it is a man's 
 duty to stampede : when the ice breaks, and all the 
 boys fall in, who shall blame the rest for absconding ? 
 But coming events cast but sable shadows in the 
 paths of Richmond editors, and they do not see 
 clearly why " Congress " should, just about this time, 
 be in such a hurry-skurry " to disperse." The pre- 
 eminent duty to save one's own bacon before attending 
 to the safety of another's will be recognized, we think, 
 by most persons who are in danger of cell or scaffold. 
 The Rebel Congress is, so to speak, the Soul of the 
 Confederacy; and being this, no pent-up Richmond 
 should contract its powers; nor is it fair to ask hon- 
 orable members to continue to introduce bills, and to 
 conduct them with paternal kindness through the 
 perils of a third reading — much less to soar rhetoric- 
 ally and to spread oratorically — while guns are bel- 
 lowing outside the walls, and balls are dropping in. 
 It is only now and then that an Archimedes goes on 
 solving a problem in mathematics while Syracuse is 
 sacked and plundered. 
 
 The Richmond Examiner thinks "it would bo 
 nobler and more courageous" for its Congressmen to 
 remain and share the fate of the city. But, really, 
 we do not see why The Examiner should have ex-
 
 POOR VIRGINIA! 239 
 
 pccted either " nobility " or " courage." Here is a 
 handful of men who, without cause or reason, have 
 madly misled their fellow citizens ; or for no nobler 
 reason than selfishness, or for no worthier cause than 
 pettv, personal ambition. What have these pretend- 
 ers done even for the South ? Have they advanced 
 its prosperity, agricultural or commercial ? Is Slave 
 property safer now than it was two years ago ? Is 
 the Slave system stronger politically? Cogitating 
 these questions, and venturing to imagine ourselves, 
 for the moment, a patriarch, we feel that hanging at 
 a lamp-post is just what these sham Congressmen 
 should expect. ISTo wonder they run. We do not 
 believe that it is altogether from the troops of the 
 Union that they arc running. It is from deceived, 
 beggared, desperate men — the dupes or the victims of 
 the basest private ambition ! When the loyalists of 
 the South are once more free to sj)eak and to act, the 
 adventurers who led blind States into the ditch of 
 disunion will hardly boast stridently of their exploits. 
 Virginia lias, indeed, little reason to love the Con- 
 federate Congress. It has brought upon her nothing 
 but shame and dishonor, nothing but ruined farms 
 and smoking villages, and wasted harvests ; nothing 
 but blockaded ports and commerce crushed ; nothing 
 but an inevitable and ignominious division of her 
 territory ; nothing but a disreputable reversal of her 
 historical reputation ; nothing but mortified pride 
 and lasting reminiscences of disgrace. When the 
 rebellion came, in spite of the threats of little, dirty 
 groups of Richmond politicians, the citizens of Yir-
 
 240 TUB DECAYING AGE. 
 
 ginia were beginning, in the recesses of their hearts, 
 to hope for the hour which should see them released 
 from the infernal incubus of Slavery. Politicians 
 ranted, and newspapers bullied, and Gov. "Wise slav- 
 ered and stammered, but it was clear to disinterested 
 observers that the Richmond aristocracy would not 
 forever have things their own way ; and that, when 
 they were trodden down into their native mud, a 
 speedy development of the immense internal resources 
 of the State would follow. 
 
 But selfish South Carolina saw fit to make Virginia 
 the battle-ground of disloyalty and treason, and the 
 Gulf States followed the example of that blustering 
 file-leader. It was upon the head of Virginia that 
 the storm of retribution broke, and is beating still. 
 The Rebel Congress flees to Richmond, and brings 
 upon that city the horrors of siege and of assault ; 
 and when the danger becomes imminent, the Rebel 
 Congress takes up again the line of march and migra- 
 tion, and abandons those to Avhose hospitality it is 
 indebted for its feeble existence. The age is cer- 
 tainly decayed. The Roman Senators, we are told, 
 kept their seats in silent dignity, while the hands of 
 barbarians plucked their beards. The Confederate 
 Senate takes to its heels, without waiting for the first 
 gun. If chivalry long since died, there has been no 
 resurrection of it in Richmond. Orators, bill-mon- 
 gers, constructor- of constitutions, all have "levant- 
 ed;' 1 and, as Tic Richmond T^xaminer rejnarks, "have 
 sought for safety on their cotton-plantations,"' leav- 
 ing the men who have housed them and fed them to
 
 WITHOUT ANY "CON." 241 
 
 shift for themselves. Bolted! stampeded! cut! run! 
 vanished, like so many Catilines! Abiit, excessit, 
 evasit, erupit! Gone, as The Richmond Whig ob- 
 serves, '"in a number of the newest and strongest 
 canal-boats" — "drawn," as The Whig satirically 
 adds, "by mules of approved sweetness of temper" — 
 " armed with popguns of the longest range " — pro- 
 tected " by a regiment of ladies." Why, according 
 to this not very mean authority, this Confederate 
 Congress is a Congress of Cowards ! Simple Cow- 
 ards ! Xo more, and no less ! A cowardly cream of 
 the cream, to be sure ! 
 
 Xow, we beg leave to call the attention of the 
 reader to the fact, that these charges of poltroonery, 
 made by Rebel editors against Rebel Congressmen, 
 are explicit, plainly spoken, undisguised, and unmis- 
 takable in their animus, which is full of animosity. 
 Virginia is to be sacrificed — to be left to the tender 
 mercies of the Union, while the old original South- 
 ern Confederacy goes into business upon its own 
 hook ! Here is a further evidence, if it were needed, 
 that this is a "Confederacy" without any "Con" 
 where brothers in arms, associates in the founda- 
 tion of a new Republic, are already at loggerheads. 
 This beautiful Union is already disunited. This fresh, 
 young nation is already living in a rainy season of 
 prvminclamcntos. It will be worse shortly. There 
 can be no permanence in Human Slavery, for it lacks 
 every one of the elements of stability, and there can 
 be no permanence in a Political Government which 
 is founded upon such a sandy fallacy. 
 
 May 9, 1862. \ |
 
 2±2 EX TEMPORE. 
 
 EXTEMPORIZING PARTIES. 
 
 When pestilence is raging, the manufacturers of infal- 
 lible pills are always uncommonly ingenious and busy ; 
 but thus far, through our terrible political troubles, the 
 political quack-salvers have kept remarkably quiet. 
 The Republican party was good enough to go ahead, 
 to take the chances of praise and blame, of success 
 and failure, of life and death — a good party enough 
 to grumble at, after that subdued fashion of fault- 
 finding which was moderate enough to keep the 
 querulous out of custody. Xow that the Rebellion 
 is in a fair way of being crushed, we predict an im- 
 mense uprising of old gentlemen from their virtuous 
 couches, an extraordinary putting off of night-caps, 
 and an absolute hurricane of propositions. Some 
 people naturally see no safety for the Union except 
 in the resurrection of old-fashioned Democracy — but 
 upon that we do not intend to waste many words. 
 The wildest vagaries of mad Millerism are rigid com- 
 mon sense, when compared with this notion of the 
 vivification of a party of which the principles are 
 absolutely obsolete, and of which the members are 
 mostly in the church-yard. All hope of a modern 
 miracle being therefore absurd, it is sagaciously pro- 
 posed, by one of the newspapers in this city, to recon- 
 struct the Republican party — to purge it, to wash it, 
 to rehabilitate it, to make it respectable, by casting 
 out what are called its '"radical" elements. The 
 volunteer washerwoman on this occasion has kindly 
 printed her soap-and-water programme. With end-
 
 • THE RADICAL ELEMENT. 243 
 
 nent prudence, she condescends to allow the Presi- 
 dent of the United States to remain in the party. 
 Also, all other persons, public or private, who will give 
 their solemn word to refrain from " rampant radical- 
 ism " — couchant radicalism being, we suppose, per- 
 mitted. Only " a conservative policy" is to be toler- 
 ated ; and it is anticipated that " the radical," find- 
 ing this " intolerable," will " become outrageous and 
 bolt," 
 
 " And leave the spoils to Crittenden and me." 
 
 Of course, after this " radical bolting, the Repub- 
 lican party will be the natural nucleus for all the con- 
 servative men in the country." A respectable wing 
 of the Slaveholders will be attached, and we shall all 
 go along again beautifully in a mild muddle of Pro- 
 Slavery Compromises," until our sweet " Southern 
 brethren " are quite ready for another bloody and 
 costly insurrection. 
 
 Xow, in the first place, we should like to have it 
 specifically stated what this Radical Element in the 
 Republican party is. It must, to begin with, be 
 something to which not only is the President not 
 committed, but something to which he is absolutely 
 opposed ; because, in the new arrangement, he is not 
 to be left out in the cold, but benevolently taken in 
 and done for. Therefore, as he is understood to favor 
 the confiscation of the Slaves of Rebels, and is known 
 to approve the Abolition of Slavery in the District 
 of Columbia, and is also pledged to the doctrine of 
 Non-Extension, we do not really see why he should 
 not be turned out with the rest of us. We presume
 
 244 WILL HE STA Y SEIZED ? 
 
 that lie is to be kept in, only because he will not be 
 an easy personage to expel. It is truly a most saga- 
 cious stroke of policy to seize the President in the 
 yery beginning ; for the king's name is a tower of 
 strength. But whether he will stay seized ; whether 
 he will exactly relish this summary disposition of his 
 person and his principles, is more than we, not being 
 a court-organ, can pretend to foretell, any more than 
 we can foresee, what in this regeneration, transmuta- 
 tion, and transmogrification, will be done with the 
 Secretary of State. We think that we have, in our 
 time, heard him called " a radical " — of course, by 
 his enemies; and as so many of them will be found 
 in the same conservative boat with him, it may take 
 all the influence of The Journal, which professes to 
 serve the country, to prevent his being cast into the 
 sea — which would be painful. 
 
 We have not ventured to say one word of the Re- 
 publican party as a mass. What ordinary private 
 people may think of such gigantic operations as these, 
 is not of the least consequence. What is to become 
 of the great body of the Northern voters? Will they 
 do as they are told to do? Have they a passion for 
 being disposed of by wholesale? chaffered for and 
 cheapened by cliques ? stuffed full of other men's 
 opinions? completely exenterated as to their own? 
 Ah! but we are all to be graciously allowed the 
 Chicago Platform ! We should much like to know 
 who has asked for anything else — except, indeed, 
 Mr. Crittenden, who, in the new arrangement, is to 
 be allowed, we presume, a "private platform of his
 
 110 W WILL MR CHITTENDEN LIKE IT ? 245 
 
 own. And if lie, why not other people who may 
 fall into the regenerated ranks? Why not insert a 
 polygamical plank, and rope in Brigham Young! 
 Really, since these gentlemen are to take possession 
 of us, of our souls, our bodies, our President, our 
 Congress, our constituencies, our clubs, and our news- 
 papers, it behooves us to be enquiring, with all due 
 civility, what we are to believe after all the arrange- 
 ments have been completed ? Will the reeonstructors 
 leave us our name ? or will they filcli it from us ? or 
 w T ill they call themselves the Reformed Republican 
 Party ? Has not that word, " Reformed," an ugly 
 sound ? to say nothing of that other word, " Repub- 
 lican ?" Pray, how will dear Mr. Crittenden like 
 that \ 
 
 The whole scheme, it must be allowed, argues 
 great kindness of nature in the schemers. We are 
 not only to welcome home the Prodigal Son, but we 
 are to have the heaviest calf all killed and dressed, 
 and ready for him. To be sure, his highly improper 
 conduct has cost us a great deal of money — but we 
 must not be radical ! He has well nigh ruined the 
 nation for a whim — but we must not be radical ! 
 He has emulated the maddest red-republicanism of 
 France — but we must not be radical ! He has cost us 
 millions of money and thousands of lives — but we 
 must not be radical ! We must leave to him the fan- 
 tastic tricks, the humors, the whims, and the manias 
 of politics — but we must not be radical ! He has been 
 all wrong, but we must not be radical in setting him 
 rig] it — not radical in enforcing justice, in measuring
 
 246 ARE WE RADICAL ? 
 
 penalties, in probing swindles, in redressing injuries, 
 in providing for the future. Oh no ! When we deal 
 with him, we mu»t deal tenderly, maugre the dread- 
 ful trouble which he has brought upon us, and him- 
 self. We must bate our breath ! We must whisper 
 our humbleness ! We must return good for evil, and 
 in doing so we must not only be good, but goodies ! 
 
 Finally, we protest once for all against the as- 
 sumption that the Republican party has, in any bad 
 sense of the word, been " radical." Considering all 
 things, the world has reason to be astonished at the 
 moderation which it has exhibited. The glib talk 
 about " fanaticism " had no meaning when it was so 
 freely indulged in during the late Presidential can- 
 vass, no more than it has now, when it is quite as 
 freely employed by some of our professed associates. 
 Offensive and meaningless nicknames are quite out 
 of place in discussions so grave as these are. The 
 Republicans do not profess to love Slavery — no, nor 
 Slaveholders as such; they do not pretend to devise 
 any patched-up treaties, or to seek for hollow truces; 
 they would gladly see the cause of this wicked Rebel- 
 lion vanish with the Rebellion itself; they desire not 
 only a present triumph of the laws, but security for 
 the future good behavior of men who have shown 
 themselves to be reckless and desperate ; yet, with all 
 their stiffest opinions, and with all their most ardent 
 hopes, they have never dreamed for a moment of 
 transcending Constitutional limits, or of indulging an 
 unworthy revenge. All speculations, therefore, which 
 presuppose that any considerable body of the mem-
 
 A NNI \ 'ERSA R F 110 XTTINE. 247 
 
 bers of our Party can be drawn out of its organiza- 
 tion by a predominance in its councils of a moderate 
 policy, arc at once absurd and insulting; and so they 
 will be regarded, no matter by whom they may be 
 undertaken. 
 
 May 19, 1SC9. 
 
 PLATFORM NOVELTIES. 
 
 Tiieee has just closed a week of " Anniversary Meet- 
 ings " in Boston, under novel, not to say awful cir- 
 cumstances. "While the struggle for Emancipation 
 was going- on in Congress ; while the fate of General 
 Banks's little army was yet in suspense ; while five 
 thousand volunteers were pouring into the city, the 
 Men of the Platform also gathered for the yearly talk 
 and tea; and the motley " delegates " wended their 
 way to this church or that " temple " to the music of 
 unusual fifes and drums. We all know what these 
 anniversary meetings have heretofore been. In many 
 of them there was an established routine. Somebody 
 read a financial report ; somebody then abused the 
 "Abolitionists," and deprecated agitation; and then 
 everybody went into the vestry for ham-sandwiches, 
 coffee, and cut-and-dried jokes. 
 
 But the drums and fifes, with the proclamations of 
 Gov. Andrew's proclamation, have cheerfully averted 
 the prescriptive monotony. The Bible Society was 
 told by Dr. Harris that " God created all men free 
 and equal, and that we should use no man as a tool,
 
 248 THE AGREEMENT OF TUE DOCTORS. 
 
 or an inferior being to ourselves." The American 
 Peace Society was told by Dr. Malcolm that the 
 Rebel States should be permitted "to come in as 
 Territories." The Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion was entertained by "many merited compliments 
 to the virtues of Xew England soldiers, and condoled 
 with in the repulse of Gen. Banks's division." The 
 Address to the American Unitarian Association was 
 by the Rev. William Henry Channing, and urged 
 '• the unification of the various State institutions, by 
 which we should be known as the Model Republic." 
 Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, before the American Tract 
 Society, managed to speak well of " that brave and 
 gallant son of Massachusetts, Gen. Banks," which we 
 consider to have been the most extraordinary utter- 
 ance of the whole week. 
 
 At the Morning Prayer Meetings "thanks were 
 offered for the almost uniform success of our arms." 
 The Church Anti-Slavery Society emphatically, in a 
 series of eloquent resolutions, endorsed Gen. Hunter's 
 Army Order, No. 11. The Home Missionary Soci- 
 ety was cheered by the Rev. Mr. Jenkins, who, un- 
 daunted by the fact that Dr. (Southside) Adams was 
 in the chair, asserted that "the war will colonize the 
 South with men who will encourage the labors of 
 this Society." Upon the whole, we think this must 
 have been an uncommonly trying week for Dr. 
 Adams. It is curious to think what a sweep of cob- 
 web sophistry, laboriously spun out of the very 
 bowels of scholastic theology, this civil war has made. 
 Il is wonderful to note how remorselessly facts are
 
 THE DA WIST OF DA Y. 249 
 
 treading down theories, and how some gentlemen, 
 who blanched at the voice of a single agitator, are 
 growing patriotically strong, and do not wince at the 
 reverberations of a cannonade. The traitors now in 
 arms against the Constitution have done it an inesti- 
 mable service by silencing, we thankfully believe 
 forever, that apologetic drivel which assumed, under 
 every vicissitude, that Slaveholders were standing 
 faithfully by Constitutional provisions, and honestly 
 yielding obedience to their minutest requirements, 
 while Anti-Slavery men, no matter what form their 
 opinions might take, were, by the intrinsic vice of 
 these opinions, hostile to sound politics and religious 
 orthodoxy. 
 
 These weary years of recrimination, of slander, and 
 of dishonorable imputations, have gone by at last ; 
 and though we are environed by a thousand difficul- 
 ties, and by perils innumerable, we all breathe a 
 purer atmosphere, and are forced to listen to fewer 
 falsehoods. We bid our readers be of good cheer — 
 we feel, we know, that there is health and strength 
 in this storm, that there is union in this disunion, 
 and a long peace awaiting the end of this sharp con- 
 flict. The platforms have been swept and garnished. 
 Ye gods ! when one remembers the rubbish which 
 once cumbered them — limping exegesis and dusty 
 diagnosis, split texts, ethnological puzzles, and sugar- 
 coated pills — schemes of saving the Union by prayer, 
 and other schemes of saving it by pugilism — reams 
 of resolutions, rosy at once and wrathful — heaps of 
 exenterated tracts, sleek and spliced for the Southern 
 11*
 
 250 EAIR-SPLITTIXG OVER. 
 
 market — subscription papers for sending regiments of 
 missionaries to South Carolina — when one recalls all 
 these, how enrapturing the reflection that no more 
 hairs are to be painfully divided, that there is to be 
 no more mumbling and devising, no more present- 
 ment of the worse for the better reason, no more re- 
 liance upon shabby succedaneums, and that even in 
 these awful alcoves of graduated political and moral 
 regeneration, a spade is hereafter to be plumply 
 called a spade, though calling it so should put the 
 whole solar system out of joint, and make chaos come 
 again ! After such a change, going down into the 
 very depths of our social life, who, we may ask, of all 
 those who drank the anniversary coffee, and ate the 
 yearly cake in Boston, did not feel a refreshing sense 
 of reviving manhood or womanhood ? 
 
 If any person fondly thinks that the Northern 
 people are ready to go back to the deadly-lively ac- 
 quiescences which created the Compromise Bill, the 
 Kansas Bill, and the Fugitive Slave Bill, we advise 
 him to read the proceedings of the anniversary week 
 in Boston. They will prove to him, we think, as 
 they have certainly proved to us, that hereafter, what- 
 ever may happen, the Slaveholders must look to some 
 less respectable quarter than that of the Northern 
 Churches for sympathy and succor. When this war 
 closes, it will close upon the Northern people as thor- 
 oughly united upon the basis of a general moral prin- 
 ciple as ever were the Slaveholders upon the lower 
 ground of an abased self-interest. The future holds 
 in itself good hap and evil, but whether it shall
 
 DEAR MOTHER ENGLAND. 251 
 
 bring tlio sweet or the Litter, there arc certain ques- 
 tions which will be no longer vexed in the Northern 
 States. Very long we have been in coming to this 
 point, and very tardy in our recognition of the sim- 
 plest verities ; hut now there can he no footsteps 
 backward. The Rebels have called for the previous 
 question. Henceforth serious debate upon funda- 
 mentals is impossible, for Freedom has been vindi- 
 cated by her bitterest enemies. 
 
 June 4, 1S02. 
 
 PROPHECIES AND PROBABILITIES. 
 
 American gentlemen in London have, heretofore, 
 when invited to give a taste of their quality at Guild- 
 hall and other civic banquets, been in the habit of 
 uttering a speech after the following formula : " Dear 
 old Mother England — language of Shakespeare and 
 Milton — Magna Charta — America the child of Brit- 
 annia — peace, good will, fraternization forever ! " 
 Then came cheers as hearty as Old Particular by the 
 gallon could make them ; and really, one would have 
 thought that turtle and port-wine had usurped the 
 place of the met aphorical milk and honey of the mil- 
 lennium. When our great Rebellion broke out Amer- 
 ican gentlemen, enthusiastic readers of Milton and 
 Shakespeare, expected that, of course, England would 
 sympathise with our Government, contending not 
 only against treason, but against treason in behalf of 
 human Slavery. They have been undeceived. They
 
 252 ENGL A JY~Z> 'S ME A S UUE OF MORALITY. 
 
 liave been taught that "with England the measure of 
 success is the measure of morality. Very early in 
 the contest, which is now so rapidly approaching a 
 happy and honorable conclusion, all sensible men 
 were forced to believe that we had nothing to hope 
 for from English sympathy or forbearance, and that 
 foreign criticism must be disarmed before it would 
 become kindly. We accepted the condition which a 
 frigid diplomatic policy imposed upon us ; -we have 
 struggled alone through many reverses, and have 
 proved the groundlessness of many apprehensions ; 
 and we have now in all sincerity to thank our British 
 detractors for leaving us to rely, through all, upon 
 our own energies and internal resources. We have 
 contracted no entangling alliances in this struggle, 
 and we shall emerge from it in debt only to ourselves 
 The moral effect of such a triumph is worth all the 
 cost of the war. With victory everywhere illustrat- 
 ing our banners, we can afford good-naturedly to 
 laugh at parliamentary alarmists and dogmatical 
 newspapers. With all other experience-, we have 
 found out the Jupiter Scapin — the Great Thunderer 
 of the European journals; and hereafter, though he 
 may beat his best gong never so sonorously, we shall 
 only laugh, and say, "Well thundered! Very well 
 thundered, indeed !"' It i- as fatal for a lion to go 
 about in an ass's .-kin. as for John Donkey to put on 
 the leonine hide; and a man who is in a passion 
 Qvvy day of his life, rarely succeeds in affrighting 
 anybody. The London newspapers told us that we 
 could not put down the Rebellion; but that did not
 
 I r lCTORIO US B UT INSOL VENT. 253 
 
 deter us from going bravely to work. They now tell 
 us that we have put down the Rebellion. Gentle 
 reader, pray don't let the admission disturb your 
 equanimity, for a single Union reverse would set 
 thrin all to croaking at us again. The praise and 
 the blame are of equal value. There never were such 
 fellows as these fur foretelling what has already come 
 to pass. Having pretty well put down the Rebellion, 
 it is certainly kind in The Times to admit that we 
 shall probably put it down. Great reputations for 
 sagacity have been made before in the same easy way. 
 But we trust that we shall not painfully dishearten 
 holders of government securities when we tell them, 
 that in the opinion of The Times, though we can 
 crush the revolt, we cannot pay our debts ; because 
 we are heartily assured that when we have paid 
 them, the same far-sighted writers will invent a bran- 
 new bugbear. At present, Bull will have it that 
 although victorious we are insolvent. Really, we do 
 not remember anything cooler than this. With an 
 immense commerce, with an unequalled agricultural 
 production, with small foreign liabilities, with a mon- 
 opoly of two great staples, and the abundant produc- 
 tion of a third, with a people eminently skilled, by 
 the confession of their rivals, in the art of accumulat- 
 ing wealth, with a territory capable of limitless pro- 
 duction, with great fisheries and great mines, our 
 public paper, if we may believe The Times, repre- 
 sents nothing, and will soon be good for nothing. 
 Kow, in private commercial circles, the man who 
 studiously undermines his neighbor's credit, is usu-
 
 254 AN ILLOGICAL SLANDER. 
 
 ally regarded as a scoundrel ; but perhaps it is more 
 honorable to gratify a jealous spleen by predicting 
 the insolvency of a nation. For this, as for other 
 amiable exhibitions of disinterestedness, we must be 
 prepared. A debt created for the defence of the 
 Constitution, in the opinion of every intelligent citi- 
 zen, is a debt created for his own benefit, relief, and 
 prosperity; and those who have freely offered their 
 lives in that great behalf, will hardly turn consjnra- 
 tors and traitors to avoid taxation. Out of the same 
 reverence for law, which they have already so abun- 
 dantly manifested, they will fulfill the pecuniary ob- 
 ligations which the law imposes. "What right has 
 the slip-shod speculator, to whom we have been re- 
 ferring, to take it for granted that the same great 
 West, which has so generously and assiduously en- 
 gaged in the suppression of one variety of treason, 
 will itself petulantly engage in another ? Is it manly, 
 is it gentlemanly, is it even old-womanly — this per- 
 sistence in the sheerest gossip of detraction ? — this 
 depreciation against which, if it were but as effective 
 as it is inalicions, the credit of no nation could stand 
 f »r a year ? And is it for England to assert and main- 
 tain the novel doctrine that a great national debt is 
 tantamount to a great national bankruptcy? — for 
 England, with a debt of her own so enormously large 
 that no man has ever proposed aiiy scheme for pay- 
 ing it without being pronounced mad? It is hardly 
 in such a quarter that we shall seek either for advice 
 or example. 
 
 The American people, as fully alive to the evils of
 
 PREVIOUS GOOD CHARACTER. 255 
 
 taxation as they arc aware of its necessity, will hardly 
 hug- their debt as a blessing, to be sacredly preserved 
 for generation after generation. Once, already, they 
 have blotted out the last trace of public indebtedness 
 with an impatience which nothing but solvency could 
 satisfy ; and they have a right to be judged, not by 
 the speculations of an ignorant casuist, but by their 
 own record as it is made up in history. It is hard to 
 write upon this topic without seeming to boast ; but, 
 certainly, if a nation is to be thus gratuitously dis- 
 credited, it has a right to plead previous good char- 
 acter. 
 
 There has been more noise made abroad about 
 American Repudiation than the facts, disgraceful as 
 they were, warranted ; but the credit of the United 
 States of America has always been as good, is as 
 good to-day, and will be in the future as good as the 
 credit of England ; and we think that this is stating 
 the ease very mildly — while it is at this moment bet- 
 ter than the credit of more than one European power, 
 the downfall of which nobody anticipates. Until, 
 therefore, we commit an act of insolvency, we beg 
 foreign writers, to whom we owe nothing, to possess 
 their souls in peace. We are not utterly deficient in 
 prudence and economy, of the necessity of which we 
 are every day reminded ; and he who writes us down 
 fools, before we have proved our incompetency, is 
 himself included in his own accusation. There is an 
 abiding compensation in all our troubles. Through 
 successes and reverses, through doubts and distrac- 
 tions, not less than through encouraging good for-
 
 256 ^ MEMPHIAN MOLLIFIED. 
 
 tunes, we are making for ourselves an antiquity and 
 a history — we arc consolidating a nationality — we 
 are storing up precious traditions — we are, in the 
 midst of war, becoming worthy of the blessings of 
 peace. Those who believe that there is nothing for 
 us but a ruinous and irremediable dissolution, must 
 be shamefully ignorant, or contemptibly besotted by 
 spleen and prejudice. No nation could be more 
 grateful than ours, not for foreign arms taken up in 
 our behalf, but for foreign sympathy ; yet if it cannot 
 be ours, without a sacrifice of principle or honor, cer- 
 tainly there is no nation that can better afford to do 
 without it. 
 
 June 11, 18C.2. 
 
 "DRAWING! IT MILD" IX MEMPHIS. 
 
 We are ready to make our solemn affidavit that there 
 is nothing in this world like that divine philosophy 
 which is succinctly expressed in the great command, 
 " Grin and bear it.' 1 The conductor of the Mem/phis 
 Avalanche has so gracefully melted into this mild 
 mood that, Secessionist as he is, we consider him to 
 lie a credit to the craft. lie owns up like a man. 
 lie admits that he is "humbled and downcast," His 
 " pride has been wounded." What then? Does he 
 wriggle and roar '. Doe-; lie inefficiently flounder like 
 a fish out of water? Not at all. He quietly con- 
 cludes to make tin- best of a bad matter. Like Ar- 
 chimedes, at Syracuse, he involves himself in his vir-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF PATIENCE. 257 
 
 tue, and goes on with his studies, though the Union 
 foot is upon the neck of Memphis. "Let us," lie 
 says, with an originality and power which are alike 
 admirable, "let us bear with manly fortitude what 
 we arc unable to avoid." " This," he concludes, " is 
 true philosophy — a philosophy suited to our condi- 
 tion." Now, this calm, godlike, serene, and unim- 
 passioned acquiescence appears to us to be something 
 in itself so exquisitely beautiful, and something, more- 
 over, so much needed in Memphis, that our hope is 
 that our editorial brother will consent to erect in that 
 city a school for the express dissemination of his doc- 
 trine, which is much needed there — a kind of portico, 
 Lyceum, or academy — in which, like Aristotle or 
 Plato, he may rub his true philosophy, like an emol- 
 lient ointment, into the tender frames of the fevered 
 youth of Memphis ; in which he may teach them 
 that the grace of submission is better than bowie- 
 knives and "barkers," and a stern stoicism infinitely 
 preferable to peach-brandy and peppermint. 
 
 There are wild ones in Secessia who clearly need 
 this medical indoctrination and sagely sanative treat- 
 ment. There are ferocious old fools, and young ones 
 there, who talk with maniac energy of dying in the 
 last ditch ; who prattle grimly of the combustion of 
 themselves and of their cotton ; who itch to make a 
 new Moscow of Memphis — who conceive it to be 
 quite necessary, should worst come to worst, to blow 
 up the universe generally, and to put an end to them- 
 selves, playing Cato of Utica with a real sword, in 
 particular. These perturbed spirits need laying, or
 
 258 FELO-DE-SE IN FASHION. 
 
 they will do themselves a mischief. For our part, 
 unless the new Memphis philosophy can be brought 
 into high fashion, we look for an unpleasant super- 
 fluity of arson and suicide in Confederate regions — 
 squads of disgusted chevaliers popping themselves off 
 after the high Roman fashion — piles of patriarchs, 
 who, having first slaughtered all their niggers, cows, 
 sows, horses, dogs, wives, sheep and daughters, will 
 be found wrapt in the Confederate flag as in a wind- 
 ing sheet, as dead and as dignified as Julius Caesar, 
 with the remains of their former greatness gloomily 
 heaped around them. To be sure, in the cities 
 already "subjugated," we don't hear of these patri- 
 otic diversions. The most rampant patriots appear 
 to subside with a wonderful facility, and to disregard 
 quite contemptuously the injunction to destroy them- 
 selves, in which some of their newspapers abound. 
 We suppose, however, that they are waiting for a 
 General Proclamation of Suicide by their mock- 
 President Davis. They are desirous of dying ac- 
 cording to law, and of destroying themselves consti- 
 tutionally. It becomes their Davis-ian Jefferson — 
 the best Jefferson they have, poor fellows! — himself 
 to set the example. When all is lost, we hold that it 
 will be his duty to blow out what brains he may have 
 left — his remainder cerebrum, so to speak. To make 
 the whole proceeding more sublime, he might an- 
 nounce that upon the 14th inst., at high noon, he 
 intended to consummate hisfelo de se, and request 
 liis friends and admirers to hang or shoot themselves, 
 or 1 • t;d<e big morphine pills, at the same identical
 
 MODEL PENITENTS. 259 
 
 moment. Then, with simultaneous kick or quiver, 
 or firing their own salvo over their departure for 
 Hades, the Chiefs of Secession might secede from 
 this wicked world, and enter upon another from 
 which, however hot, secession will be impossible. 
 
