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Addresses 
 
 Historical— Political— Sociological 
 
 By 
 
 Frederic R. Coudert 
 
 * 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York and London 
 
 ^bc Vinictferbocl^er press 
 
 1905 
 
Copyright, 1905 
 
 BY 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 TTbe "Rnlcfccrbocfter press, Wcw Ifforl? 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Arbitration and International Law: 
 
 I. — International Arbitration. An Address 
 before the Union League Club at Chi- 
 cago, Washington's Birthday, 1897 
 II. — The Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty, 
 From the Forum, March, 1897 
 III. — The Rights of Ships. An Address before 
 the Naval War College, Newport, Octo- 
 ber 2, 1895 
 
 IV. — International Law. An Address before 
 the University of Pennsylvania, June 
 
 7. 1897 
 
 History and Biography: 
 
 V. — Christopher Columbus. An Address be- 
 fore the U. S. Catholic Historical So- 
 ciety at Carnegie Hall, October 11, 
 1892 ....... 
 
 VI. — Louis Kossuth. Address at Cooper Union, 
 April 4, 1894, at the Kossuth Memorial 
 Celebration ...... 
 
 VII. — Andrew Jackson. An Address before 
 the New York County Democracy, 
 
 January 9, 1888 
 
 VIII. — Charles O 'Conor. A Memorial Read before 
 the New York Bar Association, Janu- 
 ary, 1885 
 
 IX. — Montesquieu. An introduction to a 
 Translation of the Esprit des Lois, 1899, 
 
 45 
 
 60 
 
 105 
 
 137 
 
 174 
 
 186 
 
 
iv Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 X. — Chief -Justice Waite. Memorial Address 
 at the Meeting of the Bar, New York, 
 March 31, 1888 .... 226 
 
 XI. — France. Address in Reply to the Toast, 
 "The President of the French Repub- 
 lic," at Dinner to Whitelaw Reid, April 
 
 16, 1892 230 
 
 XII. — France. Address to the French Delegates 
 on Presentation of Statue of "Liberty 
 Enlightening the World," June, 1885 . 238 
 
 Morals and Social Problems: 
 
 XIII. — Reply to Dumas's Advocacy of Divorce, 
 
 March 15, 1880 . . . . .249 
 
 XIV. — Morals and Manners. An Address before 
 
 the Catholic Union, 1873 . . . 285 
 XV. — Lying as a Fine Art. An Address before 
 
 the Catholic Union, 1873 . . .316 
 
 XVI.— The Church and the Bar. An Address 
 
 before the Catholic Union, 1873 . . 341 
 XVII. — Attorney and Client. An Address before 
 
 the Catholic Union, 1873 . . . 368 
 
 The Bar: 
 
 XVIII.— The Bar of New York from 1792 to 1892, 384 
 XIX. — The Lawyer's Responsibilities — Law Re- 
 form — Codification. An Address be- 
 fore the Catholic Union, 1873 . . 399 
 
 Social Organization: 
 
 XX. — Young Men in Politics. Reprinted from 
 
 the New York Hm^5, February, 1890 . 415 
 XXI. — Columbia College — Centennial Address, 
 
 April 13, 1887 423 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 THE addresses and articles here brought together 
 comprise but the recoverable fragments of the 
 record of a life singularly broad and useful. 
 Taken up mainly with the work of a profession which 
 vouchsafes little leisure, the life of a lawyer rarely 
 leaves any surviving residuum other than the latent 
 influence born of every effort to make good the reign 
 of law, order, and justice. However broad his sym- 
 pathies, however alive his realization of the manifold 
 fields in which there is good work to be done, it is rare 
 for the lawyer who does not virtually abandon his 
 profession, to leave any other record of his usefulness 
 than the evanescent memory of an advocate's labors, 
 — "brief as lightning in the collied night." 
 
 Mr. Coudert's intellectual activity and the wide 
 reach of his sympathies were such that neither the 
 science of the law nor the active exercise of its profes- 
 sion, deeply as they engrossed his attention, could 
 suffice to absorb the individual or to monopolize his 
 heart and brain. From his college days to the last 
 hours of his life, his spirit moved, "without haste, 
 without rest" through the orbit of all human interests, 
 throwing out its illuminating sparks and diffusing its 
 cordial warmth upon every endeavor and aspiration 
 within its ken. 
 
 Frederic Rene Coudert was born in the city of New 
 
vi Introductory Note 
 
 York on the ist of March, 1832, and continued a resi- 
 dent of the city and identified with its interests until 
 his death. He received his early education in the 
 school established by his father, Charles Coudert, an 
 officer of the Imperial Guard, who found it necessary 
 to exile himself from his native country owing to po- 
 litical prosecutions after the Restoration. This train- 
 ing, under his father's able and watchful supervision, 
 was such that at the early age of fourteen he was 
 ready for entrance to Columbia College, from which he 
 graduated in 1850 at the age of eighteen. Many 
 years later, in a public discussion, he had occasion to 
 say that there were a few things upon which he was 
 sensitive : the one was the land of his fathers ; and the 
 other, the bark of Peter. Evidence of his devotion to 
 these was never wanting. It began during his college 
 career: When one of the professors, on the occasion of 
 the Revolution of 1848, indulged in harsh strictures 
 with reference to French achievements, the young 
 scholar, whose knowledge of history was already sound 
 and broad, was stung into a retort, which was cut short 
 by an admonition that no discussion of "politics" was 
 allowable. It was shown again by the selection and 
 treatment of the subject for his graduation oration — 
 a review of the " Isms" of the day. 
 
 While he pursued his studies at Columbia, he gave 
 lessons to a large class of boys in Spanish and in 
 French, and at times even his evenings were given to 
 the tuition of adults. 
 
 On leaving college, he took up the study of law in 
 the office of Edward Curtis, at that time one of the 
 leaders of the New York Bar, a prominent Whig, the 
 friend and intimate of Webster, and at one time a 
 member of Congress and Collector of the Port. 
 
Introductory Note vii 
 
 While pursuing his law studies, the young man wrote 
 and translated for the daily and weekly press. At that 
 time the leading sporting journal was Porter's Spirit of 
 the Times, under the editorship of that ripe scholar and 
 genial gentleman William T. Porter. This publica- 
 tion united literary skill, polish, wit, and urbanity 
 with its records and discussions of sport, and it was 
 mainly to its columns that the contributions of the 
 young law student found their way. 
 
 Always a great reader and a close student, his prep- 
 aration for the Bar was thorough; immediately upon 
 his admission, he entered upon the practice of the law, 
 and from the modest beginnings with which every 
 earnest member of the profession is content, his success, 
 his influence, and his reputation grew steadily and con- 
 tinuously until his pen and his voice were stilled and 
 his mission ended. 
 
 At no time did he confine his study and research, 
 nor his active labors and co-operation, to purely pro- 
 fessional subjects. His clear discernment early taught 
 him that the greatest masters of their professions are 
 those who, not content with its technical training, find 
 in every field of knowledge and in all channels of Hfe 
 experience and acquirements to strengthen and to 
 elevate the vocation which, without such aids, tends 
 to narrow its influence and lose its power. To this 
 intellectual appreciation was added the moral convic- 
 tion that no man's obligations to his fellows are dis- 
 charged by even the most assiduous devotion to the 
 exigencies of his profession, and that duty has many 
 other calls upon him. 
 
 Very early in his professional career, he lectured in 
 aid of struggHng churches, choosing such congenial 
 subjects as Edmund Burke, with whose great concep- 
 
viii Introductory Note 
 
 tions of governmental duties and responsibilities he 
 was always in unison ; John Philpot Curran, and others 
 of that galaxy of the Irish Bar who united mastery of 
 their professions with passionate devotion to their 
 country, and who irradiated their toilsome pathways 
 with unfailing humor and abundant wit. 
 
 Under the auspices and in aid of the work of the 
 Catholic Union, Mr. Coudert delivered the series of 
 lectures which, under the titles of "Morals and Man- 
 ners," "Lying as a Fine Art," and "The Church and 
 the Bar," helped to dispel many popular misappre- 
 hensions. 
 
 The wide sympathies of the man and the correspond- 
 ing activity, to which I have alluded, brought their 
 burden and their reward. Opportunities are never 
 wanting to the man who is ready for them. The St. 
 Vincent de Paul Orphan Asylimi benefited by his 
 counsel for years; during ten years, he presided over 
 the work of the French Benevolent Society, quieted 
 dissensions, extinguished enmities, and welded into a 
 potent and beneficent instrument that worthy institu- 
 tion; for years he was President of the Alumni Asso- 
 ciation of Columbia, as well as a Trustee of that in- 
 stitution, and brought to its development inspiring 
 influences bom of his great love for his Alma Mater, 
 infused into their annual reunions an earnestness and 
 at the same time a sprightliness, a brilliancy, which 
 became a tradition that has outlived his term. 
 
 He was one of the early Presidents of the U. S. 
 Catholic Historical Society, in whose work he took 
 part with the same earnestness that characterized 
 whatever service he undertook. 
 
 As to politics, he held it to be "the duty of every 
 good citizen to become, at some time or other, and to 
 
Introductory Note ix 
 
 some extent, an active factor in the working of the 
 governmental machinery," but this he also held might 
 be "more effectually done by those who ask no reward 
 from the powers that be, and no salary from the public 
 treasury for being outspoken and brave." He early 
 held the presidency of the "Young Men's Democratic 
 Club," since known simply as the " Democratic Club " ; 
 for many years he was President of the Manhattan 
 Club ; no political campaign passed without some con- 
 tribution from him, in speeches, or letters, or pamph- 
 lets, or quiet conferences. In 1876, he was one of the 
 committee of citizens who visited New Orleans in the 
 hopeless endeavor to bring the influence of public 
 opinion to bear upon the "Returning Board," whose 
 fairness or unfairness was to decide the presidential 
 election of that year. In 1892, he led the revolt in his 
 own party, which defeated the attempt to set aside 
 the name of Cleveland as New York's choice for the 
 Presidency, and in 1893 he performed a similar office 
 of successful protest against the elevation of Judge 
 Maynard to the Court of Appeals. He was always an 
 enlightened and consistent Democrat in national poli- 
 tics, and was insistent upon what he called "decent 
 political methods and the subordination of personal 
 interest to the public good." He always declined 
 pubHc office, even on the United States Supreme 
 Bench, with one notable exception — the inconspicuous 
 post of member of the Board of Education of the City 
 of New York, an unsalaried office, in which he labored 
 with unusual zeal. 
 
 The Presidency of the Bar Association ; his appoint- 
 ment as delegate to Antwerp, in 1878, to aid in the 
 Revision of the Rules of General Average, and as dele- 
 gate to the International Conference at Berne, in 1880, 
 
X Introductory Note 
 
 to consider the Codification of the Laws of Nations; 
 his lectures on International Law before the Naval 
 War College and the University of Pennsylvania, and 
 the lectures delivered on International Arbitration 
 before the Union League Club, at Chicago, are instances 
 of labor freely undertaken in discharge of the duty 
 which he conceived to be the proper response to the 
 call of public spirit. 
 
 To these may be added his witty and spirited reply 
 to the younger Dumas 's plea on behalf of a divorce law 
 in France. The law proposed by Deputy Naquet 
 would have permitted divorce upon the bare disagree- 
 ment of the married couple. This was an assault upon 
 his dearest convictions, and the reply was a defence of 
 his belief. 
 
 For throughout his life he was a man of faith; in 
 1887, he was selected by Columbia College, his Alma 
 Mater, as the orator on the occasion of her Centennial 
 celebration, and in his address gave the warning that 
 
 the great complaint of thinking men to-day is, that the 
 rising generation, into whose hands the direction of public 
 affairs must soon fall, has lost or is losing its faith. 
 
 If men have really lost the faith which cemented modern 
 society, or if they are in danger of losing it, then is the 
 world face to face with a new peril. 
 
 A year later, summing up in the North American 
 Review the controversy between Colonel Ingersoll and 
 Dr. Field, in which Mr. Gladstone was led to take part, 
 he deprecated the discussion, which must of necessity 
 be fruitless, as the adversaries did not start from any 
 common postulate, and added this pubHc profession 
 of his faith : 
 
Introductory Note xi 
 
 Human reason looks on helpless and silent, when it con- 
 templates the Infinite, the Eternal, the Unknown; the 
 Divine scheme may, by the aid of Faith and Reason com- 
 bined, be made clear to the minds of men, but the initial 
 obstacle in Mr. Gladstone's way consists in this very 
 requirement that Faith should play a part, and an im- 
 portant one, in the demonstration of revealed truth. 
 This proposition his adversary openly derides. 
 
 What, then, is Faith, and what part does it play in the 
 discussion or acceptance of Divine Truth? The sacred 
 volume tells us in no uncertain words that Faith is the 
 credence of things unseen; that we must accept these 
 things as little children; that they are happy who have 
 not asked to see, but have believed. 
 
 Laborious student as he was, stored with the history 
 of the past, he was eminently a man of his day; the 
 glories that had gone did not obscure his vivid realiza- 
 tion of the achievements of to-day, nor of the splendid 
 opportunities of to-morrow. 
 
 He was full of appreciation for the good that sur- 
 rounds us ; he looked for it, he found it, and he aided it. 
 
 Free from self-seeking as he was, calls came to him 
 from eminent sources ; from an administration adverse 
 to him in politics came the invitation to take part, on 
 behalf of the United States, in the famous controversy 
 as to the respective American and British rights of seal 
 fishing in the Behring Sea ; and from another adminis- 
 tration, the call to take part in fixing the boundary 
 between Venezuela and British Guiana, at a time when, 
 upon the recognition of that boundary, depended the 
 momentous question of peace or war between Great 
 Britain and the United States. 
 
 His professional career was varied in the extreme, — 
 it embraced the criminal bar, admiralty cases, and 
 
xii Introductory Note 
 
 patent causes of note, commercial law, and interna- 
 tional law. His professional characteristics may best 
 be summed up by borrowing a page from the Memorial 
 read before the Association of the Bar of the City of 
 New York, by Mr. Justice Patterson of the Supreme 
 Court. 
 
 From his earliest appearance at the Bar, he disclosed the 
 power of the skilled advocate, and his main relation to the 
 profession during all the years of his activity was that of 
 an advocate, and, as such, he took rank with those who 
 have attained the highest distinction. He had the gift of 
 knowing how to present a case. He could state it with 
 a clearness and an exactness that carried conviction on 
 the simple statement, thereby illustrating the remark of 
 Judge William Fullerton (himself a great trial lawyer), 
 that a case is won, not so much by labored and elaborate 
 argument and eloquence, as by the clearness with which it 
 is put by counsel before the Court or jury. Mr. Coudert 
 was employed in many commercial cases, but his greatest 
 achievements were in the direction of international law. 
 As an international lawyer, his position was pre-eminent. 
 
 He did not wish for honors outside of the profession of 
 the law, to which he was devotedly attached. He declined 
 the mission to Russia. He also declined an appointment 
 to the Court of Appeals of New York, and to the Bench of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. To state his 
 professional status in a few words: He was a sound and 
 learned lawyer; but as an advocate he ranked in the 
 highest class. It is not from the greater profundity of his 
 learning, nor from the possession of talents which did not 
 pertain to other leaders that he is to be distinguished, but 
 there was something unique in everything he did or said 
 that made him a man apart from his peers. There was 
 that in his manner, in the quickness of his perception, 
 in those subtle things which make a deep impression, but 
 never can be accurately defined or described, which, in a 
 
Introductory Note xiii 
 
 sense, separated him from the other great advocates of his 
 day. There was a wit pectdiarly his own, a rapidity of 
 retort, a promptitude to meet every adverse thing presented 
 to him, which no other man possessed; and, added to all, 
 there was a sincerity and truthfulness which never failed 
 to affect either a Court or jury to which he addressed him- 
 self. Perhaps there was no man at the Bar whose personal 
 characteristics counted for as much as his. In the trial of 
 a cause, he could excite sympathy or evoke ridicule, or 
 make one of those rapid transitions from seriousness to 
 gayety that are so effective. His power of sarcasm was 
 withering, but it took strong provocation to call it forth. 
 It was not merely the accident of a situation which in- 
 spired him, but his control of it that enabled him to display 
 the highest art of advocacy. There were others equal to 
 him in the exhibition of that art, but his method differed 
 from theirs; he created the atmosphere of his case. It 
 must not be inferred from his prominence as an advocate, 
 that he was lacking in what constitutes the real lawyer. 
 He was thoroughly learned and had a sound understanding 
 of the principles of law, but, to repeat, that which was his 
 dominant characteristic was his great and peculiar skill 
 in advocacy. Nevertheless he was an eminently practical 
 business man, capable of conducting great affairs, as was 
 shown by his successful administration, in conjunction 
 with Mr. Charles Francis Adams and Mr. E. Ellery Ander- 
 son, as Government Receiver of the Union Pacific Railway. 
 He was employed in some of the most important civil 
 and criminal cases that came before the courts. In his 
 early years, he, as many other lawyers then did, undertook 
 to practise in the criminal courts. He was counsel for 
 Dr. Gaillardet, the proprietor of the Courrier des Etats 
 Unis, in the sensational case of the assault on Mr. Cranston 
 of the New York Hotel — a case which brings to the memory 
 of many the litigation in France between Gaillardet and 
 the elder Dumas, concerning the authorship of the Tour de 
 Nesle. During the Civil War, he was associated with Mr. 
 
xiv Introductory Note 
 
 Reverdy Johnson of Baltimore (one of the foremost 
 lawyers of our time) in the Blockading Cases; and while 
 he was still a young man, he was with Mr. O'Conor, the 
 acknowledged leader of our bar, in the case of Lahens vs. 
 Fielding, which involved a very important question of 
 commercial law. He was familiar with the laws of Euro- 
 pean countries, and that, as before suggested, brought him 
 into contact with foreign consulates and embassies. He 
 prosecuted many extradition cases, and did more than any 
 other man to settle the law relating to the construction of 
 treaties with foreign powers afifecting such cases. He was 
 also very successful in patent and trade-mark litigations, 
 and in actions arising under the Constitution and laws of 
 the United States. He was with Mr. James C. Carter and 
 Mr. Edward J. Phelps, of counsel for the United States in 
 the Behring Sea Arbitration, and was called into it only 
 two months before he was required to sail for Paris, where 
 the International Court was held. Mr. Foster, then 
 Secretary of State of the United States, objected to his 
 being retained, declaring that it was impossible for any 
 man at such a late day to familiarize himself with the great 
 mass of testimony which it was necessary to understand 
 in detail; but afterwards he said: "In less than six weeks 
 after Mr. Coudert's retainer, I had occasion to go over the 
 matter with him, and I have not yet recovered from my 
 amazement at the thorough mastery of that complicated 
 case which he had been able to acquire in that incredibly 
 short time." Mr. Coudert was also engaged as a repre- 
 sentative of the United States in the Venezuela Boundary 
 controversy. That was the last case of public interest to 
 which he devoted his time ; and to that he gave labor, the 
 intensity of which only those who were with him can con- 
 ceive. There were many other important cases in which 
 he was engaged, such as the Bonnard Will, which involved 
 the legality of a bequest to the Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals; and the Catholic Protectory case, 
 involving the right of the Society for the Prevention of 
 
Introductory Note xv 
 
 Cruelty to Children to exercise the power to arrest and 
 commit children to reformatory institutions. 
 
 A few words as to the personal characteristics which 
 were pecuHarly his own. 
 
 Most men exhibit but one phase of character to 
 those who meet them in only one relation of life. The 
 merchant is one thing to his customers, the lawyer one 
 thing to his clients or his opponents, but most show 
 quite another character in their social relations. Any 
 one who met Mr. Coudert in his office, or in the court- 
 room, at the club, in political consultation, or in the 
 tranquil leisure of his home, recognized the same 
 character, the same man. He was one — complete — 
 entire. His relations with his fellow-men — his conduct, 
 in a word, was based upon elements w^hich could not 
 vary, so that to all, wherever he met them, he pre- 
 sented the same openness to receive impressions from 
 his interlocutor, the same unvarying readiness to hear, 
 to know, to serve, the same quick sympathy which 
 showed an instant comprehension of his hearer's atti- 
 tude, whether or not he shared it. 
 
 Of course the more intimate the intercourse, the 
 further did one penetrate into this mind, open as it 
 was, and the more could one draw from its riches ; but 
 to all the mine was ever open. 
 
 Gifted with almost intuitive insight, he discovered 
 the weakness of an adversary's case, or of a false state- 
 ment, with lightning quickness, and this natural gift 
 he supplemented by a subtlety of analysis which tested 
 and confirmed his estimate ; possessing a gift of himior 
 which instantly revealed to him whatever was grotesque 
 or amusing in a situation, he relieved the dullest tasks 
 by constant flashes of merriment, or in turn flayed 
 with the lash of his wit, or burned with the flame of his 
 
xvi Introductory Note 
 
 sarcasm, the shams and pretences that stood in the 
 way of justice. In keen raillery he was a master, yet 
 his innate gentleness prompted him rather to a kindly 
 humor, so that the deft hand made no deeper incision 
 than was requisite, and seldom left any venom in the 
 wound. 
 
 Remarkably open to the influences of emotion, he 
 was ever on the watch to prevent its too exuberant 
 manifestation, taking refuge from pathos by unex- 
 pected transitions to humor. Yet in the notable Cen- 
 tennial address, at Columbia, he told his grave auditors 
 that 
 
 no man need blush because his heart beats high and his 
 speech grows warm for his country, his home, or his faith, 
 nor because a tender chord binds him to the mother that 
 made him what he is. True sentiment is not weakness; 
 it is strength. It makes fragrant the commonplaces of 
 life; it throws a purple mantle over the humblest occu- 
 pation, and keeps alive the sacred fires in the temple of 
 pure and genuine manhood. 
 
 Throughout the many conflicts which are the lot of 
 his profession, and those in which the contests for pure 
 pohtics and honest government involved him, untiring 
 and merciless as were his assaults upon the wrongs he 
 sought to right, he was hampered by an invincible re- 
 luctance to hurt the individual, and even when his 
 indignation was directed against a particular wrong- 
 doer, it seldom long survived the occasion of the attack. 
 To speak of his integrity of motive in every action of 
 his long career, would be an offence to a conscience that 
 never knew what hesitation was between the straight 
 and the crooked path — indeed, never seemed to see 
 any but one path. 
 
Introductory Note xvii 
 
 His was indeed a blithesome spirit, ever hovering a 
 little above the dulness of our common traffic ; a 
 kindly heart, ever a little aloof from the bitterness of 
 daily strife, viewing the faiHngs of his fellows through 
 the softening haze of an enduring sympathy. 
 
 The estimate of him given by Mr. Justice Patterson, 
 in the Memorial already quoted from, is so discriminat- 
 ing and so true that it may not inappropriately close 
 this sketch : 
 
 Apart from his attainments as a lawyer, Mr. Coudert 
 was a ripe scholar. He delighted in literature, and much 
 of his life was spent in the book companionship of the great 
 authors of ancient and modem times. He had a vast 
 knowledge of general literature. He was master of several 
 languages. In addition to EngHsh literature, he was as 
 famihar with that of France and Spain and Germany and 
 Italy, as is a cultured native of any of those countries. 
 His oratorical power was not only evinced in his career at 
 the Bar, but he could make an address in French quite as 
 easily and as readily as in English. What has been re- 
 ferred to as his supreme gift in forensic oratory is not 
 meant to be exclusive ; he displayed the same gift on other 
 occasions than the trial and argument of causes. He 
 delivered many addresses, wise, instructive, and eloquent, 
 at educational institutions and other places. Many of us 
 know that on occasions of festivity there were few who 
 approached him in the happiness of his impromptu speeches, 
 none who equalled him in originality, or surpassed him in 
 the grace and exquisite finish of his style. But that which 
 will make him memorable to his friends is the beauty of 
 his personal character. He was the most unselfish of men. 
 He was prompt at all times not only to respond to a call 
 of charity, but to anticipate what could in kindness be 
 done for others. He gave liberally of his substance to 
 every good cause, making no distinction between indi- 
 
xviii Introductory Note 
 
 viduals or opinions. In political life, he represented the 
 highest type of the independent citizen whose one purpose 
 is to do his whole duty as a citizen and who seeks with dis- 
 cretion and good judgment, and not impulsively or hysteri- 
 cally, to inspire others with the same motive. In society, 
 his wit, his courtesy, and his personal influence, acquired 
 without obtrusiveness and without self-assertion, made 
 him a notable figure. 
 
 In his later life, afflicted as he was for several years with 
 a mortal disease, he exhibited a strength of will, resigna- 
 tion, cheerfulness, and patience almost beyond conception. 
 Those of us who knew him well and loved him much, while 
 we pay the highest tribute to his abilities, to his intellectual 
 power, and to his attainments as an eminent lawyer, will 
 remember him for the possession of those higher moral 
 qualities which, after all, are the greatest endowments 
 and adornments of humanity. 
 
 It is not an exaggeration to say that Mr. Coudert was 
 complete in every element of manhood. In and of the 
 world, he never failed in his duty. But interested as he 
 was in temporal affairs and although an earnest and eager 
 observer of the great events of our history -making epoch, 
 he was profoundly religious and his life was regulated by 
 the conviction of a personal responsibility hereafter. In 
 these days of rampant materialism, there is not often to 
 be found a character so pure or a faith so simple and strong 
 as his. To his apprehension, the future life was quite as 
 much a reality as the present; and that belief was a con- 
 solation and a joy, in a long twilight which to him was that 
 which preceded the rising and not the setting of the sun. 
 
 P. F 
 
 New York, July, 1905. 
 
ARBITRATION AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 

 ^^^0^©, 
 
 
 ^i 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION ^ 
 
 WE are gathered here to-day in honor of the 
 founder of our nation, or as we prefer in 
 filial reverence to call him — the father of 
 our country. His fame is his own, his eminence 
 unique. Our jealous love for him will allow no other 
 statue a place on the same pedestal; none other shall 
 stand as a rival in his claim to our devotion. For his 
 light shone in the dark days as the only star that 
 meant hope, his steadfastness kept the tottering young 
 nation from despair, his genius and serenity, his faith 
 and his courage, inspired and strengthened those who 
 were fighting the great fight. But for him and his 
 inspiration, who will venture to say that the freemen of 
 to-day would not be the defeated rebels of the past; 
 who will study the fearful pressure of ever-increasing 
 perils and dispute his claim to our gratitude so long 
 as we remain one people? Overwhelming odds tested 
 his genius, treason wrung his heart, jealousies and 
 rivalries baffled his plans, but the serenity of his soul 
 was undisturbed. As though a ray of divine inspira- 
 tion had touched his spirit, he looked beyond the trials, 
 
 1 The substance of an address before the Union League Club of 
 Chicago on Washington's birthday, 1897, re-edited with additions 
 from an article in Harper's Magazine, November, 1893. 
 3 
 
4 International Arbitration 
 
 perplexities, and cares of each day and saw the vision 
 which others were blind to enjoy. He could remain 
 firm without the encouragement of victory, he could 
 accept defeat without despondency, he made stepping- 
 stones of disaster, and amazed the world by his forti- 
 tude. Benedict Arnold might wound his heart, but 
 even that cruel wound could not open the way to 
 despair. His half-clad and half-fed troops might 
 leave the track of bloody feet in the snows of New 
 Jersey, but the radiant vision never melted from his 
 sight. His powerful enemies might send veteran 
 troops in huge bodies to crush the straggling rebels, 
 but his faith never faltered. The day would surely 
 come when the dreams would become reality, and after 
 great tribulation and trial and sufTering a new child 
 would be born into the family of nations — a child 
 destined to become a giant, strong enough to fear no 
 enemy but itself. 
 
 We have indeed many great names in our national 
 gallery besides that of Washington. Many men, dur- 
 ing the short history of a century, have carved their 
 names in deep letters on the world's story. From the 
 earliest day we have had statesmen who built wisely 
 and well for the country's good: from Adams and 
 Jefferson to the men now living and now striving to 
 carry on the work of the fathers we have had leaders 
 eminent in peace. But yet the universal voice still 
 clamors with the swift instinct of discerning gratitude, 
 " He was first in peace." 
 
 The records of our army blaze with glorious tradi- 
 tions. Scott, of Lundy's Lane and Mexico; Grant, 
 of Vicksburg and the Wilderness; Hancock, the 
 Superb; Sherman, Sheridan, McClellan, Thomas, a 
 very host of giants have won immortal fame on hard- 
 
International Arbitration 5 
 
 fought fields; but yet the people still proclaim him 
 "the first in war." Patriots pure and unselfish, ora- 
 tors eloquent and earnest, judges whose patient re- 
 search and learning have helped to build our young 
 republic on a solid foundation of law, these have not 
 worked in vain and will live in the memory of genera- 
 tions to come, but yet the pulse of the nation beats 
 with accelerated life when he is mentioned, for he 
 still stands "first in the hearts of his countrymen." 
 No wonder, then, that sixty million people are willing 
 that the restless activities of their daily lives should 
 stop for a day in order that they may wrap themselves 
 up in his memory as in a garment and still look to him 
 for wise counsel. Those who have lived as Washing- 
 ton lived, yield but a part of themselves to the grave. 
 The example, the inspiration, the patriotic endurance 
 and unselfishness, all these are beyond the reach of 
 rust and decay. They teach their lesson even when 
 the centuries have gone, and need no voice to per- 
 petuate their benefactions. 
 
 What shall we do this day, to prove the sincerity 
 of our professions? How best can we honor him? 
 Truly the better way would be to look for something 
 wherewith to serve our country, to bring some earnest 
 thought to the great problems which it is our function 
 to solve. To carry fragrant flowers to the tomb of the 
 illustrious dead is indeed a graceful tribute of affection, 
 to pronounce eulogies in their honor is decorous and 
 just; but on each coming day that recalls the birth 
 of Washington to consecrate ourselves anew to the 
 service of our country is surely the noblest way to 
 do him honor. For then we but follow the example 
 of one who pledged life and fortime and sacred honor 
 to the cause of the people, and we may confidently 
 
6 International Arbitration 
 
 believe that were his cold lips allowed to move in 
 admonition to the people who love him he would bid 
 them intermit empty pageants and funereal ostenta- 
 tion that they might look to the future and the 
 future's dawn, and seek to make it brighter. If 
 those wise Hps could move, do we not know from the 
 teachings of his life that he would warn our people 
 against anger and revenge, that he would teach them 
 the horrors of war and the beauties of peace? Would 
 we not be taught in solemn accents that a great 
 nation may be patient without shame and may with 
 honor forbear to strike? He was first in war and 
 knew its horrors: he was first in peace and knew its 
 beauty. Can we doubt that his blessing would have 
 been, with the Divine benediction, on the peace- 
 makers; can we doubt that the lovers of war would 
 have been thrust aside as enemies of his people? He 
 could tell us that in war the burden of the day and 
 the heat are the people's lot and hard to bear; that 
 the joyousness of peace is the people's opportunity 
 and the laborer's inheritance. Where would he 
 stand, think you, if the key of the Temple of Janus 
 were in his hand, and if he could, by a turn of that 
 key, shut off War's frowning face and silence War's 
 harsh voice ? 
 
 We may, then, on this day, so especially his own, 
 raise our voice in favor of peace, the handmaid of art, 
 the friend of science, the mother of industry, and the 
 promoter of all good; we may recall to our own 
 minds the claims that she has to our duty, while the 
 true nature of war, in dark and deadly contrast, 
 shorn of its meretricious charm, stands out as the 
 old-time and persistent enemy of the human race. 
 
 From the early day when the first man bom of 
 
International Arbitration 7 
 
 woman slew his brother, war has been the chief oc- 
 cupation of mankind. No condition of the human 
 race has been so debased that the successful warrior 
 has not been the chief among his fellows ; no condition 
 has been so exalted that the successful warrior has 
 not stood above his brethren. He has always received 
 the homage of his tribe, his clan, or his country, and 
 been honored in direct proportion to the human lives 
 that he has taken. The patient student whose mid- 
 night labors have enriched the world, the inspired 
 artist whose works imdying and never old delight 
 generations of men, the poet who imprisons in his 
 verse the beauties of nature and gives a voice to the 
 aspirations of the human race, all these may earn the 
 admiration of mankind, but the military hero has 
 always been the favored object of tmiversal praise. 
 Whether his name be Alexander or Caesar, Hannibal 
 or Napoleon, Frederic or Charles, he is the easy winner 
 in the competition for fame. Homer himself, the 
 blind bard and master in all the ages, still lives be- 
 cause he was divinely skilled in telling how a Greek 
 hero smote a Trojan warrior to death by hurling at 
 his devoted head a stone which four men of more 
 recent and degenerate times could scarcely Hft. Virgil 
 Uves because his warrior showed his manhood by 
 seizing another man's land and killing the owner with 
 cruel sword aggravated by eloquent speech. Milton 
 himself might have knocked at the gate of the temple 
 of fame in vain if he had not in subUme music sting 
 of the battle between the Spirits of Light and the 
 Angels of Darkness. Ordinary avocations have al- 
 ways seemed tame and unprofitable when placed by 
 the side of the gorgeously apparelled and superbly 
 moimted hero. He appeals to the imagination and 
 
8 International Arbitration 
 
 draws the applause of men and women alike : for the 
 women themselves with their boy baby in their arms 
 rejoice with glittering eyes as they look upon the 
 hero and his horse ; they wonder in their gentle hearts 
 whether their own chubby idol may not grow up to 
 kill so many of his brethren that he will live forever 
 in history. What wonder if he, when of full size, may 
 be moved, on sHght temptation, to enter the lists, and 
 to strive, at his life's peril, for the great rewards that 
 accompany wholesale and patriotic homicide ? 
 
 Small wonder, then, that the war superstition 
 should have endured so long, that it should have been 
 so general, that it should have been like the Christian 
 Church, semper, ubique, omnibus. 
 
 Nor can we wonder that man should have been 
 prone to war, when we consider his nature and his 
 necessities. Like most other animals of creation he 
 is a fighting animal. Whether with his nails and 
 fists or with a club, whether with a stone hatchet or 
 an iron javelin, whether with sword or repeating rifle, 
 he has always been ready and anxious to fight and to 
 kill something or some one. In the evolution from 
 his humble beginnings, man has retained part of his 
 inferior attributes. At times he is a model of strength 
 and courage, then we dub him the lion-hearted; or he 
 is greedy and timid, and with Homer we scorn him as 
 a creature with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a 
 doe ; or he is crafty and unscrupulous in his dealings, 
 and we style him a fox. Such are the varieties of his 
 nature that we can always find a prototype for him 
 in the catalogue of beasts. The inferiority of his 
 origin still cHngs to him, and leaves the atavistic taint 
 thus plainly perceptible. He will only acquire new 
 and higher standards of comparison when imlike the 
 
International Arbitration 9 
 
 lion his brother, and the dog his cousin, and the fox 
 his poor relation, he has raised himself to greater 
 heights. When, being a giant with a giant's strength, 
 he forbears, because it is tyrannous, to use it, when 
 passion stands back in respectful obedience to take 
 the commands of justice, when reason speaks first 
 and last and is strong enough to stifle the voice of 
 anger and foolish resentment — when this new era of 
 development has taken the place of the old dispensa- 
 tion, then may we look for new standards of com- 
 parison ; the ancient ones will no longer fit the situation. 
 Nor is the transmitted tendency alone to blame. 
 Necessity, bom of the primeval curse, suffered no in- 
 termission in the work of violence. So long as food 
 was scarce, and could be had only by strenuous ex- 
 ertion, and the struggle for life really meant a hand- 
 to-hand contest with man and beast, so long was it 
 certain that peace could only be bought with sub- 
 mission, and must wear the badge of servitude. The 
 serf or slave must do the bidding of his lord as the 
 price of protection from outside persecutors : the man 
 on horseback did the fighting as his part of the con- 
 tract. And as he exposed his life with generous 
 courage he became the gentleman, partly because he 
 wielded a sword and still more because he wielded no 
 useful implement. To drive a furrow was the occu- 
 pation of an inferior, to gladden the face of the earth 
 with a harvest unworthy any but a vassal. Labor 
 meant degradation; it fell only to the lot of those 
 who were bom to be the hewers of wood and the 
 drawers of water. Even after Christianity had shed 
 her Hght upon the dark spots of the world, the many 
 must work for the few ; and the few, because they did 
 not work, were credited with a finer clay than that 
 
lo International Arbitration 
 
 which made up the producer. But gradually, through 
 the slow evolution of ages, the intelligence of the 
 world was quickened and it was found easier to raise 
 one's own bread than to wrest the bread of another 
 by force of arms. The fashion copied from the locust 
 swarms, of invading the neighboring territory and 
 devouring its fruits being mutual, became incon- 
 venient. To own and to keep a field was found to be 
 as profitable as to roll along in caravans eating up 
 vast territories that became deserts because they 
 would not bloom without labor — and Labor is the 
 twin brother of Security. The gentle example of the 
 early monks was not without its weight. They laid 
 the blessing of industrious hands upon the wilderness 
 and the wilderness fled before them, making way for 
 gardens that gladdened the eye and filled the mouths 
 of the hungry. Wars kept on, sometimes for the 
 pleasure of kings, sometimes because they could not 
 be avoided, but in time fighting became a trade, and 
 the soldier became a professional. The mass of the 
 nation was allowed to do its work — harried, it is true, 
 persecuted, despoiled, outraged, and ruined, some- 
 times by one side, sometimes by the other, oftener by 
 both; but on the whole labor had some opportunity 
 to carry out its mission of civilization, and the laborer 
 began to have a value. 
 
 Herein lies one of the first objections to the claims 
 of war. KilHng has become much more expensive 
 than in the old days when the serfs and villeins and 
 canaille counted for so little. They have placed a 
 higher value on themselves and the powers must, 
 willingly or the reverse, accept their own valuation. 
 A well-known historian, with accustomed exaggeration, 
 gravely tells his readers that a nobleman of France in 
 
International Arbitration n 
 
 the ante-Revolution days could not bathe his hands 
 in the blood of more than one peasant on his return 
 from the chase,— a ghastly bit of pleasantry which need 
 not be taken seriously. There is nothing in the his- 
 tory of the French nobiHty to show that their tastes 
 ran in that direction. But allowing for such ex- 
 travagances of statement, it is certain that the peas- 
 ant's hfe was not then of any appreciable value, 
 financially, to any but himself and his family. To 
 him and them it meant much more than to the lord, 
 who had so many multiplying about him, after the 
 fashion of the poor, that occasional and trifling re- 
 ductions were of no great moment. Jacques Bon- 
 homme, whether on French or German or EngHsh 
 soil, discovered in time how valuable he was, and the 
 consciousness has grown, and what is better still the 
 great have foimd it out in their turn. It is not of 
 course easy to place a value on human life. Esti- 
 mates differ according to the subject, the locaHty, 
 the value of money. We do know, however, that a 
 strong man, with a stout heart and wiUing hands, is 
 part of the moral and material wealth of the land; 
 we know that to crush out that life with all its actual 
 and potential good is a crime that cries out with the 
 blood that mounts in vapor to the skies, bringing 
 down by its mute but eloquent protest a benediction 
 on all who will strive and pray and work to make 
 such crimes rarer and rarer every day that the sun 
 rises. 
 
 In no respect is the evolution of our society more 
 remarkable and more evident than in this one par- 
 ticular, viz., the ever-growing value attached to 
 human Hfe. The swelHng buds of the fig-tree do not 
 annotmce the approach of summer more accurately 
 
12 International Arbitration 
 
 than the increased estimate attached to every in- 
 dividual existence testifies to our advancing civiliza- 
 tion. No better or higher test can be found of a 
 nation's moral status than this. In China the instinct 
 of self-preservation is weak: there is so little in life 
 worth preserving that the burden is laid down, under 
 a trifling temptation, as a galling encumbrance. The 
 years that followed the Norman Conquest in England 
 present a dark picture of a society in which life for 
 the lower classes, at least, was not worth living. The 
 English wars in France present the same spectacle. 
 Legislation, which is the exponent of a nation's 
 morality and temper, proves that the law-giver him- 
 self long held life but cheaply, for the death-penalty, 
 with hideous accompaniments, smote the transgressor 
 even when his sin was venial. What value would a 
 military leader place upon the lives of men who had 
 so little to lose by death? William III. is represented 
 as a humane prince, and yet he violated the Treaty 
 of Nimeguen to engage in a bloody but useless battle 
 with Marshal Luxembourg. He ran no risk, he said, 
 for peace having been declared he would have had to 
 dismiss his troops. What are the pawns good for but 
 to play the game? The long struggle between Spain 
 and Holland, the religious wars in France and other 
 countries of Europe, the chronic condition of general 
 slaughter that was so long accepted as the normal 
 condition of mankind — what do they testify to but 
 the helpless state of men whose life was of little value 
 to others or to themselves? 
 
 With a growing consideration for human life comes 
 the element of pity to soften the human heart and 
 guide its emotions to gentler methods. Compassion 
 and sympathy find a fruitful soil in generous natures, 
 
International Arbitration 13 
 
 and are well matched with manly courage. War, 
 real old-fashioned war, if I may use the expression, is 
 the negation of kindly impulse. Tenderness to an 
 enemy was an evidence of weakness, or of a hero's 
 temporary aberration. When Horace describes the 
 warrior whose exploits he loved to depict, the model 
 warrior of his day, the fearless son of Thetis, he tells 
 us what he would have done had Fate permitted him 
 to enter Troy : 
 
 Heu, nefas, heu! 
 Nescios fari pueros Achivis 
 Ureret flammis etiam latentem 
 
 Matris in alvo. 
 
 No doubt he would have slaughtered his foes, men, 
 women, and children, even babes unborn, with un- 
 distinguishing ferocity, and yet have been held the 
 bravest of the brave. For such was war. 
 
 So Julius Caesar, ages after this, when the manners 
 of men had softened, sold the warriors of Gaul into 
 slavery. He sold them by the hundreds and thou- 
 sands, and paid his debts, or some of them, with the 
 proceeds. This, too, was war, legitimate war, and he 
 might rightfully do this as he might also drag the 
 bravest of his foes behind his triumphal car, leaving 
 him afterwards to die of starvation in a dungeon. 
 There is no evidence that he was the less esteemed 
 for acts like these. Certainly they were not used to 
 sharpen Brutus 's dagger. 
 
 But Time did not relax his kindly office. War con- 
 tinued to be cruel and wasteful, but glimpses of sun- 
 shine Ughted up the darkness. Cities were still given 
 to soldiers that they might plunder them, and pris- 
 oners were sometimes slain in cold blood. The 
 
14 International Arbitration 
 
 natural instinct of destruction broke out as it ever 
 will when uncontrolled, but the tendency has long 
 since been to humanize war, if such inconsistent 
 expressions may properly be used. To prevent un- 
 necessary suffering and to regulate destructive agencies 
 has been the effort of more recent times. To treat 
 prisoners with humanity, to spare noncombatants, to 
 respect private property, these innovations upon the 
 ancient methods testify to the growth of new ideas, 
 and prove that war, as our forefathers understood it, 
 has lost its hold, or at least has adopted new forms. 
 Perhaps the day is not far distant when this same 
 sense of compassion will place war among the relics 
 of a barbarous past, in the company of the thumb- 
 screw, the scavenger's daughter, the torturer's knife, 
 and the fires that burned the witches. 
 
 The historian of the late Franco-Prussian war tells 
 us in a few lines that the Germans killed in one battle 
 some twenty thousand brave French soldiers, and that 
 the French on the same day slew and wounded the 
 same number of brave German soldiers, and that the 
 troops on both sides behaved very well. Forty 
 thousand valiant men in one summer's day, the flower 
 of two great countries, mangled to death, in many 
 cases before they could see the instrument of their 
 destruction, powerless many of them to show their 
 courage, except by their patient endurance, standing 
 up as helpless victims before brutal and invisible 
 agencies of death ; forty thousand boys and men with 
 unlimited treasures of usefulness to home and country 
 in their strong hands, all gone in a breath, but with 
 the consoling epitaph that they fought well! Did 
 France and Germany, when they read that record, ask 
 themselves if there was no other way to settle imagin- 
 
International Arbitration 15 
 
 ary or even real disputes, than this? Did they count 
 the cost and value of these lives and ask themselves 
 whether, in familiar phrase, the game was worth the 
 candle? Or were they satisfied, on both sides the 
 crimson stream, with the reflection that the dead men 
 before they died had fought so well ? 
 
 If this had been all! But these early hecatombs 
 were but a foretaste of more to come. The new guns 
 continued to do splendid work on both sides. The 
 fame of Herr Krupp and his products grew with the 
 victims of his formidable machinery of death. The 
 needle-gun did fine execution, so did the chassepot, 
 and it is even yet a question with experts which of 
 these two weapons can, under favorable circumstances, 
 kill more men in a given time. Thus one of the ob- 
 jects of the great war failed, and it is not yet definitely 
 ascertained whether the French had better take up 
 with the needle-gun or the Germans with the chasse- 
 pot. They are both excellent of their kind, and can 
 make more widows and fatherless children in the 
 twinkling of an eye than Satan himself could have 
 dreamed of a century ago. 
 