 We tli row out these hints merely from an ardent 
 passion for seeing things done neatly. If we are to 
 have no Confederate States, we shall need no Confed- 
 erate Statesmen. In a restored Union it will be im- 
 possible to put Mr. Jefferson Davis and his crazy 
 cronies to any sort of use. "Will they have the grace 
 to step out ? Will they have the goodness to leave an 
 unappreciative world, and betake themselves to those 
 places which, from the beginning, have been prepared 
 for them ? 
 
 We do not know. We confess that we are by no 
 means assured, and the new Memphis philosophy 
 somewhat staggers our confidence in the desiderated 
 stampede. What if the Secessionists, as The Ava- 
 lanche would seem to indicate, should turn capital 
 Christians — models of forgetfulness and forgiveness, 
 after all ? What if it should suddenly dawn upon 
 the Secession mind, the smoke of battle no longer, in 
 conjunction with extra whisky, befogging the brain, 
 that a big plantation and a plenty of " niggers," and 
 Slavery guaranteed by the Federal Government, will 
 be more pleasant than the neatest and most impress- 
 ive Unci historically correct suicide ? What says The 
 Avalanche man? Is he not ready to go on, letting 
 slide innumerable and endless Avalanches, even un- 
 der the accursed Federal banner ? And if he, cream
 
 200 MUST WE FORGIVE THEM? 
 
 of Confederate cream — the guide, philosopher, Men- 
 tor and Palinums of the Rebellion in those parts, is 
 so submissive, why who can tell how many others 
 will follow his loyal lead? What are we to do? If 
 these great ones, when they are " humbled and down- 
 cast — their pride wounded," etc. — are to betake them- 
 selves to " a philosophy suited to their condition " — 
 must we forgive them for the sake of science? It is 
 a question for jurists. Such clear evidence of a peni- 
 tent disposition is certainly worthy, in these wicked 
 times, of a charitable consideration. That impulse 
 which we all feel to spare the sick and the sorry is 
 one of the best feelings of our common nature. 
 
 June 21, 1SG2. 
 
 LOYALTY AND LIGHT. 
 
 Tin: attentive reader will already have noticed that 
 the Union party in Maryland is also an Emancipation 
 party, and regards with a certain complacency the 
 project of the President for the abolition of Slavery. 
 Day by day we see more and more clearly that the 
 life of a blundering and bud institution has been set 
 upon this desperate cast, and that the hazard of the 
 die is against it. With a fatuity which seems to us 
 to be perfectly wonderful, and much as if the gods, 
 determined to destroy, bad first made mad, wcrh'nd 
 the admirers of the Slave-system coupling it now and 
 forever with treason, surrounding it by degrading as- 
 sociations, and making it, in the mind of the whole
 
 DEGRADING THE DEGRADED. 261 
 
 country, responsible for the perils which environ us. 
 It has been the architect of its own ruin. It has 
 been very cunning in its own overthrow. Owing 
 every moment of its existence to the coercions of 
 positive law, and existing in spite of its numerous 
 violations of natural right, it has been the first to de- 
 molish the bulwarks which surrounded it, and to cast 
 contempt upon the statute-book which was its only 
 charter. Wise men said that it was perilous to the 
 liberties of the land, and foolish men have been kind 
 enough to demonstrate the truth of the proposition. 
 It has simply succeeded in achieving a bad character 
 at home and abroad. 
 
 The Maryland Unionists, while indulging in their 
 little harmless fling at the " Abolitionists," explicitly 
 admit that Slavery is now "injurious to the political 
 and material interests" of the South. "We do not 
 see how any Union Slaveholder can think otherwise ; 
 because, logically, the Rebellion has forced him into 
 precisely this position, and will keep him there, until 
 he disowns his fealty to the Constitution. They in- 
 sist, these fighting slaveholders, with their hands at his 
 throat and their halters dangling over his head, that 
 if he is the friend of the Union and the Laws, he 
 must be the foe of that institution which is the cor- 
 ner-stone and, for that matter, all the other stones of 
 the Confederacy. They give him no choice. They 
 will hear of no compromise. They declare him, if 
 a law-abiding man, to be the bitter antagonist of 
 Slavery, and they compel him, if he would not stul- 
 tify himself, to turn Emancipationist in self-defence.
 
 262 THE OLD DEFENDERS. 
 
 It is in this sagacious way, with a sublime scorn of 
 all common statesmanship, that they make and keep 
 friends. No wonder that in many of the Slave States 
 men who sec their fortunes and happiness all risked, 
 infinitely against their inclinations, in this insane ad- 
 venture, are quite willing to surrender their own 
 slaveholding to save themselves from the slaveholding 
 of their neighbors. 
 
 Owners of negroes, we suppose, like other human 
 beings, may be naturally divided into fools and wise 
 men. We remember only one really able defender of 
 Slavery in the abstract. Mr. Calhoun brought a gi- 
 gantic intellect to the service of error, and did for a 
 patent political mistake all that great intellectual 
 powers and an iron will could do for it. But when 
 he died he left no successor. Puny public men bab- 
 bled weak parodies of his reasoning, or more safely 
 ensconced themselves behind his ipse dixit. We re- 
 gard with what we believe to be a just contempt the 
 lame and lamentable perversions of Scripture with 
 which Pro-Slavery Doctors of Divinity have be- 
 numbed the minds and hearts of their hearers; for 
 the inexorable logic of facts has silenced their sanc- 
 tified prattle for ever. 
 
 The men who now defend Slavery are quite of an- 
 other class — bloated brawlers of the bar-rooms who 
 blaspheme and quote the Bible in one drunken breath 
 — half-witted whites who if they could possibly have 
 an opinion, would sell it for a pint of grog — lazy 
 women who shrink from domestic toil as from a daily 
 degradation — bull-do^ overseers bestialized to the
 
 TEE NEW DEFENDERS. 2G3 
 
 low level of their vocation — wholesale and retail deal- 
 ers in human flesh — these are the passionate, voluble, 
 unreasoning and bigoted advocates of Slavery as of 
 something intrinsically beautiful. The day of their 
 ascendency in Southern society is passing away in 
 storm and blood. They still crawl about in the slime 
 and smear of their system, as hideous monsters crept 
 to and fro over the earth half created. They have 
 taken the sword, and when, in fulfillment of an eter- 
 nal law, they have perished by the sword, there will 
 be no new hybrids to till their places in the regenerat- 
 ed Republic. They will disappear, and with them 
 that semi-barbarous system of espionage and intimi- 
 dation which has made Slavery a thing exempt from 
 question and discussion. They have themselves taken 
 oil' the taboo, and there will be none left weak enough 
 to do the discredited idol reverence. 
 
 On the other hand, slaveholders of quite another 
 stamp, men not utterly besotted, men of homely com- 
 mon sense, of thought and of prudence, will begin to 
 speak in behalf of the simplest laws of morality and 
 political morality. They will say : whatever else 
 Slavery may be worth, it is not worth this — the eter- 
 nal wrangle, the daily disquietude, the temptation to 
 political crime, the shameful disregard of political 
 covenants which it provokes, and the violence which 
 it perpetually stimulates — the uncertainty with which 
 it embarrasses all the operations of commerce — the 
 degradation of the employed and the ceaseless anxie- 
 ty of the employer — the debauchery of mind, heart 
 and body to which it subjects our youth — the unsex-
 
 2G4 THE WEDGE ENTERING. 
 
 ing of our women, the emasculation of our men, and 
 the heathenization of our churches — no, Slavery is 
 not worth this fearful price! To this conclusion 
 the thoughtful and intelligent slaveholder will be 
 forced by his interests, his conscience, his reason, his 
 affections and his patriotism. 
 
 These are natural conclusions from the theory 
 which we take for granted, that the Rebellion will be 
 crushed and the Union maintained. You cannot 
 conquer the treasonous slaveholders without conquer- 
 ing the cause in behalf of which they are embattled. 
 When once the work begins there will be no going 
 backward. Emancipate, upon principle, one thous- 
 and slaves, and you have virtually emancipated one 
 hundred thousand. It is the first step that is costly 
 and fearful. However small the wedge, when once 
 it has entered it will inevitably overthrow this im- 
 posing monument of human folly, crime, outrage and 
 suffering. Make Maryland a free state, as sooner or 
 later it must be, or make Missouri a free State, as it 
 speedily will be, and the criminal compact, the con- 
 spiracy against civilization, which has broken our 
 peace, will be dissolved for ever, and even the next 
 generation will wonder why we so long suffered our- 
 selves to grope and stumble when the broad and 
 bright road of righteousne-s invited us to walk 
 in it. 
 
 Jan.' 2 '.. 1
 
 ' ' J UST IN THE SA ME TBA CK. " 265 
 
 HEDGING. 
 
 Theke is a clever play which in spite of its wicked- 
 ness is still read for its wit, and the coarse comedy 
 of which is concluded as follows : 
 
 " Flippanta. Then all 1 s peace again ; but we have been 
 more lucky than wise. 
 
 " Araminta. And I suppose, for us, Clarissa, we are to goon 
 with our dears, as we used to do. 
 
 " Clarissa. Just in the same track." 
 
 So in the popular song of the " Cork Leg" we are 
 told that long after the portly proportions of the Rot- 
 terdam burgher were reduced to a skeleton, 
 " The Leg kept on the same as before." 
 
 Slavery is the leg of the Southern Rebellion ; and 
 we are not surprised to hear, therefore, through Gen- 
 eral Butler, of a " Southern Independence Associa- 
 tion," which, when the Confederacy has gone to its 
 diabolical father, is to " labor for the reconstruction of 
 the Democratic party, or any other political organi- 
 zation by which the South can regain its political as- 
 cendency," nor should we be electrified to learn that 
 the virtuous Mr. Benjamin "Wood has become an 
 Honorary Brother of this shrewd league. 
 
 " If we must go back," no doubt argue these pre- 
 cautious patriarchs, " let us see to it that we go back 
 with Slavery strengthened, and with our chattels still 
 more strongly confirmed to us ! The dear Democrats 
 are doubtless still our friends and will help us to make 
 this detestable Union tolerable." We must admit 
 that this shows not only good pluck but reasonable 
 12
 
 206 SHALL WE HAVE A TRUCE? 
 
 common sense. Slaveholders have found out that, 
 Slavery preserved, they can at any time frighten the 
 whole country — at any time bankrupt the Federal 
 Treasury — at any time embarrass and distract the 
 Free States — at any time, by judicious wickedness, re- 
 gain lost ground — at any time sustain themselves by 
 the might of swagger. They will be charmed if we 
 will but forgive them. They have no objection to 
 any number of infernal quadrilles, provided only we 
 of the forthwith our soft hearts and our long purses 
 will pay the piper. 
 
 "'The Union'' will still be a good word to conjure 
 !. while we remain forgiving and forgetful. 
 Should Congress prove at any time intractable, or 
 morbidly philanthropic, the Man-Owners will again 
 take up their muskets and shoot them a few thousand 
 Yankee Volunteers, which will afford them a sweet 
 opening for another treaty and another kiss of recon- 
 ciliation. More battle- — more sieges — more hair- 
 breadth 'scapes, — more waste of wealth ; and,*' we are 
 to go on with our dears, a- we used to do, just in the 
 same track !" 
 
 So then, we are to have a truce, after all. and not 
 a peace. Rebellion is to be like the yellow fever — it 
 may come or it may not come, but it will be well al- 
 ways to be prepared for it. For our own part, after 
 such a pacification, we are not, we c uifess, sharp-sight- 
 • » ugh to se< ' in »w the slave-holding interest can up- 
 i\ ocea-ion, pending any question, fail to have its 
 Voting in Congress will be the emptiest 
 of farces. Honorable Members for the Plantations
 
 Till-: MONSTER REJUVENATED. 207 
 
 will have little need to discuss the merits of measures. 
 Their speeches may well be "brief and somewhat after 
 this fashion: "Do n't pass the hill! If you do, we 
 shall revolt, you know, and really, by this time, we 
 think that you must have had enough of that." 
 
 We do n't know what Honorable Members for New 
 York or Massachusetts would have to say to this. 
 They might indeed in a passion retort : "Revolt and 
 be hanged !" but after the old emollient arrangements, 
 Honorable Members for the Plantations would laugh 
 at hangmen as love laughs at locksmiths. This, we 
 take it, would be sufficient to flutter the doves from 
 the Free States into the most amiable compliance. 
 If not, Slavery, the cause of unnumbered crimes and 
 of all our woes, under the operation of the three-fifths 
 clause of the Constitution, by the aid of its resuscitat- 
 ed Democratic henchmen, would still vote always in 
 its own behalf; and we should only escape civil wars 
 by submitting to the old dictatorship. 
 
 Who can think of a return to this condition with- 
 out a qualm ? Not ho surely whose children's bones 
 are bleaching upon some Southern battle-field ! Not 
 he whose fortune may have been dissipated in despe- 
 rate attempts to reconcile Northern enterprise with 
 Southern sluggishness ! Not he who has felt in his 
 heart the exceeding great villainy of this war against 
 the Union ! For we believe that all persons of ordi- 
 nary intelligence will look with fear and trembling, 
 and an unspeakable grief, upon any arrangement of 
 public affairs which shall leave us at the mercy of 
 those miserable and unreasoning passions which Slav-
 
 2GS AN AGE 0F ANARCHY. 
 
 ery engenders. Distrust is the fatal bane of all polit- 
 ical stability. 
 
 The people of the Free States have lost for ever 
 that confidence in the honor of Slaveholders which 
 once permitted them to hope for peace however 
 stormy might be the portents. The possibility of a 
 sanguinary revolt is settled and the probability is set- 
 tled too ; and hereafter with Slavery remaining a po- 
 litical power in the land, there will always be a fear- 
 ful looking-for of violence. The volcano will ever 
 threaten. The brightest skies will be no security 
 against a whirlwind. The craziest slaveholding trai- 
 tor can have no objection to such a truce, which by 
 leaving him without punishment, leaves him without 
 warning against a repetition of his crime. The hour 
 he will reason, may be lost, but not the day. The 
 quarrel may be for a little while adjusted, he will 
 say to his fellows, but we have always at hand the 
 means of its renewal at pleasure. lie will fervently 
 thank his stars for an enemy who, when victorious 
 over him, left all his resources unimpaired, and pre- 
 tending to make a peace, was content with an armis- 
 tice. '* Southern Independence Associations'' will 
 flourish under the sacred noses of the Federal Courts, 
 and men who have forfeited fifty lives will stalk and 
 strut, bully and brag, as of old, in Washington. It is 
 not a pleasant picture to contemplate, but we had bet- 
 ter know the chance- now, than blunder into a Cen- 
 tury of Anarchy. 
 June 'J l. l-.^.
 
 MR. WOMB 'S " NIGGERS. " 2G0 
 
 THE TRIAL OF TOOMBS. 
 It is related of the illustrious author of " Faust " that, 
 during one of his youthful depressions — it was, we 
 think, of the amorous variety — he determined upon 
 suicide, and provided himself with the necessary dag- 
 ger ; hut upon finding that the operation would be 
 painful, he abandoned the bare bodkin business, and 
 consented to live. Gen. Robert Toombs, of the Se- 
 cession service, ought, by all the laws which regulate 
 rebellion, to give up cotton-growing; but he finds 
 the temptation to keep on with the cultivation too 
 strong for him, and leaves his blacks at work in 
 Georgia while he militates in Virginia. Randolph 
 County, Ga., instantly lapses into a patriotic perspir- 
 ation. The Randolph County Committee of Public 
 Safety immediately communicate savagely with 
 Toombs in Richmond. They tell him that he is a 
 very wicked Confederate General. That he has no 
 right to cultivate cotton. That his avarice is greater 
 than his patriotism. That his negroes are wanted 
 for military purposes. What follows ? Ferocious re- 
 ply from Toombs. Calls the Committee of Public 
 Safety " cowardly miscreants." Also " robbers." 
 Declines to furnish " niggers " for the Rebel service. 
 Says he may be " robbed," but he cannot be " intim- 
 idated." Isn't it evident that Toombs's "patriot- 
 ism " does n't, so to speak, come up to the scratch ? — 
 that, happen what may, he will be the last man to 
 commit suicide ] 
 
 How the Committee of Public Safetv aforesaid re-
 
 270 THE WRATII OF TOOMBS. 
 
 ceived this most disparaging telegram, we are not 
 informed. How they relished the new title of " cow- 
 ardly miscreants," we may easily surmise. It was n't 
 a relish at all, but a disrelish altogether. " You poor, 
 miserable, rascally, bluffing, domineering, dirty scoun- 
 drels," says Toombs ; " you vile, plundering, inter- 
 loping vagabonds, you ' cannot intimidate me.' " 
 And this to men to whom, at that identical moment, 
 the " public safety " of Randolph County was com- 
 mitted. It is curious. Toombs speaks to these men 
 as if he knew them, and knew them to be, from their 
 heads to their heels, poor specimens of white human- 
 ity. We can imagine him talking in precisely the 
 same way to his own private collection of blacks. 
 That he would, if he could, truss up the august Com- 
 mittee, and give to each member of it a round dozen 
 of stripes, with the accompanying pickle, we do also 
 believe. That, after his soldiering is over, should he 
 get back to Georgia — which is n't probable — he will 
 shoot one or two Committee-men, is very probable. 
 His appetite is for the j>l azures of Secession — he has 
 none for the pains — just as a man may never weary 
 of talking of the weariness of life, but may shrink 
 fr«>m the alleviating rope or ratsbane. And we have 
 called attention to the precautions and cotton-limited 
 patriotism of this Toombs, because we believe that 
 Secession brag is altogether too successful in its de- 
 mands upon Northern credulity. When a Southern 
 orator says, with all the coarse finery of unbridled 
 rhetoric, that he is ready to brave all — ruin, wounds 
 and death — for the sake of the cause, those who are
 
 CA UTER V NEEDED. 271 
 
 not blinded by his lightning language, nor intimi- 
 dated by his leonine roar, may shake their heads and 
 laugh ; but the sagacious will still ask whether, when 
 
 a man goes into a revolt, avowedly for the sake of 
 negroes, he will continue in revolt when continuance 
 will take all his negroes away from him. To put 
 the matter in another shape, it is urged, even by 
 members of Congress, that meddling with "the insti- 
 tution,' 1 by confiscation or otherwise, will so infuriate 
 the Secessionist that he will keep on forever in his 
 delusion, doing the most dreadful things, long after 
 the motive for doing them has ceased to operate : 
 i. <>., he will fiu'ht for Slaveholdino; though Slave- 
 holding has become to him as impossible as flying. 
 We do not believe it. It is grossly unphilosophical 
 so to reason ; and those who do reason so, whether at 
 " Conservative 5 '' meetings or in the columns of news- 
 papers, show more panic than pluck. Confiscation 
 may appear to some to be as savage a remedy as cau- 
 tery ; but sometimes it is only cautery that will do 
 the business. Selfishness, of which Mr. Toombs gives 
 us such a charming specimen, is the main cause of 
 man-owning, and that is the main cause of all our 
 political mischiefs. 
 
 When we hear a planter talk about ethnology and 
 the inferiority of races, and so ascending and descend- 
 ing the whole* gamut of solemn twaddle, we always 
 laugh, at least inwardly; because we know that he 
 approves of Slavery, out of no sort of respect for Mo- 
 ses or St. Paul, but because it gives him a coat to 
 wear, toddies to drink, tobacco to smoke, a bed to lie
 
 272 . IS TOOMBS Ay ASS ? 
 
 upon, and a roof to cover him. When he is cornered, 
 out comes the truth. " Stop raising cotton !" cries 
 Toombs: "lend you my niggers! I will see you 
 hanged first!" What a dear, delightful, outspoken, 
 frank and candid Toombs ! "What a charming Pro- 
 Slavery Doctor of Divinity he would make, to be 
 sure ! lie is n't a man to give up all he is fighting 
 for, merely for the sake of winning the battle. " My 
 niggers ! no, I tell you ! Am I fighting, and bleeding, 
 and dying, merely that a Committee of Public Safety 
 may carry off my niggers ? As well give 'em to Abe 
 Lincoln at once ! Let them alone !" "Well, dear 
 Toombs, we cannot say that we blame you for your 
 perfectly natural views of matters and things in gen- 
 eral. Let us embrace ! — we are speaking now as if 
 we were a member of the Conservative Congressional 
 Caucus — let us embrace, dear Toombs! 
 
 " Come to my arms, my own true-hearted." 
 
 Not a negro of the Toombs brand shall be touched ! 
 Male and female, house-hands, field-hands, mechanics, 
 old, middle-aged, young, yellow or black, they arc all 
 under the palladium of the Constitution — God bless 
 it ! — and they shall all be taken care of — only, good 
 old fellow! you "11 come back into the Union; that's 
 a dear, amiable, charming Toombs! That is, Toombs 
 is supposed to be such an unmitigated ass that he can 
 be coaxed into the Union again merely by promising 
 him something, which he, vi ft armis, declares that 
 the Union is too weak to secure to him. On the 
 ■ hand, Toombs, having lost all his dear blacks,
 
 rum tt- vi i t e & i ges. 273 
 
 having discovered that Disunion is just as powerless 
 to keep them, and that Rebellion has depopulated 
 his plantation, will have had sundry arguments in 
 favor of keeping quiet actually knocked into his head, 
 and will certainly see the necessity of making the 
 best of a bad matter; or if he does not, Toombs 
 Junior, who hopes to live a little longer in this pleas- 
 ant world, assuredly will. To take any other course 
 with Toombs is to put a premium upon treason, and 
 he knows it, and chuckles over our debates. If you 
 would crush rebellion, hit at its master passion an 
 earnest and annihilating blow. But if you mean 
 only to play with it for the benefit of commissioned 
 officers and contractors — why that is quite another 
 matter, and one which we do not care to discuss. 
 
 July •(', 1SG2. 
 
 THE COUNCIL OF THIRTY-FIVE. 
 
 Ox Saturday last, in Washington, thirty-five Con- 
 servative gentlemen solemnly resolved that "the 
 Abolitionists will leave to the country but little hope 
 of the restoration of the Union or peace, if schemes 
 of Confiscation, Emancipation, and other unconstitu- 
 tional measures, shall be enacted under the form of 
 laws." The thirty-five gentlemen voted to print this 
 rather than else thrilling opinion, for the benefit of 
 mankind in general, and then the Thirty-five gentle- 
 men " broke camp " and went back to their boarding- 
 houses. There has n't been anything politically 
 12*
 
 274 LIMPING LOGIC. 
 
 more portentous since the Three Tailors of Tooley 
 street issued their Proclamation, beginning, ""We, 
 the People of England." Considering the great im- 
 portance of this demonstration, it is to be regretted 
 that Conservators did not, by some address more en- 
 larged than a resolution, let us know by what process 
 of reasoning they arrived at the conclusion that the 
 Abolition of Slavery would forever bar the restora- 
 tion of the Union. 
 
 If we were inclined to be hypercritical, we might 
 ask why these Representatives allow themselves to 
 talk of the " restoration of the Union " at all ? Do 
 they consider that by any constitutional theory the 
 Union is abolished ? that South Carolina could abol- 
 ish it ? that Jefferson Davis, by any villainy, could 
 destroy it in any sense ? Because, before a thing can 
 be restores!, if we know anything of language or of 
 logic, it must first be lost. The truth is, that the 
 Thirty-five, in their eagerness to construct a pretty 
 series of resolutions, have done that which has been 
 esteemed impossible — they have fairly bitten off their 
 own noses. Right into the jaws of a solecism, as we 
 shall prove, tumbled the Thirty -five. If the Union 
 can l)e restored, then it is already destroyed ; and if 
 it be destroyed, then the right, by the simplest public 
 law, of the Washington Government, at war with the 
 Government late at Richmond, to confiscate and to 
 offer freedom to the Slaves, is just as clear as the 
 right to shoot soldiers in the field, or to bombard 
 cities. Nobody ever questioned the right of a bellig- 
 erent in all possible ways to harrass a public enemy.
 
 A WAR MEASURE. 275 
 
 The emancipation of Slaves is a well-recognised oper- 
 ation of war. The Thirty-five, by their most inju- 
 dicious use of a dangerous word, have put the Rebels 
 quite outside the pale of even '•conservative'' benev- 
 olence. Whatever they may be some time hence, 
 when restored to sanity by the grace of gunpowder, 
 they are not now our "dear brethren," our "mis- 
 guided fellow-citizens," our this, that, and the other, 
 but simply, by the theory of the Thirty-live, our Mor- 
 tal Enemies, whom it may be possible to conquer, 
 but cpiite impossible to injure. When the Union is 
 " restored," it will then be time enough for this Three- 
 Dozen-less-One to talk of the unconstitutionality of 
 Emancipation. A Public Enemy lias no rights under 
 the Constitution at all. 
 
 But we have n't dene with the one-legged logic of 
 the Thirty-five Conservatives quite yet. They fall 
 into the not uncommon error of glibly grouping 
 " Abolitionists " and '* Secessionists," as if these were 
 one in purpose and in policy. Substantially, this 
 always means an indirect compliment to traitors, 
 which no man of self-respect and of genuine loyalty 
 would be guilty of. It is of a piece with that slaver- 
 ing and anile gabble which says in circular rigma- 
 role. "Well, the South is to blame, the JSorth. is to 
 blame, the. Slaveholders are to blame, the Anti- 
 Shivery men are to blame — let us fix matters, and go 
 on as we did before." Xow, as it is a moral paradox to 
 assert that he who rebukes a sin is responsible for the 
 consequent and deeper floundering* of the sinner, so 
 it is a political paradox to declare that the opponent
 
 270 NON-EXTENSION— NON-EXISTENCE. 
 
 of a bad policy is to he holden for tlic bad effects of 
 that policv. Because Slaveholders have chosen to 
 commit that very outrage upon the Constitution 
 which clear-headed men have long foreseen and fore- 
 told, does it follow that the rebukers are as bad as 
 the rebuked ( Besides, it is not, as we have over and 
 over again pointed out, it is not the existence, but the 
 extension of Slavery, for which the Traitor States are 
 contending; so that fear of the abolition of Slavery 
 had really nothing to do with the war. Is it to be 
 supposed that Jefferson Davis is in the field because 
 lie believed his negroes would be taken from him by 
 the Lincoln Administration I lie must be greener 
 than green, and his mind cruder than crude, who 
 thinks so. Even the miserable heads of muddled Se- 
 cessionists did not mix up matters in that way. What 
 Davis and other gentlemen in the man-owning busi- 
 ness were afraid of was, that iion-eictension might 
 prove equivalent to no?i-existen& ;i matter with 
 which the North had nothing to do. Most nuisances 
 disappear when they are cribbed and confined; and 
 it was not certainly our fault if the "Institution *' did 
 require room and verge, which we would not grant 
 if we could, and could hardly grant if we Mould. 
 The North was resting in comparative quiet upon its 
 vested rights and upon well-settled compromises, 
 when the fierce and insatiable thirst of Slavery for 
 new territory disarranged all adjustments, unsettled 
 the National policy, and compelled us, in self-defense, 
 to exercise our legitimate and unquestionable rights 
 under the Constitution. It was Slavery that made
 
 SURRENDER, AND BE HAPPY! 277 
 
 ii]) tho issue of the last Presidential election; and, at 
 present, when we are contending for Law and Order, 
 and a Permanent Peace, the Secessionists are bat- 
 tling — for what I for what, but for Slavery ? Now, if 
 in hitting them we hit the pet and idol of their hot 
 and half-crazy souls, why should these Thirty-five 
 Congressional Conservators put us in the same dock 
 with admitted criminals, with men who have violated 
 so many statutes, while our only sin is that we are 
 faithful to what we consider the fixed and funda- 
 mental law I If there had been no Slavery there 
 would have been no Rebellion. That is, upon all 
 hands, admitted. Then, without Slavery there can 
 be no Rebellion. Ah ! that is a sequitur clear enough 
 to most men, but altogether too tough a nut for the 
 the Thirty-five Wise Men of Washington to crack! 
 We are profoundly sorry for their intellectual weak- 
 ness ; but instead of asking us to stultify ourselves, 
 they should, for their own part, try to think with a 
 little more accuracy. 
 
 We hope that we are as willing to pardon injuries 
 as our neighbors are ; but at the risk of being re- 
 garded as revengeful, we must admit our inability to 
 keep pace with that eminent Professor of Forgiveness 
 and Forgetfulness, Mr. Richardson of Illinois, who 
 said in the Conserved Caucus, that peace can only be 
 restored by saying to the masses at the South, " You 
 have done wrong! Lay down your arms and you 
 shall not be touched." But should Congress decide 
 upon this emollient course, let Richardson be the 
 United States Embassador to the camps of the Rebels !
 
 278 THE FA TE OF RICIIA11DS0N. 
 
 Let him enter their lines, blowing the most assuasive 
 tunes upon the mildest of trumpets ! Let him, while 
 gentle smiles illumine his countenance, say tenderly 
 to the Confederate armies, "You have done wrong! 
 Lay down your arms, and you shall not he touched!" 
 "We can imagine his reception. Even while he blandly 
 speaks, bowie-knives flash, revolvers are aimed at his 
 sacred person, and an extemporized halter dangles 
 aloft. Jefferson Davis and staff march from head- 
 quarters to behold his execution, and Richardson of 
 Illinois is soon no more a member of Congress, and 
 the caucus is reduced to Thirty-four. If he pleases 
 to make this excursion upon his own responsibility, 
 let him depart as soon as convenient. Our opinion 
 is, that he will not be back again in his seat, at any 
 rate during the present session. 
 
 It must, we think, be taken for granted, by this 
 time, that the Secession leaders are in earnest. They 
 ask for no favors; they propose no treaties; they an- 
 nounce their intention of lighting out this quarrel. 
 Are we never to take them at their word? Are we 
 never to use the weapons which Cod and nature have 
 put into our hands? It is not customary to approach 
 a mad dog, holding an olive-branch in one hand and 
 a leg of fat mult on in the other. The prejudice of 
 the world is rather in favor of more active measures, 
 whatever may be the opinion of the dog. And this 
 is all we have to say at present of the Council of 
 Thirty-five. 
 
 July 5, 18G3.
 
 JEFFERSON THE FIRST. 279 
 
 DAVIS A DESPOT. 
 
 TnE Southern Confederacy lias met with a dread- 
 fully damaging blow in the hey-day of its existence. 
 It lapsed into a bloody treason to save itself from 
 intolerable tyranny; and the poor fish, if we may 
 credit The Charleston Mercury, has only tumble^ from 
 a comparatively comfortable frying-pan into a most 
 uncomfortable fire. It is the old story of -ZEsop over 
 again ; for some of the most notable frogs in the 
 puddle are beginning to croak that King Jefferson I. 
 is no better than a Domitian or a Nero. Our au- 
 thority is the aforesaid Mercury, which ought cer- 
 tainly to be considered a good witness in the case. 
 Its first grievance is that the Confederate Congress, 
 in clear violation of the Confederate Constitution, has 
 furnished King Jefferson Davis with a palace ready 
 furnished, at an expense of Seven Thousand Dollars 
 ■ — a most shameful imitation of the rascally doings at 
 Washington under the old detestable rule. It further 
 complains, that all the doings of the Congress which 
 should restore the Rcvolters to supreme political free- 
 dom, are kept profound secrets from the Southern 
 people — debates, decisions, and all ! It is only known 
 that the Emperor — we beg pardon — the President 
 Davis " vetoed more bills of the Provisional Congress 
 than all the Presidents of the United States from 
 George Washington to Andrew Jackson included." 
 lie is, therefore, very properly styled " a Despot." 
 So the Southern Confederacy, in its enthusiastic pur- 
 suit of liberty, has secured, by the confession of The
 
 2S0 WAS IT WOIi Til WHILE f 
 
 Mercury, a Congress which merely registers the 
 Edicts of a Tyrant ! Pray, was this worth the crime 
 of which the Rebels have been guilty, and the suffer- 
 ings to which they have been subjected? Poor little 
 fishes! why don't you come back to the old frying- 
 pan ? 
 