 If this, the most recent of the great wars, failed 
 to settle this important question, what has it settled? 
 The sole difference between the two nations had 
 something to do with the Spanish throne and the 
 Hohenzollem princes, yet in the Treaty of Frankfort 
 we find nothing that affects the succession to that 
 throne, nor any limitation upon that family to accept 
 such royal situations as they may please. But the 
 treaty did in very plain terms provide that Germany 
 should be rewarded with two French provinces, and 
 four thousand million francs of French money. So 
 that for twenty-six years past, France has mourned 
 
1 6 International Arbitration 
 
 over the loss of her two daughters and regretted the 
 ill-use to which her treasury has been put ; during the 
 same period Germany has spent these millions over 
 and over again lest the peace be broken by which she 
 keeps her new possessions. And that the circle of 
 peace-loving nations may be complete, they all follow 
 the same impulse and drag the men from the fields, 
 and draw the coin from the treasury, to defend their 
 provinces or, in the coming wreck of things, to secure 
 those that belong to their neighbors. Thus are they 
 all running a mad race to bankruptcy or mutual ex- 
 termination, to save their honor if it should be assailed, 
 to protect their interests if they should be imperilled, 
 to destroy their neighbors if it should be expedient. 
 
 Thus it is that the great Franco -Prussian war settled 
 nothing, but unsettled everything! thus it is that six 
 nations of Europe spend annually eight hundred 
 million dollars lest the peace be broken and keep 
 three million men under arms for fear of war. Thus 
 it is that ten million men are ready to take their 
 designated places on the checkerboard of war as soon 
 as the signal is given. A condition of things abso- 
 lutely unknown since the world was made; a threat 
 of horrors which the human imagination is powerless 
 to picture. The very magnitude of the indescribable 
 slaughter, confusion, ruin, and desolation impending 
 over the world is the safeguard of humanity; it 
 affords a hope to the man who loves his kind. The 
 time seems near at hand when utter exhaustion will 
 do what sound reason has been powerless to accom- 
 plish. The blessings of national bankruptcy have 
 not yet been fully appreciated by the victims of war. 
 
 How easily the calamity breeding war between these 
 two great nations might have been avoided may readily 
 
International Arbitration 17 
 
 be told. There was in fact no quarrel between them, 
 although a growing jealousy, and a feeling that the 
 continent was too small for the aggrandizement of 
 both. It was not an injury in the past, nor a griev- 
 ance in the present that divided them into hostile 
 camps; it was the apprehension on the one side that 
 at some future day something might be tolerated by 
 the other which ought to be resented, if it happened 
 to be done. On that other side the confidence, justi- 
 fied by the event, that if it came to hard blows Ger- 
 many would derive a profit from her expenditure of 
 men and money. In the temper of both there was 
 little room for adjustment, except by friendly inter- 
 vention. Great Britain made the offer and it is as 
 certain as any event that has not actually become a 
 fact, that a frank understanding through this friendly 
 aid would have dispelled the clouds. The Treaty of 
 1856 to which both France and Germany were parties 
 was invoked to make intervention possible, but France 
 rested her refusal upon the liberty allowed each party 
 to that instrument to be the sole judge in all matters 
 which involved her dignity. Prussia also declined the 
 golden opportunity and we know the result. France 
 has atoned in the dust of defeat and the humiliation of 
 a dismembered territory for this view of what con- 
 stitutes a nation's dignity. Her trials and sufferings 
 have not been in vain if the world has learned a lesson 
 from her fate, and if her victor, even in his triumph, 
 has discovered that such triumphs may be too dearly 
 bought. 
 
 The Franco-Prussian war has been selected and 
 dwelt upon out of so many other wars, because it is 
 the most recent and the most destructive and the most 
 causeless, of modern times. It is a barren study to 
 
1 8 International Arbitration 
 
 inquire into the respective responsibility of either 
 nation. The warlike instincts of both were aroused 
 and where two men or two million men are anxious for 
 a quarrel the malignant fates to which they listen so 
 readily, are sure to afford the pretext. Like our own 
 War of Secession, the causes were sown many years 
 before the victims fell upon the battlefield. These 
 causes were deep in human nature and in past history. 
 The fruit had grown and it must be plucked. But 
 we are wiser to-day and know that there are other 
 means of reconciling international quarrels than emu- 
 lation in homicide. Strangely enough we, the young- 
 est among the mighty nations of the world, have been 
 schoolmasters for a hundred years. We have taught 
 the possibility of ruling a great nation by law alone; 
 we have taken the sceptre from kings and given it 
 to judges, with advantage; we have suffered free 
 speech and free writing to be pushed to the verge of 
 lunacy, and yet have kept our freedom. Uncon- 
 sciously the nations of the world are looking to us and 
 following with hesitating step in the paths that we 
 have trodden. Since we have, at the expense of costly 
 amputation, rid ourselves of the blight of slavery, 
 we stand morally in the very vanguard of civilized 
 mankind; while we have been great enough to fear 
 no army or navy of the world, we have shown our 
 greatness still more conspicuously by our admiration 
 of and devotion to peace. From the earliest days of 
 our history we have condemned war as the enemy 
 of the human race, from the earliest days we have 
 advocated arbitration as the only reasonable method 
 of adjusting disputes. 
 
 Over one hundred years ago the young Common- 
 wealth made its first treaty of arbitration to settle the 
 
International Arbitration 19 
 
 question of boundaries with Great Britain, and from 
 that day until this she has never hesitated to control 
 her resentments and to hold back the anger of her 
 people, that judgment and not violence might deter- 
 mine the right. 
 
 No other compact made by the United States was 
 ever denounced so fiercely and opposed so violently as 
 the Jay Treaty. It was considered by many as a 
 surrender to Great Britain. Unreasoning and -un- 
 measured abuse was heaped upon it by the press, and 
 it was long the chosen weapon of demagogues. This 
 treaty contained a reference to a board of three com- 
 missioners who were to determine a question touching 
 our northeastern boundary. The matter in doubt was 
 the line designated by the river St. Croix. It was 
 finally held that the treaty-making powers had by 
 that designation intended to describe the Schoodic 
 River. 
 
 The commission was also to determine the amount 
 of compensation due certain citizens of Great Britain, 
 which had been delayed by vexatious laws of some 
 of the States. These laws were clearly in violation of 
 the treaty of peace, but feeling ran so high that argu- 
 ment was silenced. The opposition to this feature of 
 the treaty was especially fierce, but thanks to the firm- 
 ness of the Government and of the more reasonable 
 element of the people, the arbitration was proceeded 
 with. The case was one of those wherein it was said 
 that our national honor was concerned, and that arbi- 
 tration involved the loss of national self-respect. It 
 does not seem to-day that the Government forfeited 
 its honor by accepting the decision of a tribunal 
 rather than by resorting to the chances of a war. 
 There were men even in those days who failed to 
 
20 International Arbitration 
 
 recognize the logic of war, and refused to accept its 
 verdict as proving anything but that one of the fighting 
 parties was stronger than the other. 
 
 It is proper to add that, as a measure to decide 
 disputed rights, this part of the treaty failed, one of 
 the British commissioners, a Mr. McDonald, having 
 persistently exhibited an insolent disregard of the 
 feelings and opinions of his former fellow-subjects. 
 His language was discourteous and offensive. Whether 
 he designed it or not, he drove the American com- 
 missioners to a withdrawal. Perhaps this arrogant 
 tone of assumed superiority was not, after the treaty 
 of peace, unusual ; perhaps it was not unnatural that 
 the representatives of Great Britain should exhibit 
 some rancor when deahng with men but lately rebels 
 against their sovereign's authority. But fortunately, 
 so far as the establishment of equal relations is con- 
 cerned, the day was not distant when Andrew Jackson 
 was to settle old scores, in his own fashion, at New 
 Orleans. After this the atmosphere was cleared of 
 much that was unpleasant, and the two nations could 
 deal on equal and friendly terms. Since that day in 
 January, 1815, many questions have arisen between the 
 United States and Great Britain. They have always 
 been settled in the same bloodless and inexpensive 
 way. The indemnity to British subjects, which 
 should have been determined by arbitration under the 
 Jay Treaty, was finally agreed upon diplomatically, 
 and ;^6oo,ooo paid Great Britain. 
 
 Other and most important questions were also sub- 
 mitted to arbitration by the same Jay Treaty. They 
 involved the rights of neutrals, the effect of prize- 
 court decisions, and the rules in regard to contraband 
 of war. Mr. Pinckney, the leading lawyer of his day, 
 
International Arbitration 21 
 
 represented the Government of the United States as 
 one of its commissioners. He delivered opinions in 
 the course of the proceedings which, according to Mr. 
 Wheaton, were finished models of judicial eloquence, 
 uniting powerful and comprehensive argument with a 
 copious, pure, and energetic diction. From that time 
 until to-day we have on forty-seven occasions ap- 
 peared as parties in these international litigations. 
 In every case we have accepted the verdict as fully 
 and freely as though countless bayonets were ready to 
 enforce it, until we have established a practice of 
 justice and fair dealing which has called forth the 
 admiration of the world. Great Britain, to her honor 
 be it said, has not been far behind us in the example 
 that we have given. She, too, has preferred law to 
 violence, and the two great English-speaking nations 
 have seized every opportunity to resort to the forms 
 of justice which appeal to their reason, rather than to 
 indulge those instinctive resentments which are part 
 of man's inferior nature. 
 
 The Treaty of Ghent, signed on the 24th of Decem- 
 ber, 1 814, and on its way to the United States when 
 the battle of New Orleans was fought, was equally 
 fruitful in arbitrations. The first question of differ- 
 ence referred was that which involved the title to 
 Passamaquoddy Bay. Curiously enough, the arbi- 
 trators were two in number, it being stipulated that 
 if they disagreed they should refer the points of 
 difference to a friendly sovereign or state. They did 
 agree, however, and made their award without foreign 
 assistance. 
 
 The same Treaty of Ghent provided for the ascer- 
 tainment of the northeastern boundary of the United 
 States from the source of the river St. Croix along a 
 
22 International Arbitration 
 
 certain described course to the river St. Lawrence. 
 Here the commissioners failed to agree, and sub- 
 mitted their differences to the King of the Belgians, 
 who made an award which both parties consented to 
 ignore, as it did not profess to follow the line marked 
 out in the treaty. 
 
 Even a brief notice of the various arbitrations to 
 which the United States have been a party would 
 extend this paper far beyond its intended limits. It 
 may be truly said, arguing from the frequency of in- 
 stances, that a resort to arbitration has become the 
 practice of the United States whenever its interests 
 or the interests of its citizens clash with those of 
 foreign Powers. Experience has demonstrated the 
 wisdom of these submissions, and has proved that 
 upon the whole they resulted in a just determination 
 of the questions at issue. It may be confidently as- 
 serted that the tribunals selected by great nations to 
 pass upon conflicting rights are more likely to formu- 
 late just and equitable judgments than to violate the 
 judicial duty imposed upon and accepted by them. 
 
 There are few more hopeful signs in the history of 
 arbitration than that between Great Britain and the 
 United States which is known as the Geneva Arbitra- 
 tion. It is the most conspicuous instance of a resort 
 to friendly adjustment where provocation was so 
 great, for our people had indeed suffered under a real 
 and bitter grievance. When the very existence of 
 the nation was in jeopardy, when brother was arrayed 
 against brother, and the whole fabric of our Govern- 
 ment was tottering to possible ruin, a friendly nation 
 connived at efforts of the Union's enemies, and in- 
 directly aided in their attempts at our disruption. 
 
 Great Britain, by her conduct during the most trying 
 
International Arbitration 23 
 
 period of the national history, had created general 
 irritation among the people of the United States. 
 She had sympathized almost openly with the re- 
 bellion, and had permitted her ports to be used for 
 building and fitting out privateers. The commerce 
 of the North had been driven from the seas, valuable 
 property destroyed, and material encouragement of- 
 fered the States in rebellion. The sensitiveness with 
 which this unfriendly action, and still more un- 
 friendly inaction, on the part of Great Britain was 
 regarded threatened to burst into open resentment. 
 The circumstances were such as to make the efforts 
 of the peacemaker equally delicate and difficult. It 
 is to the credit of President Grant that, warrior as he 
 was, he preferred this peaceful method of solving 
 international questions to the lottery of war. His 
 words do him great honor, and should be kept in 
 lasting remembrance by his people : 
 
 Though I have been trained as a soldier, and have par- 
 ticipated in many battles, there never was a time when, in 
 my opinion, some way could not have been fotind to pre- 
 vent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an 
 epoch when a court recognized by all nations will settle 
 international differences instead of keeping large standing 
 armies as they do in Europe. 
 
 If there is anything more difficult to forgive than 
 injury we have suffered, it is the injury that we have 
 inflicted. Both nations therefore had much to forgive 
 and much cause for resentment, but they mastered 
 the temptation, and the result was the great lesson of 
 the century. 
 
 The latest instance of an arbitration between great 
 nations is that at Paris between the United States 
 
24 International Arbitration 
 
 and Great Britain. The question to be settled in- 
 volved the right of the United States to protect its 
 seal interests in the Bering Sea and the North Pacific 
 Ocean. That the seals resort to the territory of the 
 United States for the purpose of breeding and suckling 
 was practically conceded, as was the further fact that 
 tinrestricted pelagic sealing {i. e., killing at sea), being 
 by its very nature indiscriminating, tends to extermi- 
 nate the herd. Both parties conceded that this valu- 
 able race of animals was in danger of rapid extinction. 
 The chief point of difference between the two nations 
 arose out of the claim of property made by the United 
 States and denied by Great Britain. This assertion 
 and denial threatened to produce serious complica- 
 tions. The United States began by seizing the ships 
 that were engaged in the depredations complained of, 
 and in some instances caused them to be condemned 
 under a statute prohibiting seal-killing at sea ; but in 
 view of the earnest protest and remonstrance of Great 
 Britain it desisted from this summary course and con- 
 sented to arbitration. What would have resulted 
 from a persistent assertion of its rights by force, on 
 the part of the United States, is of course a matter of 
 conjecture. Mr. Phelps, Minister at the Court of 
 St. James, was in favor of vigorous measures, and 
 urged the continuation of the only course which, in 
 his judgment, was consistent with self-respect. He 
 felt and expressed entire confidence that Great Britain, 
 knowing that she was in the wrong, would never go to 
 war in defiance of the impregnable moral grounds on 
 which the claims of the United States were based. 
 This view was entitled to special consideration, 
 emanating as it did from a profound jurist who had 
 also proved himself an exceptionally skilful diplomat. 
 
International Arbitration 25 
 
 But there certainly was some danger that the seizure 
 of British vessels in the open sea might lead to a 
 disturbance of the friendly relations between the two 
 great Powers, and that danger was not to be incurred 
 except under circumstances of exceptional gravity. 
 War between two such Powers would set the hand on 
 the dial far back and would deal a severe blow to 
 those who longed for peace and good-will among men. 
 If the two leading Anglo-Saxon nations cannot control 
 their temper and their judgment, if they cannot settle 
 their disputes by rational processes, where is the hope 
 of the world? 
 
 This made the Bering Sea controversy and its sub- 
 mission to arbitration especially significant and im- 
 portant. In proportion as the causes of irritation are 
 more marked, and the appeal to national pride more 
 stirring, just in that proportion is arbitration more 
 difficult to secure, and more satisfactory when secured. 
 The lesson is worth much to the world when a nation 
 refuses to draw its sword under real provocation and 
 trusts its cause to a tribunal of wise and just men. 
 
 How such a tribunal should be constituted has been 
 much discussed by writers. The fashion of referring 
 international controversies to sovereigns has lost favor, 
 and naturally, for the sovereign delegates others, of his 
 own selection, to do the work of studying and prac- 
 tically deciding the case. Dr. Francis Lieber ex- 
 presses the opinion that the best tribunal is the law 
 faculty of some foreign university, or a tribunal of 
 jurisconsults whose vast knowledge and unswerving 
 fidelity to justice and to legal truth had earned them 
 an international reputation. To such a court as is thus 
 described the Bering Sea controversy was submitted. 
 The United States claimed, with great confidence, 
 
26 International Arbitration 
 
 that its cause was just ; that it was based upon recog- 
 nized principles of international law, upon sound rules 
 of dealing as between nations, upon moral necessities 
 long since admitted by the civilized world. 
 
 The decision of the high tribunal in the Bering Sea 
 controversy, while upholding the resistance of Great 
 Britain to certain claims of exclusive right in the 
 Bering Sea, has framed such regulations as practically 
 put an end to pelagic slaughter and its destructive 
 results. The United States reap the substantial fruits 
 of the controversy, which was only initiated to pre- 
 serve and protect the race of seals. 
 
 Taking the arbitration as a whole, it must afford a 
 singularly gratifying spectacle to the haters of war. 
 Two great nations have entered into a friendly dis- 
 cussion before an enhghtened court to settle a dispute 
 which threatened to produce an armed conflict. The 
 forms of law, precious to both nations, have been care- 
 fully observed by court and counsel ; an earnest desire 
 to bring out all the facts and all the arguments fairly 
 to be based upon such facts has been apparent. The 
 tribunal itself was admirably constituted. It was a 
 judicial body composed of jurists of fame deservedly 
 bestowed. The indirect results of this submission to 
 peaceful methods must far outweigh in importance 
 the immediate advantages which either party may 
 claim to have received. When an honorable and 
 satisfactory adjustment of international disputes is 
 shown to be easy and economical by arbitration, war 
 seems to be not only cruel but ridiculous. 
 
 Especial praise should be awarded to Baron de 
 Courcel, the presiding officer of the court. His im- 
 varying tact, his dignified and judicial bearing, his 
 quick apprehension, and manifest anxiety to be just. 
 
International Arbitration 27 
 
 entitle him to a high place in the respect of both 
 nations. If it be true, as he himself expressed it, that 
 "every international arbitration renders war less 
 probable," he may well enjoy the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that he and his distinguished associates have made 
 mankind their debtor. 
 
 Since these great object-lessons in international 
 arbitration, it is idle to talk of insurmountable ob- 
 stacles in the way of promoting peace. If the United 
 States could condone the depredations of the Alabama, 
 and Great Britain could pay for them as she did, arbi- 
 tration must be easy. But it was never so easy as to- 
 day. All the civiHzation of the age is against war, and 
 its intelligence and learning, its science and its art, 
 its greater tenderness for human life, its love of the 
 beautiful, its commercial interests, all these are co- 
 operating in harmonious solicitude to drive war from 
 the face of the earth. The world knows too much to 
 put its faith in war. What has war ever done to settle 
 great questions? I speak not of defensive wars, of 
 resistance to unjust aggression, for these may no more be 
 condemned than the effort that the peaceful traveller 
 makes to resist the banditti who look to his purse. 
 Nations may be broken up and divided as in the case of 
 the early colonies and Great Britain, and of the several 
 American repubHcs and Spain; war then seems \m- 
 avoidable, for the bonds that have become oppressive 
 can only be rent by force. I speak of war as a con- 
 flict between two independent nations, striving to 
 obtain satisfaction for wounded honor, or to settle a 
 boundary question, or to collect a financial claim. 
 This procedure as a means of obtaining justice is fast 
 becoming obsolete. And how should it be otherwise? 
 Montaigne has truly said that "the envy or spite of 
 
28 International Arbitration 
 
 one single man, his pleasure, or a fit of domestic 
 jealousy, causes that ought not to excite two fishwives 
 to scratch one another's faces — these have been causes 
 enough for great trouble." But despotic rulers with 
 this power for mischief are fortunately rare. The 
 people must be consulted about war and have a voice 
 on the subject. 
 
 To us of America the problem may seem easier than 
 to any other nation in the world, because we have in 
 permanent session a tribunal of arbitration which we 
 call the Supreme Court of the United States. Sover- 
 eign States which have retained all their sovereignty 
 that was consistent with "a more perfect union" ap- 
 pear before that court and settle their differences, 
 their boundaries, and their respective claims as easily, 
 and acquiesce as readily in the result, as private in- 
 dividuals. Iowa sues Illinois much as A sues B — 
 takes out process, procures depositions, submits points 
 of facts and of law, and leaves the rest to the court. 
 Making due allowance for the distinction between the 
 jurisdiction of this national court, dealing with mem- 
 bers of the Union, and a court sitting to decide the 
 rights of independent nations, we may still claim that 
 the analogy between the two is marked enough to de- 
 serve consideration. 
 
 In 1876, even the bitterness of a contested election 
 could not startle our people from their propriety. 
 They made a court to suit the emergency ; both sides 
 submitted arguments and proofs to the tribunal ; they 
 accepted the result, and gave one of the most trium- 
 phant examples in the history of the world of the 
 extent to which a free people may forbear in accept- 
 ing the forms of law for the preservation of peace. 
 
 As long ago as 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 
 
International Arbitration 29 
 
 was made between the United States and Mexico, pro- 
 viding for arbitration as a general obligation on the 
 part of the two countries. 
 
 If, unhappily, any disagreement should hereafter arise 
 between the governments of the two repubHcs, whether 
 with respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in the 
 treaty, or with respect to any other particular concerning 
 the political or commercial relations of the two nations, 
 the said governments, in the name of those nations, do 
 promise to each other that they will endeavor, in the most 
 sincere and earnest manner, to settle the differences so 
 arising, and to preserve the state of peace and friendship 
 in which the two countries are now placing themselves, 
 using for this end mutual representations and specific 
 negotiations. And if by these means they should not be 
 enabled to come to some agreement, a resort shall not on 
 this account be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostiHty of 
 any kind by the one republic against the other until the 
 government of that which deems itself aggrieved shall have 
 maturely considered, in the spirit of peace and good neigh- 
 borship, whether it would not be better that such difference 
 should be settled by the arbitration of commissioners ap- 
 pointed on each side, or by that of a friendly nation. 
 
 Public men have officially come forward and joined 
 hands to condemn war. The Parliamentary League, 
 so called, is gaining constant acquisition to its mem- 
 bership. Only a few years ago forty members of the 
 French and English parliaments came together in 
 Paris as "friends of peace." The outlook was not en- 
 couraging. All Europe was, as it now is, armed to the 
 teeth, and war seemed imminent. In October, 1891, the 
 congress was held at Rome, and in four years the forty- 
 had reached fourteen hundred, all of them occupying 
 a more or less conspicuous position in public Hfe. 
 
30 International Arbitration 
 
 A still nearer approach than the United States 
 Supreme Court to a permanent international tribunal 
 is the Federal Court, which settles all disputes arising 
 between the various cantons of Switzerland. These 
 cantons, it will be remembered, are different in blood, 
 customs, and jurisprudence. They are French, and 
 governed by the French code ; German, and governed 
 by the German law; or Italian, in which last named 
 the legislation and jurisprudence of Italy have been 
 followed. And yet for centuries these states have 
 submitted their controversies to a court which may 
 be traced back through various modifications to the 
 fourteenth century. So near an approach to the 
 great court which sits in the philosopher's dreamland 
 must give encouragement to those who abhor war as 
 a crime and deride it as an absurdity. Calvo ^ claims 
 that the Swiss system is a demonstration that the idea 
 of a permanent tribunal for deciding controversies 
 between people of different races is not the dream of 
 a visionary, but quite practicable. 
 
 There is no more formidable obstacle to causeless 
 international conflict than the newspaper, provided 
 the soldier can read it, which in our country at least 
 he generally can do. True, the newspaper sometimes 
 indulges for temporary purposes in wordy effervescence, 
 and seeks to stimulate the fighting spirit for no whole- 
 some end, but upon the whole the influence of the 
 press is an influence of peace. The press reaHzes the 
 value of international harmony from the standpoint of 
 commerce, and on grave occasions is ready to advise 
 against violence, to deprecate rashness, and to prefer 
 reasonable settlement to violent experiment. 
 
 A free press is the foe of war, not only when it raises 
 
 1 Calvo, iii., 477. 
 
International Arbitration 31 
 
 its voice directly against violence between nations, but 
 when it faithfully portrays the horrors that were never 
 realized until men were brought face to face with their 
 existence. It has done much to prevent war by 
 bringing vivid pictures of its horrors into every home, 
 by tearing off some of its fine but false pretences, by 
 showing its ghasthness and ruthless destruction, as 
 they were never shown before. Butchery unadorned 
 is not a pleasant subject of contemplation. The war 
 correspondent has been an apostle of peace; he has 
 made his pen pictures preach an unconscious sermon 
 to his readers. The pity of it never struck the looker- 
 on as it does to-day. We generally saw war at a great 
 distance, as through a glass, darkly, and heard but a 
 vague and uncertain echo of the turmoil. 
 
 The man who writes from the bloody battlefield, 
 and pictures with his pen the scenes which he has 
 witnessed, does more to impress the masses with the 
 uselessness and barbarity of war than the most elo- 
 quent preacher who ever thundered against horrors 
 that he had not himself looked upon with his own eyes. 
 Our fathers could not put their fingers into the wounds 
 of war and touch them with their hands, as we may 
 do without leaving our peaceful pursuits. When 
 Napoleon sent off his couriers to announce to his 
 people that he had carried a new victory to the nation's 
 credit, that he had captured thousands of prisoners 
 and hundreds of flags, and dated his bulletins from 
 Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, or Moscow, the people shouted 
 for joy, the cannons roared, the Te Deums went up 
 from Notre Dame, and Httle thought was given to the 
 heartache of the mother who waited so anxiously, 
 yearning through long weeks and months to know 
 whether the brave boy that she loved had given his 
 
32 International Arbitration 
 
 life with so many others for another feast of glory. 
 The Grand Army Bulletin could not wait to give de- 
 tails ; it was enough for it to say that victory had been 
 faithful, and that Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, were to 
 shine as new constellations in the firmament of national 
 victories. To achieve these things men must die. 
 " I have grown up on the field of battle," said Napoleon 
 to Metternich. "A man like me cares little for the 
 lives of a million men." Perhaps but for this absence 
 of pity, this indifference to human Kfe, Waterloo might 
 not have followed so closely upon Austerlitz, and 
 Sedan might not have challenged Jena's triumph. 
 
 Still another enemy of war is the growing influence 
 of woman. She has a voice, and it must be hearkened 
 to. If her heart must break, she will not allow it to 
 break in unnoticed silence. She has taken her place 
 in literature, art, science, journahsm. That influence 
 is all in favor of peace. The Amazon is an extinct 
 species. Joan of Arc clad in armor and leading men 
 into battle is confined to the stage; besides, her sad 
 fate is no encouragement to female belligerency; the 
 fragrance of her sweet life and hapless end must 
 suffice; she cannot be a model for modern woman. 
 The role of the man has been to make war or peace, as 
 he elected; the part of the woman to send husband, 
 lover, son to gain glory or find death, while she watched, 
 wept, and prayed. This distribution of parts was no 
 doubt inevitable; but as hers was entirely uncom- 
 pensated, she may well be excused if in the future she 
 protests against conflicts in which she pays a great 
 price and receives no reward. 
 
 War, logically speaking, is an anachronism. It be- 
 longs to other ages and other forms of civilization than 
 those in and under which we live. Its brutality, 
 
International Arbitration 33 
 
 cruelty, and injustice jar against the humanizing ten- 
 dencies of the nineteenth century. We are growing ac- 
 customed to look elsewhere than to the hazards of the 
 battlefield for the solution of international problems, 
 and have learned that there are better and cheaper 
 methods of settling controversies than those which 
 depend upon heavy artillery and needle-guns. Com- 
 mon schools, telegraphs, railroads, and universal 
 suffrage are the handmaids of peace; they are the 
 enemies of war. The ultima ratio of kings was based 
 upon a blind and superstitious reverence for the 
 royal majesty and its commands. But armies are no 
 longer filled with unthinking and helpless creatures 
 that killed, burned, ravaged, and destroyed because 
 they were directed to do these things ; these men con- 
 stituted, in Napoleonic phrase, the chair d- canon, or 
 cannon food, and fed the roaring monster until it was 
 gorged. But much of this is obsolete. Men want to 
 know the reason for everything that they are called 
 upon to do, and the newspaper gives it to them daily. 
 A great monarch might say, "I am the state," and 
 tell the truth when he said it. Who dreamed to dis- 
 pute his commands or to question his justice? Surely 
 not the peasant and laborer whose wretched condition 
 made the army a refuge where bread at least was dealt 
 out, although there were exceptions even to this. Coarse 
 as was the food that he ate, he did not always eat his 
 fill, and he fought and hungered while the farm lay 
 fallow, and the wife and children wore out their lives in 
 the futile effort to do his work. He fought and he fought 
 bravely, he died unnoticed or returned unrewarded, 
 imtil the time arrived for his son to take his place, 
 and thus in never-ending monotony he fulfilled his 
 destiny, for the glory of others, and at his own expense. 
 
34 International Arbitration 
 
 The heinousness of the crime of causeless war was 
 never fully realized until it was felt that this was not 
 the only means of vindicating national rights. It is 
 possible to settle questions without violating all the 
 commandments; it is not impossible to preserve 
 national self-respect without the sacrifice of human 
 victims. The boy who has grown into manhood after 
 passing through years of schooling is soon taught these 
 things, and learns that he himself has a certain im- 
 portance. He may be only a pawn on the chess- 
 board, but pawns may check the king. He may 
 overrate but certainly does not underestimate his 
 importance, and readily learns that he has a real if 
 uncertain cash value. He does not care of his own 
 free choice to shoulder a musket, even of the latest 
 pattern, unless it is plain to him that the honor of his 
 country is at stake. He is above all things practical. 
 He will lay down his life if needs be, as bravely as the 
 offshoot of any other race, but he will not be con- 
 tented with a vague formula ; he must have a reason 
 for leaving his workshop or his farm to put on a uni- 
 form, and looks to the press to tell him what the quarrel 
 is about. He has been told and taught and is ready 
 to believe that quarrels can be settled by judges as 
 well where millions of men are concerned on each side, 
 as where single litigants are engaged in vindicating 
 their respective rights. 
 
 He is practical and therefore wants a real solution. 
 He wants a decision that settles something. He 
 knows that wise and honest men who have carefully 
 studied the evidence are more likely to reach the re- 
 quirements of justice than armed troops however 
 brave, with their commanders however patriotic. 
 The wisest and best of the soldiers whom he has 
 
International Arbitration 35 
 
 known have admonished him against war. "War is 
 hell," said General Sherman, and this monosyllabic 
 description can scarcely be improved in brevity and 
 truth. He had seen it at its worst, and had emerged 
 from it one of the idols of his people, but he knew, be- 
 cause he had seen, that the horrors that we can only 
 imagine as the accompaniments of perdition may alone 
 give an adequate idea of the horrors of real war. 
 
 Such authorities as these will more than outweigh 
 the few exceptions which we find to pat war on the 
 back as a blessing, and to praise it as a divine agency 
 for good. Hegel, for instance, says that war is not an 
 absolute evil, and that perpetual peace would be a 
 condition of moral stagnation for the nations. De 
 Maistre, adopting a higher tone, declares that war is 
 a divine fact, an instrument of the Kingdom of Provi- 
 dence destined to the necessary expiation of the 
 crimes of men. The soldier and the executioner, he 
 thinks, are both professional killers who should be 
 equally honored. It is a pity that such writers of 
 paradox cannot find a less ghastly subject for the 
 exercise of their unconscious humor. The most con- 
 spicuous advocate of war in modern times, however, is 
 Marshal Moltke. "War," he says, "enters into the 
 views and designs of Providence ; it is a means for the 
 people worthy of fulfilling their object on earth, a 
 divine mission not to fall into decay and to retemper 
 the edge of their manhood." A curious way indeed 
 of avoiding decadence, and an expensive one. Was it 
 necessary to slaughter the 40,000 unfortunate men on 
 the field at Vionville and St. Privat in order to re- 
 temper the manhood of these two great nations? 
 How many soldiers should be slain, and how many 
 villages burned, and how many provinces devastated 
 
36 International Arbitration 
 
 before the highest culture is reached ? When and how 
 can we be certain that decadence is stayed, and that 
 progress requires no further killing of men? Who 
 shall furnish periodical and plausible pretexts for war 
 to be applied when the necessity arrives, not that 
 Justice may have her sway, but that men may not be 
 pampered into effeminacy by the charms of peace? 
 We might ask this great warrior when he discovered, 
 and how, that war entered into the views and designs 
 of Providence ; what winged messenger of the Prince 
 of Peace vouchsafed for his private illumination the 
 fearful fact that war was permitted to nations worthy 
 of fulfilling upon earth a divine mission, to preserve 
 them from decay. If we can feel quite sure that this 
 accomplished soldier really was inspired to express 
 such appalling sentiments, we must despair of the 
 future of the world. Then, indeed, may Peace, veiling 
 her tear-stained face, fall at the feet of the great 
 warriors, proclaim her abdication, and yield her sweet 
 offices to the demands of bloody war. 
 
 No, neither Marshal Moltke, nor others who may 
 take the same dark view of the tendencies of the 
 human race, can stem the current and beat down the 
 rising tide. The world has supped full of horrors and 
 slaughter and needless destruction for thousands of 
 years and when the dawn appears on the horizon we 
 may be assured that the sunshine is about to rise ; we 
 know that the storm is over when the sky is red. 
 
 It is true that the more humane civilization of the 
 age has sought to mitigate the cruelties inseparable 
 from a condition of war. The victorious army no 
 longer turns its prisoners into food. The vanquished 
 are no longer sold as slaves for the enrichment of 
 the captors ; they are treated with such humanity as the 
 
International Arbitration n 
 
 situation of the parties permits. But nevertheless the 
 horrors and destruction incident to modem warfare 
 are ascending in a rapidly increasing ratio. The in- 
 genuity of man is nowhere more manifest than where 
 he devises means for dealing death upon his fellows. 
 While, as we have seen, there may be a rational 
 difference of opinion as to the comparative merits of 
 the chassepot and the needle-gun, the race has not 
 stopped. One nation has devised a new rifle which is 
 spoken of with delight and admiration by experts; it 
 is a gem as an agent of speedy annihilation. The 
 bullet has emerged from the elementary condition as 
 a simple perforator of the human organs, for it has 
 been taught, while it breaks the bone, at the same time 
 to pulverize it, so that the great advantage is pre- 
 sented by its use not only of temporarily disabling the 
 smitten limb, but of insuring against recovery of the 
 victim, the superadded benefit of compulsory am- 
 putation being among the rewards of the new plan. 
 Besides, the bullet itself is encased in nickel plate, 
 thus affording in its improved appearance an artistic 
 presentation of added capacity for mischief which 
 deserves admiration and praise, if it be inspired by 
 Providence to prevent national decay. 
 
 This for the smaller weapon which can only deal 
 death at the rate of three or four men to one bullet. 
 But the main progress seems to be in the production of 
 the huge monster whose powers to mow down columns 
 of men like blades of grass have been greatly increased. 
 The new Canet gun which appears to have been 
 adopted as a peace -preserver by the French Govern- 
 ment will throw a shell loaded with 300 bullets five 
 times a minute with a range of seven thousand yards. 
 But Herr Krupp is not to be undone by these Gallic 
 
3^ International Arbitration 
 
 efforts to avoid war, and it is mysteriously said that he 
 has contributed to the good cause a still more eloquent 
 advocate of German philanthropy. It is suggested in 
 addition that such improvement in armaments will 
 require additions to the army, which will be increased 
 in France by 75,000 men, naturally necessitating the 
 same addition of guardians of the peace on the side 
 of Germany. We are thus rapidly approaching the 
 hitherto unknown condition where huge armies will 
 destroy each other before either is visible to the other 
 save through a telescope. Perhaps this intolerable 
 progress is to be the means, in the designs of Provi- 
 dence, of averting a conflict which no man can con- 
 template without the feeling that a new vista of 
 horrors may teach the world, at any moment, that 
 the wars of the past have been as the games of children. 
 
 If the advocates of war will only ponder upon these 
 things, and try to bring before the eye of their fancy an 
 image of the possibiHties which they are striving to 
 turn into probabiHties, they may conclude that the 
 blood-letting which they so cheerfully advocate may 
 not be regulated according to hygienic principles. 
 The life-blood of a nation is too precious to be left to 
 the mercy of experts, who are experts only in shedding 
 it, but who are not always able to stop the flow of the 
 life-giving fluid after they have started it. For war 
 is cruel and wasteful at its best, and we may expect to 
 see it at its worst when it next breaks out ; what that 
 worst may be imagination cannot picture, for there 
 is nothing in the records of the past to afford facilities 
 of comparison. 
 
 To-day the United States and Great Britain are 
 striving to crown the glories of this dying century with 
 something better and greater than the world has seen. 
 
International Arbitration 39 
 
 It is proposed to abolish homicide as a test of inter- 
 national right, by submitting causes of dispute to the 
 calm judgment of wise men ; a solution so simple and 
 so economical that it requires great ingenuity to 
 assail it with plausible reasons. All concede that in 
 theory the plan is admirable, that in practice on 
 a limited scale it has proved of priceless value, 
 that it is infinitely more likely to produce rational 
 results than the only other alternative, viz. : resort to 
 war. 
 
 But, say the objectors, what if our national honor 
 should become involved? A momentous question 
 indeed, and one absolutely impossible of reply, until 
 we are told what is this national honor, wherein it 
 lies, and how best it may be asserted. In what one 
 of our many differences with Great Britain has our 
 honor become so involved that the delicacy of its 
 constitution required a prompt and vigorous regime 
 of blood and iron ? And yet we have had hot and long 
 disputes where honor might have been called to the 
 front by either nation, and made the pretence for a 
 refusal to arbitrate. A nation's honor, I would ven- 
 ture to say, is never compromised by temperance nor 
 injured by forbearance. A nation's honor is not 
 served by rash counsels, nor by violent impulses reck- 
 lessly indulged in. It is indeed a frail and delicate 
 possession, if it cannot live in an atmosphere of peace, 
 it is a dangerous one if it is tarnished by friendly dis- 
 cussion and a disposition to hearken to the voice of 
 justice. National honor may perhaps shine all the 
 brighter when a great nation is slow to admit that her 
 just dignity may be imperilled by the act of others. 
 The honor of a nation is in her keeping, not in that of 
 her neighbors ; it cannot be lost save by her own act. 
 
40 International Arbitration 
 
 To preserve her honor should be her main object and 
 purpose, but she should not readily believe those who 
 tell her that by hard blows alone may its integrity be 
 protected. A nation's honor consists in fidelity to her 
 engagements, in carrying out her contracts in spirit 
 as in the letter, in paying her just debts, in respecting 
 the rights of others, in promoting the welfare of her 
 people, in the encouragement of truth, in teaching 
 obedience to the law, in cultivating honorable peace 
 with the world. How can our national honor be so 
 grievously invaded that there can be no room for 
 remonstrance, no time for discussion, no opporttmity 
 allowed the aggressor for amendment? Spain within 
 a few years offended Germany most grievously, and 
 it was said insulted her flag, but Germany neverthe- 
 less arbitrated with Spain, and allowed the Pope to 
 decide the question at issue. Has Germany's honor 
 suffered thereby? We seized British ships in the 
 Bering Sea and condemned them in our ports, a most 
 grievous insult according to the sensitive and self- 
 constituted custodians of British honor; but Great 
 Britain adopted peaceful counsels, and a wise court 
 heard, examined, and decided the case without any 
 apparent injury to British honor. Why is war a more 
 reliable defender of our national honor than arbitra- 
 tion ? Readiness to fight may serve to prove that our 
 country is not afraid to fight, but the world knows 
 that to-day and needs no proof. War may prove that 
 we have a gallant people behind our Government ready 
 to spend life and fortune for a good cause, but the 
 world knows that of old. Why renew that proof? 
 War may show that our financial resources are prac- 
 tically inexhaustible, and that we are able to build 
 and buy the most approved engines of destruction. 
 
International Arbitration 41 
 
 but that, too, is of public notoriety. Let us not call 
 witnesses where the facts are conceded, nor embark 
 upon expensive methods to satisfy the world of what 
 the world is already quite convinced. As with men 
 honor often means pride unembarrassed by scruples, 
 so it may be with a nation. The standard with men 
 differs according to latitude and surroundings, to 
 social institutions and traditions, to civilization, re- 
 ligion, and many things. Men resort to the shotgun, 
 the revolver, the bowie knife, or the club to heal or 
 defend their honor, and lose it as often as they mend 
 it. The effort of civilization has been for years to 
 teach them that violence is not the safest champion of 
 offended dignity, that the methods of the bravo, the 
 manners of the ruffian, or the tyranny of the bully 
 may best be dealt with by a firm court and an officer 
 of the law. Why should nations be prompt to seek 
 redress through force, so long as reason may be heard 
 and reason's voice is still respected? 
 
 Bluster with nations as with individuals is dying 
 out. It is heard at times, but its voice squeaks, and 
 shows senility. It cannot as of old arouse a nation 
 into unthinking wrath nor drive it from its propriety. 
 The wisdom and the experience of the world are 
 against it. 
 
 It was a favorite saying of Napoleon (he had bor- 
 rowed it from Montesquieu), that no man is strong 
 enough to fight against la nature des choses (the nature 
 of things). It will get the best of him in the end, for 
 the moral forces of nature are based on immutable and 
 eternal principles ; they will not be put down. They 
 may be delayed, but they cannot be stayed. 
 
 The day has gone by when honorable preferment 
 could only be gained in war. The splendid triumphs 
 
42 International Arbitration 
 
 of peace are winning over the heart of man from the 
 glories of war. Perhaps the boy of to-day, by the 
 time he has cast his first vote, may think it as well to 
 be an Edison as a Napoleon, a Pasteur as a Wellington, 
 a Franklin as a Moltke, to build as to destroy, to 
 save as to kill, to love as to hate. To labor for his 
 bread and to earn it by the sweat of his face is the 
 curse, mercifully transformed into a blessing, but 
 labor must and shall enjoy its rewards in peace. The 
 divine Founder of the Christian Church gave His peace 
 and left His peace to those who followed Him, as a 
 priceless gift ; now His followers with insistent prayer 
 that has been growing into irresistible volume demand 
 of their rulers that this inheritance shall not be taken 
 from them on vain and shallow pretexts. Order has 
 become the watchword of a growing civilization and 
 order means the law, not the law of violence, not the law 
 facetiously called the law of war — that is the law of 
 lawlessness — but the law which grows from a living 
 sense of justice, which depends upon reason, which 
 invokes patience. 
 
 The war of the future shall be the bloodless war of 
 right against wrong, of good against evil, of truth 
 against falsehood. We have had bitter and bloody 
 wars called wars of religion, but the universal rule is 
 to-day toleration and charity in the realm of con- 
 science; can we, shall we, in the light of nineteen 
 centuries of Christianity, ever see such wars again? 
 We have had great wars of succession, but the suc- 
 cessions of kings and presidents are settled by law, 
 and the claim to rule as of divine right, if ever made, 
 causes a smile of courteous commiseration. Wars 
 of conquest have devastated the world, but who seeks 
 to-day to remove his neighbor's landmark? The 
 
International Arbitration 43 
 
 grave causes of war that made deadly conflicts as 
 inevitable as they were frequent have died out. 
 
 The old element of personal prowess too is fast 
 disappearing. Fancy the grim veterans of Napoleon's 
 Old Guard as with steady eye and steady step they 
 marched with glistening bayonets to decide the day, 
 cool as on a holiday parade, ready to die for their 
 great leader's fame, knowing but one duty and doing 
 it — fancy them to-day with modem weapons mocking 
 their courage and bidding them to die before they 
 could reach their foe ; fancy our gallant Sheridan with 
 his Winchester braves charging a battery of guns that 
 kill at five miles' distance or meeting infantry that was 
 dealing out death at such a rate that personal gallantry 
 meant only patient endurance of certain death. Let 
 those who talk of war and its glories ponder upon 
 these things and remember to what they would con- 
 demn the men whom they so flippantly enlist for the 
 battles of the future. The prejudices, caprices, errors, 
 and passions of men may defer the hour of triumph, 
 but come it must ; the constant tendency of man is 
 towards peace, as soon as he emerges from the primi- 
 tive condition wherein he most closely resembles the 
 inferior tenants of the earth. Individually he longs 
 for rest and the enjoyment of life. He undergoes 
 hardship that he may have security and ease. Two 
 thousand years ago the Roman poet expressed it in his 
 graceful verse that can only be inadequately trans- 
 ferred into English : 
 
 Caught in the wild iEgean Seas 
 The sailor bends to heaven for ease, 
 While clouds the fair moon's lustre hide 
 And not a star his course to guide. 
 Furious in war the Thracian prays, 
 
44 International Arbitration 
 
 The qmvered Mede, for ease, for ease, 
 
 A blessing never to be sold, 
 
 For gems, for purple, or for gold. 
 
 The good fight of peace, and for peace, is fairly won. 
 Honor to those who have achieved it, and shown them- 
 selves the friends of the human race. The great 
 consummation may be deferred, but come it will. As 
 Hamlet said of death : " If it be now, 't is not to come ; 
 if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, 
 yet it will come.'' 
 
II 
 
 THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ARBITRATION TREATY ^ 
 
 A TREATY of peace has heretofore been the post- 
 script of a war. Nations fought their way to 
 such a treaty through more or less sacrifice of 
 life and destruction of property. As a rule physical 
 and financial exhaustion was a condition precedent to 
 the establishment of friendly relations on a permanent 
 basis. One nation had to be beaten into something 
 like insensibility before the two could unite in the 
 necessary declarations of good-will and the customary 
 bonds to keep the peace. Tradition had ordained 
 that a nation's honor required to be lubricated with 
 blood in order to be kept in good working condition. 
 Both of the conflicting nations usually assured the 
 other nations that were looking on, of the imperative 
 necessity imder which the honor of each was placed to 
 do some fighting to keep it fresh and bright. When 
 a sufficient number of men had been slaughtered, and 
 a proper number of towns had been burned and 
 pltindered, and when the treasury of either or both 
 was empty, Honor smiled once more with restored 
 cheerfulness, made her graceful obeisance, and retired 
 from the scene, leaving the victor to have his way,. 
 Honor, national honor, has been a priceless possession, 
 
 ' From The Forum, March, 1897. 
 45 
 
46 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 but a very expensive one to keep ; the more expensive 
 because of its uncertain character, its vague definition, 
 and its unreasonable demands. One thing is certain : 
 that, when the leaders of a nation have concluded 
 that the honor of the country is at stake, some one 
 must be attacked and, if possible, destroyed. The 
 salutary process of a bloody baptism can alone reno- 
 vate and preserve this delicate and susceptible quality 
 of a nation's constitution. 
 