 Tl*en there is another trouble, which is, that as 
 soon as the Confederacy has provided even the sem- 
 blance of a Xavy, it is straightway blown up and 
 annihilated, and all through the inexcusable negli- 
 gence of a blockhead — Secretary Mallory — who may 
 reasonably be supposed to act under the orders of 
 Davis the Despot. 
 
 Upon this point The Richmond Examiner dwells 
 with a deep pathos. From other quarters come most 
 portentous growls ; so that, although the Southern 
 people are not now just in a position to depose King 
 Davis, and to tar and feather his Cabinet, they would 
 unquestionably do both, if it were not for the army. 
 AVe do not mean to say that they would come peni- 
 tently back at once to the Union which they have so 
 insanely deserted. They would probably upset Davis 
 only to set up King Somebody Else the First, but 
 the inevitable anarchy would make their reduction 
 to sanity comparatively easy. We may see some- 
 thing of this hind before the war is over. Davis 
 is n't safe from the tar-pot yet, poor man ! He should 
 have thought, before lie raised this busy devil of 
 revolt, what means and appliances would be at 
 his disposal should it be necessary to lay it. It is a 
 ticklish experiment, as all history proves, to over-
 
 POOR WHITES IN THE FIELD. 281 
 
 throw an existing Government " for light and tran- 
 sient causes." Unless the injuries of a people arc 
 substantial — unless they exist otherwise than in the 
 ambitious views of political schemers — it is the most 
 dangerous thing in the world to stimulate popular 
 passions, and to seduce communities from their alle- 
 giance to the laws and to fixed Constitutions. The 
 engineers usually get the first hoist from their own 
 petards. What became of the men who excited the 
 first French Revolution? Does Davis ever think of 
 their fate with prudent apprehension % And how 
 long can he be sure of his army? Its number is 
 stated in Rebel newspapers at 300,000 men ; but how 
 many of these are Slaveholders ? How many of these 
 have a stake in the contest % How many, not being 
 Slaveholders, have a direct interest in stopping the 
 war \ Everybody knows that, in raising the Rebel 
 forces, there has been a continual resort to terrorism 
 and coercion ; and how long can these go on without 
 a counter-revolution ? Look at the case calmly and 
 philosophically. Suppose that a Southern soldier 
 owns no negroes, and does not hope to own any ; 
 what has he to gain from the independence of the 
 Confederacy — what of oilice, of emolument, of per- 
 sonal consideration? Nothing whatever ! If the new 
 Government were firmly established to-morrow, it 
 would leave him the same Poor White Man that he 
 was before. He would be cut off, as before, from the 
 rewards of industry, and even from the opportunity 
 of respectable labor. We understand, in a measure, 
 why the Man-Owners are fighting — it is for caste,
 
 282 HATRED OF RESTRAINT. 
 
 aristocracy, political power — but why are the Poor 
 Whites fighting \ It puzzles our comprehension, and 
 it will soon begin to puzzle theirs. When it docs, 
 then let Jefferson Davis look out for himself. If his 
 army he small, as The Richmond Examiner com- 
 plains, Mr. Davis may heartily wish it much smaller. 
 Poor whites, trained to the use of arms, may prove a 
 most uncomfortable population. 
 
 But just at present it is n't from these that this 
 usurper has the most to fear. lie is the President of 
 an Oligarchy unaccustomed to personal restraint. 
 lie has been raised to a bad prominence in these 
 affairs by men who are themselves the petty tyrants 
 of the plantations ; who, in all their intercourse with 
 those about them, have substantially possessed a 
 power over life and limb as great as that of the Pus- 
 sum nobility over their serfs in the days of Peter the 
 Great. jXow, the plantation is not by any means a 
 good school in which to acquire a habit of personal 
 obedience, at least on the part of the master. What 
 does a Slaveowner, upon an isolated plantation in 
 Arkansas, care for the authority of a parcel of talk- 
 ing fellows in Richmond? He may fight for Jeffer- 
 son Davis, if he pleases, but then it is no violent pre- 
 sumption that he may please to fight against Jeffer- 
 son, and in favor of another man. South Carolina, 
 according to her own favorite political theories, is a 
 member of the Southern ( Confederacy only during the 
 time of her sovereign will and pleasure. She comes 
 in under protest, and when she sees lit she has, upon 
 her own absurd principles, as good a right to bolt
 
 THE CONFEDERACY DOOMED. 283 
 
 from tlie government of Davis as from that of Lin- 
 coln. Why shouldn't she? Here is one of her 
 principal newspapers denouncing Davis as a Despot! 
 By what worse name did this Mercury ever speak of 
 President Lincoln? If this Mercury be right, it is 
 already time for South Carolina to bolt again ! Will 
 she do it? IIow do we know? How can any man 
 foretell what she will do ? And should she declare 
 once more her independence, by what authority will 
 Jefferson Davis proceed to coerce her to her duty ? 
 He has made waste paper of all precedents. He has 
 abolished all law in his dominions. He holds office 
 not by the will of a majority of the States which he 
 professes to govern, but by the will of South Carolina 
 alone. If she sustains him now, it is only because he 
 permits her to reserve the right to deal at him the 
 deadliest of blows at any moment when it may gratify 
 her whim or suit her convenience. He may be sure 
 that she has well learned the lesson which he has 
 assisted to teach her. 
 
 Thus it is that men involve themselves in palpable 
 absurdities, when for light and transient causes they 
 attempt the overthrow of long-established govern- 
 ments. Thus it is that men incur a thousand perils, 
 when they permit their passions to hurry them into 
 treason. We do not, in all history, remember a rev- 
 olution undertaken for the gratification of personal 
 ambition which has been permanently successful; 
 and we do not believe that the Slaveholders' Rebel- 
 lion is destined to furnish an exception to the rule. 
 We see something like safety for its projectors in
 
 2S4: ARE SLA YES SACRED ? 
 
 their defeat ; but in their success we see nothing for 
 themselves, and the States which they have misled, 
 but ultimate ruin, and the final extinguishment of 
 every vestige of the ancient liberty of their white 
 population. 
 
 August 27, 18C2. 
 
 ALL MEANS TO CRUSH ! 
 
 If one of our Northern newspapers — rebel at heart 
 and half rebel in speech — should propose, here in 
 New York, a loan to the Confederacy of the Traitors, 
 is it not fair to suppose that the office of that journal 
 would receive an early visit from the law-officers of 
 the United States? And yet, morally considered, this 
 offence is one of daily occurrence. When The Her- 
 ald or other sheet of like sable tint vehemently urges 
 that property in Negroes is something that should be 
 sacredly safe from confiscation and from military 
 meddling, we say that such protest is equivalent to a 
 proposition to lend a certain amount of money to 
 Davis's Secretary of the Treasury. AVe beg leave to 
 quote, upon this point, the excellent authority of a 
 Venetian Jew : 
 
 " You take; my house when you do take the prop 
 That doth sustain my house; you take my life, 
 When you do take tlie mean3 whereby I live." 
 
 Immediately after the delivery of this indisputably 
 correct observation, Shy lock, we are told, left the
 
 THE CONFEDERATE DEBT. 285 
 
 Court-IIoiisc upon the plea that he felt very unwell — 
 and no doubt he told the truth. There is a method 
 which God, in the interests of His Eternal Justice, 
 has put into our hands of making the Rebels a great 
 deal sicker than Shylock was ; and we hum and haw 
 and split a whole head of hairs, and leave the Rebel 
 to the use of " the means whereby he lives." Wise — 
 is it not I 
 
 Look at the money which the Confederacy now 
 owes, and which it has given paper promises to pay ! 
 There are $45,000,000 due to its soldiers; $50,000,000 
 to banks ; 805,000,000 for property seized ; $45,000,- 
 000 for State aid to be reimbursed ; $100,000,000 of 
 Treasury notes ; and War Loans to the amount of 
 $05,000,000. What is the property which this in- 
 debtedness represents ? We answer emphatically — 
 Black JSLcn ! And what would these certificates of in- 
 debtedness be worth if the Black Men ceased to be 
 property ? We answer with the same emphasis — 
 Nothing ! If the Government of the United States 
 could, by some stroke of policy, make this rag-cash 
 so utterly rotten that the hungriest Rebel would not 
 touch it even with gloves on, would n't it be worth 
 while to do it ? Well, you can do it ! This paper rep- 
 resents a debt. The debt must be paid by taxation. 
 The property to be taxed is mostly in negroes. Of 
 course, the most befuddled Secessionist must see the 
 truth of the formula — No "Niggers," no Taxes; 
 No Taxes, no Pay ! 
 
 The Confederate notes will be excellent for shaving 
 paper ; but where is the bearded bankrupt to find
 
 286 NICE DISTINCTIONS. 
 
 soap ? The United States Government has it in its 
 power to utterly beggar the paper-shop at Richmond 
 in a week. That swindling concern has no capital 
 but slaves, because without slaves the Rebel planter, 
 if we may credit his own testimony, will find his 
 land worth nothing, and his four-legged stock very 
 little except to eat. Take away his slaves and he 
 cannot pay his taxes, and if he cannot pay his taxes, 
 the Confederacy will burst like a soap-bubble ! But 
 when you prepare to subject him to this highly saluta- 
 ry discipline, ye gods! what howling! Take cows, 
 bulls sheep, oxen, lands, barns, crops — take anything 
 but Blacks ! There has been a great deal of foolish 
 talk in this world from the time of its creation, but we 
 do not believe that the world ever listened to such 
 consummate folly before. It's like giving up to a 
 highwayman his horse and his weapons, and taking 
 from him, by way of forfeiture, his under-waistcoat ! 
 l on meet a Rebel in the held, and you shoot him, 
 or he shoots you. That 's all fair, and we understand 
 it. But suppose, having his life in your power, he 
 proposed to you to buy his life at the cost of his ne- 
 groes " Oh !" you must answer," the public interest 
 demands that I have nothing to do with your blacks! 
 Keep them in the name of the Constitution !" — and 
 so you poj) at him, and down he goes, leaving the 
 blacks to his executors ! What a charmingly sensible 
 piece of I nionism! Or suppose a Rebel prisoner in 
 Fort Lafayette, dreaming of a halter, and waking up 
 to write to the President: "Dear Sir, Take my life, 
 but pray do not take my" niggers.'"' How extreme-
 
 THE RULE OF WAR. 287 
 
 ly probable ! What tlio Rebels want, doubtless, is 
 their lives and their negroes both — together with their 
 cash and their plantations and their pretty little Con- 
 federacy — but if they are not entitled to all, they 
 are not entitled to either. 
 
 The rule of all war is not only to hit hard, but to hit 
 where you can hit hardest. Now, when the Confed- 
 erates at the South, and their allies and accomplices 
 at the North, set up such an agonizing yell, if the 
 emancipation of slaves is but mentioned, we see at 
 once upon what particular part of the back of this 
 Confederate steed the raw is established, and we call 
 for a vigorous application of the lash in precisely that 
 direction. We do not approve of sparing the beast, 
 merely because basting him will please the Aboli- 
 tionists. We are not afraid of pleasing them too well 
 — they are nut so easily satisfied. 
 
 More than anything else, we want a restoration 
 of our territory of which we have been plundered, 
 and of our peace which lias been wickedly disturbed ! 
 Give us back our great, prosperous and happy Amer- 
 ican Union ! Give back to these wives and mothers 
 the dear ones who are now risking their lives in this 
 struggle ! Give back to the honest mechanic the la- 
 bor of which this Crime of Crimes has defrauded 
 him ! Give back to us the respect which we once in- 
 spired abroad ! Restore the supremacy of the Laws ! 
 If our National integrity and individual prosperity 
 cannot be recovered without Emancipation — then 
 Emancipate ! This is a War for the Enforcement of 
 the Laws — Enforce them all ! 
 
 August, 2S, 1S6:2.
 
 2S8 CHAOS AFTER CONFEDERACY. 
 
 NORTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 We must conquer this Rebellion or it will conquer 
 us. This is a fact of which we are reminded — and 
 there is need that we should be — by the boasts of 
 fugitive Secessionists in Canada, who, it is report- 
 ed, "openly declare that the Union shall not be 
 broken, but that if the North is beaten, it shall be 
 subjected to the rule of Jefferson Davis, who will be 
 next President of the United States."' "There is 
 nothing sacred," said Napoleon, " after a conquest." 
 The theory of this war is plain enough. The North- 
 ern people well understand that they are contending 
 for the Constitution and the Laws ; but it may be 
 questioned if more than a small minority of thinkers 
 have permitted themselves to look — for they cannot 
 do so without shuddering — into that seething hell of 
 anarchy and confusion and ceaseless apprehension 
 which would be our fate in the event of a Confeder- 
 ate triumph. Large as this continent is, it may 
 be safely assumed that it is not large enough for two 
 distinct nationalities, with natural limits ill defined, 
 with military ambition upon one side of the line, and 
 witli a tantalizing opulence upon the other, and with 
 reminiscences of success taunting continually a stern, 
 sad memory of defeat; while a common language, 
 instead of promoting peaceful alliances, would become 
 merely a more convenient medium of debate and de- 
 fiance, li' we never knew it before, we know now, 
 that Slavery is aggres.-ive. It is unnecessary to .-ay 
 that it i- more so than an v other marked and d is-
 
 SLA VERY ON THE DEFENSIVE. £89 
 
 tinctive form of social life -would be. It is only 
 necessary to understand that, being of an absolutely 
 peculiar character, and at war with the general 
 moral conclusions of the age, Slavery, as it now exists 
 in the American States, is in that position of desper- 
 ate and dogged defiance, in which it will dare all 
 things in self-defence. For reasons which we need 
 not recapitulate, a component part of that defence 
 must be its extension. It can no more exist within 
 confined limits than a rat can live under an exhaust- 
 ed receiver. It is clear, therefore, that in the event 
 of a military triumph of the system, the spirit of 
 territorial aggrandizement, which has heretofore 
 sought for new man-markets upon the frontier of the 
 Southwest, would begin to exert itself in a Northern 
 direction. Of the inability of the Slave Power to 
 conquer such States as Illinois, Ohio, or Indiana, we 
 might be tolerably certain, so long as a Northern 
 Union should remain ; but the grave and alarming 
 question is, how long, after the establishment of a 
 Southern Confederacy, the Northern Union would 
 continue to exist. Itself a fragment, into how many 
 smaller fragments might it not, even within a quarter 
 of a century, be precipitated ? Disunion is of bad ex- 
 ample, and might prove contagious ; while the Slave 
 States, united in a bad brotherhood, and by the ties 
 of a common iniquity, might not find it difficult to 
 cope with and to subjugate individual States, them- 
 selves exposed to the assaults of each other, and weak- 
 ened by intestine disorder. 
 
 That it is no part of Slaveholding chivalry to spare 
 13
 
 200 THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 
 
 a State, either because it is weak or inoffensive, let 
 the fate of Mexico attest ! But inoffensive the North- 
 ern States, even with the best intentions, could not 
 possibly be. The recognition of the Confederacy, 
 however absolute and complete, would not for a 
 day silence the Anti-Slavery discussions of the North. 
 It is certain that they will never cease until Slavery 
 is abolished. No laws, however rigid, no considera- 
 tions of international comity, would be sufficient to 
 restrain the voices of men who as much believe that 
 Slavery is horrible in God's sight as they believe 
 that there is a God at all. This of itself would be 
 sufficient to keep up a perpetual irritation at the 
 South, and to afford a continual pretext for an ag- 
 gressive war. But the question of Fugitive Slaves, 
 and of their rendition, would be a crowning difficulty, 
 and one which, it seems to us, would be absolutely 
 incapable of a peaceful solution. If we know any- 
 thing of the temper of the Northern people, we can 
 hardly believe that they will be ready to do that of 
 their free-will which they have been so unwilling to 
 d«» upon compulsion. Treaties might be made, but 
 treaties would be perpetually broken. Laws, founded 
 upon such compacts, might be passed, but who Mould 
 obey and who would enforce them ? Meanwhile, the 
 Government of the North would be constantly in- 
 volved in difficulties with its own recalcitrant citi- 
 zens; and, the question of Slavery still coloring our 
 politics, the people would be pretty sure to keep out 
 of office " Northern men with Southern principles."' 
 War must inevitably follow. Peace, by infinite nurs-
 
 THE ISSUE MADE UP. 291 
 
 ing and coddling, would be only the exception ; and 
 "War — beggaring, blasting, and weary War — would 
 be the rule. Into the probable history of this people, 
 so agitated and assaulted, it would not be pleasant 
 too closely to inquire. If the Slave States, stimu- 
 lated only by imaginary injuries, have shown them- 
 selves ready to shoot from a condition of ill-temper 
 into that of sanguinary hostilities, what will be the 
 popular feeling of the North when it is found that all 
 these lives have been given in vain, and that all our 
 treasure has been expended only with the prodigality 
 of the fool 1 
 
 If the question, then, of the Union was an open 
 one before, it is so no longer. We cannot afford to 
 concede — we cannot afford to be conquered. There 
 is a deadly duel between Freedom and Slavery, and 
 one or the other must fall. The issue is but a matter 
 of time. Freedom in the end must conquer. But 
 over what dreary years of suffering and struggle, of 
 paralyzed industry and social commotion, of private 
 agony and of public bankruptcy, must that struggle, 
 if we now temporize, extend ! If there be in this 
 great metropolis any man who, in his devotion to the 
 pursuit of gold, thinks that we should give up all, 
 and retire from this contest, we bid him look well to 
 his money bags, when the arrogant and hot-headed 
 Confederacy shall have triumphed and commenced 
 its political career. If there be here any man who 
 wearies of the noise and confusion of this conflict, we 
 bid him beware of lending his influence to the adop- 
 tion of any measure which may merely postpone the
 
 292 INTEGRITY THE SAFETY OF THE REP UBLIG. 
 
 final adjustment of this quarrel, and leave us, mean- 
 while, certainly for more than one generation, the 
 sport of political chances. If there be any philan- 
 thropist who shrinks, as well he may, from the butch- 
 ery of battle, we warn him that the longest war, how- 
 ever bloody, is better for humanity than the smooth- 
 est of hollow truces. Do not let us be deceived ! 
 There is no safety for this republic but in its integ- 
 rity; there is no peace for it but in its indivisi- 
 bility ; there is no economy in ending one war only 
 that we may begin another ; there is no happiness 
 for us, there is none for our children, save in the com- 
 plete victory of our Government. Five years of war 
 would be better — yes, fifty years of war would be 
 better than a century of imaginary peace and con- 
 tinual collisions. The time to acknowledge the Con- 
 federacy, if at all, was when Anderson pulled down 
 the flag of Fort Sumter. That time has gone by 
 forever! 
 
 September 12, ls<!2. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION— NOT CONQUEST. 
 
 It is extremely unfortunate that an old gentleman 
 like Lord Brougham, who, in the course of nature, 
 cannot talk much longer in this world, should show 
 such an inclination to talk about things which he 
 does not understand. There may have been a time, 
 before his present period of senility, when he may
 
 LORD BROUGHAM'S OPINIONS. 293 
 
 have comprehended the real political character of the 
 American Union ; hut if so, that time has certainly 
 gone by ; and his Lordship babbled the other day at 
 Scarborough in a way which would have been thought 
 ridiculous in the most callous of Tories. lie came, 
 indeed, at last to the sensible conclusion that Eng- 
 land and France have no right to interfere in Ameri- 
 can affairs ; but in arriving at this point, he uttered 
 the following extraordinary language : " We find one 
 part of the States fighting for separation and inde- 
 pendence, and the other part struggling for conquest." 
 The first clause of this proposition is undoubtedly 
 true. The rebels, unquestionably, are fighting for 
 " independence," but it by no means follows, that 
 they are entitled to it. We shall show, before we 
 conclude, that they are not ; but here we would 
 merely suggest, that if Ireland should at present break 
 into open revolt, why then Ireland would be fighting 
 for " independence." Would the charming features 
 of Lord Brougham beam benevolently upon such an 
 enterprise ? Would he be found in his place in Parlia- 
 ment making soft speeches in behalf of a Provisional 
 Government established in Dublin, and voting against 
 all bills for putting down an Irish insurrection ? And 
 yet Ireland is no more an integral part of the British 
 Empire than South Carolina is an integral part of 
 the American Union. Nay, if we look at the mat- 
 ter, and institute a somewhat closer comparison, we 
 find that the connection of Ireland with the English 
 throne, originating in one of those " conquests" which 
 Lord Brougham so much deprecates, and since sus-
 
 294 THE CASE OF IRELAND. 
 
 tained by cruelties which no honest writer can ex- 
 tenuate, does afford a ground for rebellion ; while 
 the "Confederate States" in their present revolt are 
 without the shadow of an excuse. It is not enough 
 to say that jealousies existed. It is not enough to 
 say that fierce discussions had arisen between the 
 North and the South. There can be no apology for 
 this insurrection, except in actual, unmistakable and 
 tangible wrongs endured ; and even these would be 
 insufficient morally and politically, unless it could 
 also be shown that the sufferers had exhausted all 
 possible means of redress, either by legislative or ju- 
 dicial processes. We wish that Englishmen when 
 they undertake to criticise American affairs, would, 
 if only now and then, abandon their safe and con- 
 venient generalizations, and dwell a little upon the 
 facts. We have repeatedly called attention to the 
 pregnant circumstance that the rebels have, to this 
 hour, never presented to the world the smallest mani- 
 fest of their injuries. In the chancery of civilized 
 nations, they have never filed the most meagre bill 
 of particulars. There has been good cause for this; 
 the world would have listened but coldly to the re- 
 cord of splenetic dissatisfaction, of eccentric preju- 
 dices, and of selfish discontent — of ambition ungrati- 
 fied, of hatred balked by the majesty of the law, and 
 of an unreasoning violence which chafed at the small- 
 est restraint. It is because the rebel States have really 
 and morally no cause to sustain and no injuries to 
 redress that they have been so reticent of rational 
 speech, and so voluble in the utterance of old catch-
 
 AN IGNORANT PEEIi. 295 
 
 words, moldy slogans and stale commonplaces. It 
 is odd that a man of Lord Brougham's reputation 
 should be deceived by them. It is strange that he, 
 who is considered to he quite a universal scholar, 
 should know a bit of law, a little chemistry, a mor- 
 sel of philosophy, something of political economy, 
 more or less of metaphysics, and should know abso- 
 lutely nothing of the American Constitution — so lit- 
 tle, indeed, as to be unaware of the fact that it is the 
 fundamental law of the land, and that in no possible 
 sense can a war in its defense be called a war of 
 " conquest." Tipstaves who catch rogues are not 
 " conquerors." The constable who carries a pick- 
 pocket to Bridewell is not a " conqueror." The 
 thief who breaks jail certainly asserts his " independ- 
 ence," and is in pursuit of his ''liberty." But we 
 do not believe his aspirations would appear to be re- 
 markably sublime, even to Lord Brougham's catho- 
 lic mind, if the thief had been in custody for pick- 
 ing his Lordship's pocket, or stealing his Lordship's 
 plate. 
 
 There seems to be a notion prevalent in English 
 society, that the American Union was originally a 
 limited co-partnership, from which any member has a 
 right for any whimsical reason to withdraw, upon its 
 own mere motion, and without the slightest regard 
 for the wishes or interests of its associates. But the 
 least reference to the history of the formation of the 
 I nion will utterly explode this feeble hypothesis. 
 The question was argued, and it was settled before 
 the present Southern belligerent expounders were
 
 20G THE UNION NOT A CO-PARTNERSIIIP. 
 
 begotten. The men who established the Union may- 
 be reasonably supposed to have understood what they 
 were about — to have known what they desired to 
 effect, and to have been capable of effecting it. The 
 identical question of the right of a State to withdraw 
 from the compact, was debated and decided at the 
 very time when the compact was adopted. We quote 
 only Alexander Hamilton, who said: "A Law, by 
 the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. 
 It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are 
 bound to preserve. This results from every political 
 association. If individuals enter into a state of so- 
 ciety, the laws of that society must be the supreme 
 regulator of their conduct. If a number of political 
 societies enter into a larger political society, the laws 
 which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers 
 intrusted to it by the Constitution, must necessarily 
 be supreme over those societies, and the individuals 
 of whom they are composed. It would otherwise he 
 a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the par- 
 ties, and not a Government; which is only another 
 word for political power and supremacy." 
 
 AVe have nothing of our own to add to tin's lucid 
 exposition of the nature of the Union from the pen 
 of one of the most celebrated of its founders. It is 
 not a co-partnership. It does not exist by virtue of a 
 Treaty, but by virtue of a Law. By what authority, 
 then, does Lord Brougham, or any other lord, pre- 
 tend that the United States are waning war for 
 "conquest?" To assert this, is to be guilty of a 
 gross perversion of the record and of language. The
 
 THE TRAIN ARRIVES. 207 
 
 Supremacy of the General Government is the Su- 
 premacy of Law. An attempt to overthrow that Su- 
 premacy is a felony ; and fine words about " Inde- 
 pendence'' do not change the nature of the crime. 
 Let Lord Brougham understand this, or make no 
 more speeches upon American affairs. 
 
 September 24, 1802. 
 
 TRAIN'S TROUBLES. 
 
 One of the most painful delusions of the day is that 
 of Mr. George Francis Train, who imagines that the 
 restoration of the American LTnion depends upon his 
 eloquence. He is n't the first man who has mistaken 
 volubility for argument. A mountebank may prattle 
 in a fair from morn till dewy eve, but it is only to 
 fools that he sells his corn-plasters and cough-drops, 
 lie may no doubt be overheard by many wise men, 
 but that does not make his medicines infallible as he 
 would have you believe ; nor does the fact that Mr. 
 Train writes for the newspapers prove that he is a 
 statesman, for men who are forever writing to the 
 newspapers are always in danger of bringing up in a 
 mad-house. If Mr. Train could only for a moment 
 comprehend how infinitely silly his productions ap- 
 pear to sensible men, he would we think be mortified 
 into something like reason, and would write no more 
 letters like this absurd one now before us, which is 
 addressed to Charles Sumner and others, and which 
 begins fiercely : — " Conspirators !" 
 13*
 
 29S MR- TRAIN WRITES A LETTER. 
 
 As a general rule we suspect that a man who 
 writes confirmed slip-slop, and is never easy unless 
 he is gyrating absurdly through all the gymnastics of 
 rhetoric is hardly a safe person to call to the rescue 
 of an empire. It may be prudently assumed that a 
 Senator of the United States is in no need of Mr. 
 George Francis Train's instruction, and is quite above 
 his reprehension — and for that matter, of his compre- 
 hension also. Mr. Train's only retort must be : " Well, 
 neither does the Honorable Senator comprehend me !" 
 — and for Mr. Train, the reply would be uncommon- 
 ly just and sensible. 
 
 Mr. Train charges the gentleman to whom he ad- 
 dresses this lurid letter with " a damnable conspiracy 
 against three races of men" — against the Irish, " by 
 placing an inferior race alongside of them in the corn- 
 field," and against the Negroes who will all be mur- 
 dered by their masters, according to Mr. G. F. T., 
 unless the Abolitionists cease their provocations. But 
 one of Mr. Train's vaticinations fortunately knocks 
 the other in the head. If the Negroes are all to be 
 murdered by their desperate masters, may not the 
 fastidious George spare himself all painful apprehen- 
 sions of anybody being compelled to work alongside 
 the Black in any corn-field or other field in this hem- 
 isphere. Massacred Negroes do n't dig, to the best 
 of our knowledge, Mr. Train ! 
 
 There is a race of men — it is that to which Mr. 
 Train belongs — who make a living, not by hoeing 
 and digging, but by gabbling about the infinite su- 
 periority of being white — by denouncing those who
 
 GREAT IS GAB. 299 
 
 cannot sec the exquisite equity of Human Servitude 
 — by lecturing on Politics, as other men lecture on 
 Mesmerism and Table-Tipping — who convert their 
 country's agony into a raree-show and go about en- 
 tertaining people with the public misfortunes — who 
 achieve notoriety by rehashing stale platitudes and 
 rejuvenating venerable libels — who were unknown 
 yesterday, and are only notorious to-day, and will 
 be forgotten to-morrow — and to this race Negro 
 Emancipation will prove fatal, for it will ruin their 
 business, which is that of frightening honest folk and 
 manufacturing bugbears. 
 
 Mr. George Francis Train must not think that we 
 mean to be disrespectful. On the contrary, when 
 we put him in this race, we are paying him the great- 
 est compliment of all he ever received in his life, if 
 we except those which he has paid to himself. TVe 
 are ranking him with Doctors of Divinity and Mem- 
 bers of Congress and Ethnologists and Politicians of 
 the most venerable variety, who, wdien Emancipation 
 has finished them, will hail him as a brother in mis- 
 fortune and will go hand in hand with him to oblivion ! 
 
 It may be a satisfaction to the Cabinet to know 
 that Mr. Train, in this very letter, announces his gen- 
 erous intention of standing by it to the end. He 
 professes the most unbounded affection for Mr. Sew- 
 ard ; but if that gentleman be as shrewd as he has 
 the reputation of being, he will hasten to beseech 
 Mr. Train to write him no more letters. It is n't 
 every Administration that can stand Mr. Train's ad- 
 miration. And so much for George Francis ! 
 
 October, 2, 1^G2.
 
 300 MISSIONARIES IN DEMAND. 
 
 THE SLAVEHOLDER UTOPIA. 
 
 It is related that when the Utopia of Sir Thomas 
 More was first published, " the learned Budaeus and 
 others took it for a genuine history ; and considered 
 it as highly expedient that missionaries should be 
 sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to 
 Christianity." Should the political dreamers of the 
 South, by any stroke of fortune, be left to their abom- 
 inable devices, and thus be enabled to try before the 
 world an experiment of promoting the genuine pros- 
 perity of the few by reducing the many to the lowest 
 pitch of moral and physical squalor, it is possible that 
 missionaries might be sent from the North to South 
 Carolina, as they are now sent to Central Africa ; 
 and that some new Livingston might win the noblest 
 of laurels, at the risk of his life, by carrying Christian 
 civilization to Alabama or Mississippi. For it is very 
 certain that whatever perfection the South might 
 attain in the art of civil government, it must still 
 want the very elements of religion. 
 
 Indeed, if we understand at all this little extract 
 from The Richmond Whig, which is now before us, 
 it is the avowed purpose of a portion, at least, of the 
 Rebels, to be rid, in the very beginning of the new 
 Empire, of all musty notions of the equality of even 
 white men before their Creator, which is the essence 
 of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 The Whig complains that, in the tempest and tor- 
 rent of the Rebellion, men are plotting for the estab-
 
 Will TE INEQ UA LITY. 301 
 
 lishment of soraetliing like a monarchy, and for an 
 aristocracy founded upon wealth. The Whig, in an 
 exceedingly bilious way, reprehends these schemes 
 against Democracy and Human White Equality, be- 
 cause it fears, as we fancy, that in the good time 
 coming Editors will hardly be made Royal Dukes, 
 and Printers hardly Baronets. The titles to this new 
 nobility will be found in bills of the sale of Slaves; 
 we may have Count Cufl'ee, or Sir Benjamin Barra- 
 coon, Prince Cotton-Pod, or the Marquis of Fine-Cut ; 
 but although these great people may condescend to 
 take The Whig, and although a few of them may 
 xcvx punctually pay their yearly bills, and be highly 
 gratified by reading his effusions, it will be hard for 
 the Editor, in the new arrangement, to achieve so 
 much as the simple Squirehood. He does well to 
 protest in advance against a scheme which will just 
 as much fix him in a lower social status as it will fix 
 the Black. His vision is already, to a certain extent, 
 purged ; and he will see clearly by and by, that the 
 aristocrat cares nothing for color, and would just as 
 soon, if the law permitted, enslave a white as a black 
 man. 
 