 And now come before the world two quiet gentle- 
 men, without any swords by their sides or revolvers 
 in their belts, who venture to say that the old practice 
 is really obsolete and perhaps a little foolish ; that war 
 is very expensive, very cruel, and quite unphilosophi- 
 cal; that perhaps it were better to make the peace 
 before the war than after. They suggest that the ex- 
 periment is worth trying, and may be tried without 
 apparent danger; for, if it should fail, there would 
 still be plenty of time to raise armies, to build fleets, 
 to bombard ports, to blow up ironclads, to make 
 homes desolate, to break mothers' hearts, and to lay 
 heavy burdens of debt upon generations to come. It 
 may be that the instinct of destruction that lies so 
 near the surface of htiman nature will break out in 
 spite of all such efforts ; possibly atavism may be too 
 strong, and the lion, the wolf, the hyena, and the 
 jackal may still have their way; but an inexpensive 
 attempt to save much money, much human life, much 
 property, and to avoid incalculable suffering is worth 
 the effort. So the two gentlemen, who assured each 
 other of their mutual consideration until they united 
 in the proposed Treaty of Arbitration which is now 
 before our Senate, deserve respect and the thanks of 
 the world for their good intentions. It is barely 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 47 
 
 possible that they are acting in advance of their 
 generation, and that their efforts for the welfare of 
 mankind may be premature; but their credit will be 
 none the less in the years to come. Their work is as 
 certain to bring forth good fruit as the seed that falls 
 on rich soil and receives the rains from heaven is sure 
 to germinate and bud and flower. Reason must 
 triumph in the end. Blind men in broad daylight may 
 insist that all is darkness; but that is the result of 
 their infirmity. The Hght is there none the less. 
 
 It is no diminution of the merit of the chief actors in 
 the Arbitration Treaty that all the conditions were in 
 their favor. Arbitration was no novelty when they 
 imdertook their task of putting another brake on the 
 savagery of men. The fashion of submitting inter- 
 national differences to the deliberate judgment of wise 
 men had become so general as almost to create a prac- 
 tice. It is so cheap that it commends itself to the 
 commercial instinct of the world; so humane that it 
 strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of all those 
 who love their kind. Its assimilation to the legal 
 methods that serve men in their private disputes ap- 
 peals to the reason of all who prefer to abide by law 
 rather than resort to the shotgun or the revolver. 
 Nor can it be denied that the majority of those who 
 do the fighting are quite wilHng to forego their chances 
 of mihtary preferment and renown, if the interests 
 and honor of their country do not require their as- 
 sumption of a soldier's duties. In brief, the moral 
 forces of the day are in favor of a peaceful solution of 
 international disputes, where such a solution is pos- 
 sible. Boys cannot go to the common schools without 
 learning something about war — its uncertainties, its 
 horrors, and its dangers. While their early instincts 
 
48 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 lead them to dream of martial renown as the summum 
 honum of life, they do not in their youthful dreams 
 make much distinction between Alexander the Great 
 and Captain Kidd, But they are content, as a rule, 
 when they have donned the toga virilis, that is, out- 
 grown knickerbockers, to become and remain quiet 
 and hard-working citizens. All this without prejudice 
 to a manly disposition to make a sacrifice of home and 
 of comfort when the country calls; but then it is a 
 sacrifice and not a choice. 
 
 Arbitration, in a word, has become one of the 
 accepted dogmas of our national creed. Our nine- 
 teenth-century civilization is not content with such 
 mitigations as a growing humanity claims to have 
 introduced into the conduct of war. War is, at the 
 best, cruel and brutal : it is the negation of law and 
 the assertion of force in the place of law. Voltaire 
 was not so far wrong when he said : 
 
 The laws of peace I understand well enough, — they con- 
 sist in keeping our word and leaving our neighbor to enjoy 
 the rights which nature has given him. But as for the 
 laws of war I do not know what they are. The code of 
 homicide seems to me a strange inconsistency. I hope 
 that we may soon be provided with the jurisprudence of 
 highway robbery. 
 
 That arbitration has satisfactorily stood the test of 
 experiment, statistics demonstrate. The United States 
 Government has entered into forty-seven agreements 
 for international arbitration — not to speak of the 
 erection by it of thirteen tribunals under its own laws 
 to determine the validity of international claims. A 
 simple explanation this of the fact that we have a 
 small standing army of 25,000 men and do not know 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 49 
 
 to-day what war taxation means. We pay one 
 hundred and fifty millions a year, it is true, to old 
 soldiers who have done their fighting well and in a 
 good cause ; but this is manifestly better than taking 
 the same money to keep young men out of the work- 
 shop, the field, or the factory, to prevent war by 
 making it easy. 
 
 In Europe, too, arbitration has become a familiar 
 visitor at the palaces of kings, and has become so 
 popular a guest that her services are in constant and 
 growing demand. What our example to-day may 
 do, what splendid possibilities it opens to the world, 
 what burdens it promises to remove from the over- 
 worked and overtaxed people, no imagination can 
 describe . It may not , — cannot , — in a day or a century , 
 lay at rest the spirit of violence and aggression; but 
 it may teach a lesson that will make the world happier 
 and better every day that it is studied. 
 
 The sole difference between the Olney-Salisbury 
 Treaty and the half-himdred that we have already 
 had, lies in the fact that in other cases specific in- 
 stances of controversy were disposed of: to-day we 
 are provided with machinery to adjudicate every dis- 
 pute that may arise. Why the formulas and pro- 
 cedure should be renewed and readjusted fifty times 
 or one hundred times to fit cases at intervals, rather 
 than to cover all cases by a careful and intelligent 
 scheme of practice, is not very clear. The only 
 possible — I shall not say plausible — ground of ob- 
 jection must be that a controversy may arise of such 
 a character as to make arbitration less desirable than 
 blows. If our national honor were concerned, it is 
 gravely alleged, no aspersion on that delicate organ 
 could be treated otherwise than with bombs and guns. 
 
50 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 A great nation cannot talk, when her honor is assailed ; 
 action must be then prompt and energetic. Speech 
 was not given to men to discuss questions where 
 honor is concerned. Wholesale homicide is the only 
 remedy for such an assault. Thus France twenty-six 
 years ago refused arbitration because her honor — her 
 dignity she called it — was involved. Whereupon she 
 sacrificed several hundred thousand of her bravest 
 children, lost two of her finest provinces, and paid the 
 assailant of her dignity eight hundred million dollars 
 to go home. No doubt her honor (or her dignity) 
 was worth being preserved at that price; but even 
 those who love her and sympathize with her in her 
 great tribulation so nobly borne, may wonder if she 
 could not have preserved her unsullied fame even had 
 she accepted a friendly Power's mediation. It is not 
 so clear that calm and temperate discussion may not 
 co-exist with a jealous sense of self-respect: on the 
 other hand, it is not certain that readiness to strike 
 necessarily proves the possession of common-sense or 
 a reasonable knowledge of what is due by a nation to 
 itself and to its citizens. 
 
 Those men, therefore, who oppose a general arbitra- 
 tion treaty should be called upon to explain precisely 
 what they understand by " a case involving the honor 
 of the nation." It is evident that men will differ 
 about the definition according to their education, 
 temperament, or the necessities of their station, if they 
 happen to occupy positions depending upon popular 
 favor. Brave words are undoubtedly powerful agents 
 of disturbance, and will effect what argument is power- 
 less to accomplish. It is easier to inflame public 
 resentment than to pour oil on the troubled waters of 
 popular excitement. A dispute of any kind may be 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 51 
 
 tortured by a demagogue into an insult that demands 
 instant reparation. A denial of any claim by a foreign 
 Power may be argued into an assault upon a nation's 
 dignity. But this readiness to magnify incidents that 
 affect interests into events that affect honor has had 
 its day ; and we may be thankful that we have emerged 
 from a condition of doubtful strength, which might 
 increase our impatience of contradiction by leaving 
 room for the suspicion of fear. 
 
 The advocates of arbitration may, in considering 
 this objection, derive much comfort from the reflection 
 that during a century of existence, wherein we have 
 arbitrated so many differences with foreign nations, 
 we have not yet been confronted with a case which 
 was not susceptible of amicable adjustment. We 
 have never yet found that our national honor could 
 not co-exist with legal processes. Irritating questions 
 have undoubtedly arisen; the warlike element has 
 sometimes asserted itself, as when it declared it was 
 a question between "54° 40' or fight"; but our prac- 
 tical good sense overcame the ultra-patriotic men who 
 were burning to immolate themselves on the altar of 
 the coimtry's honor. Boundary questions have been 
 settled, money demands have been passed upon and 
 liquidated, we have had the benefit of the judgments 
 when in our favor, we have discharged our debt when 
 the decree was against us, and in every case we have 
 been infinitely the gainers. 
 
 No case in modem times has offered a better pretext 
 for the avoidance of a submission to arbitration than 
 the Alabama case. Here, if ever, it might be main- 
 tained that the honor of the two nations was concerned. 
 Great Britain was charged with evading the rules of 
 just international intercourse by allowing the Alabama 
 
52 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 to escape and to prey upon our commerce — an 
 imputation which might well throw the British chau- 
 vinist into a delirium of patriotic indignation. The 
 United States might well, on its side, find in this 
 hostile action the material for the war-producing in- 
 sult which lies so close to the warrior's heart. But the 
 two great nations quietly thrust aside these suggestions 
 of the Evil One ; they treated the question as one 
 soimding in damages; a verdict was rendered for an 
 enormous sum, which was promptly paid; and the 
 two English-speaking nations gave to the world their 
 first object-lesson in Common Sense and Reason and 
 Justice. The present treaty is merely the natural 
 outgrowth of the Alabama case: it is its legitimate 
 offspring and with it entitled to the admiration of 
 civilized mankind. 
 
 The Lord Chief Justice of England, while professing 
 that love for peace which so properly belongs to his 
 cloth, asks, with an anxious solicitude, "Who will 
 compel the contracting nation to arbitrate, if she 
 should refuse ? Who shall compel her to abide by the 
 judgment, if she repudiates the award?" 
 
 It is of course within the bounds of possibility that, 
 having solemnly agreed in the face of the world to 
 arbitrate their disputes, either the United States or 
 Great Britain may be false to its promises and recreant 
 to its obligations. In such a case, it is manifest that 
 there is no international gendarme to coerce the re- 
 calcitrant contractor to perform its duty. But this is 
 equally true of every national obligation. Every 
 treaty between two great nations — whether for the 
 settlement of a boundary or the payment of an in- 
 demnity — must rest on the good faith of the parties. 
 The difficulty of coercing fulfilment is precisely one 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 53 
 
 of the reasons that makes repudiation most difficult 
 for a high-spirited nation. If the absence of physical 
 power to enforce is to prevent the conclusion of arbi- 
 tration treaties, it is difficult to see why the argument 
 will not apply in all other cases. We are encouraged 
 by the history of the past to beHeve that the objection 
 is without force. In no case that I can recall has a 
 great nation dishonored her hand and seal by refusing 
 to carry out the decrees of the tribunal to which she 
 has submitted her claims or her arguments. Great 
 nations might dishonor their signature, but as a rule 
 they do not: hence the value of British Consols and 
 United States Bonds. 
 
 But, granting that so unexpected an event should 
 occur, in what respect would the situation be changed 
 for the worse? The original claim would still exist, 
 liquidated by a judgment and fortified by the approval 
 of public opinion. This at least is a risk that either 
 party may well run, even if this pessimistic view of 
 what may be expected from a civilized nation shotild 
 be more generally entertained than it has hitherto 
 been. 
 
 A more specious objection is made by those who ex- 
 press and no doubt feel some solicitude lest the Ameri- 
 can doctrine, which dates back to the time of President 
 Monroe, should be in some way endangered by a 
 general agreement to submit disputes with Great 
 Britain to arbitration. 
 
 The right to exclude Europe from fresh acquisitions 
 on the American continent is one which our people 
 will never surrender unless coerced by force. Not 
 only do they cherish it as a sentiment based upon 
 honorable tradition, but the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion makes it just and reasonable. A nation is not 
 
54 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 bound to apologize for her insistence upon the right 
 to live and to grow. Her natural expansion cannot, 
 with her willing assent, be embarrassed by the creation 
 of obstacles which it is in her power to prevent. The 
 rival nations of Europe may fight for supremacy to 
 their hearts' content on European soil, they may parcel 
 out the Dark Continent among themselves, they may 
 lop off slices of China, appropriate Egypt, or invade 
 Japan — we are disposed to abide by the rule of non- 
 intervention with religious fidelity. So far as they, 
 or any of them, have already acquired a foothold on 
 American territory our good faith will not permit us 
 in any way to intervene in their affairs. But, rightly 
 or wrongly, we believe that our interests consist in 
 checking aggression when it is directed against our 
 weaker neighbors. 
 
 If, therefore, it be true that we should, by this 
 treaty, imperil rights of such vast importance, we 
 might well hesitate to bind ourselves by its terms. It 
 might be urged with great plausibility that such a 
 sacrifice is not one that we should be called upon to 
 make, even in so great a cause as that of international 
 peace. Prudence would require that, assuming such 
 a danger to exist, we should in express terms except 
 the Monroe doctrine from the operation of the agree- 
 ment, or, failing this, that we should continue as in 
 the past to provide for each emergency as it arises. It 
 will not be denied by the most earnest advocate of the 
 treaty that if, in terms, it provided that the Monroe 
 doctrine and its applicability were subjects of proper 
 submission to a Court of Arbitration, public opinion 
 would almost unanimously condemn and most earnestly 
 oppose its consummation. 
 
 Is there, in fact, any such grave peril? Is it to be 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 55 
 
 assumed that a case may arise between the United 
 States and Great Britain, the result of which, upon 
 an arbitration, might be to eliminate from our un- 
 written code a theory of right which is deemed of such 
 vast importance by the majority of our people ? 
 
 There is nothing in the history of the past to make 
 any such contingency a subject of legitimate appre- 
 hension. Any argument based on its existence may 
 be ingenious, but it is purely academic. It should 
 exercise no practical influence on the decision of the 
 question. 
 
 The Monroe doctrine may be treated, in reasoning 
 out this problem, as a part of our organic law. It is 
 entitled to the same respectful consideration as though 
 the Monroe message had been made the subject of a 
 constitutional amendment. The fact that it has not 
 received the formal sanction of our people does not 
 affect the matter: for the purposes of the argument 
 it should be vested with the dignity of a constitutional 
 provision. 
 
 No foreign Power can properly complain that it has 
 not had full notice of the jurisdiction that we claim 
 over the concerns of the American continent. 
 
 If, under such circumstances. Great Britain may 
 properly bring up the Monroe doctrine for review, she 
 may also attack any other of the fundamental doc- 
 trines of American policy. She may, with equal 
 propriety, ask the arbitrators to examine our Declara- 
 tion of Independence. She may attack the com- 
 mercial and police clause of our Constitution and 
 insist upon a judgment that a republican form of 
 government, being far inferior to a constitutional 
 monarchy, ought of right to be abolished, and the 
 latter be permitted to take its place. This would 
 
56 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 naturally involve an equivalent right on the part of 
 the United States to insist upon the abolition of the 
 House of Lords as a useless encumbrance, and of 
 royalty itself as an expensive anachronism. If courts 
 of arbitration are formed for the purpose of amusing 
 the world with platonic discussions, any one of these 
 topics might be appropriately considered ; but no one 
 would seriously contemplate the possibility of vesting 
 a court, however eminent, with the right to pass upon 
 questions which affect the fundamental principles of 
 the respective governments. Concrete cases, not ab- 
 stractions, are the proposed subjects of submission. 
 The establishment of a boundary line, the payment of 
 an indemnity, the restoration of a ship, the liberation 
 of a prisoner, — all these are capable of investigation 
 by a tribunal and may reasonably be submitted ; but 
 no Court of Arbitration, any more than the Supreme 
 Court itself, will take cognizance of a contest which 
 does not involve a personal or a property right. 
 
 It will no doubt be said that this reductio ad absurdum 
 does not dispose of the difficulty, because the Monroe 
 doctrine may be involved indirectly, although sub- 
 stantially, in a boimdary question affecting Great 
 Britain and the United States. We might then, it 
 is argued, find the right of the United States challenged 
 under such conditions as to compel us either to decline 
 arbitration, notwithstanding our agreement, or to incur 
 serious danger where fundamental rights are concerned. 
 
 The objection deserves examination. 
 
 The only contingency in which may arise a dis- 
 cussion involving, in any form, the nature, validity, 
 or effect of the Monroe doctrine is one of boimdary — 
 where territory is or may hereafter be claimed by 
 Great Britain on the one hand, and by a Southern 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 57 
 
 American Republic on the other. Even then no dis- 
 pute involving the interests or the dignity of the 
 United States would arise unless (i) all efforts at 
 settlement by diplomacy had failed between those 
 countries; or (2) arbitration was rejected by one of or 
 both the parties in interest. The attempt of Great 
 Britain to seize the tract in dispute by force of arms 
 might, and probably would, arouse the susceptibility 
 of the United States and call for the application of the 
 doctrine which we are considering. This has already 
 happened in the case of Venezuela and Great Britain : 
 it may happen again. What would the course of 
 action presumably be should a similar situation present 
 itself in the future ? 
 
 There is no misunderstanding between the United 
 States and Breat Britain as to the character and extent 
 of the jurisdiction claimed by the former in cases of the 
 character supposed. Great Britain has been informed 
 that it is a cardinal principle of American policy — 
 claimed to be reasonable and just — that the United 
 States may, where its interests dictate, interfere to 
 prevent the spoliation of a sister republic. Great 
 Britain is as well informed of this as it is of the aboli- 
 tion of slavery in the South, or of our refusal to abolish 
 privateering. The treaty is made in view of this 
 knowledge and with the acceptance of that fact as fully 
 as it is of the fact that we constitute a union of sover- 
 eign States. If Great Britain should attempt by force 
 to take territory from Venezuela, Colombia, or Peru, 
 the only question would be. To whom does the territory 
 belong? This would be a proper subject of arbitration, 
 and would regulate the extent to which this Republic 
 might properly intervene. But there is no ground for 
 supposing that Great Britain would ever claim, or 
 
58 Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 
 
 that we would ever yield, a right on her part to bring 
 into controversy a fundamental rule of which she had 
 been duly notified before the treaty had been made. 
 The notice has repeatedly been given, and especially 
 at so recent a date that she cannot plead that time 
 has wrought a change in the views of our Government. 
 The terms of our most recent authoritative exposition 
 were plain enough to leave nothing to interpretation, 
 and were endorsed with such unanimity of approval 
 that a pretence of ignorance would be as absurd as 
 it must prove futile. We cannot suppose that the 
 great nation that has ruled the seas for centuries and 
 owns more real estate to-day than most of the others 
 put together is laying traps for her junior in years; 
 but if she is, so be it. We are not likely to suffer. 
 The Monroe doctrine is safe, treaty or no treaty. It is 
 quite as safe, if it is not mentioned by name, as if a 
 timid reservation in terms should be inserted to show 
 that the United States were not really quite sure that 
 this repeated and solemn assertion of right had been 
 heard and seriously considered by the world. 
 
 We should not forget that our Monroe doctrine is. 
 after all, but the European doctrine of the balance of 
 power transplanted to American soil. Great Britain 
 might make a general treaty of arbitration with France 
 or Germany. Will any one seriously contend that she 
 thereby waived, minimized, or imperilled her right to 
 interfere, should Germany attack Holland, or France 
 invade Belgium? Such scruples as these do not seem 
 worthy of a great people who know their strength, and 
 purpose to deal in good faith with the other nations of 
 the world. The object of the treaty is peace: the 
 aspiration, the interest, the prayer of the world is for 
 peace. Civihzed mankind yearns for peace : the mul- 
 
Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty 59 
 
 titudes groan and suffer untold hardships because 
 to-morrow may mean war and not peace. Two of 
 the great nations of the world, great enough to know 
 that their honor does not consist in vague mutterings 
 about self-respect and dignity, are wiUing to abide by 
 reason and to forego violence. The gain to the world 
 if they succeed in their noble effort at systematic har- 
 mony is great beyond the power of pen or speech to 
 define. The nineteenth century needs only this 
 culmination of its glories to stand out among the ages 
 as blessed beyond all those that have gone before 
 since the dawn of Christianity first rose upon mankind. 
 
 Above all, let us not be misled by high-sounding 
 declamation about national honor. The only danger 
 which our honor may run is in an exaggerated ten- 
 dency to make readiness to strike the test of its deli- 
 cacy and the proof of its existence. The day has 
 come when we may smile at those who would urge us 
 to prove our strength by the streams of blood that we 
 can shed at short notice. A republic with a united 
 nation of seventy millions behind it may stop to dis- 
 cuss without being taxed with timidity, and will not 
 care if the effervescent mob that clamors for blood 
 on all available occasions shall feel outraged in its 
 honor because of a generous forbearance to draw the 
 nation's sword. 
 
 In 1870, the streets of Paris were filled with valiant 
 men full of patriotism and absinthe, who were shouting 
 eagerly, " A Berlin! A Berlin!" How many of those 
 doughty champions of France's honor started on the 
 journey to Prussia's capital? How many, alas! who 
 said nothing, but did turn their faces toward Berlin, 
 soon found their last resting-place before they had 
 crossed the Rhine? 
 
Ill 
 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW — THE RIGHTS OF SHIPS ^ 
 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW— so called— is spoken of as 
 a science. But it is, I venture to think, an act of 
 violence to language and to proper definition to 
 use that term, except as one made respectable and 
 intelligible by prescription. It is convenient and 
 alluring because it assimilates the intercourse between 
 nations to the relations between men, and thus as- 
 sumes, although it be but a pleasant fiction, that the 
 principles laid down by Vattel and by Grotius com- 
 mand the superstitious veneration of civilized man- 
 kind. History teaches the fallacy of this, and shows 
 us in records of undisguised brutality how feeble is 
 that law which is without sanction, how frail the 
 shield which it seeks to interpose between the great 
 nations and the weaker families of the human race. 
 It is not alone in ^sop's Fables that the wolf could 
 find a reason, satisfactory to himself, for appropri- 
 ating the helpless lamb. All wolves do not care to 
 find reasons for the unlawful satisfaction of their 
 hunger, but on a large scale they generally do discover 
 one in a disputed succession, an appetizing boundary, 
 or a golden opportunity to violate the Decalogue with 
 
 » Lecture delivered before the Naval War College, October 2, 
 1895. 
 