 We have not the satisfaction of knowing with just 
 how colorless a cuticle Providence has endowed this 
 ready writer ; but if he be whiter than many a poor 
 fellow who, maugre his aristocratic grandfathers, has 
 been sold for a price, then our Editor must have what 
 we venture to call a corpse-colored countenance. 1n"o ; 
 it is not the tint of the epidermis that my Lord of the 
 Lash will care for when he has brought the Middle
 
 302 might mom: 
 
 Ages back to Virginia ; for then he will throw over- 
 board the Book of Genesis, and all the other Books, 
 and if he can catch and sell the Editor of The Whiff, 
 he will catch and sell him — and so we tell that un- 
 happy and apprehensive gentleman. 
 
 Slavery is Power — it is Might fancying itself right 
 — it is Laziness loving to eat, but disdaining to work 
 — it is Covetousness of other men's houses, and wives, 
 and men-servants, and maid-servants, and oxen, and 
 asses, and all else that is other men's. A pretty time 
 the Poor White Men will have of it in the new King- 
 dom ! It will be charming to live in it as a prince, 
 but will it be charming to live in it as a printer or a 
 peasant ? How nicely the yoke of military and aris- 
 tocratic tyranny will lit the necks of wretched Cau- 
 casians, bright-colored but nigcrerless ! Who knows 
 but we may see revived there the feudal times — 
 maiden-right, wardship, baronial robberies, the seiz- 
 ure of white children for the market, military service, 
 and all the hardships of that villanage which men 
 have fondly deemed forever abolished by advancing 
 Christianit}- ! 
 
 It may be thought by those who have given an 
 insufficient attention to the subject, that we arc speak- 
 ing somewhat extravagantly ; but if we are deceived, 
 then the best thinkers in the world, since the pro- 
 mulgation of Christianity, have been deceived also. 
 This we are aware is not the place for voluminous or 
 elaborate citation ; but we venture to refer to a 
 writer so well known, and so little likely to be car- 
 ried away by his emotions, as Dr. Paley, who says,
 
 THREE DOCTORS AND TWO LAWYERS. 303 
 
 " Christ i unit v has triumphed over Slavery established 
 in the Roman Empire, and I trust will one day pre- 
 vail against the Morse Slavery of the West Indies." 
 So, too, Dr. Priestly : " Christianity has bettered 
 the state of the world in a civil and political respect, 
 giving men a just idea of their mutual relations, and 
 thereby gradually abolishing Slavery with the servile 
 ideas which introduced it, and also many cruel and 
 barbarous customs." So, too, Dr. Robertson : " It is 
 not the authority of any single, detached precept in 
 the Gospel, but the spirit and genius of the Christian 
 religion, more powerful than any particular com- 
 mand, which will abolish Slavery throughout the 
 world." So, too, Fortescue, hard and dry old lawyer 
 as he was : " God Almighty has declared himself the 
 God of Liberty." But we must not venture to mul- 
 tiply authorities, and in spite of temptation we ab- 
 stain, simply referring the curious reader to Bodin's 
 " Six Books of a Commonweale," (Lib. L, Cap. 5,) in 
 which he will find the whole case of Christianity 
 against Slavery summed up with masterly erudition. 
 To return to our original subject, we say that as 
 Slavery is hostile to Christianity, it follows that it is 
 hostile to Democracy. The Constitution guaranties 
 to every white man, at least, in the Rebel States, a 
 Republican form of government, which can never be 
 maintained with social institutions based upon the 
 worst practices of an outworn Heathenism. It is not 
 only for territorial power ; it is not only in defence 
 of social order and the majesty of law, that we are 
 contending, but for the conservation of civilization
 
 304 DR. HAWKS' S DOZEX. 
 
 and the security of personal rights ; it is that we may 
 not, in our progress toward a higher greatness and 
 more equitable social forms, be neighbored by a na- 
 tion lapsing into the rudeness and barbarism of the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 " America !" sang Goethe, long ago — 
 
 " America ! thou hast it better 
 Than our ancient hemisphere ! 
 Thine is no frowning castle, 
 No basalt as here ! 
 
 Good luck wait on thy glorious Spring, 
 And when in time thy poets sing, 
 May some good genius guard them all 
 From baron, robber-knight, and ghost traditional." 
 October 6, 1S62. 
 
 TWELVE LITTLE DIRTY QUESTIONS. 
 
 We should very much like to know what in the opin- 
 ion of the Rev. Dr. Hawks constitutes a large and 
 clean question. In the Protestant Episcopal Con- 
 vention last Monday, Dr. Hawks, arguing that the 
 Church must treat its rebellious children with " len- 
 ity, courtesv and affection," used the following: Ian- 
 guage : " We must not lug in all the little dirty ques- 
 tions of the day which will be buried with their 
 agitation." One might retort upon Dr. Hawks that 
 the questions which have disturbed the diocese for 
 some years past, have been many of them small, and 
 one of them, at least, exceedingly dirty — to say noth- 
 ing of piquant scandals in the neighboring diocese 
 of Pennsylvania.
 
 Q UERIES STA TED. 305 
 
 To the Protestant Episcopal Church is unques- 
 tionably due the reverence of some of us and the 
 respect of others ; but Heaven knows there is nothing 
 in its history, nothing in its present position which. 
 justifies this sublime scorn of political affairs which 
 Dr. Hawks professes. In England, from the days 
 of Henry VIII. to the days of Victoria, the Church 
 lias been quite as much a political as a religious body 
 — its Bishops have boon courtiers, and sometimes 
 generals — it has been a political institution in Scot- 
 land and in Ireland — the reigning monarch has been 
 its legal head — among its clergy have figured the 
 keenest and most unscrupulous politicians, while for 
 the last twenty-five years, though Laud has been in 
 his coffin for more than two centuries, this Church 
 which never meddles with little questions, has been 
 well-nigh sundered upon points of architecture, of 
 upholstery, of tailoring, of genuflexions and of decor- 
 ations ; while in America we have had petty repro- 
 ductions of the same differences, with the disgusting 
 spectacle of a Right Reverend Father in God, riding, 
 all booted and spurred, at the head of his rebel regi- 
 ments. After this, to find Dr. Hawks so delicately 
 squeamish and so doubtful about the authority of the 
 Church in public affairs, must excite commiseration 
 both for his stomach and his understanding. 
 
 Shall the United State of America be deprived of 
 an immense territory acquired at a cost of blood 
 and treasure absolutely incomputable ? This is Dr. 
 Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. One. 
 
 Shall the Constitution of the LTnited States be
 
 300 MORE 1XTERROQATIVES. 
 
 overthrown by the perjuries of its sworn defenders ? 
 This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Two. 
 
 Shall the Loyal States see the rolls of their citi- 
 zens decimated, the flower of their youth slain in 
 battle, the homes only a little while ago the happiest 
 in the world made desolate, the honest accumulations 
 of industry scattered, the enterprises of benevolence 
 arrested — and all without hope of indemnity or of 
 security ? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Ques- 
 tion, No. Three. 
 
 Shall the wildest and wickedest perjury, the most 
 Satanic defiance of the Majesty of Heaven, the clear- 
 est and least defensible of crimes flourish and bloom 
 in the establishment of a great empire, and out of 
 the dissolution of society secure the prosperous for- 
 tunes of the turbulent and the ambitious ? This is 
 Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Four. 
 
 Shall the great experiment of political self-govern- 
 ment utterly fail, while we, crouching and crawling 
 through the vicissitudes of anarchy, find refuge at 
 last in blind obedience to the edicts of an autocrat ? 
 This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Five. 
 
 Shall a system of labor be perpetuated which, with- 
 out regard to its abstract equity, without considera- 
 tion of its injustice to the employed, has so demoral- 
 ized the employer, that treason, robbery and murder 
 seem to him to be Christian virtues ? This is Dr. 
 Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Six. 
 
 Shall a system of labor be perpetuated which so 
 utterly degrades the spiritual nature of the enslaved, 
 as to expose it in its very yearning for sacred culture
 
 THE CA TECIIISM CONCL UDED. 307 
 
 to a fanaticism analogous to idolatry % This is Dr. 
 Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Seven. 
 
 Shall a system of labor be perpetuated the very 
 essence of which is a denial of the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of Christian ethics — that the laborer is worthy 
 of his hire ? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Ques- 
 tion, No. Eight. 
 
 Shall these acts be considered by the Church mere 
 peccadilloes, when perpetrated by its Southern slave- 
 holding members, which in its Northern communi- 
 cants it would at once visit with its censure and even 
 its excommunication ? This is Dr. Hawks's Little 
 Dirty Question, No. Nine. 
 
 Shall a Church which every Sunday prays the 
 Good Lord to deliver us " from all sedition, privy 
 conspiracy and rebellion," and " to give to all na- 
 tions unity, peace and concord," still hold commu- 
 nion with a Church which is full of sedition, privy 
 conspiracy and rebellion against the unity, peace and 
 concord of the land ? This is Dr. Hawks's Little 
 Dirty Question, No. Ten. 
 
 Shall a Church which every Sunday prays for " the 
 President of the United States, and all others in au- 
 thority " — not merely as fellow-men, but because they 
 are " in authority " — shall the Church withhold its 
 censure of those of its members, who in contempt of 
 authority are waging a felonious war against law and 
 order ? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, 
 No. Eleven. 
 
 Whether, finally, these communicants of the Church 
 in the rebel States who have been so disreo-ardful of
 
 308 CAT AND DOG RECONCILED. 
 
 its discipline, and so false to its teachings as to avow- 
 edly violate all laws Divine and human, are entitled 
 to anything more than Christian pity, are at all en- 
 titled in their double tort to Christian Fellowship, 
 is a Little Dirty Question well worth the considera- 
 tion of every Christian Patriot ; and is Dr. Hawks's 
 No. Twelve. 
 
 October 11. 1862. 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN LONDON. 
 
 Tins is an age of new loves and unwonted affec- 
 tions. That must have been a curious concatenation 
 of events which has brought our Democratic Party 
 into such high favor in Printing -House Square. 
 "When it was young and wickedly vigorous, the queer 
 old women who create public opinion in England al- 
 ways denounced it as dangerous and disreputable ; 
 and it is only now when its vices have brought it to 
 a premature dotage, with no virility to improve its 
 fortuitous conquests, that they have suddenly grown 
 in love with its stammering speech and shattered 
 corporation. Our readers must pardon the pecul- 
 iarity of the figure, for the sake of that emasculation 
 which can only thus be indicated. 
 
 The London Times suffers itself to be cheated by 
 majorities as fortune-hunters allow wealth to hide 
 decay and infirmity ; and fancies that if the Demo- 
 cratic Party was once more dominant in Congress, 
 our feuds would be in a fair way of adjustment.
 
 SUSPICIOUS AFFECTION. 300 
 
 This is an eminent instance of forgetfulness and for- 
 giveness. Democracy has proved its political skill 
 and pure singleness of purpose, by uttering bitter 
 slanders and bitterer truths whenever its policy has 
 clashed with that of England ; by taking the lead 
 in every debate in which that country has been se- 
 verely handled, by formal and perpetual denuncia- 
 tions of monarchies and aristocracies; by avowing 
 itself from its Presidents down to its bob-tail at the 
 polls, always and upon principle unrelentingly the 
 enemy of the British Empire. Xor has the favor 
 been unrepaid. Whigs and Tories in the Imperial 
 Parliament, if they have united in nothing else, have 
 agreed that American Democracy was but another 
 name for license and the synonym for anarchy. 
 
 Can any one doubt, when The Times thus sud- 
 denly shifts its key-note, and affects to be in love 
 with what it considers to be the popular party in 
 America, that it cares for nothing but a change in 
 the Administration, and patronizes our opponents 
 because they would be least likely, if in office, to ne- 
 gotiate a lasting and honorable peace ? It is strange 
 that even the most distant observers should so soon 
 forget that four years of a Democratic Administra- 
 tion, with little or no check upon a policy which had 
 for its sole object the conservation and consolida- 
 tion of Slavery and its minutest interests, failed to 
 propitiate those conspirators who mean to mount 
 upon Southern passions and prejudices into a per- 
 manent oligarchy. It is strange that a fact so mod- 
 ern in history as the assassination of the Democratic
 
 310 ALL NOT ENOUGH. 
 
 Party by its Southern members should be forgotten. 
 Are these members likely to consider as valuable 
 now what they then thought valueless ? Are they 
 likely now to heed in the heat of insurrection, voices 
 to which, in the calmness and solemnity of high coun- 
 sel, they turned an utterly deaf ear ? We do not ques- 
 tion the willingness of Xorthern Democrats to do 
 whatever service the feudal lords of the South may 
 prescribe, as the tenure of the old tugs at the Treas- 
 ury teats. 
 
 But however willing the Seymour party may be 
 to be bought, the rebels are not yet desperate enough 
 to buy them. What, indeed, could a new Adminis- 
 tration of the bad Buchanan variety offer, which 
 could tempt these traitors back to loyalty ? When 
 with hasty passion they repudiated all Constitutional 
 obligations, they gave up a legislative and judicial 
 power for greater than that of the Xorth, but still 
 not great enough to satisfy their most unreasonable 
 appetite. It was not enough for them to be potent 
 in practice, but they insisted on being considered 
 omnipotent in theory. We caught and surrendered 
 their fugitives ; we gave them in spite of prescrip- 
 tion a fairer chance in the new Territories than we 
 reserved for ourselves ; and we hesitate not to say, 
 that at the moment of rebellion, if we except the 
 pressure upon it by the progressive moral sense of 
 the world, slaveholding never Mas safer, never more 
 profitable in States where it was by law established. 
 Within the limits of the Constitution, upon t lie most 
 liberal construction, slaveholders could ask for noth-
 
 ENGLAND COURTS HER ENEMIES. 311 
 
 ing more than they already possessed. It was not 
 because they were dissatisfied with existing securities 
 that they revolted ; but because they could no longer 
 bear the moral dissent of the conscientious and en- 
 lightened North. Nor of the North alone. By the 
 violence of their demonstration and by the inconve- 
 niences to which it inevitably subjected the commer- 
 cial world, they sought to set aside that indignant 
 verdict which was everywhere making up against 
 them. They instituted an experiment, not only upon 
 the morality, through material interests, of the 
 Free States, but upon the integrity of Great Britain. 
 They revolted not against the Federal Government, 
 but against the Christianity of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury. Strong in their monopoly of a single agricul- 
 tural staple, they boasted of their power to change 
 the religious convictions of great empires by sordid 
 influences and pecuniary temptations. 
 
 The Northern States of America were not to be 
 deluded into so much as a quasi endorsement of cruelty 
 and barbarism even by old associations and cherished 
 traditions, and still less by gross and direct appeals 
 to the pocket. But the man-owners were more fortu- 
 nate abroad, where we should have supposed the 
 speculation would have been more desperate. It is 
 at this juncture that England invokes the aid of her 
 old enemies, the American Democracy, and tempts 
 them to an utter abnegation of honor and honesty. 
 It is now in a spirit of pure selfishness that she hints 
 to them that by bated breath and whispered humble- 
 ness, by unlimited concessions and a thorough-paced
 
 312 A HUMOROUS PHYSICIAN. 
 
 flunkeyism, they may secure their own power and 
 advance her prosperity. The leading journal of Eu- 
 rope, as some have called it, is not ashamed to stimu- 
 late what remains of the dough-faces to lower cring- 
 ing and ingenuities of humiliation. It would use as 
 the wheedled instrument of its selfish purposes, the 
 very party which yesterday it affected to despise, and 
 unquestionably detested. "We do not think that po- 
 litical scheming has ever made a baser or more ludi- 
 crous descent than this, even when under the influ- 
 ence of commercial appetites. 
 
 November 19. 1862. 
 
 LAUGHTER IX NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 The late Democratic State Convention in New Hamp- 
 shire, considering the fearfully funereal business upon 
 which it met, was decidedly in luck. Remembering 
 that it is, so to speak, a deposed dynasty, we may con- 
 gratulate the New .Hampshire Democracy upon the 
 possession of a certain funny physician, named Bachel- 
 der, who introduced his method of cure — a kind of 
 Gigglepathy — to the Convention, and made jokes for 
 the members about the "'inevitable nigger," which 
 were received, we arc told, with roars of merriment. 
 Taking into account how small will be their tempta- 
 tions to laughter after the election, perhaps it was 
 merely prudent for the delegates to exercise their 
 diaphragms before that event; for if he laughs who 
 wins, the victims of predestinate defeat must secure
 
 HYPOCHONDRIA TREATED. 313 
 
 their quantum of the amusement before their solemn 
 fate is determined, if they would have it at all. "To- 
 morrow we may be dying," — very justly thought 
 these Democrats — " let us be merry while we can." 
 
 Of the pure philosophic school of Democrats, the 
 drearier their destiny, the heartier their guffaws be- 
 came, under the persuading influences of the droll 
 Doctor, who is, we take it, like one of the old-fash- 
 ioned quacks who, in other days, were wont to dis- 
 pense mercury and merriment from a stage at country 
 fairs. We give the Doctor this publicity because we 
 cannot sufficiently admire his pluck in being jolly 
 under circumstances which would have daunted 
 Mark Tapley himself. We must add that we give 
 him credit, too, for an exceeding ingenuity at discov- 
 ering new materials for laughter in the " nigo-er ;" 
 
 o o on " 
 
 for we really thought that Buckley and the rest of 
 the lampblack boys had exhausted the fountain of 
 sable farce. 
 
 If any of our readers are laboring under that green- 
 and-yellow complaint called melancholy, we cordially 
 recommend them to send fifty cents, and a few locks 
 of their hair, to the ISTew Hampshire Paracelsus. He 
 is " death on gloom," as other accomplished quacks 
 have been " death on fits." He is a walking, grin- 
 ning, giggling, cacchinating, tittering, smiling proof 
 of the excellence of his own theory, and the infalli- 
 bility of his own practice. Here is the country in 
 the condition of the most cruel anxiety ; we are be- 
 reaved, we are drafted, we are impoverished ; in hun- 
 dreds of homes there is weeping for the dead, and 
 14
 
 314 -4 TIME TO LAUGH. 
 
 terrible suspense, and fear of the next news, and sick- 
 ening anxiety until it shall come ; but in spite of all 
 this weary woe, the irrepressible Doctor Bachelder 
 mounts the stage with his budget of quips and quirks, 
 and soon has the grave Democracy of New Hamp- 
 shire in a roar worthy of any peepshow or penny 
 theatre. The man who could do this should not con- 
 tent himself with peddling pills in the rural districts. 
 He has a right to aspire to metropolitan fame. "With 
 a little chalk upon his cheeks, and red ochre on the 
 tip of his nose, he would be invaluable in a traveling 
 circus. We cordially recommend him to our friend 
 Barnum as quite a monster of merriment. With the 
 two dwarfs to make jokes, and the Doctor to laugh 
 at them, we believe it would be necessary to enlarge 
 the cash-box of the museum. 
 
 If we are ourselves exhibiting a little ill-timed 
 pleasantry, we must plead the contagion of example. 
 It is impossible to write of this Medical Momus in a 
 serious way. Perhaps if we were to take a few les- 
 sons of him in the Art of Laughing — will he be good 
 enough to send us a card of his terms for twelve les- 
 sons ? — we, too, might see Slavery in a ludicrous 
 light. Who knows but the Doctor might found a 
 new Pro-Slavery sect ? Some say that the institution 
 is patriarchal, others affirm it to be ethnological. 
 Others, still, find authority for it in the curse of Ca- 
 naan. Now, might not Bachelder take the ground 
 that, whereas, "there is a time to laugh," so God 
 gave us Slavery to laugh at — Slavery with its shames 
 and crimes, its cruelties and inconsistencies. When
 
 ROAR A WA Y, DOCTOR ! 315 
 
 Sambo writhes under the lash, what can be droller? 
 When his wife is cowhided, is there not entertain- 
 ment in every scream ? It is such a joke to part 
 mother and child ! It is such a perfection of comedy 
 — this exhibition of human will, utterly depraved, 
 and of human weakness, utterly down-trodden ! Roar 
 away, Dr. Bachelder ! Roar until your breath fails, 
 and your sides shake ! "Why should n't you laugh ? 
 Are there not laughing hyenas ? 
 
 We believe that the jovial Bachelders of the day 
 should be encouraged to new efforts in laughing at 
 the Blacks, because it really begins to be doubtful 
 whether, after all, the Blacks will not too soon have 
 the laugh against us. We can imagine one of these 
 ebony butts, of ordinary intelligence and a sardonic 
 turn of mind, chuckling in a way that would afford 
 a new study for the Ethiopian Serenaders, at the par- 
 ticularly hot water in which his light-colored supe- 
 riors are floundering. While he has nothing to lose, 
 and can hardly sink to a lower deep of misery, he has 
 the retributive compensation of observing our wars 
 and our wastes, our bereavements and our bankrupt- 
 cies, our failures and our fears. The man must be 
 purblind, at least, who does not see that, in all these 
 distractions, the celebrated curse has been mysteri- 
 ously transferred from the shoulders of Canaan to 
 our own. The New Hampshire doctor does well to 
 laugh while it is possible. He cannot tell whose 
 chance it will be next ! 
 
 November 28, 1862.
 
 316 VIRTUE AFTER CASH. 
 
 SLAVEIIOLDING VIRTUES. 
 
 Southern statists have asserted negro-owning to be 
 the nurse of public virtues, just as Southern theologi- 
 ans have found in it an abiding stimulus of personal 
 piety. In the Free States it has been claimed by 
 these polished Patriarchs that we have secured Lib- 
 erty only at the expense of good manners or good 
 morals. New York is a sink of iniquity. Philadel- 
 phia is the mother of mobs. Boston is the centre of 
 free-thinking and general licentiousness. Yankee 
 treasurers are always defaulters. Yankee merchants 
 are always absconding. Yankee women are stran- 
 gers to virtue, and Yankee men to honesty. We 
 are not duellists ; we are not street-assassins ; we 
 do not carry pistols in our pockets and bowie-knives 
 at our backs ; we do not lynch, summarily, those 
 with whom we may happen to disagree ; but every 
 Northern mob and Northern murder is paraded in 
 the Southern newspapers, as a proof of that social 
 dissolution, which is always here impending. The 
 Southern idea of a thorough Yankee is like Sir John 
 Vanbrugh's idea of a Puritan, — " a fellow with flat, 
 plod shoes, greasy hair and a dirty face — a friend to 
 nobody, loving nothing but his altar and himself; a 
 debauchee in piety and as quarrelsome in his religion 
 as other people are in their drink." But our princi- 
 pal wickedness is our love of money. We do any 
 tbing for dollars. We think more of a shilling than 
 of our own souls. " Virtus post nummos" is written 
 upon our heart of hearts.
 
 WHO SHALL KEEP THE KEEPERS? Z\1 
 
 The cosmopolitan moralist who admires honesty 
 wherever it may exist will he painfully agitated to 
 learn, that living in the actual centre of sweet and 
 persuasive slavcholding influences, the respectable E. 
 Hunter Taliaferro, first doorkeeper of the Confederate 
 Senate of Virginia, by which we understand the front 
 doorkeeper, has drawn forged warrants upon the State 
 Treasury, to the melancholy tune of fourteen thou- 
 sand dollars, and what is worse, has bagged the mo- 
 ney, or those rags which are supposed to represent 
 the money. The Richmond papers which report this 
 backsliding of the wretched Taliaferro do not say that 
 he has any Yankee blood in his felonious heart, but 
 we suppose it will be eventually discovered that he 
 has a great aunt living somewhere in New England, 
 who is a church-member and an Abolitionist. Noth- 
 ing less can account for his profound iniquity. He 
 must certainly be of the old Puritan stock. Who 
 but one purely of that strain could rob impecunious, 
 starving, ragged Virginia ? Surely it can not be one 
 of her own children who has thus pilfered from an 
 insolvent old mother, who has seen better days. 
 Why, 't would be like filching coppers from the dead 
 eyes of one's grandam. O Hunter Taliaferro ! What 
 a bad example you have set to the ingenuous youth 
 of Virginia ! 
 
 So, too, we lament to record that in New Orleans, 
 Gen. Butler has not found that pure Arcadian sim- 
 plicity of character which should have been engen- 
 dered and cherished by auction-blocks and barra- 
 coons. It turns out that in this city of primeval in-
 
 318 CAREER OF WILLIAM CONCLUDED. 
 
 nocence, there are Secessionists upon whom all classes 
 have united in conferring the gentle name of 
 " Thugs." We suppose that most of our readers 
 know what a Thug is. He is a gentleman of East- 
 ern origin who finds his principal pleasure in play- 
 ing such scurvy tricks upon travelers as murder and 
 robbery. What does he do in the West when he 
 should serve his lord and master, the devil, in the 
 East i Why is lie not operating in New England ? 
 We do n't know. We only know that he is said to 
 be fearfully lively in New Orleans just now. Partic- 
 ularly is mentioned a certain " Red Bill" (or William 
 Eufus, we suppose.) who for many years in this Cres- 
 cent City lias performed a crescendo of crime, mur- 
 dering, whenever and whomsoever he pleased, with 
 artistic enthusiasm, and finally closing his career 
 of glorious guilt by flinging a loyal person into the 
 river to be drowned. 
 
 Hitherto William the Red has pursued enthusias- 
 tically his brilliant career with no let or hindrance. 
 How many people he has drowned, how many bush- 
 els of brains he has scattered, how many hearts the 
 ball from his friendly pistol has perforated, into 
 whose bowels his bowie-knife has found a sudden and 
 unwelcome entrance, we shall know when we read 
 his Last Dying Speech and Confession ; for, we are 
 happy to say that Gen. Butler, appreciating the mer- 
 its of this sanguinary chevalier, and believing that 
 his career should be poetically rounded, had conclud- 
 ed at the last advices to hang him, and doubtless, be- 
 fore this, has hanged him, to the uncommon satisfao-
 
 THE PATRIARCHAL THEORY. 319 
 
 tion of the spectators. But what astonishes us is, that 
 this rose-colored gentleman owned black-colored pro- 
 perty, and should, therefore, by all established rules, 
 have been also a person of the most altitudinous virtue. 
 Instead of roaming about with a barker in one hand 
 and an acute, persuading bowie-knife in the other, in- 
 stead of giving himself up to the somewhat coarse 
 dissipation of throwing inoffensive people into the 
 river ; the Rosy William should have remained at 
 home, seated in his own tabernacle, perusing the Ho- 
 ly Scriptures, or under the shade of his own tig-tree 
 he should have read and expounded them to his hench- 
 men and handmaidens, making plain to their simple 
 understandings, the profound commentaries of Doctor 
 Lord or of Doctor Fuller. 
 
 But he does not appear to have been at all the sort 
 of person to whom St. Paul would have been in a 
 hurry to send back an absconding church-member. 
 It is stated that his death will give great delight to 
 his personal friends, as well as a calmer satisfaction 
 to his enemies ; and as we have every reason to be- 
 lieve, from Gen. Butler's well-known celerity in such 
 matters, that William is now no more, we conclude 
 our notice of him by expressing our mild regret that 
 he ever existed at all. 
 
 The slaveholding theory is indeed charming. We 
 have a benevolent old master, wearing his life out in 
 the service of his own serfs and racking his amiable 
 brains for inventions of kindness and caretaking. 
 We have a society so perfectly ordered, and so utterly 
 under the sway of even-handed justice, that wrongs
 
 320 SATAN IV THE PULPIT. 
 
 are not only unknown, but impossible. "We have an 
 aristocracy of Roman dignity, and a peasantry per- 
 fectly happy and measurelessly contented. We have 
 the State always serene and the Church forever in 
 blossom. Such is the theory — but when we come to 
 the practice — ah ! that is quite another matter ! 
 
 December, 11, 18C2. 
 
 ROLAND FOR OLIVER. 
 
 No oxe will pretend that, for the purpose of philo- 
 sophical discussion, personal recrimination is of any 
 value. " You are another," proves nothing but bad 
 temper, and a worse cause. From this point of view 
 Gen. Butler's retorts upon his transatlantic censors 
 seem to be simply amusing. They remind us, as 
 we read, of Satan, with a savor of his normal brim- 
 stone exuding from every pore, creeping, tail and all, 
 into some empty pulpit, and exhorting the congrega- 
 tion to abandon its sins. "When lechers preach con- 
 tinence, when misers advocate liberality, when bullies 
 set up for Chesterfields, when prize-fighters put on 
 Quaker coats, when liars tender their corporal oath, 
 it is the way of the world, a very wicked and un- 
 charitable world, no doubt, to snicker and to sneer. 
 It cannot be helped. It is only a simple resort to 
 our natural defence against presumption and hypoc- 
 risy. It is no palliation, indeed, of our own wrong- 
 doing, but it is a fair abortion of our right to be re- 
 buked by honest lips, and to be smitten by clean 
 hands.
 
 GEN. BUTLER'S FORTITER. 321 
 
 By recrimination the woman taken in adultery es- 
 caped not only a cruel but a legal death ; and the con- 
 sciousness that we are none of us without sin, saves 
 society from perpetual collisions and an eternal wrangle. 
 But when Gen. Butler, placed as he was in a most 
 difficult and delicate position, found it necessary to re- 
 sort to certain punishments, some of them extreme 
 indeed, but most of them of a mild and municipal 
 character — punishments which fifty years ago were 
 as familiar to Europe as the bulletins of Kapoleon — 
 then every scribbler for the London newspapers felt 
 it to be his duty to elevate his whine, and to repre- 
 sent the General as a blood-thirsty ogre, only deterred 
 from dining upon Rebels by the extreme leanness of 
 their corporeity. There was never a sillier slander. 
 
 Imagine a commander in military possession of a 
 captured town, who allows his soldiers to be insulted, 
 his authority to be questioned, his Government to be 
 derided in the newspapers ; who invites his own as- 
 sassination by his fear of hanging professional bravos, 
 and who runs a daily risk of ignominious expulsion, 
 because he cannot make up his gentle mind to aban- 
 don the suaviter for a time, and resort, in his emer- 
 gency, to the fortiter ! Of course, under such circum- 
 stances, if he does his duty, he will be denounced by 
 those whom it would be criminal to conciliate. It 's 
 the rogue trussed up and haltered, with his ill opin- 
 ion of the law, over again ! Particularly would the 
 satisfaction under such circumstances be lively, in a 
 city like Xew Orleans — a city in which, in the most 
 peaceful times, the civil and judicial authorities have 
 14*
 
 322 WHAT HE HAS NOT DOXE. 
 
 been notoriously corrupt and inefficient — a city in 
 which mobs have always abounded, and human life 
 has ever been unsafe — a city which has been a con- 
 stant reservoir of Slaveholding rascality, and the ref- 
 uge of lawlessness and violence. To the ruffianhood 
 of Is"ew Orleans, the vigor, the promptness, the pre- 
 cision and the inexorability of Gen. Butler must have 
 been, of necessity, astonishing and uncomfortable. 
 
 But, upon a review of his proceedings, this much- 
 berated Major-General, so far from finding anything 
 to regret, appears to regard the moderation of his 
 course with no little complacency ; and the sang-froid 
 with which he reminds his English assailants of the 
 little he had done, and the deal which, following es- 
 tablished precedents, he might have done, is really 
 entertaining. lie has dealt lightly enough, he thinks, 
 with men who, fifty times over, have forfeited their 
 lives. He has n't smoked them to death, as the sol- 
 diers of Claverhouse did the Covenanters ; he has n't 
 roasted them as the French did the Algerines ; he 
 hasn't scalped them, and tomahawked wives and 
 mothers, as the Indians under British colors did at 
 Wyoming ; he has n't " looted " private property after 
 the fashion of the English in China ; he has n't blown 
 his prisoners from his guns, as Bull did at Delhi ; he 
 has resorted to extreme penalties only when the law 
 demanded them, and the commonest punishment 
 which he has inflicted has been banishment to an 
 island, where, only a little while ago, his own soldiers 
 were quartered. 
 
 It seems to us, after the fullest consideration, that
 
 WHAT CAPT. HODSON DID. 323 
 
 a retort like this is perfectly fair. Gen. Butler may 
 well urge in his own defence that England, with all 
 her immense resources, has never found the work of 
 arresting a rebellion a mere holiday task. He might 
 have gone further, if he had seen fit to do so. He 
 might have pointed to the atrocities of the English 
 soldiery in Ireland — to that chapter of history which 
 can never be recited without awaking the indignation 
 of mankind — to cabins burned, to men and women 
 indiscriminately murdered, to tortures mercilessly 
 inflicted — to that whole catalogue of crimes which 
 Lord Cornwallis, then the Lord-Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land, in vain endeavored to arrest, by the most pa- 
 thetic remonstrance addressed to the English minis- 
 ters in London. 
 
 It would have been no inequitable rejoinder, to 
 have said something of the British Themis, advancing 
 into the hovels of Ireland with a halter in one hand 
 and a bag of guineas in the other, buying men's lives 
 as drovers purchase cattle, and attended by a train 
 of nine-times perjured sycophants, spies, and inform- 
 ers ! Something, too, might have been said of Capt. 
 Hodson's summary execution, with his own hand, of 
 the two sons and the grandson of the King of Delhi 
 — an act, the propriety and necessity of which we do 
 not mean to question — but still an act of boldness 
 and severity, in comparison with which anything 
 done by Gen. Butler during his government of Xew 
 Orleans, has been the milk of mercy itself! But if 
 the perils of the Rebellion in India were such as to 
 drive an excellent and amiable officer to the extreme
 
 324 WAR NO PASTIME. 
 
 of severity — if Capt. Hodson himself shot his prison- 
 ers, while it is n't pretended that Gen. Butler pla}ed 
 Jack Ketch upon any occasion — why are we to be 
 denounced for simply securing the safety of a city 
 fairly captured by our forces ? We are not fighting 
 for entertainment. We are not engaged in mere 
 pastime. 
 
 Unless, indeed, we are in grim earnest in this con- 
 test ; unless we are determined, before we throw by 
 the sword, to re-establish the Federal authority where- 
 ever it has been assailed ; unless we mean war with 
 all its incidents and consequents, we are verily guilty 
 of blood carelessly and causelessly spilt, and must an- 
 swer to God for incalculable suffering. But in view 
 of the great and patriotic work before us, the little 
 matters at New Orleans, which have furnished the 
 London journals with themes for whole symphonies 
 of sarcasm and wrath, dwindle into insignificance. 
 General Butler has acted precisely as any English or 
 French General would have acted ; or perhaps it 
 would be fairer to say, that he has displayed a mod- 
 eration which, in an English or French officer, we 
 should have looked for in vain. Without any par- 
 ticular admiration for his character, we feel that to 
 say this is only to do him simple justice. 
 
 January 12, 1863.
 
 THE GREAT BOO! 325 
 
 HISTORICAL SCARECROWS. 
 
 The cheapest and, at the same time, the readiest of 
 all subterfuges, when logic is lacking, is the Historical 
 Bugaboo. Its employment is quite independent of 
 sense or of scholarship. A single event, no matter 
 how ancient, may be turned into a fresh fight upon 
 twenty widely different occasions, and be pertina- 
 ciously, and often effectively obtruded, without the 
 least regard to the indisputable fact, that the world 
 is considerably older than it was on the day of its 
 creation. The failure of past republics is made proof 
 prophetic of the instability of all popular govern- 
 ments. Commonwealths must go to ruin eighteen 
 centuries after Christ, because Commonwealths went 
 to ruin ten centuries before Christ. History is only 
 written to prove that "^sought is everything, and 
 everything is nought." 
 
 Is it proposed, in countries principally Protestant, 
 to emancipate the Catholics? Remember St. Bar- 
 tholomew ! Is it argued that governments derive 
 their just powers from the consent of the governed ? 
 Think of the red rivers of the French Revolution ! 
 Do we ask for justice to the American Slave ? Men 
 with hearts as hard as their bigotry, or that of St. 
 Dominie himself, parade the butcheries of St. Domin- 
 go ! The fact of the massacres is sufficient. "What 
 caused them — who was in the right, and who was in 
 fault — whether the Blacks did anything to be praised 
 instead of blamed — these are minor considerations, 
 un worth v of the attention of men who know abso-
 
 32G THE TRUE STORY OF ST. DOMINGO. 
 
 lutely nothing of that sad history, and who could not 
 for their lives, upon a cross examination, tell us 
 whether Toussaint was a Llack or a white man, what 
 he did while living, or where, or under what circum- 
 stances, he died. It is enough to " scream " St. Do- 
 mingo ! and every abolitionist is considered to be 
 effectually graveled. It is in this idiotic way that 
 History is abused. The Excess do n't know much, 
 but it can whine " St. Domingo I" Tlie Herald never 
 makes a pretence of argument, but it can bawl " St. 
 Domingo !" "Women can whimper it — platform 
 prophets can howl it — cross and crusted conserva- 
 tives can adduce it victoriously — and persons vibrat- 
 ing between duty and dollars, finding that a defence 
 of Slavery upon the Judaic basis involves abstinence 
 from sausages, can abandon Palestine for the West 
 Indies without interfering with their breakfasts. 
 
 It is of but little use to ask these people to hear 
 the whole story. Why should they listen, if, by 
 being tolerably well informed, they are to be did- 
 dled out of a good chronic cry? Why tell them 
 that, after the decree of the French Convention of 
 17S-1 had confirmed the emancipation of the colony, 
 the most respectable authorities declare that the 
 freedmen were peaceable and industrious, working 
 upon their own plantations and for their old masters? 
 That of course isn't a fact of any importance. Why 
 tell these historical gentlemen, who know everything, 
 that nine-tenths of the atrocities committed by the 
 Blacks were incited by the Whites and Mulattocs '. 
 That is of no consequence. Why show that, under
 
 WEST INDIAN EMANCIPATION. 327 
 
 Toussaint, the colony flourished, the Whites living 
 happily upon their plantations, the estates well and 
 cheerfully cultivated hy the Blacks, until the expe- 
 dition of Le Clerc, sent forward by that wily Italian, 
 to whom the very name of Liberty was detestable, 
 arrived for the single purpose of restoring Slavery ? 
 What followed — the tearing of the Negroes by blood- 
 hounds — the wholesale massacre of the Blacks — the 
 infinite cruelties inflicted by the planters — is not so 
 well known as the final expulsion of the French, and 
 the horrors by which it was attended. That the 
 Blacks took an ample revenge is not denied. That 
 they were always humane is not asserted. But it is, 
 nevertheless, equally true, that if ever cruelties were 
 provoked it was when the needless and unjustifiable 
 interference of Bonaparte aroused passions which, in 
 men of a different complexion, would have been con- 
 sidered worthy only of the warmest praise. 
 
 Such is the case of St. Domingo. Admitting; all 
 that the advocates of Human Bondage say of it, it 
 proves nothing against Emancipation, and everything 
 against Re-enslavement. To any rash deductions 
 from its darker features, we are at liberty to oppose 
 all the other experiences of modern times. Not to 
 enter into more details, we fearlessly appeal to the 
 great experiment in the British West Indies. We 
 are aware of the commercial objections which have 
 been made to that measure — the complaint of meagre 
 crops and of reduced incomes — the ruin which it is 
 asserted has overtaken the landed proprietors. But we 
 are not now considering a question of pounds sterling,
 
 323 HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS. 
 
 or of the diminished value of sugar-estates. "We are 
 investigating the chances of social safety and order 
 under the new relations which Emancipation estab- 
 lishes. According to the doctrine of the Negropho- 
 bist, the West India Blacks should have cut every 
 Englishman's throat — and the worst that Thomas 
 Carlyle, in his diabolical hatred of the African, can 
 say is, that while he can get pumpkins for nothing, 
 the Freedman will not dig potatoes ! This the stern- 
 est moralist will admit is something less than the 
 murders, rapes, and arsons which should have fol- 
 lowed that memorable First of August, and which we 
 are invited to believe will follow our own memorable 
 First of January. 
 
 For ourselves, if we are to be guided in our present 
 duties by the precedents of the past, we prefer to 
 select our own examples, and to draw our own con- 
 clusions. If the latest English newspapers come to 
 us freighted with sarcastic sneers at the Emancipa- 
 tion of the American Slave, we can read them with 
 equanimity, when we remember that Mr. Dundas, in 
 1792, proposed, in Parliament, the Emancipation of 
 the British Blacks — that Mr. Burke proposed a bill 
 for the same great purpose' — that Mr. Pitt avowed 
 that the abolition of the Slave Trade must be fol- 
 lowed by the abolition of Slavery — that Sir Samuel 
 Romilly, in pronouncing the doom of a barbarous 
 commerce, anticipated the time "when the West In- 
 dies should no more be cultivated, as now, by wretch- 
 ed Slaves, but by happy and contented laborers,'' — 
 — that the careless but kind-hearted Sheridan de-
 
 A BLIND ALLEY. 329 
 
 clared, that the abolition of tlie Slave-Trade was 
 " the proper preamble to the entire abolition of 
 Slavery," — that Lord Grenville, then Prime Minister, 
 moved Emancipation in the House of Lords — and, 
 finally, that old Dr. Johnson used to drink, as a 
 favorite toast, " a speedy insurrection of the Slaves 
 of Jamaica, and success to them !" 
 
 These were the views of enlightened English states- 
 men and thinkers nearly a century ago. These opin- 
 ions, familiar as they are to our own educated classes, 
 have done much to create and strengthen that hos- 
 tility to Slavery which the great organ of the British 
 shopkeepers now stigmatizes as fanaticism and folly. 
 Let it rave ! Let its passion for pounds sterling get 
 the better of its moral principles ! The world moves, 
 and a century hence men will read its leading articles 
 as they now read the Tory diatribes of Sir Roger 
 L'Estrange. 
 
 January 13, 18C3. 
 
 THE OTHER WAY. 
 
 " In medio tutissimiis ibis" — " down the middle," 
 as they say in the dancing-schools — is a charming 
 maxim when there is any middle to go down. But 
 when some nice representative of the conservative 
 species, who has adjusted his neat legs for a pleasant 
 pirouette through unencumbered spaces of pleasant- 
 ness and ease, finds his path incontinently blocked up, 
 and discovers that there is no way through which he
 
 330 TIMIDITY OF THE COPPERHEAD. 
 
 may glide to measureless content, it is very ridiculous 
 in him to persist in figuring fussily about, no matter 
 how melodious may be the fiddles which call upon 
 him to demonstrate the perfection of his glissando. 
 
 Gentlemen who manufacture leading-articles for the 
 London newspapers are much outraged by Mr. Lin- 
 coln's Emancipation Proclamation. Gentlemen near- 
 er home have also their perturbations. To free the 
 slaves is to be rash and radical, and to follow all pre- 
 cedents and to confiscate that property which is most 
 valuable and upon which we can most readily put 
 the just finger of the law, is to encourage the whole 
 catalogue of crimes, and to awaken under the breast- 
 bone of Jefferson Davis, passions which our best 
 blood only can cool. The philosophic .mind astutely 
 contemplating these diffeulties, and not discover- 
 ing very clearly that middle course which should be 
 pursued, but which will doubtless charmingly develop 
 itself when two and two make five, seeks for a solu- 
 tion in the other extreme, and wonders if we should 
 please our English critics better by avowing ourselves 
 converts in soul and spirit to the doctrine of the di- 
 vine right of Man-Owning. Better this than split- 
 ting hairs eternally ! Better this than to be forever 
 leering with one eye at Self-interest, and with the 
 other at Duty ! Better accept in the full proportions 
 of its gigantic diabolism, the Evangel of Brute Force, 
 than to be always dyspeptically sighing at our trou- 
 bles and shrinking like children from our medicine ! 
 
 These modern apologists of treason want a few 
 lessons in manly and muscular wickedness. Xow
 
 SOOTHING TREATMENT. 331 
 
 they go bobbing about like the old Duke of Newcas- 
 tle at a levee, shedding tears, hysterically laughing, 
 asking what they shall do to be saved, following no- 
 body's advice, cursing the Abolitionists heartily, 
 cursing the Rebels just enough to be in the fashion, 
 swearing that something must be done, pitying the 
 North, commiserating the South and fancying that 
 somehow — God only knows how ! — if they were in 
 Congress or the President's Cabinet, or at the head of 
 the Army, they would smooth down every hair of 
 this rebellious cat, and coax North and South, in the 
 purple light of love, to fall amorously into each other's 
 arms ! Why will not these people see that comfort, 
 convenience, necessity, consistency, all require them 
 to say to the Rebels : 
 
 " Gentle Patriarchs ! Legitimate descendants of 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ! Most worthy and most 
 injured Man-Owners ! Salt of the Earth ! You wish 
 to own Niggers — Black, Yellow and White Niggers 
 — without hindrance. A very reasonable wish ! Be- 
 lieve us it shall be gratified. Not only shall you own 
 them, but, to assist you in owning them, we will eat 
 our own Bibles and Constitutions ; we will fight your 
 battles ; we will pay your taxes ; we will catch the 
 fugacious for you without fee or reward ; we will im- 
 port Sambo for you in our brave ships ; and whoever 
 within our borders shall say one word against the 
 equity, or the policy, of j-our unlimited charter, that 
 man, by due process of law, we will hang, draw and 
 quarter." 
 
 Now this it seems to us, is the precise opposite of
 
 332 LET THE BA UBLES GO! 
 
 the Emancipation Proclamation which has proved so 
 acrid to the tender interiors of some Englishmen and 
 of some Northern Democrats. The Rebel asks yon 
 to admit that his Slave system is beautiful. "Well, 
 then, let us admit it ! To be sure we involve ourselves 
 in dreadful responsibilities by doing so — we pile a 
 mountain of corpses upon the Northern conscience — 
 we admit the utter fatuity of the Northern mind — 
 we own an error more monstrous than any people 
 ever before committed — we spit upon the loveliness 
 of civilization, and advertise ourselves atheists, hope- 
 less of human progress, acquiescent in the misery of 
 man, confessing him incapable of advancement, and 
 the sheerest plaything of his own idiotic dreams! 
 
 But let the baubles go ! Let us throw away our 
 rattles — pity, love, charity, humanity — the baubles 
 of our childhood, and, grimly advancing to confront 
 our bitter destiny, and crying piteously, " Good 
 devil !" seal our Manichsean faith in the blood of the 
 helpless and the despairing ! Why should we not ? 
 The shuttles of Lancashire will again fly merrily — 
 the great Juggernaut of Print ing-IIouse Square will 
 grin approbation at us, with his gaping, bloody 
 mouth — the bulky bales will again fill our ships — 
 the Patriarchs will again adorn and fortify our Legis- 
 lative halls — dear, delightful internal, not to say in- 
 fernal, commerce will be resumed — churches will 
 flourish and missions will multiply — of ploughshares 
 and pruning-hooks there will be no end in the land ! 
 Talk about conscience ! We assert without fear of 
 contradiction from any good Conservative of the
 
 CONSCIENCE AT A DISCOUNT. 333 
 
 Seymour-Brooks-Wood-en order, that no nation can 
 afford to maintain a conscience. Conscience neither 
 sows nor reaps, nor gathers into barns, nor lays up 
 treasure on earth, nor spins nor owns ships. What 
 do they care for conscience in Downing Street? 
 Where would Louis Napoleon have been now, if in- 
 stead of keeping two or three mistresses, he had been 
 fool enough to keep a conscience ? Tormented still 
 by his tailor in a London garret ! Of all ridiculous 
 things in this ridiculous old world, thrice the most 
 ridiculous is conscience. It belongs to ecclesiastical 
 establishments — it is something to talk about — it is a 
 handy thing to have in the house — it is an article for 
 which you may have use upon an emergency — but, 
 as for a homely, good, every-day conscience, why you 
 might as well keep an elephant to do odd jobs in the 
 scullery. Bold Britons find conscience a capital 
 thing when they wish to form a Society for Propa- 
 gating the Gospel in Foreign Parts — but egad ! when 
 you come to Conscience vs. Cotton, John Bull is for 
 the Defendant ! 
 
 Our little plan we trust will make everything easy. 
 It is simply to give the Rebel Slaveholders all they 
 ask — Slaves, the Presidency, the Congress, the Army, 
 the Navy, the Treasury, the Control of Trade, 
 the Direction of the American Church. Will they 
 kindly consent to take us in hand % Will they inti- 
 mate to our new government what we must do first ? 
 Do we kiss their hands or their feet ? Or do we 
 knock our forehead three times upon the ground in 
 token of submission ? Must Mr. Lincoln stand at a
 
 334 8A ULSB UR Y ON CA USES. 
 
 church-door in a sheet, with a candle in his hand ? 
 Give us the etiquette of our formal surrender that we 
 may be preparing for the final ceremony. 
 
 January 14, 1865. 
 
 SALISBURY'S SENTIMENTS. 
 
 Mk. Scandal in the play declares that Astrology is a 
 most valuable science, because, according Albertus 
 Magnus, " it teaches to consider the causation of 
 causes in the causes of things." We suspect that 
 Mr. Senator Saulsbury must devote his leisure hours 
 to occult learning ; for last Thursday Ins givings-out 
 were extremely weighty and oracular ; and if ho 
 could but have kept his temper, which we are sorry 
 to say he lost in the most unphilosophical manner, 
 his utterances would have been prodigiously solemn. 
 Every gentleman in this free and enlightened country 
 is at liberty to reason badly, should he chance to have 
 a propensity for bad reasoning ; but when a Senator 
 comes back from the Christinas holidays in a condi- 
 tion of complete obfuscation, we are apt to think that 
 the wassail-bowl has been too much for his everyday 
 intellectuals. 
 
 In descanting upon the "causes of things," Mr. 
 Saulsbury thus enlightens the universe : " The raid 
 of John Brown, the Liberty Bills, or the election of 
 Abraham Lincoln, were not the causes of this war, 
 but the assertion of the right to abolish Slavery and 
 the evidence of such a purpose." As a specimen of
 
 WHY THEY BOLTED. 335 
 
 assertion perfectly naked and therefore unusually 
 cool, we do not believe that this can be excelled. It 
 is indeed curious. This Union Senator Saulsbury, 
 who is n't a Rebel, who has n't been sworn into the 
 Confederacy, who still abides after a certain fashion, 
 and in profession at least, by the Constitution, feels 
 it to be his duty to go mousing about for a plausible 
 palliation of public crime, and discovers nothing for 
 his purpose better than what we are obliged to brand 
 as a bit of outrageous falsehood. 
 
 Why the Senator is deeper in the secrets of Re- 
 bellion than the Rebels themselves. He knows better 
 than they do, why they bolted and why they are 
 fighting and bleeding and dying. For if ever men 
 gave a clear reason for pursuing a particular course, 
 the Seceders have assigned " the election of Abraham 
 Lincoln" as an all-sufficient defence of their folly and 
 sin. They waited for the result of the Presidential 
 canvass, and because it was not to their mind, they 
 betook themselves to the heroic remedy of treason. 
 It is not pretended — no man in his senses will pre- 
 tend, that if Breckenridge had been elected, even 
 South Carolina would have refused to acquiesce. 
 The truth is, that Mr. Senator Saulsbury does not 
 see, in his volunteer defense of the Rebels, that in 
 ingeniously making out a case for them, he proves 
 too much either for their patriotism, or their honesty 
 or their sincerity. It is cruel to take John Brown 
 out of their mouths. It is unfriendly to deprive 
 them of their pet grievances — the Liberty Bills. It 
 is ungenerous to deny that the election of Lincoln
 
 336 ORIGINAL REPUBLICANISM. 
 
 generated Secession. Take away these causes, and 
 why the Rebellion at all ? Saulsbury says it was 
 "because of the assertion of the right to abolish 
 Slavery." Saulsbury may say so, but the Seceders 
 don't say so, and never have said so. The right to 
 abolish slavery ! — who has ever claimed it ? and 
 when ? and where ? It will not do to bring one mere 
 guess to bolster up another mere guess, for guesses 
 are not evidences in Courts of Justice, nor should 
 Mr. Saulsbury offer them as such in the Senate of 
 the United States. 
 
 No newspaper that supported Mr. Lincoln — no 
 public man who canvassed for him — no Republican, 
 who as a Republican voted for him — expressed the 
 least intention of abolishing Slavery as legally estab- 
 lished. You may search files, you may hunt up 
 speeches, you may unearth long-buried electioneering 
 documents, but you cannot find there, nor in the 
 official Resolutions and Addresses of the Republican 
 party, any expression of any unconstitutional desire 
 or intention — you cannot find it, for the simple 
 reason that it is not there ! There were indeed a 
 few Immediate and Unconditional Abolitionists at 
 the North, but as every intelligent Seceder knows, 
 they were not Republicans, and they did not vote for 
 Abraham Lincoln for the all-sufficient reason that 
 they never voted at all. As a mere matter of fact, 
 avc believe that if the Seceding States had quietly 
 acquiesced in Mr. Lincoln's election, they would have 
 immeasurably strengthened their favorite institution. 
 It is now only in peril because their outrageous con-
 
 THE PROCLAMA TION. 337 
 
 duct has driven the President to do what, when he 
 assumed office, lie had no intention of doing at all. 
 We suppose that we understand the reason of Sena- 
 tor Saulsbury's diatribe. Now that it is necessary to 
 hunt up ammunition against the Administration, it 
 is found convenient to say, that Slavery must not be 
 interfered with, because the Rebels are in arms to 
 prevent such interference and the result of it must 
 be hopelessness of conciliation. The Proclamation, 
 Sanlsbury tells us, is " brutum fulmen" — it is 
 nothing, and will amount to nothing — it is ludi- 
 crously inefficient and absurdly impotent — and yet — 
 for here Saulsbury hoists himself over the other horn 
 of his dilemma — and yet, this " brutum fulmen," this 
 ludicrous, inefficient, absurd and impotent thing, is 
 to have the most extraordinary effects — it is to inten- 
 sify the Rebel wrath and confirm the Rebel hate — is 
 to make re-union simply impossible. A very re- 
 markable effect for such a ridiculous document ! Are 
 the Rebels such asses that they allow themselves to 
 be thrown into convulsions of rage by a little bit of 
 printed paper with no more virtue in it than there 
 is in an old almanac ? Why should they be so angry 
 at a policy which is not to free a single " nigger," 
 and which has its beginning and end in the Presi- 
 dent's library ? 
 
 If we get at the condition of the Rebel mind with 
 any accuracy from a careful perusal of Jefferson 
 Davis's speeches, it is certain that, for the present, it 
 has no leaning towards compromises and does n't 
 pant to be conciliated. It hears of the victories of 
 15
 
 338 THE DEMOCRACY DESPISED. 
 
 its Northern Democratic friends with infinite non- 
 chalance. It does n't vouchsafe a " Thank you !" to 
 any of its volunteer Knights in the loyal States. It 
 laughs at Saulsbury and with great justice, since it 
 is not given to any mortal to sit upon two stools at 
 the same time. No human being can gaze with pro- 
 found respect upon a Union Senator with Secession 
 principles. The late Democratic victories which cost 
 so much money, and hard swearing, and sinfully per- 
 suasive speeches, and general and unblushing self- 
 stultification, are regarded by the rebels with a really 
 cruel contempt. Gov. Seymour may be ready to 
 fall weeping upon the neck of Jefferson Davis, but 
 Davis is sensitive about the neck and begs leave to 
 decline the proffered embraces. After all conceivable 
 negotiations and tender diplomacy, we come back 
 again to dry knocks at last, and one of the driest of 
 these, if we may credit Saulsbury, is the Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation. 
 
 January 11, 1803. 
 
 JEFFERSON THE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 There is one point upon which our rebellions citizens 
 mean that we shall be well informed. They claim, 
 like ladies' maids and gentlemen's own gentlemen, a 
 monopoly of good breeding; and they prove their 
 polish by continually advertising it. Their news- 
 papers, presided over by the Chesterfields of ink and 
 and shears, are forever saying:
 
 RICHMOND ARISTOCRATS. 339 
 
 "We are refined and chivalrous, and honorable, 
 and knightly, and dignified, and urbane, and accom- 
 plished, and eleganf, and fascinating and high-toned ; 
 while the Yankees are coarse and degraded, and 
 mean, and false, and vulgar, and rustic, and ig- 
 norant." 
 
 Indeed, these models of humanity lack nothing but 
 modesty, which has heretofore, absurdly we suppose, 
 been deemed an element of the perfect gentleman. 
 There are those who might think that refinement to 
 be a little dubious which its claimants are obliged to 
 vindicate so often in the public prints. The best bred 
 men have heretofore been content to let the world 
 find out their merits, without obtruding them, with 
 such an outcry, upon the general attention ; but we 
 cannot condemn the Rebel Bayards in this particular, 
 since the world has been so culpably slow in ac- 
 knowledging their superiority. 
 
 The arrival of one living English Marquis and a 
 genuine English Colonel in Richmond, has afforded 
 The Whig of that sweet city a charming opportunity 
 of showing that it knows a gentleman when it sees 
 one, and of making quite a little triumph of its sa- 
 gacity. It rejoices that the Marquis of Hartington 
 has visited Richmond, " for he will have an oppor- 
 tunity of contrasting the dignified manners of South- 
 ern gentlemen with the coarse vulgarity of the Ex- 
 ecutive Head of the Northern States." We hope the 
 Marquis was not disappointed. We remember that 
 Bull-Run Russell paid his respects to a certain South- 
 ern Governor, and was astonished to find him with
 
 340 WHERE WAS LETCHER? 
 
 his mouth full of tobacco, his heels upon the table, 
 and his general appearance, rather than else, the re- 
 verse of dignified. Still, that was in the Provinces, 
 so to speak, and not in refined Richmond. But what 
 did they do with poor Letcher, the unpresentable, 
 during the visit of the Marquis ? Did they keep him 
 hushed up in a garret, under lock and key, with the 
 restraining solace of pipe and bottle ? We ask the 
 question, because a great many Secession papers have 
 been troubled about Letcher, and have printed lead- 
 ing articles to prove his vulgarity. We trust that 
 they did n't let him go loose during the sojourn of 
 these great English visitors. 
 
 Well, we don't envy the elegance of our Southern 
 friends ; we rather admire it. It comes of having 
 such a perfect model of propriety at the helm of their 
 affairs as Jefferson Davis is. It is not customary, we 
 believe, fur the head of one belligerent power to call 
 the presiding genius of another belligerent power a 
 baboon, as this Davis called Mr. Lincoln in a speech 
 at Mobile. The kings of England have thought ter- 
 rible things of the kings of France, but they have 
 never styled them monkeys, nor made allusion to 
 wooden shoes and frog soup in their speeches to Par- 
 liament. It was Swift, and not the Prime Minister, 
 who had so much to say of Louis Baboon. But the 
 President of the "Confederacy" forestalls the penny- 
 a-liners, and cheats the pamphleteers out of their per- 
 quisites ; which proves that, if not a gentleman, he is 
 that mysterious next-tbing-to-it, sometimes denomin- 
 ated Quite a Gentleman. 
 
 January 16. 166-3.
 
 UNION FOR THE UNION. 341 
 
 THE CONTAGION OF SECESSION. 
 
 We are beginning to feel the effects of woful example. 
 The diabolical spirit of Rebellion not only encounters 
 us in the field, but it has entered our legislative cham- 
 bers, and under the malign promptings of the Demo- 
 cratic party, bent upon rule or ruin, it is tampering with 
 the popular loyalty. One year ago men only murmured 
 treason ; but success has opened their mouths and 
 filled their hearts with abominable political devices. 
 We are beginning to see that about the worst battle 
 lost to the Union cause, thus far, is that of the New 
 York State election. Nobody believes Horatio Sey- 
 mour to be friendly to the Administration, or to feel any 
 honest sympathy with its embarrassments — yet he is 
 elected Governor. The mob in Albany has given us 
 a bitter foretaste of possible anarch}*. 
 
 From the West we hear of schemes designed by the 
 desperate and disaffected — conspiracies tending to 
 fresh ruptures, and the final overthrow of the Repub- 
 lic. Wicked men, even at the North, are beginning 
 openly and shamelessly to dally with disunion, and 
 propose, since dislocation has come into fashion, to 
 multiply the fragments of our institutions. All this 
 is terrible. We can better afford to lose fifty fights 
 than thus to weaken the morality of our cause. We 
 can better afford to submit to invasion, than thus to 
 make disintegration familiar to our constituencies. 
 We can better afford to let the Slaveholding soldiers 
 bivouac in the capitol, than to be betrayed into nego- 
 tiations which are full of danger, or to dally with
 
 342 CHAOS COME AGAIN. 
 
 compromises which, with their adoption, must precip- 
 itate as into unmitigated anarchy. 
 
 Already we begin to hear of Western Confedera- 
 cies, of New England Confederacies, of Middle States 
 transmogrified into Middle Confederacies. Already 
 we have hints of new and tempting combinations, 
 aiming at safe and convenient boundaries, and the 
 monopoly of internal navigation. Already the com- 
 ing Congress casts its dark shadow before ; and busy 
 as the devil always has been in Washington, a time 
 is coming when he will redouble Ids activity in that 
 uneasy seat of an endangered Government. Hitherto 
 the restoration of the Union has been, with the mass 
 of the people, a matter of sentiment ; but a time is at 
 hand, which will not be in the least poetical, and 
 when we must confront public danger hardened into 
 the most vulgar concrete. 
 
 Gentlemen who desire to be elected to Congress, 
 not as patriots, but simply and nakedly as Anti-Re- 
 publicans, or Anti-Government men, cannot be sup- 
 posed to care much for the perpetuity of our institu- 
 tions. They expect to fatten upon our national 
 troubles. They are ghouls who will care little how 
 cold the corpse may be, if, sooner or later, they may 
 fairly get their teeth into it. They live, plot, plan, 
 spout, intrigue, bargain, and scheme, solely for per- 
 sonal aggrandizement. Their loyalty is limited by 
 their own lives, and no thought of the weal or woe of 
 posterity enters into their calculations. If, with the 
 recognition of the Confederacy, these moral traitors 
 could be banished, and with them their whole brood
 
 WHERE WILL THE NORTH BE? 343 
 
 of venal voters — if we could send them to rest in the 
 black bosoms of their Confederate friends — if the 
 honor, worth, religion, intelligence, and wealth of the 
 North could have but a fair chance of exercising 
 their legitimate influence, we might consider with 
 greater coolness the success of the Southern treason. 
 But these men, after the accomplished dismember- 
 ment, would remain — would still be with us, though 
 not of us — would be then as they are now, and as 
 they always have been, the ready agents of Slavery, 
 and the paid pimps of the Slaveholding interest. 
 
 Establish a State upon the basis of Man-owning 
 upon this continent, and the minds of Wood, Brooks, 
 Seymour, and all that genus will gravitate towards it 
 with all the force of a bad nature. Given these men 
 in power, and the Northern Republic would be the 
 bought, if not the born, thrall of the Davis Dynasty, 
 ready in Cabinet and Congress to do its dirty and 
 demoniac work — ready to catch its runaways — ready 
 to wink at the revival of the African Slave trade — 
 ready to join an alliance against the moral sense of 
 mankind — ready to promote the Secession of the 
 West from the East — ready for war upon New Eng- 
 land — ready to make our poor shadow of a Govern- 
 ment at Washington as much the tool of the South- 
 ern Confederacy as ever the Cabinet of Charles II. 
 was the tool of the French monarch. Political chaf- 
 ferers in the sacred name of Democracy would sell 
 themselves first, and next their neighbors. There 
 would be for us no permanence, no prosperity, no 
 private happiness, and no public greatness.
 