 60 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 6i 
 
 impunity. International law, without the abihty to 
 make its precepts good by a salutary exhibition of 
 force, is as helpless as King Canute before the rising 
 tide. It may furnish the despoiled and outraged 
 people with an appropriate theme for protests and 
 appeals to the world, but with these they may remain 
 content. 
 
 In the meanwhile let us be prepared to enforce our 
 principles in the only way that has yet been devised. 
 Mr. McAdoo, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in his 
 excellent address at the Naval War College in June 
 last, expressed himself on this subject in language that 
 I am tempted to repeat : 
 
 Were the affairs of nations and of men settled entirely by 
 pure reason and unselfish justice, the pen of the diplomat 
 might indeed, unaided, settle the destinies of mankind, 
 but if conscious power has ever yielded up its attainments 
 and foregone palpable advantages at the mere sound 
 of rhetoric, I have no knowledge of the instance. The 
 cunning of the fox is a most admirable quality, but can 
 only supplement, not supererogate, the courage of the lion. 
 
 Even the cunning of the fox, I might add, has lost 
 its virtue since diplomats have taken to telling the 
 truth. ^ 
 
 ' It might be a curious subject of speculation to enquire how 
 far the comparatively straightforward methods of modem diplo- 
 macy are due to a growing regard for truth, or to the feeling that 
 lying does not pay in the end. It is not so long since Talleyrand 
 de P^rigord shone as the one conspicuous light in the galaxy of 
 diplomatic stars. He had in his peculiar sphere no equal, much 
 less a superior. And yet his warmest friends have never pretended 
 that he had the slightest regard for truth. If he ever hesitated to 
 advance a proposition because it was not founded in fact, history 
 has failed to record the instance. The Mettemichs, Nesselrodes, 
 
62 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 Nor shall we find the sources of international law 
 of easy ascertainment and definition. Many ponder- 
 ous tomes have been written to trace the rules of in- 
 tercourse between nations to respectable beginnings. 
 They are founded, learned authorities tell us with ev- 
 
 Castlereaghs, and others with whom he had to deal, may not have 
 been more scrupulous than he. But granting that they were, 
 which is easily possible, it is not likely that they were wholly can- 
 did in dealing with an adversary who was as free from scruples as 
 he was fertile in resources. It is probable that the reform which 
 has become manifest in later years is due to the Press. There are 
 no secrets in governmental circles to-day. The Press has quite 
 as many eyes as Argus, but, more fortunate than he, as many ears 
 as eyes, and a number of tongues equal to the requirements of the 
 other organs. The tardy processes of protocols are inconsistent 
 with the new fashions developed by steam and electricity. Then, 
 too, the people have something to say about the matters which 
 concern themselves, and no longer wait, with respectful deference, 
 for results brought about by deliberate, subtle, and verbose agents. 
 War may be declared by telegraph, troops conveyed by rail at 
 forty miles an hour, great empires destroyed in ninety days. 
 Dilatory, ponderous, impressive diplomacy has had its day. The 
 exquisitely polite forms with which the old-time diplomat con- 
 veyed the assurances of his most distinguished consideration to 
 the representative of the nation which his own principal desired 
 to dismember, threaten to become obsolete. They worked in har- 
 monious effect with the perukes, and breeches, and silk stockings, 
 and sealing-wax — but they are dwindling into anachronisms. 
 Business habits and methods are asserting their sway, and dis- 
 placing formulas. Not that these have wholly disappeared, but 
 their majesty is disrobed. How these euphuistic pretences still 
 endure is nowhere so effectively shown as in the correspondence 
 between Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, and King William 
 of Prussia, when the former surrendered his person and his sword 
 to the victor of Sedan: "Monsieur mon frere. Not having been 
 able to die among my troops, there is nothing left me but to place 
 my sword in the hands of Your Majesty. I am Your Majesty's 
 good brother. Napoleon." To which the brother responded: 
 "Monsieur my brother — I accept Your sword." What an epitaph 
 for a dying empire! What mingled pathos and sham in this pre- 
 tence of fraternity, within sight and hearing of the dying victims 
 of this brotherly quarrel! 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 63 
 
 ident satisfaction, upon the laws of nature, as though 
 this did not compHcate the subject by injecting into it 
 an element of singular vagueness and uncertainty. If 
 it were not presumption to question this generally 
 accepted formula, it might be said that the law of 
 nature, so far as it is possible to find such a law, is the 
 very negation of that which is presumed to lie at 
 the foundation of the law of nations. The law of 
 nature, if it means anything, means the gratification 
 of men's desires by all the means at their command. 
 It is the retrograde passage from the civilized and 
 artificial man to the imperfect and undeveloped state 
 from which he has emerged. Rousseau and other 
 inspired madmen may preach about the beauties of 
 the natural condition and the altruism which it begets. 
 But the truth is that this so-called state of nature is 
 the very converse of the original condition of things. 
 Rousseau's state of nature exhibits an ideal creature 
 who can only exist where man has laid aside his innate 
 tendency to gratify his natural passions in the natural 
 way; that is, by violence, where violence is necessary. 
 No man has more concisely and finely described this 
 condition of man on his way to higher things than the 
 Roman Horace : 
 
 When the first Mortals crawling rose to Birth, 
 Speechless and wretched, from their Mother-Earth, 
 For Caves and Acorns, then the Food of Life, 
 With Nails and Fists they held a Bloodless Strife, 
 But soon improv'd, with Clubs they bolder fought. 
 And various Arms, with sad Experience Wrought, 
 'Till Words, to fix the wandering Voice, were found. 
 And Name impress'd a Meaning upon Sound. 
 Thenceforth they cease from War; their Towns inclose 
 With formidable Walls, and Laws compose 
 
64 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 To strike the Thief and Highwayman with Dread 
 And vindicate the sacred Marriage-Bed. i 
 
 When these wise men, then, speak of the law of 
 nations as being founded on the law of nature, and 
 a natural regard for the rights of others, they do not 
 attach to these words the ordinary significance that 
 properly belongs to them. Thus Vattel : 
 
 Nations do not, in their mutual relations to each other, 
 acknowledge any other law than that which Nature herself 
 has established. Perhaps, therefore, it may appear super- 
 fluous to give a treatise on the Law of Nature as distinct 
 from the Law of Nations. But those who entertain this 
 idea have not sufficiently studied the subject. 
 
 He then adds a paragraph which deserves much re- 
 spect, as it was written many years ago and has been 
 treated with consideration by eminent and serious 
 writers : 
 
 Nations, it is true, can only be considered as so many 
 individual persons living together in a state of nature, and 
 for that reason we must apply to them all the duties and 
 rights which Nature prescribes and attributes to men in 
 general, as being naturally bom free and bound to each 
 other by no ties hut those of Nature alone. 
 
 » This paraphrase (Rev. Philip Francis's) does scant justice to the 
 vigor and beauty of the original : 
 
 " Quum prorepserunt primis animalia terris, 
 
 Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter 
 Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro 
 Pugnabant armis, quae post fabricaverat usus, 
 Donee verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent, 
 Nominaque invenere: dehinc absistere bello, 
 Oppida cceperunt munire et ponere leges, 
 Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter." 
 
 Horace, Satires, Book I., Unes 100-107 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 65 
 
 If this had been written for the first time in the last 
 decade of the nineteenth century, and such a state- 
 ment had been used as the foundation for a work on 
 the Law of Nations, we may readily believe that the 
 critics, undeterred by antiquity and unrestrained by 
 general acceptance, would have challenged Vattel's 
 assumption that the refined, well-dressed, and fin-de- 
 siecle inhabitants of Paris, London, and New York 
 were living together in a state of nature, and that man 
 being naturally born free was bound by no ties but 
 those of nature alone. These critics might then, 
 without disrespect, point out the fallacies of such a 
 statement and the singular consequences to which 
 they may lead. The individuals composing modern 
 society have long since emerged from ' ' the state of 
 nature" and are refined, humane, orderly, and pros- 
 perous in the measure of their abandoning that state 
 and assuming another. Self-denial and some measure 
 of altruism distinguish the artificial man from the 
 natural man, whose instincts are his law, whether 
 they tell him to use his aged parents for food or sell 
 his children into slavery. To what model would such 
 instructors as Vattel refer us? There must be an 
 ideal state which they may point out and urge us to 
 imitate. What African tribe or South Sea island clan 
 or Malay community illustrates in itself the golden 
 rules that are interwoven into and form the chief 
 texture of the Law of Nations ? Nay, they are out of 
 the pale of that law and may not claim any portion of 
 its benefits, partly because they are ignorant of its 
 existence, and partly because they have, none of them, 
 the physical power to enforce its application. It is 
 plain, then, that the Law of Nature, spoken of by so 
 many authors, is one that they have not defined, and 
 
66 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 which, whatever it may be, is not the Law of Nature 
 of which we so often speak in so different a sense. ^ 
 In other words, they had in mind some other and 
 different law which they intended by this misnomer 
 to hold up for imitation and respect. They probably 
 considered the Decalogue and the Sermon on the 
 Mount as part of the vague generalization which they 
 have thus fallaciously called to their assistance. These 
 do indeed form a code of morals or a system of ethics 
 upon which a stately edifice may be reared for the 
 benefit and improvement of mankind. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham, in commenting upon the " False 
 Manner of Reasoning in Matters of Legislation," has 
 touched upon this point and made it clear : 
 
 What is natural in man is his feelings of pain or 
 pleasure — his inclinations ; but to call these feelings and 
 inclinations laws, is to introduce a false and dangerous 
 view and to put language in contradiction with itself, for 
 laws must be made for the very purpose of suppressing 
 these inclinations. 
 
 What Bentham says here of municipal laws and 
 their object applies with still greater force, perhaps, 
 to the rules which govern the relations of nations with 
 one another, for experience has taught us, and history 
 proves, that great agglomerations of men are more 
 readily inflamed to the point of injurious oppression 
 
 1 "The words 'nature' and 'natural' are constantly bandied 
 about in controversy, as if they settled quarrels, whereas they only 
 provoked them by their ambiguity." — Ritchie, ch. ii., p. 21. 
 
 "What is justice? What are laws? What is the State? The 
 man who speaks in the law courts or political assemblies, speaks 
 as if he knew what these terms meant. The sophists made him 
 think whether the terms as ordinarily used had any definite mean- 
 ing at all." — Ritchie, ch. ii, p. 23. 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 67 
 
 and unnecessary violence than individuals. The con- 
 tagion of example, the hope of impunity, the love of 
 fame, and many other elements call for restraint and 
 demand a curb which no rhapsodical appeal to the 
 laws of nature will ever furnish. 
 
 Some recent writers have sought to evade the 
 difficulty by metamorphosing the Law of Nature into 
 something which it certainly is not, and thus have 
 sought to continue Vattel's misnomer by making it a 
 synonyni for something different from itself. Thus 
 Hautefeuille, a writer of reputation, says : 
 
 God has given to nations and to those who govern them 
 a law which they are to observe towards each other, an 
 unwritten law, it is true, but a law which He has taken 
 care to engrave in indelible characters in the heart of every 
 man. It is the Divine or Natural Law; it constitutes 
 what I shall call the Primitive Law. i 
 
 In what respect the situation is improved by label- 
 ling a system Primitive Law, instead of Divine Law 
 or Natural Law, it is not easy to see. Indeed, the new 
 label appears to do nothing more than to add to our 
 perplexity. While we may accept and understand 
 either of the others, it would require much learning to 
 fix the date, origin, or extent of this so-called primitive 
 and unwritten law. The fact is that our modem 
 system of international law is the expression of the 
 moral sense of mankind, ever growing, improving, 
 
 ' "Who is to interpret, in last instance, the principles which are 
 termed laws of God, laws of nature, laws of reason, and laws be- 
 tween nations, when they are invoked by anybody in justification 
 of disobedience to a command of the State, or of the powers which 
 the State authorizes? Is it not evident that this must be the 
 State itself?" — Pol. Science and Comparative Const. Law, vol. i., 
 p. 53. Professor Burgess, of Columbia College. 
 
68 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 developing, and spreading. It is based upon modern 
 Christian civilization and infinitely more upon the 
 written word of God than upon the so-called un- 
 written law. It bears only a remote resemblance 
 to the original and much -restricted jus gentium,^ 
 and finds its raison d'etre in custom and a generally 
 recognized system of Christian ethics common to the 
 nations that profess obedience to its mandate. It 
 does not and cannot apply to barbarian, heathen 
 states, for there is no common ground upon which 
 the parties may meet. To act upon the Golden 
 Rule in dealing with nations that believe in revenge 
 and ready violence as the only treatment for griev- 
 ances, real or supposed, would be absurd in theory and 
 impossible in practice. 
 
 The Law of Nations will then be found to consist of 
 certain rules of self-denial, forbearance, and courtesy 
 which have been found conducive to the mutual in- 
 terest of men. As nations improved in their moral 
 conditions and learned to realize the benefits of peace, 
 these rules adapted themselves to the changing 
 features of the times. Courtesy between individuals 
 easily led to courtesy between rulers. Good faith in 
 private dealings was the forerunner of good faith in 
 pubhc matters. The habit of respecting a neighbor's 
 
 1 "The phrase jus gentium was in the seventeenth century, by a 
 mistranslation, taken to mean 'the law of nations,' which we now 
 call 'International Law.' The mistranslation was a fortunate one, 
 because it allowed Grotius and others to introduce the humane 
 conceptions of the Roman 'law of nature' into the theory of the 
 right relations between independent political societies; neverthe- 
 less it was a mistranslation. Jus gentium was the term used to 
 describe those principles on which Roman magistrates decided 
 cases in which the parties were not both Roman citizens, and in 
 which, therefore, the jus civile was regarded as inapplicable." — 
 Natural Rights. Professor Ritchie, p. 37. 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 69 
 
 field inspired some scruple, perhaps, as to the pro- 
 priety of seizing a tempting bit of neighboring terri- 
 tory. And, possibly more than all combined, it was 
 found that the practice of treating other nations with 
 fairness and with justice was the most expedient in the 
 end. It is utility, after all, that furnishes the solid 
 substance and foundation wall of international as of 
 private law. And yet, instances are but too common 
 to show that when one nation has the power, and finds 
 it expedient to disregard the rules of ethics and to 
 adopt the suggestions of policy, the latter drives its 
 white-robed opponents from the field of discussion; 
 it seizes the lion's share because its name at that 
 particular moment happens to be Lion.^ 
 
 President Washington, at the time of his first inaugu- 
 ration, in solemn tones of warning, taught his people 
 the value of justice in dealing with other nations by 
 dwelling upon what he termed "the indispensable union 
 between duty and advantage, between the genuine 
 
 1 The ideal exponent of this justification of force in our century 
 is undoubtedly the Iron Chancellor of Germany. Blood and Iron 
 are the tonics which he is said to have recommended for anaemia, 
 the prevailing ailment in the body politic. Whether or not he 
 ever did declare that "La force prime le droit" (or as we would 
 express it, "Might makes right") may be uncertain, but the people 
 whom he brought to the depths of humiliation in 1870 have always 
 attributed to him this frank if cynical declaration of his guiding 
 principle. Frederick the Great, the real founder of the German 
 Empire, might have hesitated to make such an avowal, but then 
 he became a philosopher, after he had had his share of Poland, and 
 something of a moralist after he had demonstrated by his successful 
 war on Maria Theresa, that honesty is not always the best policy, 
 at least for ambitious monarchs. The great Chancellor, however, 
 is not a philosopher, he does not make verses, and does not play 
 the flute (at least so far as we know); in these respects he differs 
 from the great Prussian King, who made Sadowa probable, and 
 Sedan possible. 
 
70 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and 
 the soHd rewards of pubHc prosperity and feHcity." ^ 
 
 We may be content to accept this as the maxim that 
 should govern the public acts of a great people. To 
 be honest and to be magnanimous is a programme in 
 itself, and we may, as citizens of these United States, 
 
 » This language of our first President may be considered the 
 starting-point of our diplomacy, which has been, notwithstanding 
 its recent birth, singularly brilliant and fortunate. It has given a 
 fiat denial, of the most conclusive kind, to the idea that diplomacy 
 was an occult art, which required early training in tortuous devices 
 and an intimate acquaintance with complicated precedents. In 
 one respect it has been very fortunate for the United States that 
 they were not possessed of a diplomatic school. The disadvantage 
 which European powers sometimes labor under from the old-fash- 
 ioned method of keeping young statesmen on hand for the purpose 
 of getting advantage of other nations in their international dis- 
 putes often gave respectable mediocrity an opportunity to show 
 its incapacity. Our Presidents, not having a college of young 
 statesmen to select from, simply took from political life the ablest 
 and most intelligent men that they could find, and those best cal- 
 culated by their knowledge of the subject with which they were 
 to deal, to secure fair treatment from other nations. No better 
 illustration of this could be adduced than the history of our nego- 
 tiations with Great Britain, which ended in the Treaty of Ghent. 
 President Madison had no diplomats to send to England on this 
 most important subject, so he selected John Quincy Adams, Albert 
 Gallatin, Henry Clay, James A. Bayard, and Jonathan Russell for 
 the purpose; men of tried courage, experienced ability, and noted 
 patriotism. Their adversaries, whose names history has scarcely 
 preserved, were no doubt trained in all the formulas of the school 
 to which they belonged, but they were almost ludicrously unequal 
 to the international contest in which, unfortunately for themselves, 
 they were forced to embark. All the probabilities were against 
 the success of the American commissioners. England at that 
 time was in the flush of her continental triumphs. Her great 
 opponent was relegated to a small island in the Mediterranean, 
 and she was patting France on the back with patronizing and 
 most exasperating kindness. She had had recent and great suc- 
 cesses over the Americans ; she was about to send some of Welling- 
 ton's best-trained troops to the United States to conclude the war, 
 and her principal journal declared that England would be satisfied 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 71 
 
 claim with confidence that we have in the main 
 moulded our diplomacy after this lofty standard; 
 that we have been slow to wrath, ready to reason, 
 gentle to the weak, and firm with the strong. It is no 
 boast to say that to-day the world is better for our 
 example and for our efforts to be " honest and mag- 
 nanimous." Senseless and cruel war has received no 
 encouragement at our hands, and if the humane and 
 
 with nothing less than a large slice of the northern part of the 
 United States, with the abandonment of the asserted right to the 
 fisheries, and with their submission to the right of search and im- 
 pressment. The collection of epithets hurled against President 
 Madison by such journals as the Times, the Chronicle, and other 
 leading papers, would make a very fair dictionary of Billingsgate. 
 No epithet was too vile to apply to him, to his party, and to his 
 cotmtry, but, notwithstanding all these disadvantages, and not- 
 withstanding the fact that the English envoys began by ultimata 
 which were absolutely inadmissible, the skill and the consummate 
 ability of the American commissioners finally drove Great Britain 
 into a treaty which was acceptable to the United States. While 
 the chief glory of this success is due, no doubt, to Albert Gallatin, 
 yet all his brother commissioners contributed to the grand result. 
 It fortunately happened that the work of diplomacy was sup- 
 plemented and rounded off by Andrew Jackson, on the 8th day of 
 January, 1815, while the ship which bore the treaty was ploughing 
 its way over the stormy Atlantic to New York. There are few 
 events in the history of this country which have had the moral 
 effect of that victory. It marked a turn in the tide of international 
 politeness, if nothing else. Up to that moment the authorities and 
 the Press of Great Britain had treated the ex-subjects of Great 
 Britain with undisguised contempt. They were simply ungrateful 
 rebels who had chanced to succeed, but who were sxire to fail in 
 their ambitious and ridiculous efforts at self-government. History 
 has recorded the epithet that was applied to Benjamin Franklin, 
 who was likened by Wedderbum (Lord Loughborough) to a man 
 of three letters {homo trium literarum, that is a "fur" or thief), a 
 classical allusion which displayed familiarity with old authors, but 
 which did not prevent Franklin from getting the best of his lord- 
 ship in the end. 
 
 From that time up to this day the United States have, as a 
 general rule, been represented abroad by men of marked ability 
 
72 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 peaceful methods of arbitration constitute to-day the 
 most approved means of solving international disputes, 
 the great honor of this stride in human progress is due 
 to the nation that Washington instructed in the pur- 
 suit of happiness, through honor and right-doing. 
 His words have not fallen on stony soil, but have 
 brought forth fruit abundant and precious. 
 
 Custom is a source of international law which is 
 entitled to special consideration. Custom creates an 
 
 and character, men who were able to hold their own with the best 
 of the trained diplomats of the world. They were equally com- 
 petent to speak, or to hold their peace, as occasion required. Mr. 
 Trescott's excellent work on our Diplomatic History contains 
 nothing which would make an American blush. 
 
 On the subject of Franklin, and the ability of our Ministers 
 abroad to hold their peace, I cannot refrain from quoting a story 
 charmingly told by Mr. Hanotaux, the late Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs, at the banquet of the American Chamber of Commerce 
 on the Fourth of July last at Paris: 
 
 "When Franklin arrived in France he was somewhat astonished 
 at the luxury, noise, and bustle of the Court of Versailles. The 
 courtiers, who are by nature efifervescent and volatile, made much 
 ado over him. He was himself inclined to be taciturn. The So- 
 ciety of Friends, to which he belonged, had, as you know, estab- 
 lished a rule of silence. Vergennes, likewise, was of a reserved, 
 circumspect, uncommunicative nature. The introducer, having 
 presented Franklin, withdrew. The two statesmen, left alone, 
 bowed to each other. Vergennes, with a gesture, invited Franklin 
 to be seated, and then waited. Franklin, however, said not a 
 word; possibly he wished to put his companion's gravity to the 
 test — the French had always been pictured to him as being so 
 loquacious. . . The Minister felt that he was on the verge 
 
 of overstepping the rules of courtesy and hospitality. He, there- 
 fore, took out his snuff-box and invited Franklin to take a pinch 
 of snuff. The latter complied, reflected an instant, and took his 
 snuff in silence. Vergennes, on his part, did the same, and thus 
 returned the compliment. After a brief flash of silence Franklin 
 arose; so did Vergennes, whereupon, after a farewell obeisance 
 they parted. This was the entire sum and substance of their first 
 interview, which, happily, was to be followed by others of a more 
 fruitful character." 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships n 
 
 implied agreement between nations to accept as proper 
 and just in the future what has been done without 
 objection in the past. The value of precedent, es- 
 pecially to the Anglo-Saxon race, cannot be over- 
 estimated. It is to-day the ruling factor in the 
 government of Great Britain. A sovereign Parlia- 
 ment is omnipotent except to disregard precedent, 
 that mysterious oracle which dictates or forbids action 
 at its will. Precedent is the controlling ingredient of 
 the Common Law and turns the Present into an obedi- 
 ent servant of the Past, until some positive enact- 
 ment, hesitatingly passed and often grudgingly obeyed, 
 lets in the sunshine of the new day to light up the 
 musty records of bygone ages. 
 