 344 BAD NEIGHBORS. 
 
 It may be said that we exaggerate the danger. 
 We do not think so. For the political power of the 
 Confederacy would be in the hands of a few men, 
 who have been educated to detest the Union, and 
 who would be ill satisfied with that partial success 
 which left even a respectable fragment of the old Re- 
 public yet entire. Once fairly separated, they would 
 begin to feel wants, the existence of which they do 
 not now admit, and they would be only too ready to 
 avail themselves of those commercial abilities which 
 they have heretofore affected to despise. The great 
 serpent of Slavery would reverse its trail, and look 
 with longing eyes towards a North left at its mercy 
 by the dissensions and disaffection of its own chil- 
 dren. Our social freedom would be a perpetual ag- 
 gravation of the bad temper and jealousy which are 
 the inseparable adjuncts of Slaveholding. If we were 
 prosperous, our prosperity would be a continual re- 
 buke of that sin which has been called " the sum of 
 all villainies ;" and if we were hopelessly weakened 
 by the dismemberment, our cities and our farms 
 would be the cheap prey of every mad partisan who 
 chose to promote a raid. 
 
 Nor should we be without a hatred of Slavery, in- 
 tensified by the woes of which it had been the fruit- 
 ful mother ; and any effort to check or to silence the 
 expression of that sentiment would but complicate 
 the public dilemma. We should still have Pro-Slav- 
 ery governors, Pro-Slavery senators, Pro-Slavery 
 presidents, and Pro-Slavery representatives ; and the 
 very existence of a determined and uncompromising
 
 A DOUGHFACE DESCRIBED. 345 
 
 opposition would drive them into disgraceful diplo- 
 macies and intrigues, not to be thought of without 
 horror ! If we speak sharply, we beg the reader to 
 believe that we speak sincerely. We have not, nor 
 will we pretend to have, any confidence in the public 
 virtue of that hungry place-hunter who prates of the 
 wrongs of the South, and of the sins of the North — 
 who has fine words for the Richmond regime, and 
 foul words for his own constitutional rulers — who 
 would restore the Union by muzzling discussion, and 
 by a declaration of the sanctity of Involuntary Servi- 
 tude, with all the solemnities of an act of public faith 
 — who feels it to be a duty to apologize for his own 
 loyalty and for the treason of the public enemy — 
 who is half this and half that, and not wholly, body, 
 soul and spirit, the honest and unquestioning devotee 
 of the Constitution and the Laws — who wastes that 
 indignation upon the foes of Slavery which he should 
 naturally bestow upon its friends — who is utterly 
 without pity for the poor and defenceless, as he is 
 ignorant of that simple law which makes the pros- 
 perity of the employer dependent upon his justice — 
 who is, in short, a creature of shams and subterfuges, 
 and participates in public afifairs without one en- 
 nobling sentiment, or one benevolent aspiration. 
 Why should this poor hybrid, half monarchist and 
 half Democrat, pretend to any reverence for human 
 rights, or be at all coy about selling others, since he 
 is so ready to sell himself? Let us see to it, that the 
 triumph of the Secessionists does not open for him a 
 market. 
 
 January 23, 1803. 15*
 
 346 HEAR YE! 
 
 DAVIS TO MANKIND. 
 
 Appeals to posterity are very cheap, because what- 
 ever may be posterity's decision, it can not disturb 
 the repose of appellants who are snugly slumbering 
 in their coffins. Appeals to mankind, excellent as 
 they are, for rounding a speech, or for filling up the 
 moral hiatus of a pronunciamento, are seldom more 
 than specimens of pretty rhetoric. Mr. Davis being 
 in a lofty passion at the Emancipation Edict, appeals 
 to the civilized world, and " to the instincts of that 
 common humanity which a beneficent Creator has 
 implanted in the breasts of our fellow-men of all 
 countries, to pass judgment on a measure by which 
 several millions of human beings of an inferior race — 
 peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere — are 
 doomed to extermination, while at the same time 
 they are encouraged to a general assassination of 
 their masters." 
 
 It is astonishing to mark how exceedingly fraternal 
 this Confederate Champion has become in his serene 
 mind — in what an affectionate manner he opens his 
 arms and begs to be embraced, and with what tender- 
 ness he preaches to this great globe of " the instincts 
 of our common humanity." This might be justly 
 regarded as a rouser of the humanity, common and 
 uncommon, of our Common Humanity, did we not 
 know, that the selfishness of man, and particularly of 
 man enthroned, is usually quite too much for his self- 
 abnegation. Humanity, as Squire Davis ought to 
 know, is most warmly interested in frying its own
 
 TWO VOICES. 347 
 
 fish. Humanity in far-off regions toward which the 
 Confederate ruler is so amorously looking, across the 
 broad Atlantic, is not without its own complications 
 and embarrassments, its questions of bread and but- 
 ter and bullion, its privileged classes to be coddled, 
 and its pauper classes to be crushed, its dying oligar- 
 chies and awakening masses, its certain demands and 
 its uncertain supplies. 
 
 Humanity, as such, does not care to be appealed 
 to, and it particularly dislikes, in all diplomatic con- 
 ferences, anything like a whine. Davis should know 
 better than to suppose that he can gain any consid- 
 eration abroad by a studied display of the Confederate 
 ulcers. Foreign cabinets will not assist him any the 
 sooner because he protests, though never so patheti- 
 cally, that he is in instant danger of having his throat 
 cut, his crops destroyed and his house burned over 
 his ill-fated head. Of this indeed, the Confederate 
 Sachem has a shrewd suspicion. He is therefore like 
 Orator Puff, and has two tones to his voice — the 
 " B alt." of appeal and the " G below" of defiance. 
 If he whines, we must do him the justice to say that 
 he also roars. The Confederacy wants everything, and 
 it wants nothing. The " nigger" loves Davis dearly 
 and will slaughter him upon the first opportunity. 
 The Slave, who is so "peaceful and contented" 
 to-day, is to be transformed into a homicidal devil 
 to-morrow, through the mysterious influence of a bit 
 of printed paper, six inches long by two broad, which 
 to save his life, he cannot read ! The careful hands 
 which smooth Mr. Davis's virtuous sheets in the
 
 343 SECESSION LOGIC. 
 
 evening, will be at liis -wind-pipe before he can rise 
 to his morning prayers. In short Mr. Davis is very- 
 much alarmed and not in the least frightened — in 
 great peril, but never so safe before in his life — 
 highly suspicious of Sambo, in whose fidelity he has 
 the highest confidence ! Xo doubt he is in a dread- 
 ful quandary — but why should he advertise it to 
 mankind ? 
 
 A man in a situation so highly uncomfortable may 
 properly be pardoned though his logic limps a little. 
 If the Black be a compendium of the Seven Cardinal 
 Virtues, tender, affectionate, peaceful, and con- 
 tented — what is there in the Proclamation by which 
 he is " doomed to extermination ?" Who is to be the 
 exterminator ? The master beloved ! Who is to be 
 exterminated ? The affectionate, peaceful and eon- 
 tented slave ! Surely this is a most inscrutable eon- 
 catenation. The world may not be prepared, as J. 
 D. supposes, to abandon its humane instinct-, i/ut 
 still less will it be prepared to abandon its common 
 sense or to bestow its admiration upon a statesman 
 who gravely informs it, with tears gushing in rivulets 
 from his swollen eyes, that in order to maintain the 
 State he anticipates the necessity of putting to the 
 sword, of " exterminating," " several millions of 
 peaceful and contented human beings," in order to 
 prevent this peace and content from developing itself 
 in "a general assassination of their masters." With 
 all due respect to his Excellency's intellectuals, we 
 must say that he seems to have a weak preference for 
 the circular stvlc of reasoning.
 
 WHAT SLAVERY IS. 349 
 
 In another way this titular President makes quite 
 as deplorable a show of i'atuitous sagacity. lie takes 
 it for granted that mankind docs not know what 
 Human Slavery is. He supposes that man just now 
 emerging from the darkness of social degradation, 
 has lost all recollection of the pangs inflicted by his 
 oppressors ; that those who are only now casting off 
 the manacles of the Middle Ages, are to be cozened 
 into the belief that involuntary servitude is the most 
 blessed of human conditions. Davis should remem- 
 ber that he is asking the statesmen of Europe to 
 acknowledge as excellent in America, a social policy 
 which they are fast abandoning at home ; and that 
 the enfranchised of the old lands comprehend well 
 enough what Slavery must be in the United States. 
 Human nature will have something to do with that 
 common humanity, to which Davis officially tenders 
 the assurance of his most respectful consideration. 
 
 There is no man in Europe who is so ignorant as 
 not to know that Slavery means unrequited toil, 
 unrestrained cruelty, the despair of man and the 
 degradation of woman. Whips speak a universal 
 language as they fall upon the bare and blistering 
 back ; all ears understand that their hiss is hellish, 
 and that the mystic characters which they write 
 upon the cracking and furrowed skin do not hide 
 any new gospel of ineffable tenderness. Common 
 humanity has a common cuticle and refuses to com- 
 prehend the delights of flagellation. Common hu- 
 manity instinctively shrinks from a forced concu- 
 binage, from the sunderinsrs of marital ties, from the
 
 350 MERCHANTABLE MESSAGE. 
 
 paternity which sells its own children, from a system 
 of labor which is pitiless in its demands and worse 
 than niggardly in its rewards. Common humanity 
 is not so utterly besotted as to find virtue in unre- 
 strained violence and beauty in systematic brutality. 
 Common humanity has its instincts, and of these 
 Davis should have said as little as possible. What 
 had he to do with humanity at all ? Why should he 
 take the trouble of reminding mankind that there are, 
 even in this hardhearted world, such things as sacred 
 pity and eternal justice? Why transfer his assaults 
 from the pockets of commerce to the heart of the 
 human race ? Why talk of anything save cash and 
 cotton ? Why not be contented with a good mer- 
 chantable Message addressed not to the Man of Feel- 
 ing, but to the Man of Trade — a Message bristling 
 with figures to prove the profitableness of Man- 
 Owning, and stiff with the fascinating statistics of 
 well-requited wickedness ? 
 
 The Confederacy should understand that it can 
 have no recognition except upon contemptuous con- 
 ditions, no good will which it does not buy, and no 
 hearts which it does not bribe. Men will trade with 
 it, and so they will trade with Hottentots. In 
 respect of its Slaveholding, mankind will loath this 
 new and hybrid republic ; but in respect of its cotton 
 crop, it is supposed by the Richmond sages that 
 mankind will be good-natured. We shall see. Man- 
 kind may prefer a certainty of cotton supply. 
 Mankind may not fancy the dubious product of 
 unrequited and discontented labor. Mankind, or
 
 DOUGIIFACERY EXTANT 8TTLL. 351 
 
 that portion of it which is devoted to the weaving of 
 cotton cloth, may have prejudices in favor of a well- 
 assured and steady production. 
 
 January 34, 1SC3. 
 
 UNION FOR THE UNION. 
 
 Wno could have thought that Northern Doughfaces 
 had so much life in them ? — that they would survive 
 the bombardment of Fort Sumter ? — that they would 
 at last turn upon the Constitution, which they had 
 professed to adore, and be ready to surrender the 
 Union which they had pretended to reverence? 
 Brooks & Co. are like Garrison, without Garrison's 
 virtues and good conscience. We thought the Sen- 
 ate chamber purged of plantation insolence, and the 
 well-weaponed Saulsbury starts up to convince us of 
 our mistake — Saulsbury the Disunionist. 
 
 We can imagine some rebellions Abraham — the 
 Patriarch of Slavery, as Yoltaire was the Patriarch 
 of Infidelity — we see him reading his Northern news- 
 paper, and grinning gloriously over his grog, as he 
 peruses the Pro-Slavery journal ! Nobody will mark 
 more keenly than the Confederate observer, the op- 
 position to the Administration which has been gath- 
 ered by the concretion of all the dusty particles of a 
 commercial self-interest. Why should n't he be chip- 
 pery ? He has newspapers printed for him without 
 cost to his own flaccid purse — he has Union Gover- 
 nors plotting pretty things for his advantage — he has
 
 352 JOY TO TUE CHATTELS. 
 
 Northern clergymen tearing out the heart of both 
 Testaments to offer it upon the altar of Involuntary 
 Servitude — he has hordes of white slaves who do his 
 voting, his mobbing, his fighting, and his philoso- 
 phizing in the Free States, so called — he wins here, 
 over the graves of our murdered soldiers, political 
 victories which strengthen him more than fortresses 
 or captured fields — why should he not be in the best 
 possible humor ? 
 
 Nor can we think the merriment confined to the 
 Master. Why should n't the Slave have his private 
 jollity also ? He has been told over and over again, 
 that he was incapable of self-government ; and why ? 
 Why, but because he was black ! Because the wrong 
 pigment colored his cuticle ! But we Northern men, 
 we White men, we Caucasians of the pure red and white 
 — excepting, as will sometimes happen, when we are 
 yellow by reason of excessive bile — cannot we govern 
 ourselves? 'Tis a mysterious matter. Our hair is 
 straight, and yet we are in difficulties ! Our noses 
 are prettily Grecian, or sublimely Roman — and yet 
 we take care of ourselves but ill ! We have no blub- 
 ber lips to demonstrate our political incapacity — and 
 yet, what, in spite of sacred suffrage, have we come 
 to ? We have shins of the most orthodox configura- 
 tion — but what good do they do us ? Sambo may well 
 think, what with our botherations, factions, anarchies, 
 Congressional squabbles, petty discussions, free and 
 fraternal fights, Democratic victories, and other pal- 
 pable swindles, that, after all, a white skin will not do 
 everything for its possessor?
 
 THE WORLD 'S OPINION. 353 
 
 Delays are proverbially dangerous ; but delay in 
 crushing the Rebellion, according to all human ex- 
 perience, is peculiarly so. Sedition is like a great 
 snow-ball — crescit eundo. Three or four victories 
 would have made the Forty Thieves respectable 
 members of society. In war, the virtuous, honest, 
 amiable and admired party is that which wins the 
 greatest battles ; and in this wicked world, while we 
 still submit to the ordeal of arms, it will be thought, 
 until we become better Christians, that Providence 
 is on the side of the best bayonets. The Confederates 
 have an advantage over us which only decided defeat 
 can take away from them — they have actually held 
 out against us for many more months than anybody, 
 when the war began, anticipated. The world accepts 
 the fact, and troubles its head little enough about the 
 " why " and " wherefore." We may manufacture 
 small excuses for our present consolation, but they 
 will be of no value to anybody but the owners. 
 It is only the plain practical fact which, in public 
 affairs, stamps itself upon policy and opinion. The 
 cabinets of the world will not stop to inquire which 
 side, in this war, has the majority of cardinal virtues, 
 or which is the patriotic party ; why should they ? 
 When was it resolved by nations, that right should 
 be dominant in all negotiations? Why, if ever a 
 people had plain, pure, abstract, naked justice upon 
 their side, we are that people. There isn't a mo- 
 rality, however trite, or however rare, that does not 
 attach to our cause. We have with us truth, justice, 
 honor ; but, alas ! these do not prevent us from cut-
 
 354 TUE STRENGTH OF THE REBELLION. 
 
 ting a very shabby figure in Paris or London when 
 the news is against us. The Rebels have lied, stolen, 
 perjured themselves, and have tens of thousands of 
 murders to answer for, but bustling men of the 
 Bourse, and the Bulls and Bears of the London 
 Stock Exchange, have had dealings with desperate 
 scamps before, and have made no end of money out 
 of them. It is enough for the nonce, that the rogues 
 are up and the honest men down in the world. 
 
 Union is strength. The remark is a simple one, 
 nor is it brilliantly novel ; but we venture to make it 
 once more. That the Rebels are united, we do not 
 venture to say ; but they are strong in an oligarchy, 
 the members of which are always ready, in times of 
 public danger, to postpone personal differences. They 
 are in earnest. If a man within their jurisdiction 
 votes against them, they imprison him. If he is per- 
 tinacious, they hang him. If a woman exhibits signs 
 of dissatisfaction, it is n't her sex that can save her 
 from outrage. What they want they take — men, 
 money, munitions, supplies — wherever they find 
 them. Whoever is bold enough to imply, even by 
 silence, his dissatisfaction, does so at his personal 
 peril. For him the tar-pot seethes and the rope is 
 already twisted. The masses submit to tyrannies 
 which the mob of Paris would not endure for a day ; 
 and the Slave Power, when it ruled the Union, exer- 
 cised a sway less imperious than it has now assumed. 
 
 No one, however hearty may be his detestation of 
 despotism, can deny that it is sometimes terribly 
 effective. Tyrants are successful and strong, because
 
 A MAJOR-GENERAL'S VIEW. 355 
 
 they do their bad work well, and punish words 
 and thoughts as lighter-handed rulers punish deeds. 
 Against the usurpations of a handful of Slaveholders, 
 who are simply formidable for their energetic au- 
 dacity, we have to oppose a Democracy which is 
 restive under the slightest restraint, and will not bear 
 the least check upon public opinion. 
 
 But, if properly employed, this secures to us cor- 
 responding advantages. This was sufficiently evident 
 upon the breaking out of the war, when there was a 
 race of giving and a competition of munificence — 
 when designing men had not begun to calculate the 
 advantages of a dishonorable peace — when, by com- 
 mon consent, political differences were put in abey- 
 ance. Let us recall the spirit of those proud and 
 memorable days, and that, too, speedily ! There is no 
 time to be wasted. " iSTow, or never !" should be 
 written upon every loyal banner ! We want Union, 
 Energy, and Action, and we want them Now. Shall 
 we have them ?" 
 
 February 3, 1863. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF SERVILITY. 
 
 Oxe of our Major-Generals recently remarked that 
 " no nation can be great which does not have a 
 servile class." There is a fine fragrance of the camp 
 about this neat bit of solemn loquacity. It could 
 have come only from one who believes that the whole 
 duty of man consists either in drilling or in being
 
 350 GREATNESS AND RASCALITY. 
 
 drilled. The philosophical •warrior who emitted, 
 should certainly have enlarged, this observation. He 
 should have said, " No nation can be great without 
 wars of aggression and conquest — without a rapacious 
 aristocracy and down-trodden, popular mass — with- 
 out an enormous public debt and proportionate tax- 
 ation — without an Autocrat at the head of affairs." 
 
 After this, Pro-Slavery reasoning would have been 
 as easy as any other style of falsehood. Rome was 
 great — Rome submitted to a Dictator — therefore all 
 nations desiring to be great, must establish a Dictator- 
 ship, raising to that dignity some successful soldier. 
 Greece was great — but then all her slaves were 
 white — therefore no nation can be great without 
 white slaves. Imperial France was great, but it was 
 by theft — therefore no nation can be great without 
 stealing territory. That is why Prussian Frederick 
 is called Great — because he stole Silesia. Alexander 
 frequently was carried to bed much intoxicated — 
 therefore he was styled the Great — "Drinker," we 
 suppose, being understood. Jonathan "Wild was 
 dubbed the Great by Fielding — why remind our 
 readers that the novelist meant " The Great Thief?" 
 It is, we repeat, a pity that our General, who believes 
 Greatness and Rascality to be convertible terms, did 
 not expatiate a little upon his discovery. For our 
 own part we have thought, fondly, we suppose, that 
 the kind of greatness to which he alludes, and which 
 can only be secured by systematic cruelty and the 
 oppression of man had, in this nineteenth century, 
 gone pretty much out of fashion.
 
 HIS MAJESTY OF DAHOMEY 357 
 
 Some of the clearest thinkers of the present age, 
 if we have read aright, have supposed — was it after 
 all, nothing but supposition ? — that we had passed, 
 or at least were rapidly passing, from feudalism to 
 freedom, that Christianity was beginning to consum- 
 mate its victory over heathenism ; that the century 
 had brought with it clearer views of social science ; 
 that honest rulers, if they must be great, now 
 endeavor to be so, without ignoring natural right. 
 The world has had ages of human slavery and they 
 have been ages of sanguinary and unsatisfactory 
 experience — have all these speculators been mis- 
 taken who have foretold better things in store for 
 this "groaning globe?" Must we ape the vices of 
 the past before we can copy its achievements ? Must 
 we ignore all the advantages which discovery and 
 invention have brought to us, and seek for national 
 greatness only in the resuscitation of bygone reali- 
 ties? Would we, if we could, make the United 
 States, but a poor copy of Assyria, Greece, Rome, 
 Carthage ? 
 
 " O agony — that centuries should reap 
 No mellower harvest." 
 
 Greatness ! — why there is n't a greater potentate 
 in all Africa, than the King of Dahomey ! In the 
 midst of his butcheries, wading ankle deep in human 
 blood, building his pyramid of human skulls, he is 
 feared by surrounding tribes, and positively adored 
 by his own ! Nations calling themselves civilized, 
 can be great in the same way — that is, if they please
 
 358 ANCIENT PRECEDENTS. 
 
 to relapse into savagery, there is a backward path for 
 them, as there is for individuals — and so they may 
 discard refined apparel for nose-rings, war-paint and 
 nakedness — they may pull down what reporters call 
 "palatial residences" and live in wigwams without 
 chimneys and without windows — they may be con- 
 tent with subsisting upon the uncertain supplies of 
 the chase. 
 
 Brigham Young has nine wives or ninety, we 
 forget which ; and very much is he censured for an 
 impropriety which, some will think, must carry with 
 it its own punishment. But this may with perfect 
 truth be said for the Polygamous Prince of Utah — 
 that he has the ancients upon his side. In compari- 
 son with Solomon, President Young is a model of 
 moderation, and in plurality of ribs, he is unques- 
 tionably far below Darius, Xerxes, or the Grand 
 Turk. Was n't Persia a great nation ? All polyg- 
 amy, sir? Was n't Mahomet a great conqueror? 
 Look at his ten wives, sir ! to say nothing of his 
 mistresses, sir ! Pray, if our Pro-Slavery sages may 
 argue in their way from the past, in support of their 
 favorite wickedness, why should n't poor Mr. Young 
 be allowed a similar logic? It does not seem to 
 occur to the philosophical doughfaces that there may 
 be danger in their passion for other histories of for- 
 getting our own. 
 
 Admitting that all great nations have heretofore 
 been cursed by a servile class, it is certainly as true 
 that our Revolutionary Fathers aimed at the estab- 
 lishment of a Republic which should rival antique
 
 THE PURPOSE OF THE FATHERS. 359 
 
 greatness without recourse to antique crimes. They 
 did not profess to aim at a revival of Grecian or 
 .Roman characteristics. They knew, for they were men 
 of culture, quite as well as the sciolists of the present 
 know, that Involuntary Servitude existed in Greece 
 and Rome ; but it would be difficult and probably 
 impossible to find in any act of their hands, or in any 
 word of their mouths, the evidence that they sought 
 for national greatness through the enslavement of 
 their fellow-creatures. The whole current of testi- 
 mony runs in the other direction. 
 
 The feeling of the founders of the Republic made 
 no distinction between black and white. The 
 debates in the Congress, the known opinions of Jef- 
 ferson, of Franklin, and of other leading spirits of 
 the Revolution, and the weight of tradition, all prove 
 this to a certainty. They did not pretend to estab- 
 lish institutions which should merely equal those 
 of the past. Their honorable and humane ambition 
 was to present to the world an ameliorating discovery 
 in political science — that of the equality of all men. If 
 they had been absolutely faithful, in spite of tempta- 
 tion, to the great idea which animated their career ; 
 if they had valiantly stood by the truth in practice, 
 as they did by the truth in theory, from what sor- 
 rows and crimes and bitter experiences would they 
 not have saved their children ? It is for us to finish 
 the work of the Fathers ! It is for us to accept their 
 teachings and to transmute them into the fine gold 
 of a truly Christian polity ! As we are wiser than 
 the men of the Middle Ages, let us prove that ten
 
 360 OVER-HASTY CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 centuries of hard experience have not been thrown 
 away upon the race ! 
 
 February 4, 1S63. 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THEM? 
 
 Kotiung could be more ridiculous and insignificant 
 than many of the reports which have been forwarded 
 to the ISorth, respecting the character and demeanor 
 of the emancipated Slaves. It has been our misfor- 
 tune, in too many cases, to find this information mis- 
 erably deficient in liberality, intelligence, and sym- 
 pathy. A corporal trusts his shirts with a sable 
 laundress, who receives three of these garments and 
 returns two, and those perhaps aggravatingly bereft 
 of buttons, whereupon this indignant brave writes 
 home to the village newspaper, that the contrabands, 
 to an individual, are all thieves. A sturdy black, 
 despairing of remunerative meal or money, declines 
 to dig, at least assiduously, and we are treated to the 
 deep deduction, sometimes by electric telegraph, that, 
 without the lash, all negroes are lazy. 
 
 Some venerable Sambo, in confidence, imparts to 
 a gaping letter-writer the fact, that he wishes to go 
 back to his master, and we have leading columns oc- 
 cupied by delighted editors, who conclude from this 
 wonderful premise that all other Sambos wish to go 
 back to their masters also. Hard upon this follows 
 another conclusion, namely, that upon being imme- 
 diately restored to the bosom of Abraham, this curi-
 
 EMBARRASSMENTS OF EMANCIPATION. 3G1 
 
 ous descendant of accursed Canaan, unless properly 
 flogged, will experience an inexplicable revulsion of 
 feeling, will murder his master and fire his master's 
 house. It appears to us astonishing, that the Civil 
 War, which is not only such a sombre but such a 
 serious business, and which demands of the best mind 
 of the nation such careful and practical judgment, 
 should have led to no wiser reflection. AVe have had 
 all this before. For a quarter of a century we have 
 been compelled to listen to the same bold assertion 
 and to the same inconsequential reasoning — the same 
 dogged denial of the fitness of the slave for freedom, 
 and of the policy of doing him common justice. The 
 pertinacious assumption of his incapacity for social 
 liberty has been the stock-in-trade of the Man-Owner 
 and of his sufficiently servile apologist, until Heaven 
 is sick and earth weary of hollow words and ingen- 
 ious subterfuges. 
 
 For our own part, as we have been found among 
 those who believe Emancipation to be not only right, 
 but safe, we beg leave to say, that we have never sup- 
 posed that the liberation of so many human beings, 
 heretofore irresponsible, would be without some em- 
 barrassments. It is Freedom that fits men for Free- 
 dom, be the man black, white, or yellow, just as the 
 athlete grows sturdy by the exercise of his profession. 
 The crime of Slavery has been, that it has found, in 
 the incapacity of its victims, an argument for the con- 
 tinuation of its emasculating influences, and has con- 
 tinually pointed to the ruin it has wrought, as an 
 apology for postponing reparation. In elevating 
 16
 
 302 GIVE THE BLACK A CHANCE. 
 
 masses of men, there must be, as in every other hu- 
 man enterprise, a beginning ; and it has been just 
 this costly step which we hare been afraid to take. 
 
 Emancipation has been opposed particularly by 
 dough-faces, not because it would diminish crops or 
 endanger human life and public order, but because it 
 was felt that its inevitable effect Mould be to raise 
 the Black to something like social equality with the 
 "White. The fear has been, not that the Freedman 
 would be idle, but that he would be industrious ; not 
 that he would become still more degraded, but that 
 he might become tolerablv enlightened : not that he 
 would prove unworthy of the experiment and of the 
 confidence impliedly reposed in him, but that he 
 would, by his development of good character, give 
 the lie to his libellers. Men who have spent their 
 lives and their best intellectual energies in proving 
 the inferiority of the African race, cannot be expect- 
 ed to regard a practical refutation of their notions 
 with equanimity. The Freedman can do them no 
 greater disservice than to exhibit the good qualities 
 of which they asserted he was incapable. It is petty 
 vanity which refuses to give emancipated man a 
 chance. Nobody in his senses has supposed that the 
 Black race would emerge instantly from a degrada- 
 tion continued for two centuries. Nobody has ex- 
 pected to find the Freedman altogether beautiful in 
 all parts of his character — a model of possible excel- 
 lence, a miracle of virtue, a wonder of wit, a paragon 
 of prudence, and a marvel of industry. 
 
 In him who was yesterday a slave, we should ex-
 
 PATIENCE DEMANDED. 303 
 
 pect to find the vices of a slave — the traces of that 
 falsehood which heretofore has been his sole protec- 
 tion against cruelty — of that thievislmess which may 
 have saved him from the pangs of hunger and guarded 
 him from the inclemency of the elements — of that in- 
 subordination of the animal passions which his supe- 
 riors in society have encouraged for their own profit 
 and by their own example — of that unthrift which 
 has been strengthened by a whole life of jealous guar- 
 dianship and of restraint in its pettiest forms. We 
 might as well expect to find in new-born babes the 
 fullest muscular development, as in the captive just 
 unchained all the excellencies of human nature. 
 
 Emancipation w T ill not remove the scars which 
 Slavery has inflicted. There is many a brow from 
 which the brand can never be erased, and many a 
 feature distorted by involuntary servitude which can 
 never recover its rounded and comely proportions. 
 So much the greater is our crime ! So much the 
 deeper should be our shame ! So much sooner should 
 we, with all the courage of a genuine repentance, 
 dock this entail of human misery, and at least turn 
 the faces of future generations toward kindlier oppor- 
 tunities and less discouraging vicissitudes ! 
 
 The character of the African as it now is, or as it 
 is supposed to be, proves nothing for or against his 
 future well-doing. It is easy to say of a man whose 
 lungs are full of carbonic acid gas, that he can never 
 breathe atmospheric air again ; but most medical 
 men would favor the opening of the windows. It 
 is n't only the African who succumbs to an unnatural
 
 364 DEGRADATION OF WHITES. 
 
 position, and through systematic disuse loses his 
 moral and many of his physical faculties. Yery 
 white men have exhibited no greater capacity for 
 resisting the degrading influences of bondage. Mr. 
 Dupuis, who was long the British Yice-Consul at 
 Mogadore, tells us that the Europeans and Americans 
 who were rescued from enslavement in the desert, 
 were found to have their spirits completely broken 
 by their masters. When they came into Mogadore, 
 he says, " They appeared degraded, and below the 
 negro slave — every spring of hope or exertion was 
 destroyed in their minds — they were abject, servile, 
 and brutified." 
 
 This is said by a white observer of white men just 
 emancipated — we believe that no Pro-Slavery scrib- 
 bler has said anything worse of the liberated black 
 man. The gist of the matter is just this : if we 
 should take Gov. Seymour, for instance — we take 
 him as at present the leading white man of Xew 
 York — if we should put him upon a year-long course 
 of short rations and sharp floggings, and heavy task- 
 work, the presumption is that he would not come out 
 from his disciplinary probation that choice combina- 
 tion of excellent qualities, that epitome of grace and 
 greatness, that abridgment of all that is pleasant in 
 man, that ornament and safeguard of the community, 
 which the majority now thankfully acknowledge him 
 to be. 
 
 If a Tammany brawler, in some unfortunate hour, 
 should be compelled to change his beloved bar-room 
 for a barracoon, to go from gluttony to starvation,
 
 THE EXPERIMENT INEVITABLE. 3G5 
 
 and, instead of flogging others, to submit himself to 
 the lash, he would deem it unfair if his friends, upon 
 his return, should think the fine gold of his nature 
 grown dim. lie would ask time for a due course of 
 recuperative cocktails, and the reviving influences of 
 a few fights, before final judgment against him as a 
 man shamefully destitute of an immoral character. 
 We ask for the black man only time and opportunity, 
 and he will have them whatever may be the mind of 
 the public. Maugre the disgust of the delicate, the 
 mortification of the skin-proud, the wrath of the selfish, 
 the profane protests of the ungodly, and the carefully- 
 selected texts of the overgodly, the freedman must 
 have his chance upon this continent, or worse will 
 come of it. Those who think that our safety lies in 
 beastializing more and more completely four millions 
 of the inhabitants of this country, if it were possible 
 to reduce their barbarous theory to practice, would 
 but earn the execrations of their children. But, thank 
 God, it is not possible. Providence is sometimes 
 kind enough to put special restraints upon human 
 folly, and the people of the United States, having 
 reduced the theory of Slaveholding to an absurdity, 
 will hardly cling to it at the cost of bloodshed and 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 February 5, 1863.
 
 36G FRANKLIN ON ENGLISH POLICY. 
 
 POCKET MORALITY — WAR FOR TRADE. 
 
 In the year, 1787, Benjamin Franklin wrote to an 
 English gentle man as follows : " I read with pleas- 
 ure the account you give of the nourishing state of 
 your commerce and manufactures, and of the plenty 
 you have of resources to carry the nation through 
 all its difficulties. You have one of the finest coun- 
 tries in the world ; and if you can be cured of the 
 folly of making war for trade, in which war more 
 has been expended than the profits of any trade can 
 compensate, you may make it one of the happiest." 
 This advice, we suppose, would be quite thrown away 
 upon a newspaper irrevocably wedded to the system 
 here so pointedly condemned. 
 
 The London Times accepts the well-known aphor- 
 ism of Franklin with a qualification — it thinks there 
 never was a good war if it was unprofitable, and 
 never a bad peace if it added to the British wealth. 
 Such a publication should be treated with all possi- 
 ble candor. If its principle be to have no principle, 
 and if it would quite as severely scorn to affect a 
 virtue as to possess one, let it at least aspire to the 
 praise of a sublime consistency. If it must serve 
 mammon, let us be thankful that it does not pre- 
 tend to serve God ! If it must ignore consistency, 
 it should have the credit of a frank advertisement 
 of its renunciation. "What it thinks upon the first 
 of January it thinks for the first of January, and by 
 no means for the second. it> avowed business is not 
 to speak the truth, but to " bull " this stock and to
 
 BE GUSTIBUS. 3G7 
 
 " bear " that. Tliis being understood, why should 
 we he angry with it ? All that can be said of it is, 
 that it follows its instincts, and that its instincts are 
 commercial. It does a wholesale business in a retail 
 way. AYho blames it ? Who blames the Calmucks 
 for eating raw horse-meat ? Who blames the canni- 
 bal of Sumatra for eating cooked man-meat? — not 
 because he likes it — for he is very careful to tell the 
 traveler that he does not like it — he only devours it 
 as a religious duty — only that he may propitiate the 
 god of war by masticating, swallowing and digest- 
 ing the slain. He does not quarrel with the flavor 
 of the tid-bits, from the deglutition of which he an- 
 ticipates such immense advantages. It is in the 
 same bold and devoted way that this Times news- 
 paper swallows Slavery on Monday, rejects it on 
 Tuesday, and swallows it again on Wednesday, rel- 
 ishing the morsels well or ill, according to the fluc- 
 tuations of the cotton market. Yesterday it pro- 
 nounced human slavery to be a Divine Institution, 
 and quoted St. Paul out of its borrowed Bible ; to- 
 day it declares that it " would unfeignedly rejoice " 
 if the Emancipation Proclamation could only be 
 effectual ! What will it say to-morrow ? Exactly 
 what it may think the interests of trade demand. 
 " Joey B. is sharp, sir ! devilish sharp !" 
 It would ill become us, members as we are of a 
 great commercial community, to speak disrespect- 
 fully of mercantile prudence and sagacity. We 
 yield to no one in our most respectful estimate of 
 the ameliorating influences of trade in promoting
 
 3G8 ENGLISH CONTEMPT FOR POVERTY. 
 
 the comfort and even the higher morality of man. 
 "We know enough of monetary operations to under- 
 stand that they can only be successfully promoted by 
 forethought, caution and deliberate prudence. We 
 are ready to make all proper allowances for the 
 instinct of self-preservation when it is shrinking 
 from insolvency. We believe money to be a good 
 thing, and that it is a good thing to have money. 
 We believe that society has no member more worthy 
 of its respect than the high-minded merchant, who, 
 without casting discredit upon trade by unscrupu- 
 lous rapacity, increases our sources of happiness, 
 brings capital to the assistance of civilization, and 
 supplies that material aid without which the pro- 
 gress of mankind would cease. 
 
 But all our respect for the honorable and enlight- 
 ened trader, cannot conceal from us those moral perils 
 which environ him. Indeed, in every scheme of re- 
 ligion they are admitted ; and the most solemn warn- 
 ing against absolute devotion to money -getting came 
 from the Founder of our Faith, and lias since his time 
 been repeated in countless bodies of divinity, and 
 uttered from ten thousand pulpits. Money can do 
 much and buy much, but there are some things 
 which it cannot do and others which it cannot pur- 
 chase. We may admit it to be the sinews of war, 
 but is it the heart or the muscles ? In England, we 
 think, very unfortunately, the tendency has been to- 
 ward a worship of wealth simply as such, and a con- 
 tempt, not, perhaps, for personal, but certainly for 
 national poverty, "lie's so very poor," says one per-
 
 SHORT-SIGHTED RAPACITY. 309 
 
 son to another in an English comedy, " that yon would 
 take him for an inhabitant of Italy." Tin's is the per- 
 fection of purse-proud complacency. Dc Tocqueville 
 observes, that " in the eyes of England her enemies 
 must be rogues and her friends great men." It is 
 this association of arrogance and acquisitiveness 
 which has given to England a bad public reputation. 
 " When she seems," says De Tocqueville, " to care 
 for foreign nations, she cares only for herself." A 
 man who acquires a character like this will find 
 money powerless to purchase public respect ; he may 
 be feared, but he will also be detested ; nor do we 
 believe that there is one rule for nations and another 
 for individuals. 
 
 Finally, in the spirit of Franklin's observation that 
 the rapacity of England has usually cost more than 
 it came to, we beg leave to suggest that an unjust 
 and selfish policy is equally short-sighted. Have 
 British economists been able to determine that the 
 establishment of the Confederacy would promote the 
 manufacturing interests of their country ? Have they 
 in their calculations recognized the intense prejudice 
 against England which exists in the Slaveholding 
 States % Have they estimated the chances of a cer- 
 tain production of the coveted staple, if the present 
 system of slave-cultivation is to be continued ? Have 
 they considered the difficulties which they may en- 
 counter in maintaining amiable relations with the 
 unreasonable and impetuous oligarchy which now 
 controls, and, in the event of their independence, 
 will continue to control, the revolted States ? 
 16*
 
 370 THE RECALL OF MCCLELLAN. 
 
 These, it seems to us, are questions which even 
 selfishness can afford to consider. 
 
 February 6, 1863. 
 
 WAITING FOR A PARTNER. 
 
 An eminent journal, printed in a neighboring city, 
 the managers of which care more for their own 
 crotchets than for the country, has promulgated a 
 patent labor-saving method of saving the Union, to 
 which we extend the benefit of this advertisement. 
 
 Imjprimis, Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, at present 
 upon a tour of exhibition in the principal cities, is to 
 be restored to all his honors, dignities and com- 
 mands. 
 
 We object to this, though not very strenuously, 
 because Gen. McClellan having received a great 
 many houses and horses, the donations of tender- 
 hearted friends, we think that he should be permitted 
 to stay at home to reside in the first and to drive the 
 second. Otherwise the intentions of the charitable 
 bestowers of roof-trees and free rides may be entirely 
 defeated. At any rate, if the General is to go back, 
 we think that he should reconvey to the donors the 
 houses and horses and shawls, as having been given 
 by mistake. 
 
 Secondly, Gen. McClellan is to be furnished with 
 " a fresh body of troops." 
 
 We object to this, because from what we know of 
 Gen. McClellan, we believe that he would prefer
 
 A JACK AT A PINCH. 371 
 
 veterans to raw recruits. We believe that lie is con- 
 sidered to be perfectly immense in drill, but we 
 cannot in conscience ask liim to repeat those gigantic 
 labors from which he is resting amid the enchant- 
 ments of numerous donation parties. 
 
 Thirdly, Gen. McClellan, with his "free body of 
 troops," is to " maintain the forms of Government 
 until the opportunity occurs to elect another Admin- 
 istration." 
 
 We object to this, because it is n't complimentary 
 to Gen. McClellan, who seems to be the best entitled 
 to compliments of any man in the United States. It 
 does n't look very friendly for his professed friends 
 to propose him for a mere locum tenens, a post, a peg, 
 a stalking horse. And it is certainly alarming to 
 consider that we can now do no more than merely 
 " maintain the forms of Government." Pray what is 
 the enemy to be doing all those fine months ? Main- 
 taining the forms of his government, we suppose, 
 by assaulting, worrying, surprising, harassing and 
 hunting the " fresh body of troops" which, meanwhile, 
 will display a masterly inactivity, except when com- 
 pelled to " mizzle." 
 
 Fourthly, Xothing is to be done until we have "a 
 new Administration." 
 
 Of the Democratic stripe of course ! And what, 
 pray, is to be done then ? Is the fighting to be 
 resumed ? Then why not fight now ? Or is the new 
 Administration to be of the diplomatic, assuaging, 
 persuading, intriguing, compromising, palavering, 
 protocoling and rose-water variety ? More bargains,
 
 3 72 PROOF A GAINST CO A XING. 
 
 propositions, conferences, communions, conventions, 
 speechmaking, enacting, and Heaven knows what 
 beside % And is Gen. McClellan expected to shine in 
 these grand palavers ? Is that the reason why, with 
 his war-paint off, this chieftain has been perambulat- 
 ing the country ! Practising the Art of Speaking — 
 eh? Are epaulettes and buttons to yield to the 
 peace-of-the-toga % Was it for such reason that the 
 General was presented with two coach horses instead 
 of one charger ? — with a carriage instead of a saddle ? 
 
 We are sorry that the gentlemen who propose this 
 notable plan of restoring the Union, should forget 
 that its success would prove their Secession cronies 
 to be liars of the first magnitude. Davis et al. are 
 certainly committed fairly enough upon the record 
 against a reference — they have said distinctly enough, 
 a thousand times in all manner of State papers and 
 newspapers, that come back they would not and could 
 not, unless compelled to come back by force of arms. 
 And yet by this scheme we are to proffer them new 
 chances of returning to loyalty — for the scheme can 
 only mean that, or letting them go in peace. 
 
 The talk about " fresh troops" is literally insulting 
 to the gallant fellows now in the field ; is only a 
 blind. For who supposes that a National Adminis- 
 tration of the Horatio Seymour tint would fight ? 
 Who would expect them to display any extraordinary 
 vigor in the field or to maintain the Constitution 
 there with any tenacity \ Nobody in his right mind. 
 A Democratic Administration — we say it without 
 fear of contradiction — would be a Peace-at-any-price
 
 THE ERRING SISTERS. 373 
 
 Administration. Nothing better than semi-treason 
 would be expected of it ; nothing Letter than hag- 
 gling, patching and most disreputable bargaining. 
 " Erring Sisters, depart in peace !" would be its 
 legend. If the people choose to trust Brooks, Sey- 
 mour, the Woods and men of like kidney with the 
 adjustment of national differences, why the people 
 arc omnipotent and can do that in haste which they 
 will bitterly rue at leisure. If the army be in the 
 least demoralized and the progress of the war at all 
 suspended, the fault lies at the door of the Demo- 
 cratic party. If it has done so much mischief out of 
 olHce, of what will it not be capable in power ? Wise 
 and honest men, true lovers of the Union, would look 
 with fear, trembling, distrust and disgust upon any 
 postponement of the assertion, sharp, vigorous and 
 offensive, of the sanctity of the laws, until after the 
 coming election. We think that to save the whole 
 country from the anarchy which now distracts so 
 great a part of it, we need prompt, muscular and 
 decisive action, military and naval ; and that any 
 attempt to carry the question of Peace or War into 
 a Presidential election, might result in schemes of 
 demagogy and in scenes of bloodshed frightful to 
 anticipate. 
 
 AVe say nothing of any delays occasioned by 
 military necessity ; but we do say that any other is 
 abominably cruel. The Emancipation Policy which, 
 after all, is what these schemers hate, rests upon the 
 plighted faith of this Government, and any attempt 
 to evade it, will be followed by national miseries
 
 374 LIVERIED INSOLENCE. 
 
 which will be all the harder to bear because they will 
 be so richly deserved. 
 
 February 12, 1863. 
 
 AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
 
 The style of The London Times, in its observations 
 upon the President's Proclamation, is simply one of 
 fussy impertinence. It is certain that, in private life, 
 anv vulgarian assuming similar airs, would be either 
 laughed at or kicked out of the company. Men 
 would not endure, probably, to be told, by a dog- 
 matic and testy companion, that they lied, that they 
 were hypocrites, that they were devising fraud, that 
 they were attempting a disreputable swindle. Unless 
 we are willing to believe each other occasionally, 
 there must be an end of human intercourse of the 
 friendly description. And what is true of private 
 comity, is true of the comity of nations. State-papers 
 for all the usual purposes of diplomacy, must be taken 
 to mean just what they profess to mean. The lack- 
 eys of legation, the footmen, cooks and scullions of 
 his Excellency, the Embassador, the gentry of the 
 backstairs, the old women who sweep the offices and 
 li<j;ht the fires, are always deepest in state-secrets, and 
 always pronest to put their faith in nobody. The 
 valet intrigues while his master opens his heart with 
 his snuff-box. 
 
 When The London Times, with owlish gravity and
 
 THE PROCLAMATION AT THE SOUTH. 375 
 
 innumerable shrugp, professes to doubt the entire sin- 
 cerity of the President's Proclamation, its uncivilized 
 incredulity makes the suspicions of lackeys, footmen, 
 cooks, scullions and char-women respectable and dig- 
 nified by comparison. Whether it be worth while to 
 maintain a character for uncommon perspicacity at 
 the expense of a character for common veracity, the 
 stock-jobbing managers of the newspaper in question 
 must determine. 
 
 The charge against the President is, that he is not 
 in earnest, and against his policy, that it is not sin- 
 cere. The newspaper to which we have referred, 
 speaks of Mr. Lincoln as issuing his Proclamation, 
 " with his tongue in his cheek." This is a rare bit 
 of rhetorical refinement. If any of our transatlantic 
 friends think that its truth is equal to its beauty, we 
 beg leave to assure them, that here, even the enemies 
 of the President view the Proclamation in an entirely 
 different light. They believe, if The Times does n't. 
 The Pro-Slavery newspapers howl with a sad sin- 
 cerity. The Northern politicians, in the interest of 
 the Eebellion, do not affect to consider the Procla- 
 mation a joke. The editors of Davis's Republic 
 swell, as they refer to the document, with an unusual 
 venom. From Davis himself it has evoked a procla- 
 mation more than commonly bloodthirsty. And it 
 may be asserted generally, that whatever objections 
 may be made to the Proclamation, they have found 
 all their point and force in the assumption that so far 
 from being mere flummery and subterfuge, it means 
 precisely what it says. Nobody here, however en-
 
 376 THE PROCLAMATION AT THE NORTH. 
 
 raged by its contents, has hit upon the notable ex- 
 pedient of regarding it as a mere morsel of party 
 management. The London critics have the advan- 
 tage of their negro-hating friends in America in that 
 particular. The members of Congress from the B< >r- 
 der States, whose love of Slavery is stronger than 
 their love of the Union, are exceedingly loud in their 
 lamentations. The politicians of the pot-houses read 
 the Proclamation, and as they do so, curse the negro 
 with a renewed vehemence ; while the intelligent 
 masses of the Northern people accept it with a 
 good faith, which we say, without any disrespect to 
 the President or distrust of his fidelity, will compel 
 good faith in return. It matters not, for the pur- 
 poses of this argument, what may have been the con- 
 cealed intentions of the Government in making the 
 Proclamation ; it will be construed with straightfor- 
 ward literalism by men enough, at any rate, to be 
 troublesome, whether they may be in the majority or 
 not. Indeed, English gentlemen who have supposed 
 that the American people, with all their faults of 
 character, are so thick-witted as to be the easy vic- 
 tims of official pranks, do not themselves show any 
 great powers of intelligent observation. It is not the 
 habit of our men in office to make experiments upon 
 popular credulity. And in the present case, neither 
 those who dislike the Proclamation, nor those who 
 support it have for a moment doubted its sincerity. 
 It has been discussed upon its own merits, and no- 
 body here has been sharp enough to see the tongue 
 in the President's cheek. The people of the United
 
 SACKCLOTH AND ASHES. 377 
 
 States have suffered, and are still suffering too much 
 to affect any levity or nonchalance in this business. 
 
 February 20, 1S63. 
 
 MR. DAVIS PROPOSES TO FAST. 
 
 Me. Davis's continual resort to religion indicates 
 something of the straits of a condemned malefactor, 
 who, when he hears the carpenter at work upon the 
 gallows, concludes to send for the chaplain. The 
 Confederate President has issued another Proclama- 
 tion for a public fast in his dominions, which, con- 
 sidering the condition of the flesh-pots in those de- 
 mesnes, strikes us as just a little supererogatory. "We 
 have no fear that any of the Rebels will eat too much. 
 There is yet another point upon which his friends 
 should warn Mr. Davis. There is danger in his re- 
 cent and rather awkward piety : for Fast-Days are a 
 puritanical institution — they have Fast-Days in wicked, 
 praying, hypocritical, religious and revolutionary Kew 
 England — to tell the honest truth, the first Fast ever 
 kept upon this continent by a Protestant congrega- 
 tion, was kept in Plymouth, by Praise-God-Bare- 
 bones and other scurvy Pilgrim Fathers, whom it is 
 the fashion in all Rebel newspapers and speeches to 
 berate as incendiary and godless scoundrels. We bid 
 Mr. Davis to take heed of too much austerity. At 
 the same time we will do his subjects the justice to 
 say that not only by man but by beast will his in- 
 junctions be obeyed. The Armenian Christians
 
 378 FASTING FOR JOY. 
 
 make their horses fast with them ; and should Mr. 
 Davis be pleased, in default of any other, to declare 
 the Armenian to be the State Religion, it will be a 
 great saving of oats in a rather than else attenuated 
 commissary department. 
 
 We regret to say that Mr. Davis, being a novice in 
 these matters, has made the singular mistake of ap- 
 pointing a Fast, when he should have appointed a 
 Thanksgiving. In his Proclamation, which is quite 
 a compendium of practical piety, he solemnly sets 
 forth that, whereas the affairs of the Confederacy are 
 in a pretty prosperous condition — everything going 
 on well — nothing but victories, bloody and decided — 
 the Confederacy evidently under the peculiar care of 
 its Creator — therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, do declare 
 a day of Humiliation and Fasting! This is an 
 anti-climax at which, but for the solemnity of the 
 subject, we should be tempted to titter. But we are 
 glad to learn that, upon one day of the year at least, 
 the Confederates propose to be as humble as — Uriah 
 Ileep ! Mr. Davis says that " in the midst of trials," 
 the Rebels " gathered together with thanksgiving ;" 
 and now in their prosperity, they propose to fast ! 
 There has been nothing like this since Sheridan cried 
 at Cumberland's comedies and laughed at his traure- 
 dies. We sadly fear that Mr. Jefferson Davis's theo- 
 logical education has been neglected. 
 
 As there may be some religious patriarchs in like 
 condition, and who may have doubts of their ability 
 to fast, in a genteel, orthodox and acceptable manner, 
 we advise them, before the 27th of March, which is
 
 MR. WOOD PRINTS. 379 
 
 the day appointed, to take a few lessons of their " nig- 
 gers." Many of these are great adepts, through sad 
 and involuntary experience, in the ascetic art of fast- 
 ing; many of them are living monuments of the 
 ability of man to "exist upon next to nothing ; and 
 most of them have quite as much religion, to say the 
 least of it, as their masters. Let Mr. Davis and his 
 friends apply at the quarter-houses of the " men-ser- 
 vants and maid-servants," as brother Davis calls 
 them, for all necessary information. 
 
 There are scrupulous persons who might object to 
 the prayers of Rebels, as, to a certain extent, blas- 
 phemous. But we do not. Let them pray. The 
 cannibals of Sumatra pray. The greasy and mud- 
 smeared savages of Central Africa pray. There is 
 said to be no heathen without a religion — all the 
 other heathens pray, — and pray why should not the 
 Confederates ? 
 
 March 11, 1863. 
 
 MR. B. WOOD'S UTOPIA. 
 
 Bex Wood's speech that was not spoken, has, of 
 course, been printed by him, just as the play-wrights 
 of the last century, when managers were inexorable, 
 exclaimed : " Zounds, I '11 print it." It is in this way 
 that Brother Ben, when not permitted to bore the 
 House, with malice prepense, attempts to bore the 
 nation. A\ r e have read, at least a part of the docu- 
 ment — that part in which the tender Benjamin
 
 380 BROTHER BENJAMIN. 
 
 assures us that " were he certain that, in a military 
 sense, this war would prove successful, nevertheless 
 he would oppose it, for with the resisting power of 
 the South would vanish every hope of their exist- 
 ence as equal and contented members of one house- 
 hold." 
 
 There is a fine paternal aroma about this remark, 
 which reminds one of that title which has been con- 
 ferred, by the general consent of mankind, upon 
 Benjamin, by reason of his relation to Fernando, and 
 which has suggested to the world, not Cain and 
 Abel, but rather, with an entire reverse of the Scrip- 
 ture story, two most amicable and complying Cains. 
 This will account for Benjamin's pathetic allusion to 
 " equal and contented members of one household." 
 Brother Wood's proposition seems to be, that we 
 should lay down our arms and disperse. With the 
 disappearance of our armies he anticipates several 
 tons of hot coals heaped upon the head of Jefferson 
 Davis, who will, upon the receipt of the intelligence, 
 burst into tears, repent of all his sins, receive a new 
 heart and take an express train for Washington, that 
 he may throw himself at the feet of President 
 Lincoln, who will " take him up tenderly," kiss him 
 upon each cheek, and having assured him of his 
 entire forgiveness, will call for two cocktails of recon- 
 ciliation and two cigars of peace. 
 
 Pleasing picture ! Fine figment of the brain of 
 Benjamin Wood ! Shall we mortals ever see you 
 realized, exquisitely embraced and enchantingly 
 reduced to a dead certainty ? There may be chances
 
 RUIN IN SUCCESS. 381 
 
 of it. So there may be chances of drawing §100,000 in 
 one of Frater Ben's truly lucky lotteries. But the 
 chances in one case are about as good as the chances in 
 the other. At any rate we had better not disband the 
 Army, until Ben has been dispatched to Richmond, 
 there to wave the olive-branch in our behalf. When 
 we hear the result of his apostolic mission, it will be 
 time enough to consider the question of disbanding. 
 
 Benjamin is for different from the rest of us, being, 
 we suppose, of a finer philosophical spirit. When we 
 are fortunate enough to pick up a victory, the fra- 
 ternal Wood mourns. By a parity of reason, w T hen 
 we are so unfortunate as to encounter defeat and dis- 
 aster, we suppose that he rejoices exceedingly. We 
 have fondly thought that the success of the Federal 
 arms would bring back peace and prosperity, but our 
 prophetic member, his visual orbs being beautifully 
 purged, is convinced that nothing more ruinous could 
 happen to us than the most refulgent triumphs. He 
 dreads in the recesses of his soul, " the destruction of 
 the resisting powers of the South." We may take 
 Charleston. That would be " a resisting power." 
 Everybody else in these parts would be glad, but 
 Benjamin is sorry. There is one chance the less 
 of " a contented household." Vicksburg may be 
 reduced. More misery! Really, under such cir- 
 cumstances, one would, as a matter of curiosity, like 
 to have Benjamin's estimate of the moral, political, and 
 religious effect of the Battle of Bull Run ! With his 
 views he should consider it a blessing to this commu- 
 nity. Thinking as he does, he should go down every
 
 382 DESTROYING THE RESISTING POWERS. 
 
 night upon his blessed knees and pray that we may 
 be routed, horse, foot and batteries, by sea and land. 
 He is opposed to success upon principle — that is, to 
 our success — and the inevitable sequitur is that he 
 desires the success of the Confederate Army. Other- 
 wise a plain man does not well see why he should be 
 so timorous of " the destruction of the resisting 
 powers of the South." 
 
 But let us try the logical Wood's philosophy by 
 the rule of contraries. It is very clear to our mind, 
 that the dissolution of our armies would not be 
 followed by a flood of millennial glories. The next 
 thing to disbanding is a defeat. We will suppose 
 that the Davis forces have smitten — hip and thigh — 
 the Federal forces, and that, after the mortifying 
 agonies of capitulation, we have arrived at the deli- 
 cate delights of negotiation. The surrender would 
 be morally equivalent to Ben's proposed withdrawal 
 of our army — and yet does he suppose that the 
 Southern diplomatists would at once commiserate 
 our wretched condition, and themselves first propose 
 a return ? Would the happy and contented house- 
 hold then and there be with due ceremony organized I 
 Member Wood may believe, but we do n't. 
 
 By " the destruction of the resisting powers of the 
 South," this astute and benevolent gentleman can 
 only mean, as he evidently does, the destruction 
 of Rebels — and if they were every one of them 
 destroyed, by the sword, the axe, the gallows or rats- 
 bane, the chances of Wood's Happy Family would 
 be considerably multiplied. The object of the Gov-
 
 MR. WOOD'S PEACE. 383 
 
 eminent, if we understand it, is to enforce the legal 
 and most righteous jurisdiction of the Constitution 
 over certain territories of great extent and value. If 
 we conquer, the Moguls of the Rebellion will, if they 
 can, levant to European, Mexican, or South Ameri- 
 can parts ; and those who cannot get away, must be 
 dealt with according to law. This will finish the 
 matter neatly, and it will be finished quite as neatly, 
 though not quite so pleasantly, if we are worsted. 
 
 But Mr. Ben Wood's peace would settle nothing. 
 Instead of the Felicitous Family of his dulcet 
 dreams — rats, mice, rabbits, and terriers in one 
 cage — we should only go back to ancient riots and 
 quondam rows. The voice of the bully would again 
 be heard in the Capitol — the old system of bluster 
 would be resumed — the Slaveholder would come 
 back infinitely more insolent and more awfully 
 outrageous — in conjunction with the rejuvenated 
 Democracy of the North, the Man-Owners would 
 begin the game of nominating and electing dough- 
 face or slaveholding Presidents — and after another 
 period of labor dire and weary woe, we should, ere 
 long, find ourselves again compelled to fight, even if 
 a Slaveholding or Doughface President should not 
 sell us out completely to the Man-Owners. This is 
 not the kind of Happy Family to which we look for- 
 ward with unutterable yearnings. So we think upon 
 the whole, that it will be just as well not to act upon 
 Ben's brilliant suggestions. 
 
 March 13, 1863.
 
 3S4 AN ENGLISH PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 MR. BUXTON SCARED. 
 
 Fowell Bcxtox's philanthropy, we are compelled to 
 believe, is of that description which is limited by 
 the price of beer and the rent of ale-houses. It is 
 of the hereditary description, and, like most heredi- 
 tary virtues, it has suffered a diminution by trans- 
 mission. The present Buxton would never have 
 divided the House of Commons, with only a meagre 
 minority to back him. His father did this, and divers 
 other bold things, of which even the tradition seems 
 to have prematurely faded out in the family. The 
 present Buxton is reported to have written to The 
 London Times a letter, in which he reiterates" his 
 detestation of Slavery, but says he " cannot endorse 
 President Lincoln's Emancipation scheme, as it con- 
 templates an insurrection of the negroes and untold 
 misery." 
 
 Of this we have to observe, in the first place, that it 
 is a criminal carelessness of language for any man to 
 say that the Proclamation contemplates insurrection. 
 It is an indefensible and impudent and sheerly gratui- 
 tous slander to utter this of Mr. Lincoln, or of any 
 other officer of the Government ; it is a fair specimen 
 of the loose speech which Englishmen, since the com- 
 mencement of our civil war, have permitted them- 
 selves to use when descanting upon American topics ; 
 and the reply to it in the present case is, that the 
 Proclamation is better calculated to prevent insurrec- 
 tion than to provoke it. There can be no doubt of 
 the fact that the masters are very much at the mercy
 
 WEST INDIAN' EMANCIPATION. 385 
 
 of the Blacks ; but the Xcgro, by nature, has no par- 
 ticular penchant for bloodshed, and has never been 
 guilty of any atrocities, except when goaded to them 
 by intolerable cruelties. Should he, in any section 
 of the " Confederate States," have been contem- 
 plating, or planning an insurrection, he is far more 
 likely to await the approach of the Union armies, the 
 presence of which would necessarily repress all law- 
 less violence on his part, than to rush madly into a 
 mas-acre by which he can gain nothing and may 
 lose everything. Thus considered, nothing could be 
 more merciful to the Slaveholders and to their de- 
 fenceless families, than the Proclamation. 
 
 From this point of view, Buxton's " untold misery " 
 is easily calculated. It is certainly strange, that a 
 history with which he should be familiar has taught 
 this man nothing. He must know that during the 
 violent debates in the House of Commons, it was 
 confidently predicted, in terms of extreme pathos, 
 by gentlemen in the interest of planters, that the 
 first of August would be a bloody day in the British 
 AVest Indies — a new and more terrible Bartholomew. 
 The minacious bathos of Mr. Peter Borthwick can- 
 not have faded from the memory of a Buxton. The 
 dreadful day came which was to inaugurate "untold 
 misery," and it found the poor blacks, not rushing to 
 deeds of blood, nor busy in the avengement of long- 
 continued and exasperating wrongs, but humbly bend- 
 ing the knee in their little chapels, to thank God for 
 the great salvation which had been vouchsafed to 
 them. If Buxton knew anything of the American 
 17
 
 380 EMANCIPATION INEVITABLE. 
 
 Blacks, he would anticipate no worse evil from their 
 enfranchisement. They are vastly more likely to 
 assume the care of their imbecile and impoverished 
 masters, than to cut their throats. 
 
 But whether from Emancipation come evil or come 
 good, peace or the sword, it is inevitable. The Ruler 
 of the Universe, weary of our wicked and intermin- 
 able delays, appears in righteous indignation to have 
 taken the work out of our trembling and ignoble 
 hands ; or rather, lie has, by the force of events, 
 compelled us, even for the sake of self, to do jus- 
 tice to the outraged and oppressed. The first gun 
 which was fired at Charleston announced to tjie world 
 the demise of American Slavery. Already the dip- 
 lomatic representatives of the Rebels are seeking to 
 propitiate the Anti-Slavery sentiment of Europe, by 
 promises of emancipation — by admissions that Slav- 
 ery is neither profitable nor desirable in any way — 
 by a loose talk of manumission when it shall be safe. 
 Should their independence ever be acknowledged 
 by the political powers of the world they will be 
 reminded of these words ; and in any event, the 
 chances of an insurrection infinitely more sanguinary 
 than any which can possibly occur as the remote re 
 suit of the Proclamation will be multiplied, when 
 the moral power and the physical force of the Union 
 shall no longer deter the Black from making a de- 
 cided though desperate stand for his freedom. 
 
 We deprecate as much as any timid Englishman 
 an insurrection of the slaves. But while with Fow- 
 ell Buxton we contemplate the "untold misery"
 
 CTIA RL ESTON A L L 1UGIIT. 3S7 
 
 which such an event would occasion, we cannot "ban- 
 ish from our thoughts the " untold misery " to which 
 an inoffensive race has been subjected by the cupid- 
 ity of man. A general massacre of all the white- in 
 the Slaveholding States, would hardly present so 
 terrible an aggregate of suffering as that which the 
 American slaves are expected to encounter with 
 Christian patience, and in a moment to forgive and 
 forget. God preserve us from a lawless insurrection ! 
 God preserve us from crimes and breaches of good 
 faith which will make such an insurrection inevitable ! 
 
 March 18, 1S63. 
 