 And finally, but in reality first, we meet " Self- 
 Preservation " to disturb and control international 
 relations. The great warriors have often confounded 
 it with personal ambition and have listened to its 
 voice until they heeded no other. C«sar dealing with 
 Gaul, Frederick with Poland, Napoleon with Spain, 
 the Holy Alliance with Europe, have shown how 
 slight and frail a barrier mere Right could erect to 
 withstand the assaults of ambition and self-interest. 
 
 To these we might not improperly add Treaties, 
 although treaties, being express and written contracts 
 standing or falling upon their own provisions, may not 
 necessarily be included in the list. Such compacts 
 might be made without reference to a general scheme 
 of law, and in fact may be and sometimes are operative 
 as pro tanto superseding it. 
 
 We thus have, with the reservation above made, the 
 same ingredients in substance which Grotius enumer- 
 ates as constituting the sources of international law: 
 "Jura natures, leges divincE, mores ei pacta." If he had 
 
74 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 stricken out the first and substituted the language 
 of Washington, the definition would have been im- 
 proved. Chronology, however, if nothing else, has not 
 permitted him to do this. As I wish to be wholly 
 guiltless of presumption, I shall not venture upon any 
 definition of my own, but will select from the many 
 that we have had, that one, the author of which is held 
 in particular veneration by the jurists of our country — 
 I mean Chancellor Kent. His definition wisely omits 
 all reference to the natural law, of which so much has 
 been said : ' * International Law, as understood among 
 civilized nations, may be defined as consisting of those 
 rules of conduct which reason deduces, as consonant to 
 justice, from the nature of the society existing among 
 independent nations ; with such definitions and modi- 
 fications as may be established by general consent." 
 
 Having proceeded thus far in laying down principles 
 which must be kept in view when any special and 
 incidental question arises between nations, I purpose 
 to consider one topic which is too large in its scope and 
 importance for more than superficial treatment in such 
 a paper as this. It deserves, indeed, most careful 
 attention, for in its application it may hereafter involve 
 grave consequences to our honor as well as our interests. 
 I mean the question of so-called asylum on ships. 
 
 The present fashion of studying municipal law favors 
 the consideration of a leading case, and the examina- 
 tion of the conclusions reached in and properly to be 
 deduced from its decision. Following this practice, 
 which presents manifest advantages, we will briefly 
 study the Barrundia case ; it is one of conspicuous im- 
 portance because of the principles involved and of the 
 tragical ending which stained the deck of an American 
 ship with the blood of a political refugee. 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 75 
 
 The facts may be briefly stated; they are in the 
 main iincontradicted. 
 
 General Barrundia, prior to 1892, had held a high 
 position in the Government of Guatemala, but having 
 failed to obtain the Presidency, he proceeded to organ- 
 ize an invasion of his country from Mexican territory. 
 Being thwarted in this he was disarmed by the Govern- 
 ment of Mexico. On the 23d day of August of that 
 year he found his way to the port of Acapulco (in 
 Mexico), where he took a ticket for Salvador on the 
 American steamship Acapulco. The steamer sailed 
 on the day last named for Panama; she was to stop 
 on her way at several ports of Guatemala. The move- 
 ments of Barrundia having become known to the 
 authorities of Guatemala, they determined to arrest 
 him, but were apparently troubled by scruples as to 
 the probable attitude of the United States. They 
 might not iinreasonably apprehend that an American 
 captain would offer moral, if not actual, resistance to 
 an invasion of his ship for the purpose of removing 
 therefrom a passenger, who was charged with a purely 
 political offence. It was not clear to them that the 
 Government of the United States would view without 
 dissatisfaction a proceeding for which there was no 
 clearly established precedent. The value of precedent 
 in public as in municipal law has been already briefly 
 adverted to ; and if it were the fact, as has been claimed, 
 that no cases in the past could be found to justify, but 
 many to forbid, the exercise of such an alleged right, 
 the Government of Guatemala acted with wisdom in 
 seeking to procure, at the outset, the assent and the 
 active co-operation of the representative of the United 
 States to Central America. 
 
 The Minister for Foreign Relations of Guatemala, 
 
76 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 realizing this, addressed a despatch to the United 
 States representative, in which, after stating certain 
 facts in support of his contention, he claimed that his 
 Government had "a perfect right, being in a state of 
 war, to capture Barrundia on the steamer which was 
 [is] anchored in Champerico, a port of Guatemala." 
 The Minister concluded his despatch with a request 
 that "the Honorable Consul-General and Charge 
 d 'Affaires of the United States will, if he thinks proper, 
 give his directions by telegraph to the effect that the 
 captain of the vessel referred to might not offer any 
 resistance to the capture or arrest of the said General 
 J. Martin Barrundia." 
 
 Captain Pitts of the Acapulco became aware of the 
 intention of Guatemala to detain his passenger, and 
 at once realized the responsibility which he was called 
 on to assume. It is not impossible that a sentiment 
 of humanity, mingled with the natural reluctance of 
 an American citizen to aid in the surrender of a 
 political refugee, may have operated upon his mind. 
 He may have thought that the American flag which 
 he carried meant something not easy to reconcile with 
 a voluntary surrender of the passenger whom he had 
 taken on his ship. Be this as it may, he wrote this 
 categorical despatch to Mr. Misner, Charge d'Affaires 
 of the United States to Central America : ' ' Shall I 
 deliver General Barrundia to the authorities here? If 
 so, please send me a letter with your signature to that 
 effect." The United States Minister did thereupon 
 inform him, over his signature, that it was his (Cap- 
 tain Pitts 's) duty under the Law of Nations to deliver 
 General Barrundia to the authorities of Guatemala. 
 
 It is due to the Charge to add that he wrote, at the 
 same time, that guaranties had been given him that 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships li 
 
 Barrundia's life should not be in danger, or any 
 punishment inflicted upon him other than for causes 
 theretofore stated. 
 
 The burden of a decision having thus been placed 
 upon the Charge, Captain Pitts made no further ob- 
 jection to the surrender and proceeded to carry it out. 
 General Barrundia was not, however, disposed to 
 yield without a struggle. Mr. Misner briefly informed 
 his Government of the result as follows: "General 
 Barrundia, having resisted arrest on board the Aca- 
 pulco, was, after having fired the first shot, killed by 
 Guatemalan officers." This dramatic termination im- 
 pressed the case with unusual importance, and the 
 question arose how far the United States Charge had 
 made himself responsible for this tragical culmination 
 by his participation in the surrender; or rather, it 
 might be justly said, by the surrender itself. Captain 
 Pitts had not undertaken to settle the question whether 
 the delivery of his passenger could properly be re- 
 quired of him. 
 
 This narrative would be incomplete were it not 
 stated, in addition, that there was a vessel of the United 
 States then and there present within easy reach of the 
 Acapulco. A suggestion from the Charge to the com- 
 mander of the armed vessel of the United States would 
 have insured life and safety to the unfortunate refugee. 
 It is not probable that the authorities of Guatemala 
 would have undertaken to pursue their victim on the 
 deck of such a ship, although, after the event in which 
 they had obtained so brilliant a triumph, the repre- 
 sentative of Guatemala announced that he would have 
 sunk the merchant vessel had his demand been re- 
 jected, "even though it might have involved a con- 
 flict with the two armed vessels of the United States 
 
78 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 which were then and there present." It is fortunate, 
 perhaps, for the gentleman who wrote these brave 
 words that he was not called upon to show that his 
 valor was greater than his discretion. We may dis- 
 miss these ebuUitions, as did Secretary Blaine, without 
 much notice. Ex post facto threats and extravagance 
 of language after the event not infrequently afford 
 relief to persons who have escaped grave peril; they 
 do no real harm to the other parties concerned. 
 
 Upon being informed of all the details which affected 
 and helped to bring about the death of General Bar- 
 rundia, by violence, on an American ship, Secretary 
 Blaine wrote a despatch to the Charge d'Affaires of 
 the United States in Central America. This paper 
 deserves careful attention and study. It reviews the 
 circumstances which culminated in the final catastro- 
 phe, and after censuring the Charge in strong terms, 
 it concludes by informing him that in the opinion of 
 the President his usefulness in Central America was at 
 an end. He was therefore requested to leave his 
 post with all convenient despatch. 
 
 The Charge, in reply, insisted that he had acted in 
 accordance with the law of nations, and closed by an 
 appeal to the considerate judgment of his countrymen. 
 
 Mr. Misner based his plea mainly upon the decision 
 in the Gomez case, decided by Secretary Bayard, and 
 upon the fact that "the entire diplomatic corps in 
 Central America, excepting the representative from 
 Mexico, had, in writing, endorsed his course in the 
 Bammdia case." The former of these pleas, if sus- 
 tained in fact, must certainly go far to justify his 
 position; but it is at least doubtful whether, in a 
 matter exclusively touching the honor of the American 
 flag and the interests of the American people, the 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 79 
 
 opinions of the diplomatists referred to are relevant 
 or important. 
 
 Anything approaching a full discussion of this im- 
 portant case would far exceed my limits, even if 
 generously extended; but a few suggestions may be 
 made which will perhaps open a field to others for 
 more extensive and profitable discussion. 
 
 Leaving out of view, for the moment, the despatch 
 in which Secret :iry Bayard is said to have made a 
 precedent which the American representative was 
 authorized, if not bound, to follow, no case can be 
 found, I believe, in which a representative of the 
 United States gave actual aid to a foreign power in 
 removing a political prisoner from an American ship, 
 especially while that prisoner was in transit from one 
 foreign port to another. The cases cited by Mr. Blaine 
 would seem to place this assertion beyond the sphere 
 of reasonable contradiction. If this be so, the very 
 unfortunate result of the Barrundia incident has been 
 to disturb a line of precedents which strongly sup- 
 ported the generally accepted idea of our people that 
 the flag of the United States gave some protection to 
 political refugees who had sought for safety under its 
 folds. That there was a general consensus of opinion 
 to that effect is a proposition not easily susceptible of 
 mathematical demonstration. But I incline to think 
 that Mr. Hall was not far from the truth when, being 
 Minister to Central America, he telegraphed to the 
 American consul in a case generally similar to the one 
 under consideration : 
 
 Say respectfully to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that 
 our Government never has consented and never will con- 
 sent to the arrest and removal from an American vessel 
 
8o International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 in a foreign port of a passenger in transit, much less if 
 offence is political. 
 
 If it be true that demands for the surrender of 
 political prisoners have, prior to the Barrundia case, 
 been made and denied by captains of American mer- 
 chant vessels, precedents have established, to some ex- 
 tent at least, a right to protect the passenger against 
 summary extradition. ^ 
 
 1 That merchants vessels lying in the ports of a foreign state 
 enjoy certain immunities from the local jurisdiction, even in the 
 absence of express treaty stipulations, seems to be generally con- 
 ceded, but all writers do not agree as to the extent of this privilege 
 or exemption. The general idea connects it with the theory that 
 the ship belonging to a foreign nation is to be considered in some 
 aspects as part of the territory to the jurisdiction of which she 
 belongs. In other words, that ships are floating portions of the 
 country upon which they depend, and are as such entitled to re- 
 ceive some of that respect and courtesy which the general Govern- 
 ment exacts for itself. This view does not seem to have been 
 adopted by the French courts and French authorities, for although 
 they go as far, perhaps, as others in recognizing the fact of ex- 
 tra-territorial rights, they do not ascribe the privileges which flow 
 from it to the same sources. Mr. Hall, in his recent work on In- 
 ternational Law, says that, according to the view held in France, 
 the crew of a merchant ship lying in a foreign port is unlike a 
 collection of isolated strangers travelling in the country; that it is 
 an organized body of men, governed internally in conformity with 
 the laws of their state, enrolled under its control, and subordinated 
 to an officer who is recognized by the public authority; although, 
 therefore, the vessel which they occupy is not altogether a public 
 vessel, yet it carries about a sort of atmosphere of the national 
 Government which still surrounds it when in the waters of another 
 state. 
 
 It may not be easy to see any substantial merit in the distinc- 
 tion. Extra-territorial right based upon the principle first enun- 
 ciated, viz., that the ship is a floating part of the territory, does 
 not seem to differ materially from the French idea. However this 
 may be, the result in both cases is the same. 
 
 It may be observed that the result reached by the French politi- 
 cal authorities and courts is the same practically as that pro- 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 8i 
 
 It may be claimed, however, and with some reason, 
 that Secretary Blaine only decided that the United 
 States Charge had erred in actively co-operating with 
 the foreign authorities in the effort to secure the 
 person of General Barrundia, and that the real question 
 still remains open. But it is scarcely possible to read 
 
 pounded by our Supreme Court in the Wildenhus case. (120 
 U. S. Rep., p. II.) They held that "there is a distinction between 
 the acts relating solely to the internal discipline of the vessel, or 
 even crimes or lesser offences committed by one of the crew against 
 another, when the peace of the port is not affected, on the one 
 hand; and, on the other, crimes or lesser offences committed upon 
 or by persons not belonging to the crew, or even by members of it 
 upon each other, provided, in the latter case, that the peace of the 
 port is compromised." 
 
 Thus, in France, each case stands upon the peculiar circum- 
 stances that create and concern it. In two instances stated by Mr. 
 Hall, it has been held by the superior courts that certain acts 
 which were the subject of consideration, related wholly to the in- 
 terior discipline of the vessel, and that the local authorities had 
 not jurisdiction; while in a third, the court having expressed its 
 doubt as to the appUcabiUty of the principle upon which the earlier 
 cases were decided, the Government, on being consulted, decided 
 in favor of extra-territoriality, and directed that the offender 
 should be given into the custody of the authorities on board his 
 own ship. 
 
 Mr. Webster, whose opinion has been quoted in the text, has 
 probably gone as far as any American statesman in arguing for a 
 right of exemption from local jurisdiction. In his correspondence 
 with Lord Ashburton he argued that slaves, so long as they re- 
 mained on board an American vessel in English waters, did not 
 fall under the operation of EngUsh law. It may be, as Mr. Hall 
 says, that Mr. Webster would have been embarrassed by a call for 
 reference to sufficient authority. Possibly Mr. Hall's prejudice as 
 an Englishman may have suggested the possibility of embarrass- 
 ment on Mr. Webster's part. Those who have studied Mr. Web- 
 ster's life and works may be pardoned if they are somewhat amused 
 at the idea that that intellectual giant solemnly laid down propo- 
 sitions which he was unable to sustain. He may not have been 
 able to cite cases directly in point, because the ever- varying com- 
 plexity and extending area of international questions create cases 
 for which precedents cannot always be cited; but there are certain 
 
82 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 the Secretary's letter without a resulting conviction 
 that he himself would not and did not intend to con- 
 cede the assumed right to enter upon and search an 
 American ship to find an alleged political prisoner. 
 How far he was right in his interpretation of the law 
 of nations, in this particular, presents an alluring field 
 for discussion. 
 
 It must be conceded that Secretary Bayard, in the 
 
 principles which Mr. Webster, more than any man of his day, was 
 competent to understand, to elucidate, and to apply to any incident 
 that multiple international relations might create. 
 
 Many states have followed the example of France as to the exer- 
 cise of jurisdiction over foreign vessels in their own ports, and have 
 been disposed to take a generous view of the claim of exemption 
 from local jurisdiction. In several recent consular conventions, 
 beginning with that between France and Chili in 1846, it is stipu- 
 lated that the purely internal order of the merchant vessels shall 
 be subject to consular jurisdiction, and that the local authority 
 shall only be permitted to interfere when the peace or public order 
 of the port or its neighborhood is disturbed, or when persons other 
 than the officers and crew of a ship are mixed up in the breach of 
 order which is committed. These conventions are of value, as taking 
 out of the domain of unwritten and uncertain right the limits of 
 extra-territoriality, as applied to ships. At the same time it must 
 be obvious that the difficulty is not wholly removed, and it will 
 not always be easy to determine when the local jurisdiction may 
 be invoked, or when it may be unlawful to assert it. The Wilden- 
 hus case is an illustration of this, so also the Barrundia case. It 
 was never pretended that Barrundia should be surrendered be- 
 cause he or the ship upon which he was sailing had disturbed the 
 peace or public order of the port or its neighborhood. As it is 
 stated in the text, the demand was placed upon the ground that 
 a state of war existed, thereby creating a condition of things which 
 justified the claim of a right to search the ship. As a general rule, 
 it is undoubtedly true that the exercise of such a right does not 
 exist in time of peace. 
 
 Massd, in his work on International Law, holds that two sover- 
 eign nations cannot advantageously waive this rule. 
 
 Mass^ declares that "whatever may be the object of visit in 
 time of peace, it is always an act of police which cannot be exer- 
 cised by one nation towards another, because it implies on the 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 83 
 
 Gomez case, laid down rules of conduct which would 
 seem to imply that, in his opinion, the obligation to 
 surrender the passenger on demand is unqualified and 
 absolute. The language used by him, emanating as 
 it does from an accomplished and patriotic statesman, 
 cannot be brushed aside or disregarded. Mr. Blaine 
 evidently felt that he could not overlook it, and that 
 portion of his despatch which seeks to avoid conflict 
 of decision with his predecessor betrays marks of em- 
 barrassment. His reason for refusing to be bound by 
 instructions which jarred with his own views of Amer- 
 ican rights and American duties do not appear con- 
 clusive, in so far as they discriminate between the two 
 cases ; and it is but just to Mr. Misner to admit that 
 he may find some justification for his action in that 
 despatch. Mr. Blaine's argument need not be re- 
 hearsed here. Those interested in such questions will 
 find it ingenious even if specious in its attempts to 
 distinguish. But I will venture one or two additional 
 suggestions in support of the view that the two cases 
 are not identical. 
 
 part of the visitor a sovereignty incompatible with the reciprocal 
 inedpendence of nations. Furthermore, two nations cannot advan- 
 tageously grant one another by special conventions the reciprocal 
 right of visit in time of peace. As such conventions imply an 
 abandonment of the sovereignty, which is in its very essence in- 
 alienable and incapable of being ceded, the two nations which have 
 mutually given up their rights can only have made a temporary 
 abandonment of them, which no lapse of time can render defin- 
 itive." (Note to Lawrence's Wheaton on International Law, p. 257.) 
 To the same effect is Hautefeuille : "The act of search cannot 
 be exercised in time of peace; all the nations that have yielded to 
 superior power or blandishments, or to any other influence, so far 
 as to consent that their ships might be searched in time of peace, 
 must, in order to recover the independence which they have alien- 
 ated, seize every occasion to put an end to this violation of one of 
 the most essential principles of international law." — (Hautefeuille, 
 Droit Maritime International, p. 503.) 
 
84 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 In the first place, the master of the Honduras (in 
 the matter of Gomez) had made himself liable, by his 
 departure without a clearance, to the penalties which 
 the laws of the port attached to such an omission. 
 His motive was one which commends him favorably 
 to the judgment of all humane men. He was not 
 willing to yield up the refugee whom he had taken 
 under his protection, and at the same time forcible 
 resistance would have been worse than idle. It does 
 not appear that there was a federal ship at hand to 
 relieve him from the dilemma. He settled the ques- 
 tion by hastening his departure, and thus performed 
 what he considered a moral duty by violating the port 
 laws of Nicaragua. But his reason for this did not 
 concern the authorities of Nicaragua; indeed, if they 
 were considered at all, they only aggravated his guilt. 
 Secretary Bayard could not but realize this and de- 
 cide accordingly. If we may liken his despatch to a 
 judicial decision the only point that he settled was 
 that the captain was wrong in leaving the country 
 without a due compliance with the laws which every 
 ship was bound to obey. And if he has gone beyond 
 what was necessary in the general language that he 
 used as to the duty of surrender, such obiter dicta, or 
 remarks by-the-way, cannot bind those who follow 
 him in his decision of the principal point. It may be 
 said, too, that the master, in yielding to an amiable 
 impulse, assumed, without sufficient warrant, that the 
 authorities would insist upon and compel a surrender 
 by force, after a refusal given with the sanction of the 
 American Minister. This result was not at all certain 
 to follow. The right to board the ship and remove at 
 will a person charged with a political oflence was at 
 least doubtful, and we may well hesitate to believe 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 85 
 
 that the poHtical authorities of Nicaragua would have 
 defied the Minister as well as the master, thus ex- 
 posing themselves to the resentment of their most 
 powerful neighbor and most reliable friend. This, it 
 must be borne in mind, was prior to Barrundia's case, 
 which may have changed the general situation. For- 
 eign nations now know that in one instance, at least, 
 a foreign force has boarded an American ship, and, 
 failing to remove, has with impunity killed a political 
 refugee in transit from one neutral port to another. 
 
 In the next place, the question before Secretary 
 Bayard was an abstract one. He was not dealing with 
 an actual fact. He was not deciding whether Gomez 
 should or should not be delivered up. No American 
 ship had in fact been invaded, no political refugee had 
 in fact been the victim of an attack made upon its 
 deck by foreign soldiers or bailiffs; the question of 
 national right and duty and honor had not been pre- 
 sented in such a way as to arouse his feelings as a 
 patriot or to suggest weighty considerations of future 
 responsibility by the creation of dangerous precedents. 
 It may be that the distinguished Secretary, if a grave 
 occasion arising out of solemn facts had presented 
 itself, would have expressed the same opinion. He 
 might have ordered Gomez's surrender, he might have 
 aided in effecting it, he might have condoned his 
 violent taking-off if Gomez had suffered Barrundia's 
 fate. But this is only conjecture; he might, on the 
 other hand, have refused to do any of those things. 
 We only know that he held that the captain who left 
 port without his papers had violated the law and had 
 assigned no sufficient reasons therefor. 
 
 The learned Secretary does, however, state the law 
 of nations in general terms as he understands it to be ; 
 
86 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 and if his despatch is to be used as a text and a guide 
 in the future, and without reference to the question 
 immediately before him, he has done much to settle 
 the question adversely to the right, never formally 
 conceded, of a foreign government to remove a political 
 refugee from our ships. He states that 
 
 when a merchant vessel of one country visits the ports of 
 another for the purposes of trade, it owes temporary al- 
 legiance and is amenable to the jurisdiction of that country 
 and is subject to the laws which govern the port that it 
 visits so long as it remains, unless it is otherwise provided 
 by treaty. Any exemption or immunity from local juris- 
 diction must be derived from the consent of that country. 
 No such exemption is made by the treaty of commerce and 
 navigation concluded between this country and Nicaragua 
 on June 21, 1867. 
 