 CHARLESTON COZY. 
 
 If we may credit the epistle-monger in Charleston, 
 who writes with a kind of rosy rapture to The London 
 Times, that city, so far from partaking of the pains 
 and poverty of the Confederacy, is a scene of sybarit- 
 ical pleasures and Corinthian joys. Though half the 
 town has been burned, the moiety is an Earthly Para- 
 dise, in the midst of which stands that eminent cara- 
 vansary ycleped " the Mills House," at the bar of 
 which, we suppose, fluid happiness is still dispensed, 
 albeit at gigantic prices per draught. Interminable 
 walls, countless breastworks, ditches of unknown 
 depth, batteries of Gibraltarian impregnability, forts 
 whose frown alone would repel a Grand Army, horn- 
 works, ravelines, counterscarps and escarps, glacis, 
 and the irod of "War knows what else — all these have
 
 388 THE BENEVOLENT FRASEIIS. 
 
 been combined after a fashion which would have 
 filled the heart of Marshal Saxe with envy, and not 
 less have delighted the benevolent soul of Uncle 
 Toby. 
 
 Within these strong defences, which have been 
 entirely built, as we are told, by the hands of the 
 busy " niggers," the originators of the Rebellion 
 and dry nurses of Treason do most peacefully repose 
 and laugh to scorn the Federal fleet and the Federal 
 foot. They have nothing to do but smoke, drink, 
 swear, sleep and be happy. After Macbeth had 
 hung out his banner, there was a cry upon the outer 
 wall, which made him feel quite ill and led him to a 
 long conversation with the Doctor. 
 
 It is quite different with the chiefs of Charleston 
 and their families whether hlcmc, black or yellow. 
 They have all the titillations of a siege without the 
 torments. Xot yet have they been driven to devour 
 their boots, as the French were in Genoa. On the 
 contrary they have what the landladies of minor 
 boarding-1 louses call ''enough, and that that 's good." 
 " Fraser 6c Co. have ta'en order for it." Fraser tv, 
 Co. are merchants who would rather give away than 
 sell. Fraser & Co. run the blockade regularly three 
 times a week. Fraser & Co. supply all manner of 
 comfort for back and belly. Those benevolent Dough- 
 faces, therefore, who have permitted the saline tears 
 to bestain their linen cheeks at the thought of all the 
 misery which their Charleston friends were encoun- 
 tering, can dam the sluices of their grief or weep for 
 some less-favored Man-Owners. Charleston is, if we
 
 POOR VIRGINIA! 389 
 
 may believe this correspondent, far better off than 
 she was when in a death-grapple with the pestilence, 
 or after a desolating conflagration, she cried aloud to 
 the rascally Yankees for aid in meat or in money, 
 and uttered no unheeded appeal. We forbear, out of 
 motives of delicacy, from making more than a bare 
 allusion to the money which has been raised in 
 Northern parts for Missionary purposes, to be ex- 
 pended in South Carolina, because the religious result 
 has been so preposterous that we are inclined to spare 
 the feelings of the amiable donors. Meantime the 
 content being so measureless in Charleston, we won- 
 der if the Palmettoes ever think of the quite opposite 
 condition of their friends and fellow-sinners in Vir- 
 ginia — that unfortunate State, the once-fair territories 
 of which have been scathed and blighted by the 
 actual presence of war — its towns besieged and bom- 
 barded — its profitable commerce (in tobacco and 
 oysters) almost destroyed — its capital city, ragged 
 and writhing Richmond, full of the various distresses 
 incident to belligerent humanity — its importance 
 diminished by a political division which will never 
 be reconsidered — its historical glories so faded, that 
 future affes will hardly believe that it e;ave birth to 
 Washington — Virginia that was politically so great 
 and so honored, turned into a tilting-ground upon 
 which South Carolina compels her humble and com- 
 plying sisters in secession to tight her quarrel with 
 Massachusetts ! 
 
 We get no boast from Richmond of the happy 
 condition of affairs in that city. There is no Fraser
 
 390 SOUTH CAROLINA DOMINANT. 
 
 & Co. there, to supply gratuitous dry-goods and 
 groceries to the naked and hungry. With what 
 Rowings of unspeakable bile must a Virginian, who 
 has had no breakfast and who cherishes not the 
 wildest hope of a dinner, who is out at the elbows, 
 out of money and out of temper, read, should it come 
 in his way, the letter in The Times, and reflect that 
 while he suffers in purse, person, and estate, the 
 Charleston Rebel eats well, sleeps well, dresses well 
 and calmly reads the bulletins of the campaign in 
 Virginia ? 
 
 We believe we assert no more than she would 
 claim, although in different terms, when we declare 
 that this rebellion originated in the mean selfishness 
 of South Carolina — in the arrogance and passion of 
 her public men — in the recklessness of a little knot 
 of pestilent politicians in Charleston and the adja- 
 cent demesnes — in the teachings of such apostles as 
 Calhoun and Butler. The Virginia abstraction was 
 comparatively harmless until the action of South 
 Carolina gave to it a practical and malignant activity. 
 That State has found the fire and the chestnuts — the 
 others must burn their fingers in the roasting. Do 
 they suppose that the culinary process would be over 
 and the digital blisters permanently abated, if the 
 Confederacy were once fairly put upon its legs ? O 
 credulous Confederates ! Have you yet to learn that 
 South Carolina can confederate with nobody? that 
 her temper is too waspish to afford the least hope of 
 jocund conjugal relations '. that she has lived so 
 long in a state of quarrel, that it has become her
 
 HOUSEHOLD PERILS. 39 1 
 
 normal condition? that she feels or a fleets a contempt 
 for all mankind outside her own little territory ? 
 The restoration of the Union will save you from 
 much else, but over and above all, it will save you 
 from her ! — from her pettish pride and absurd hu- 
 mors, from her calculating frigidity which all her 
 fire never tempers, and her indomitable selfishness 
 which she dignifies as patriotism. 
 
 March IS, 1S63. 
 
 THE TWIN ABOMINATIONS. 
 
 Most men would think polygamy to be an offence 
 carrying with it its own punishment. If the tend- 
 ency of even monogamous simplicity be to tiffs and 
 breakfast-table debates, what must be the magnificent 
 wrath of a patriarch who can arraign a score of wives 
 upon an indictment of cold tea and half-baked rolls ; 
 but who is still compelled to withdraw his charges 
 by the rattling musketry of twenty nimble tongues ? 
 Brigham of Utah is represented to be a stout crea- 
 ture, with quite an oriental talent for administering 
 the affairs of his seraglio ; and we will do him the 
 justice to say that, to our knowledge at least, he has 
 never sacked any insubordinate spouse in his Salt 
 Lake Bosphorus. 
 
 But the mild and truly affectionate government of 
 the United States is quite right in taking it for grant- 
 ed, that Young, who is getting to be a little old, will be 
 relieved by taking from him ninety-nine per cent, of
 
 392 IMPARTIAL CIVILIZATION. 
 
 his uxorious embarrassment. To our utter astonish- 
 ment the Mormon objects to this proceeding — is un- 
 willing to part with one single individual rib of his 
 whole magnificent collection, and must be mildly 
 persuaded, for his own good, through the potent 
 logic of an indictment. 'T is a curious world. Here 
 at the East, hundreds of wretches are clamoring to 
 the courts to rid them of one spouse, and there at the 
 West, Brigham, and other much-married saints, are 
 struggling for assorted lots, numbering from a dozen 
 to a gross, of the same article. Thus it is that hu- 
 man nature is most inconsistently asinine. Thus it 
 is that the barbarous Mormon Bible, which is no- 
 toriously a pack of lies, has taught to its admirers a 
 patience which, in too many instances, the highest 
 revelation has failed to inculcate in its professors. 
 Wonderful is habit, and the world is really indebted 
 to the Sultan of Salt Lake for a new proof of its 
 potency. Mithridates breakfasting upon belladonna 
 and lunching upon arsenic was a fool to him. 
 
 We shall await the result of this curious experi- 
 ment in social ethics with considerable interest ; for 
 if the government can put down a plurality of wives 
 in Utah, who will doubt its ability to put down the 
 Rebellion? In both cases we confess that we enter- 
 tain a lively hope of the most favorable results. In 
 both cases we have a right to anticipate the triumph 
 of that imperious civilization which makes no terms 
 either with legalized brothels or barracoons. There 
 is a restraining power somewhere, which forbids man 
 to go backwards, and effectually prevents the rccon-
 
 THE CLAIMS OF POLYGAMY. 393 
 
 straction of barbarous institutions. The An«:lo-Saxon 
 race is as likely to discard its coat and breeches, and, 
 oblivious of gunpowder, to betake itself in its own 
 painted skin to the spearing of game, as to sustain 
 a society having for its base either Polygamy or 
 Slavery. 
 
 It is one of the divinest things in the economy of 
 this divinely-created world, that there is no resurrec- 
 tion for a convicted and executed and buried false- 
 hood. There is no consolation for us in this chaos of 
 conflicting moral elements, except in a steady faith 
 that, Whatsoever things are unjust bear but a limited 
 life. It is not in vain that so many of the incorpor- 
 ated blunders of mankind have already tottered and 
 tumbled into a tomb from which there can be no 
 resurrection. It is not in vain that our eyes, placed 
 in the frontal regions, must look forward. That was 
 no hard command which directed us to forget the 
 things behind and to press forward. 
 
 Polygamy claims the same divine sanction to which 
 Slavery makes a pretence. It is a Patriarchal Insti- 
 tution. It bottoms itself upon Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob. It sticks closely by the historical letter of the 
 Old Testament, and that, too, upon points which the 
 Jews themselves have, in deference to the difference 
 of ages, wisely abandoned in practice, if not in re- 
 ligious theory. jSTo Israelite, however opulent, as- 
 tonishes the world by a magnificent and multitudi- 
 nous concubinage. Rothschild, in such a display, 
 might rival the traditional glories of Solomon. But 
 the Synagogue has discarded an institution inconsist- 
 17*
 
 394 A PROLIFIC PATRIARCH. 
 
 ent with the social phenomena of the age to the bas- 
 tardized Christianity of Brigham Young ; while the 
 Christian Slaveholder, contemptuously overleaping 
 the gap which divides the Old and New Dispensa- 
 tions, claims, as an extenuation of his crime, the au- 
 thority and example of Moses and the Prophets. 
 
 Polygamy is an offence against reason, decency, 
 policy, and the enlightenment of the times ; but in 
 the system of Human Slavery the most indecent and 
 revolting features of Polygamy are included. Each 
 of these systems tends to the gratification of unhal- 
 lowed lusts, to the pollution of woman, to the degra- 
 dation of the marital relation, to the desecration of 
 home, to a loose and promiscuous association of the 
 sexes ; but these odious peculiarities of Slavery are 
 mixed with others which are so much more revolting, 
 and which appeal so much more directly to human 
 sympathy, that we forget the lesser wrong (if there 
 can in such case be any comparison) in our indigna- 
 tion at the greater. Brighain's polygamous institu- 
 tion is bad enough at the best ; but it is free from 
 that taint of remorseless and calculating selfishness 
 which makes Southern Slavery an almost unmiti- 
 gated evil. 
 
 Nobody can calculate how many children call 
 Brigham Tomig by the endearing title of father; 
 but we must say this for him, that however numer- 
 ous they may be, he has brought none of them to the 
 auction-block. lie keeps no market for the sale of 
 his own flesh and blood. He does not advertise the 
 bone of his bone. He makes no merchandise of his
 
 TEE SENSITIVE COPPERHEADS. 395 
 
 little boys and girls. And finally, it may be stated 
 for the satisfaction of gentlemen disposed to dabble 
 in ethnics, that all the youthful Youngs are indubi- 
 tably white, and present to the world a bleached Cau- 
 casian aspect. For the soul of us we cannot help 
 regarding Mawworm preaching from his tub as a far 
 more agreeable character than Inkle selling his 
 Yarico for filthy dollars. 
 
 There are sundry good Samaritans of the Copper- 
 head variety who cannot speak of the wrongs which 
 the Man-Owners have suffered without bursting into a 
 flood of tears. Slavery is established by positive law, 
 and it is cruelly unjust to meddle with it so much as 
 by a mere mention of its iniquity. Well, concubin- 
 age is established by the positive law of Utah, backed 
 by the authority of the Mormon Bible. Will the 
 husbands of one wife, here and elsewhere, convene 
 to sympathize with the husband of many wives? — 
 "We shall see. 
 
 March 19, 1S68. 
 
 VICTORY AND VICTUALS. 
 
 Up through the agonized oesophagus of the Confed- 
 eracy comes the piteous prayer for prog. The most 
 ardent rebel must eat— so must his rib and his 
 responsibilities, both of the sable and the Caucasian 
 ti- n t— so must the gallant steed which bears him to 
 the battle. Jeremy, in Congreve's " Love for Love v 
 pathetically protests his utter inability to breakfast 
 upon a certain chapter of Epictetus, although his
 
 396 FIGHTING FAMINE. 
 
 more philosophical master declares it to be " a feast 
 for an emperor." The insurgents are just discovering 
 that a hungry man cannot satiate his physical appe- 
 tites by the perusal of the speeches of Mr. Calhoun 
 and the Resolutions of '98. 
 
 The reading and marking and inward digestion of 
 crazy political theories go but a little way toward 
 producing chyme and chyle. The duodenum is n't 
 a patriotic organ ; and the bravest armies can never 
 successfully fight a famine. Napoleon's principle 
 was to make war support war ; but here the case is 
 different, for what pleasure can a Rebel take in a raid 
 on his own hen-house, especially when no feathered 
 creature is roosting therein ? The chief luxury of the 
 Roman soldier was a daily mouthful of vinegar, but 
 the bibatory needs of a full-blooded Seceding Cheva- 
 lier are by no means so simple. 
 
 Like Mrs. Gamp, he not only likes to have the 
 bottle on the shelf, but he rather than else prefers to 
 find something in it stiif and strong when he draws 
 the cork. A parched and empty warrior may be 
 just the creature to attack the enemy's commissariat 
 train ; but when it comes to long and steady cam- 
 paigning, or the great exertion of a pitched battle, 
 nothing can compensate for the want of regular 
 rations. And if soldiers find short commons debili- 
 tating, notwithstanding their presumptive devotion 
 to the cause, what must have been the intolerable 
 agony of civilians, especially in the city of Xew 
 Orleans, where until lately, the sale of fluid rapture 
 was invariably suppressed by the provost guard at
 
 hung ii y Ei) irons. 397 
 
 half past nine o'clock, p. m. ? The considerate and 
 benevolent Banks, we notice, has mitigated this dry 
 hardship. Thirst may now be quenched by the citi- 
 zens of that region up to midnight — as for the soldier, 
 the gates of mercy are shut upon him, or rather for 
 him the generous decanters are inexorably stopped. 
 Disloyalty and drink go together in those parts — 
 there are no cocktails (except in their caps) for the 
 defenders of the Constitution. 
 
 But it is in Richmond that famine is the fiercest — 
 a fact from which we draw the happiest augury. For 
 Mosheim, in his Ecclesiastical History, tells us that 
 fasting was introduced into the religious polity "from 
 a notion that the demons directed their stratagems 
 principally against those who pampered themselves 
 with delicious fare, and were less troublesome to the 
 lean and hungry." Now if this be so, what a sorry 
 time these demons, who may in some sort be consid- 
 ered as spiritual tape-worms, must be having just 
 now in rationless Richmond ! 'T is felt there, we are 
 sorry for the craft to say, most excruciatingly in the 
 printing-offices, and consequently the howls which 
 issue from these nurseries of Secession civilization 
 are truly tremendous. The Editors find that fire- 
 eating is a mere figment of the imagination — no man 
 can grow fat upon theoretical, ignited carbon — the 
 bravest of the brave may make others eat his sword, 
 but he cannot himself lunch upon it without fatal 
 consequences. 
 
 The Richmond Examiner dolefully declares that 
 while citizens, editors, private soldiers, and other
 
 303 TOO MUCH HORSEFLESH. 
 
 humble creatures are undergoing semi-starvation, 
 and submitting to what we should suppose, from the 
 passionate earnestness of the appeal, must be some- 
 thing like the pangs of Ugolino, the resources of the 
 city are employed " to pamper idle pride and official 
 indolence." The officers of the Rebel Army it is 
 asserted, keep, at great charge, an unconscionable 
 stud of chargers, of a voracity almost as great, we 
 should think, as that of the mares of Diomedes ; and 
 draw rations of oats, and other fodder, for those 
 superfluous beasts, which are used only in the peace- 
 ful business of airing the Richmond ladies upon 
 pleasant evenings. This, the editor, who evidently 
 wishes himself one of Capt. Gulliver's renowned and 
 cultivated steeds, comments upon with much bile. 
 But he forgets the law of self-preservation. How 
 does he know that these Lothario-like officers are not 
 feeding the horses that the horses may hereafter feed 
 them ? It may come to that and worse in Richmond 
 yet. Indeed, our troubled brother, in our opinion, 
 should look upon this stable luxury with a philo- 
 sophical leniency ; for in default of fat horses, how can 
 he be sure that these epauletted epicures may not 
 betake themselves to the eating even of lean Editors? 
 Fiat jvstitia, mat codum, roars this excited Exam- 
 iner, which being interpreted, signifies — Give me my 
 bit of bread and butter, though the bits of blood 
 belonging to the officers get never an individual oat. 
 Well, poor man ! we think that he is right. By what 
 legal authority is the wearer of many buttons per- 
 mitted to set up as a Dives, while this poor Editor
 
 HANGING PRISONERS. 300 
 
 plays the unsatisfactory part of Lazarus, with no 
 chance whatever of finding solace in Abraham's 
 bosom ? Why should Letcher be allowed, in respect 
 to strong waters, to create a kind of Sahara wherever 
 he goes, while an intellectual creature, like The 
 Examiner, is unable to find a drop, examine he the 
 closets never so closely ? 
 
 There are those who by the folly of the Rebel 
 faction have been utterly ruined; there are others 
 who, of an ample fortune, have little enough left to 
 keep the souls and bodies of their household together. 
 These the hungry oligarchs propose to subject to a 
 third or, for ought we know, to a thirtieth skinning. 
 Private property is to be seized wherever found, for 
 the use of the Rebel Army, and to be most mag- 
 nanimously paid for in Rebel paper-money not 
 worth one cent on the dollar. But if it stood proudly 
 at par, no hungry Virginian could eat it, with or 
 without pepper and salt ; nor can he buy anything 
 with it when there is nothing to sell. Unhappy, 
 hungry Virginian ! 
 
 March 23, 1803. 
 
 BUS. PER COLL. 
 
 The Charleston Mercury, with that charming suavity 
 which characterizes Man-stealing civilization, calls 
 loudly upon the magnates of the insurrection sum- 
 marily to hang all those Union officers who may be 
 captured while in command of Black Regiments.
 
 400 PLANTATION DISCIPLINE. 
 
 There is a spice here of the old ferocity which whilom 
 tar-feathered Northern travelers, and ravaged the 
 portmanteaus of Yankee school-mistresses. It is a 
 curious philosophical fact, that the Slaveholder al- 
 ways connects energy and murder. He has no idea 
 of any effectual action without homicide. He takes 
 it for granted in reconstructing his scheme of public 
 ethics, or of police regulation, that there is no virtue 
 except in violence, and that the readiest way to con- 
 vince a man of his error is to put him to death. 
 
 The fires of the Inquisition have long since been 
 quenched ; thumb-screws and iron-boots have long 
 rusted in the museums of antiquaries ; the cannibal 
 has ceased to satiate his revenge by first grilling and 
 then gobbling his adversary ; and only the Chinese, 
 of all nations the most averse to change, unite with 
 Confederates in continuing to practice the revolting 
 barbarities of war. But this is not wonderful, for 
 Slavery is legalized, continued, and consecrated vio- 
 lence, depending fur its very existence upon the 
 ferocity of the few and the fears of the many. The 
 discipline of the plantation naturally falls to a low 
 level of coarse cruelty ; and the imbruted Slave lias 
 his revenge in a brutified Master. The patriarch 
 neither attempts nor cares for any other ratiocination 
 than that which he finds in the hiss of the scourge, 
 the bark of the pistol, and the clash of the bowie-knife. 
 
 In some departments of human economy, contact 
 with beings less sanguinary than himself may, to a 
 limited extent, have meliorated his manners; but in 
 all points <*f character which touch his relations to
 
 BULLYING METHOD*. 40 1 
 
 his Slaves, lie is hardly more human than the blood- 
 hounds which yelp in his kennel. He is the Nero, 
 the Caligula, the Domitian of a few acres, responsible 
 to no earthly tribunal for the excesses into which his 
 animal rage may betray him. His experience has 
 taught him, in his own little hell upon earth, the 
 efficacy of unlimited swearing and truculent threats ; 
 and because he can scare a score or two of helpless, 
 trembling, cowering creatures into dumb obedience, 
 he fancies that the universe is to be intimidated in 
 the same way. Moreover, he has so often bullied 
 the North into an unmanly acquiescence, no matter 
 how absurdly outrageous might be his demands, that 
 he imagines the force of swaggering yet unexpended ; 
 and so he erects his scare-crow gallows, announces 
 his intention of hanging his prisoners of war, and 
 fully believes that he can thus intimidate us into a 
 conduct of the war which will be agreeable to his 
 feelings, and accommodated to his peculiar necessi- 
 ties. He would thus nullity the acts of a Congress 
 which he has deserted, and still control a govern- 
 ment which he has disowned. 
 
 Under these circumstances it may be profitable for 
 the insurgents to consider that there are still several 
 large cordage factories at work in the Northern 
 States, turning out, among other ropes, those which 
 will well enough suit the purpose of the executioner. 
 Should any white commander of a Black Regiment 
 in the service of the United States be hanged, ac- 
 cording to the threat of the Charleston newspaper 
 above quoted, our impression is that ropes will be
 
 402 LEX TALIOMS. 
 
 immediately resorted to in these parts ; and whatever 
 may be the skill of the Confederate Ketch, we have 
 confidence in our ability to produce an artist of equal 
 accomplishments. We do not believe that our Rebel 
 prisoners bear a charmed life. Beastly as they are, 
 they were born of woman, and have vertebrae and 
 wind-pipes, and the muscles adjacent thereto formed 
 quite after the fashion of our own ; and should the 
 uncivilized threat of the Charleston paper be carried 
 into execution, sundry chevaliers may also be carried 
 up to execution, to the great grief of their surviving 
 compatriots in Secessia. This game of murdering 
 prisoners would be highly entertaining, if it were like 
 Solitaire at cards ; but when both sides betake them- 
 selves to the amusement, our impression is that it will 
 be speedily abandoned. 
 
 The subterfuge of the South, that we are inciting 
 the Blacks to insurrection, with all its traditional 
 horrors, is the sheerest and falsest nonsense. By all 
 the laws of war, we have a perfect right to employ 
 the Slaves against their Masters — Caius Marine did 
 it, and he was esteemed a tolerable soldier in his day 5 
 and Xapoleon, at St. Helena, regretted he did not do 
 it in Russia ; the English did it during our Revolution- 
 ary War ; but we have never read that Washington 
 threatened to hang English prisoners upon that ac- 
 count. The general who should refuse the services 
 of half, or more than half, of the population of a 
 country which he was endeavoring to subjugate, 
 would not deserve a court-martial merely, because he 
 would deserve to he shot without one.
 
 TOO GREAT A RISK. 4<)3 
 
 It is all very well for this Charleston editor, in the 
 security of his sanctum, to howl for hempen ven- 
 geance ; hut Davis, who sorely needs the good opin- 
 ion of the world, which may not prove very apt at 
 discriminating between White and Black Regiments, 
 will hardly consent to place his new Republic in a 
 position of unnecessary ignominy. The natural scorn 
 with which he must inevitably be regarded by all 
 good Christians is, in all conscience, enough for even 
 a Slaveholders stomach. 
 
 March 28, 1863. 
 
 THE END.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Adams, Rev. Nehcmiah 5S, 248 
 
 Average of Mankind 1S3 
 
 Array, Patriotism of 189 
 
 Abolition and Secession 192 
 
 Americans in England 251 
 
 Buchanan, James C, 7, 29, 32, 128, 129 
 
 Benton, Thomas, his estimate of John Y. Mason 16 
 
 Bird. Rev. Milton SO 
 
 Bancroft, George 1C6 
 
 Bickley, K. G. C Ill 
 
 Bliss. Seth '. 130 
 
 Brooks, Preston 1*2 
 
 Beaufort, the Bacchanal of 197 
 
 Bodin on Slavery 303 
 
 Butler, General 317, 318, 32 !, 322 
 
 Burke. Edmund, an Emancipationist 328 
 
 Bachelder, Dr., a Funny Physician 312 
 
 Buxton. Fowell *. 884 
 
 Choatc, Rufus 43, 58, 8-1 
 
 '■ •■ Scrambles of his Biographers 102 
 
 Cumberland Presbyterian Church 68 
 
 Cumberland Presbyterian Newspaper 79 
 
 Columbia (S. C), Bell-Ringing in 125 
 
 Commons. House of, on Gregory's Motion 1C3 
 
 Colleges, Southern 172 
 
 Cotton, Moral Influence of 201 
 
 Congress, The Confederate 222, 238 
 
 ( 'Icrgymcn, Second - Hand 224 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 328 
 
 Davl . Jefferson 42, 274, 279, 282, 2S8, 2S8, 330, 338. 346 
 
 Diarist, A Southern 12 1 
 
 ]>:ir_Nin. Chancellor 100 
 
 Dahomey . the < > r i i_- i i . . » 1 of (he Confederacy 175 
 
 (401)
 
 INDEX. 405 
 
 De Bow on Confederate Manufactures 230 
 
 1 )cbt, The ( Jonfederate 285 
 
 Everett, Edward 45, 181 
 
 1 'iclder, Herbert, bis Pamphlet 46 
 
 Fillmore, Millard 110 
 
 Fl< .yd. John B 162 
 
 Fortescue on Shivery 30:5 
 
 Free state-. Southern Opinion of 3KJ 
 
 Freedmen, Probable Vices of. 362 
 
 Franklin on British Policy 360 
 
 Fast Day. Mr. Davis's 377 
 
 Gregory. M . P 1C3 
 
 Greenville, Lord, on Emancipation 329 
 
 Goethe'on the Future of America 303 
 
 Greatness, Historical 356 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, on the Union 297 
 
 Hawks. Dr., his Twelve Questions 305 
 
 Independence, Declaration of 139 
 
 Independence, Southern Association for 2G5 
 
 Ireland, The Case of 294 
 
 Johnson. Rcverdy 42 
 
 Johnson, Dr., his Favorite Toast 329 
 
 Lord. President 3, 819 
 
 Lawrence, Abbot 25 
 
 Ludovico, Father 54 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham 181, 3S4 
 
 Letcher, Governor 340 
 
 Mason. John Y 13, 24 
 
 Mitchel, John 20, 50 
 
 Matthews, of Virginia, on Education 92 
 
 Montgomery. The Muddle at 1"1 
 
 Morse, Samuel and Sidney 136 
 
 Meredith, J. W., his Private Battery 141 
 
 McMahon, T. \Y., his Pamphlet 214 
 
 Monroe. Mayor, of New Orleans 234 
 
 Malcolm. Dr., on Slavery v 043 
 
 Maryland, The Union Party in ogn 
 
 Mallory, Secretary 2S0 
 
 McClellan, General, as a Pacificator 37O 
 
 Mercury, The Charleston Ct:9 
 
 Netherlands. Deacon 47 
 
 North. Southern Notions of the 144. 
 
 Olivieri, The Abbe, on Negro Education 53
 
 40G INDEX. 
 
 Pierce, Franklin 29 
 
 Pollard, Mr., his " Mammy " 03 
 
 Palfrey, General, in Boston T3 
 
 Perham, Josiah, his Invitation 97 
 
 Parker, E. G., his Life of Cboate 103 
 
 Patents Granted in the South 134 
 
 Polk, Bishop 172 
 
 Parties. Extemporizing 242 
 
 Platform Novelties in Boston 247 
 
 Paley, Dr.. on Slavery 803 
 
 Pitt, William, an Abolitionist 329 
 
 Rogersville, ihe Great Flogging in If! 
 
 Roundheads and Cavaliers 151 
 
 Russell, William II 153, 1S7 
 
 Repudiation of Northern Debts 1C2 
 
 Red Bill, a New Orleans Patriarch 318 
 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel 328 
 
 Robertson, Dr., on Slavery 803 
 
 Screws, Benjamin, Negro Broker 8, 88 
 
 Society for Promoting National Unity 136 
 
 Stevens, Alexander II 148 
 
 Secession, The Ordinance of : 178 
 
 Slidell, Mis^ 204 
 
 Secessionists, The Diseensions of. 219 
 
 St. Domingo, The Argument from 320 
 
 Saulsbury, Senator 334, 351 
 
 Tyler, John, his Diagnosis 12^ 
 
 Times, The London 158, 177, 309, 3CG, 374 
 
 Toombs. General, his Trials 209 
 
 Thirty-Five, The Council of 273 
 
 Taliaferro, Mr., his Defalcation 816 
 
 Thugs in New Orleans 318 
 
 University, a Son thorn Wanled 01 
 
 Utopia, A Slaveholding 300 
 
 Van Huron, John 44 
 
 Virginia, Democracy in 183 
 
 Wise, Henry A 2, 95,1:;:.. 155 
 
 Walker, William, his Letter to General Cass 33, 35 
 
 Window, Hubbard 136 
 
 Williams, Commander 200 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C 248 
 
 Wood. Benjamin 379. 3-3 
 
 Yeadon, Richard 8 
 
 Young, Brigham 35S, 392
 
 TsklW AVOlilv J3Y MISS KATE FIELD. 
 
 PLANCHETTE'S DIARY. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 KATE FIELD. 
 
 A faithful resord of the sayings and doings of one of these 
 little three-legged sibyls, during the epace of four mouths under 
 the hands of the Author ; with some account of the various 
 theories by which these curious Phenomena are accounted for. 
 
 PAPER COVERS, PRICE FIFTY CENTS. 
 
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 rETJE BEECIANBENB. 
 
 g. S f. a v ij i u IT c v s c . 
 
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 One volume, cloth, handsomely bound, Price 75 cents.
 
 NEW ^JKHD TPOlPTJIaAJR BOOKS. 
 
 MODERN WOMEN 
 
 AXD 
 
 What is Said of Them : 
 
 A Reprint of a Series of Articles in the Saturday Review, ■with 
 an Introduction by Mrs. Calitoun. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Girl op the Period. 
 
 Foolish Virgins. 
 
 Little Women. 
 
 Pinchbeck. 
 
 Feminine Affectations. 
 
 Ideal Women. 
 
 Woman and the World. 
 
 Unequal Marriages. 
 
 Husband Hunting. 
 
 Perils of " Fating Attention.' 
 
 Women's Heroines. 
 
 Interference. 
 
 Plain Girls 
 
 A Word for Female Vanity. 
 
 The Abuse of Match-Making. 
 
 Feminine Influence. 
 
 Pigeons. 
 
 Prkttv Preachers 
 
 Costume 
 
 Ambitious Wives. 
 
 Platonic Woman. 
 
 Man and ins Master. 
 
 The Goose and the Gander. 
 
 Engagements. 
 
 Woman in Orders. 
 
 Woman and her Critics. 
 
 Mistress and Maid, or Dress 
 
 and Undress. 
 ./Esthetic Woman. 
 What is Woman's Work? 
 Papal Woman. 
 Modern Mothers 
 Priesthood of Woman. 
 The Future or Woman. 
 La Fem.me Passee. 
 The Fading Flower. 
 Spoilt Women. 
 its Morals. 
 
 In one Volume, 12mo, handsomely printed and bound in 
 clotli, beveled boards. 
 
 PRICE TWO DOLLARS.

 
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