 This is, no doubt, a fair statement of the public law, 
 considered in reference to the point submitted to 
 Secretary Bayard, viz : The right of the master of a 
 ship to leave without papers, with which he was 
 bound, under the port regulations, to provide himself ; 
 but if it was intended to formulate a general and 
 unqualified rule, it may be suggested, without dis- 
 respect, that neither the treaty nor the public law nor 
 our Supreme Court sustains this position as clearly as 
 the Secretary appears to have assumed. ^ 
 
 1 Professor Snow, of Harvard College, in his Cases on Interna- 
 tional Law, cites the Gomez case as establishing the principle that 
 "merchant vessels do not possess the right of asylum." The com- 
 ments in the text show precisely what Secretary Bayard did decide. 
 The proposition laid down by him was simply to the effect "that 
 when a merchant vessel of one country visits the ports of another 
 for the purposes of trade, it owes temporary allegiance, and is 
 amenable to the jurisdiction of that country, and is subject to the 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 87 
 
 The treaty referred to by Mr. Bayard contains in its 
 provisions nothing indicating a desire to restrict im- 
 munities theretofore existing nor to abrogate prevail- 
 ing practices. It was designed to enlarge, not to 
 minimize; to give, not to take away; to ensure, not to 
 make doubtful that which the citizens of each country 
 
 laws which govern the port it visits, so long as it remains, unless 
 it is otherwise provided by treaty. 
 
 "Any exemption or immunity from local jurisdiction must be 
 derived from the consent of that country. No such exemption is 
 made in the treaty of commerce and navigation concluded between 
 this country and Nicaragua on the 21st day of June, 1867." 
 
 Granting this to be the general rule, it is clear that certain ex- 
 ceptions have been by general consent, and in many cases by treaty 
 stipulations, engrafted upon the principle of local jurisdiction, and 
 it is rather upon these that the question in Barrundia's case and in 
 that of Gomez may turn. 
 
 The term "Right of Asylum" seems to be responsible for much 
 of the difficulty that attends these cases. "Right of Asylum," as 
 that expression was once understood, may be discarded and con- 
 ceded to be obsolete, or never to have existed; and yet the forcible 
 removal from an American merchant vessel of a passenger on the 
 route from one neutral port to another by violence, on the ground 
 of a prior political offence, may still be of doubtful legality. If 
 Barrundia or Gomez, having violated the laws of Nicaragua, had 
 escaped directly from their pursuers, and had sought refuge upon 
 the deck of a Pacific Mail steamship, then lying in one of the ports 
 of that country, it might be claimed that the master, by receiv- 
 ing the fugitive, was disturbing, or, at least, imperilling the peace 
 of the port, and that the ship was in a measure an accomplice after 
 the fact by facilitating the criminal's escape. That prisoner, on 
 this hypothesis, had never left the jurisdiction of the state which 
 claimed the power to arrest him. It might be a grave stretch of 
 authority were the United States to claim that, by a single step 
 from a wharf to the deck of a merchant vessel the fugitive had 
 acquired immunity as complete as that which was in mediaeval 
 times accorded a fugitive who found a refuge within the conse- 
 crated walls of a cathedral. No one, so far as I am aware, has 
 made such a claim. But it will be remembered that these men 
 had left their country weeks or months before their capture, and 
 that they had been in freedom and security during the interval. 
 The shipmaster had done nothing to promote their criminal 
 
88 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 had enjoyed prior to the treaty. There is nothing in 
 its terms to indicate that Nicaragua was disposed to 
 extend her jurisdiction over United States ships. If 
 the treaty had been the law of Barrundia's case, it 
 might fairly be argued that General Barrundia's per- 
 
 designs, if any such there were, nor had he offered them a refuge 
 when pursued by the officers of the law. It cannot be said that he 
 was carrying the alleged criminal to his country for criminal pur- 
 poses. The stoppage at a port of Guatemala was a mere incident 
 of a lawful voyage from one neutral port to another. To receive 
 a fugitive criminal, while in the jurisdiction of the offended country, 
 may be a crime of itself, for which the master may be properly 
 held liable, as he would be for receiving and removing stolen prop- 
 erty, to the detriment of the citizens or residents of the country 
 in which he was temporarily sojourning with his ship. But is it at 
 all clear that the same principle applies where the master does not 
 know that his passenger has offended, or is charged with violating 
 the laws of the government to the general jurisdiction of which he 
 is for a brief period to submit his ship? Accepting the rule, then, 
 we are but little nearer a solution until we decide the questions 
 suggested in the text as to the effect of custom and treaty provi- 
 sions. As Sir Travers Twiss says (in his work on the Law of Na- 
 tions, p. 230): "There are cases in which the comity of nations has 
 suspended the exercise of certain rights of empire {jura imperii) so 
 uniformly, that a custom has grown up whereby the exception has 
 acquired the character of /aw." The difference between this view 
 and Mr. Webster's expression is that the latter claims the general 
 rule to be in favor of exception, and the burden of proof to be on 
 those who assert liability to local jurisdiction. But this considera- 
 tion, while it may have its importance in certain cases, and as 
 bearing upon the principle underlying the rules, is not practically 
 of serious consequence when we are called upon to determine any 
 given case. As Secretary Bayard correctly states the rule, any 
 exemption from immunity must be derived from the consent of 
 that country {i. e., the country in which the ship happens tem- 
 porarily to lie). But that consent may be inferred from prece- 
 dents, from treaty stipulations, and from the presumption that 
 the exceptions usually accorded to foreign ships by other nations 
 will not be denied by the government of the country which asserts 
 the claim of jurisdiction. 
 
 The suggestion made above that a distinction might be drawn 
 between the case of an alleged criminal embarking at a neutral 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 89 
 
 son was sacred under the circumstances above recited, 
 so long as the peace of the port was not violated. 
 Article II. expressly provides that 
 
 there shall be between the United States and Nicaragua a 
 reciprocal freedom of commerce; that the citizens of the 
 two countries, respectively, shall have full liberty freely 
 
 port en route for another neutral port, and the case of a fugitive 
 seeking asylum on a vessel in the waters of his own country, from 
 which he has not been able to escape, receives support from the 
 language of Secretary Gresham, who may well be supposed, in a 
 matter of national importance, to have weighed his language with 
 judicial care. He decides that whether "the passenger may have 
 come on board at the port where the demand is made, or at another 
 port of the same country, is immaterial to the right of local jurisdic- 
 tion." The use of such language in connection with his condemna- 
 tion of attempts to capture a passenger by force, without regular 
 process, in a port of call, clearly indicates that Secretary Gresham 
 was not ready to assent to the proposition that the local authori- 
 ties were omnipotent. His acceptance of the precedent created by 
 Secretary Blaine's disavowal and rebuke of Mr. Misner's action, in 
 giving to the Guatemalan authorities an order for the surrender of 
 the accused, is also significant. 
 
 Before dismissing this branch of the subject, it may be interest- 
 ing to note an expression of Secretary Bayard's in his despatch 
 above quoted. "It is clear," he says, "that Mr. Gomez voluntarily 
 entered the jurisdiction of a country whose laws he had violated." 
 And in the same despatch he says that Mr. Gomez voluntarily took 
 passage at San Josd de Guatemala for Punta Arenas, Costa Rica, 
 on board the Pacific Mail steamship Honduras, with the knowledge 
 that the vessel would enter en route the port of San Juan del Sur, 
 Nicaragua." But let us suppose that Mr. Gomez had no such 
 knowledge. It is not beyond the scope of fair and legitimate 
 speculation to suggest that, on embarking on an American ship at 
 a neutral port for another neutral port, he may not have possessed 
 that information. It is not improbable that a considerable num- 
 ber of our own citizens, who start for Panama on one of the Pacific 
 Mail steamships, are not able to state the names of the numerous 
 ports at which they are to stop in different states of Mexico and 
 Central America. It might well happen, too, that Gomez or Bar- 
 rundia had been inveigled by false statements to take passage on 
 the steamer for the very purpose of delivering him to jail and 
 
90 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 and securely to come with their ships and cargoes to all 
 places, ports, and rivers ... to enter into the same 
 and to remain and reside in any part thereof, respectively, 
 and that, generally, merchants and traders of each nation, 
 respectively, shall enjoy the most complete protection and 
 security for their commerce, subject always to the laws 
 and statutes of the two countries respectively. 
 
 It is going very far to contend that Nicaragua was 
 to have, notwithstanding this grant, an arbitrary 
 
 execution. Stress of weather, or mutiny, or any other peril of the 
 sea might compel the ship to put into a port not originally con- 
 templated as one to be visited. If the element of knowledge is to 
 be taken into consideration as a controlling factor, then the re- 
 moval of the alleged criminal would have to depend upon the 
 ascertainment of that fact. It is obvious that there is no tribunal 
 upon which this investigation may properly devolve. 
 
 The despatch of Secretary Gresham also deserves special notice, 
 in that it recognizes that the captain may, in the execution of his 
 discretion, resist by forcible means "arbitrary attempts to capture 
 a passenger by force, without regular judicial process, in a port of 
 call." He must be careful, however, lest the consequences of futile 
 resistance to overpowering force be such as to make the resistance 
 itself unwarrantable. As it happens in practice that the states 
 with which we are most intimately concerned on this question have 
 not heretofore been soHcitous to provide themselves with carefully 
 prepared papers, emanating from competent tribunals, the ques- 
 tion may at any moment arise practically how far the master may 
 be justified in resisting. Obviously, in the majority of cases, re- 
 sistance would be futile and reckless. There are, no doubt, in our 
 merchant navy, men in whose eyes danger does not operate to 
 deter, but rather to stimulate; men who might conceive that, the 
 exercise of discretion being allowed them by their Government, 
 they would be recreant to the duty that they owed their flag if 
 they did not oppose force to force, be the consequences what they 
 might. Grave consequences might be made to depend on the 
 temperament of the commanding officer at any given moment. 
 The complications Ukely to arise from such a state of things might 
 be seriously aggravated by the presence of a federal ship in the 
 neighborhood, as was the case when Barrundia was demanded and 
 slain. The delicacy of the situation needs no better illustration 
 than that unfortunate affair. Had Mr. Misner not intervened, the 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 91 
 
 right, at the caprice of her port-wardens or mihtary 
 commanders, to board an American ship, contrary to 
 the will of her master, for the purpose of ascertaining 
 whether on or outside the passenger list there hap- 
 pened to be an alleged citizen of Nicaragua who at 
 
 master would probably have been justified, under Secretary Gresh- 
 am's instructions, in oflFering resistance to "an arbitrary attempt 
 to capture a passenger by force, without regular judicial process " 
 As there happened to be a federal ship in his immediate neighbor- 
 hood, he might, without undue confidence, have relied upon prompt 
 and efficient aid. What Grotius or Vattel may have thought or 
 sa^d on the subject, if anything, the commanding officer of the 
 United States ship would probably not have cared to enquire. 
 
 These considerations might be almost indefinitely extended. 
 But enough has been said to show that this condition of things is 
 too uncertain and dangerous to endure indefinitely. That is a 
 miserable condition of servitude where the law is vague and uncer- 
 tain; so, at least, says the old maxim. 
 
 A number of interesting cases on the subject of so-called "asy- 
 lum" might be found in the French books, and while the principle 
 is recognized, as stated by Secretary Bayard, that there is no 
 right of asylum on merchant ships, still the disposition of the 
 French courts and writers has been to extend a generous recogni- 
 tion of home jurisdiction to vessels sojourning in French ports. 
 One or two cases, by way of illustration, may not be uninteresting. 
 
 Half a century ago a member of the Spanish cabinet, Mr. Sotelo, 
 embarked on a French ship, then at Valencia, in Spain, in order 
 to escape summary vengeance at the hands of the revolutionary 
 party, which was then shedding blood with great freedom in that 
 country. Unfortunately for him, the vessel called at the port of 
 Alicante in the same country, and the captain was there required, 
 by order of the Junta of that place, to deUver up his passenger. 
 The captain refused, and the Consul of France intervened in favor 
 of the prisoner, but notwithstanding this intervention and refusal 
 Mr. Sotelo was removed. The question arose thereupon whether 
 the French Government was entitled to remonstrate and obtain 
 satisfaction for what was claimed by some persons to be a viola- 
 tion of international law. The subject was much discussed, and 
 diplomatic notes were exchanged between the French Government 
 and the Spanish authorities. France, however, after a full explana- 
 tion, conceded that the authorities of Alicante had acted within 
 their strict legal right, and the incident had no further result. Here, 
 
92 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 some time or other might have taken part in one of 
 the numerous pohtical revolutions that have dis- 
 turbed that repubHc. Can this be the full liberty 
 "freely and securely" to enter such ports in American 
 ships and to remain therein which was contemplated 
 by the treaty? Such liberty would seem to mean 
 something more than capricious toleration. It rather 
 appears to imply freedom from molestation and the 
 
 it will be observed, the fugitive had stepped directly from Spain 
 on board a foreign vessel. It was not a case of a passenger, enjoy- 
 ing his full liberty, starting from a neutral port for another neutral 
 port. 
 
 Hautefeuille, however, does not seem to acquiesce in the distinc- 
 tion between a man-of-war and a merchant ship, and would con- 
 cede the privilege of extra-territoriality to the latter in the same 
 manner that it is extended to public armed vessels. 
 
 In 1839 the Court of Bordeaux was called upon to decide a case 
 which turned upon the following facts: A French citizen had em- 
 barked as a passenger on board an American merchant ship. On 
 arriving at Bordeaux he lodged a complaint against the master, 
 an American, charging various acts of violence, which he claimed 
 that he had been subjected to during the trip. The master set up, 
 by way of defence that, conceding the charges to be true, the acts 
 complained of had been performed on the high seas, and on board 
 an American ship. He insisted, therefore, that the French tribu- 
 nals were incompetent, and this contention was admitted. The 
 complaint was dismissed. 
 
 This case, however, does not go so far as the French ship Fran- 
 conia case, in which the English Courts held that they were not 
 competent to take cognizance of a crime committed by a German 
 master at sea, although the ship was, in fact, less than a marine 
 league from the coast, i. e., within English territorial waters. (See 
 M. Clunet's Journal of International Law, 1876, p. 413; 1878, p. 16; 
 1890, p. 643.) 
 
 The Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico has gone even farther 
 in sustaining the jurisdiction of the home authorities in a case 
 which much resembles the Wildenhus case (120 U. S. Rep., p. 11), 
 although a different result was reached. It was there held that 
 the national courts of Mexico were incompetent to take jurisdic- 
 tion of a crime committed in a Mexican port by one foreigner 
 against another foreigner on board a foreign ship, if the tranquil- 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 93 
 
 right of the master and crew of a ship to immunity from 
 offensive interference, so long as no disorder is created 
 and no statute violated. But in the Barrundia case 
 there was no pretence that this "full liberty" had 
 been forfeited by misconduct, or that the peace of the 
 port was disturbed, or that the master had violated 
 the laws of the state. And yet the right was claimed, 
 and conceded by the Charge d' Affaires of the United 
 States to Central America, to enter a peaceable ship 
 and to perform a most offensive operation, viz., a 
 search among the officers and crew for a passenger who 
 was said to be a political refugee. 
 
 It is worthy of attention here that even the govern- 
 ment authorities of Guatemala did not base their re- 
 quest for aid and comfort on any pretence of this 
 kind. It was not stated by them that the duty of 
 surrender and the right to demand it were alike plain ; 
 on the contrary, Senor Anguiano, the Secretary of 
 State for Guatemala, placed his demand upon the 
 
 lity of the port had not been disturbed, and if the offender and the 
 victim were both members of the crew (Clunet, Droit International 
 Prive, 1876, p. 413). It is curious to note here that this decision 
 of the Mexican Supreme Court reverses the judgment of the Cir- 
 cuit Court, which latter tribunal had taken the same view of the 
 subject as our own Supreme Court, viz.: "When a crime or com- 
 mon law offence has been committed on board a foreign merchant 
 vessel, and has disturbed the tranquillity of the port, the authorities 
 of the country have jurisdiction. They also have jurisdiction 
 where the parties interested have claimed their protection. Homi- 
 cide is a crime which, even when committed on private individuals, 
 threatens the security of all " In the Wildenhus case there was 
 no pretence that the tranquillity of the port had been, in fact, dis- 
 turbed, but it was held that if crimes are committed on board, of a 
 character to disturb the tranquillity of the port, the courts shall 
 take jurisdiction, and murder was there held to be such a crime. 
 No point appears to have been made in the American case of the 
 fact that the officers of the Belgian ship had invoked the assistance 
 of the local authorities for the arrest of the culprit. 
 
94 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 special circumstance that a war was pending, which 
 fact, in his eyes, created a special situation, on which 
 he relied. He wrote : 
 
 The facts referred to. Honorable Sir, show the perfect 
 right which exists in the Government of Guatemala, being 
 in a state of war, to capture Barrundia on the steamer 
 which is anchored in Champerico. . . . Besides, by the 
 contract which the Government made with the Pacific 
 Mail Steamship Company, that Company should not per- 
 mit the bringing or taking to Guatemala, or to the adjacent 
 communities, any element of hostility in time of war, such 
 as exists at this time. 
 
 It is not material to enquire whether hostiHties were, 
 in fact, pending when this despatch was written. It 
 does appear that a truce had been effected between 
 the belligerent republics, the credit of which was due 
 in great part to Mr. Misner's earnest and intelligent 
 efforts. The fact which deserves attention is the im- 
 phed disclaimer of any right to demand summary ex- 
 tradition from an American ship except where actual 
 hostiHties are pending. The object of the demanding 
 party in thus making his claim was presumably to liken 
 General Barrundia to contraband of war. With this 
 view of the case Secretary Blaine deals in his despatch 
 and insists that it is not f ormded ; it is no part of my 
 purpose to consider that branch of the controversy. 
 
 It remains now for us only to consider how far the 
 general rule of subjection to the local law extends, and 
 to ascertain whether any exceptions have been en- 
 grafted upon it on principle or by custom. 
 
 Mr. Webster has considered this question at some 
 length. He lays down the rule thus : 
 
 It is natural to consider the vessels of a nation as part 
 of its territory, though at sea, as the State retains juris- 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 95 
 
 diction over them ; and according to the commonly re- 
 ceived customs, this jurisdiction is preserved over the 
 vessels even in parts of the sea subject to foreign domination. 
 This is the doctrine of the Law of Nations, clearly laid 
 down by writers of received authority and entirely con- 
 formable, as it is supposed, with the practice of modem 
 nations. ... It is true that the jurisdiction of a nation 
 over a vessel belonging to it, while lying in the port of an- 
 other, is not necessarily wholly exclusive (Webster's Works, 
 vol. vi., pp. 306, 307, cited by Secretary Blaine at length). 
 
 Here, it will be observed, Mr. Webster asserts the 
 general rule to be in favor of the jurisdiction of the 
 state to which the vessel belongs ; any deviations from 
 this general principle being exceptions, the burden of 
 asserting and proving them must fall upon the local 
 powers where they seek to enforce the supremacy of 
 local laws. All the authorities concede that these 
 laws may properly be invoked for unlawful acts done 
 by the ship's crew while in port, as well as for the 
 enforcement of contracts entered into by the master 
 or owners with citizens or residents of the country 
 where the ship is temporarily stopping. So, too, where 
 crimes are committed which break the peace of the 
 community, the offending parties may not shield them- 
 selves from trial and punishment by invoking the 
 home jurisdiction. But with these exceptions we are 
 not concerned. They are, no doubt, founded in jus- 
 tice and reason, but they afford no warrant or justi- 
 fication for the claim that in time of peace a merchant 
 vessel of the United States may be entered and ran- 
 sacked for the purpose of finding some obnoxious 
 person whose presence may be unknown to the cap- 
 tain, and who has, while on the ship, in no manner 
 violated the laws. 
 
96 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 This form of summary extradition at the will of the 
 demanding power is strongly opposed to the modern 
 practice of surrender. No Government admits, cer- 
 tainly our Government does not recognize, the obliga- 
 tion to return a fugitive to the country from which he 
 has escaped, unless it has bound itself so to do by 
 treaty obligations; and in thus binding itself it has 
 always refused to return political refugees. In all 
 cases the party charged with crime is permitted to 
 defend himself and to prove his innocence. While he 
 does not receive the benefit of a trial in a strict and 
 technical sense, a judicial investigation must be had 
 in which his identity and the probability of his guilt 
 must be shown. It is repugnant to the orderly and 
 law-abiding habits of our people to hold that none of 
 these statutory safeguards may be observed where a 
 ship is concerned, and that the duty of surrender is 
 absolute, imperative, and unmitigated even by a 
 show of legal form. 
 
 Our late Secretary of State, Judge Gresham, was 
 called upon in January of last year (1894) to lay down 
 a rule of action for the government of masters of 
 vessels, in order that they might act intelligently in 
 emergencies of the character above described. He 
 declined, however, to take this responsibility, on the 
 ground that it was not practicable to lay down a 
 general fixed rule appHcable to the varying conditions 
 in such cases. He did go so far as to state that " as a 
 comprehensive principle" it is well established in in- 
 ternational law that a merchant vessel in a foreign 
 port is within the local jurisdiction of the coimtry 
 with respect to offences or offenders against the laws 
 thereof, and that an orderly demand for surrender of a 
 person accused of crime by due process of law, with 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 97 
 
 exhibition of a warrant of arrest in the hands of the 
 regularly accredited officers of the law, may not be dis- 
 regarded nor resisted by the master of the ship." 
 But this proposition thus carefully laid down by this 
 experienced jurist does not strip the subject of all its 
 difficulties. Let us suppose a doubt as to the regu- 
 larity, genuineness, or vaHdity of the alleged order of 
 arrest, or a question as to there being a due process of 
 law or as to the right of the accredited officers so called, 
 who is to resolve this doubt and settle this question? 
 Suppose, too, that the identity is disputed, or that the 
 alleged offender is a citizen of the United States, and 
 denies the charge in toto, how are such points to be 
 tried? These palpable embarrassments are further 
 enhanced by the approval given to the decision of 
 Secretary Blaine in the Barrundia case. 
 
 The diplomatic and consular representatives of the 
 United States in the country making the demand are as 
 incompetent to order surrender by way of quasi-extradi- 
 tion [says Judge Gresham] as the shipmaster is actively to 
 deliver the accused. This was established in the cele- 
 brated Barrundia case by the disavowal and rebuke of 
 Minister Misner's action in giving to the Guatemalan au- 
 thorities an order for the surrender of the accused. 
 
 And yet may it not be asked whether the action of 
 the Minister was so objectionable as to warrant dis- 
 missal if he merely ordered that to be done which it 
 was lawful to do without his interference? It should 
 be remembered, in justice to Mr. Misner, that as a 
 preliminary to his own action, and in the honest belief 
 that he was exercising a ministerial duty, he made the 
 best terms that he could make for the protection and 
 the fair trial of the unfortunate Barrundia. 
 
98 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States has re- 
 cently considered the question of jurisdictional con- 
 flict between the nation to which a ship belonged and 
 the port in which that ship was sojourning. 
 
 Briefly, the facts were these : A boy named Wilden- 
 hus, engaged as a cabin boy on a Belgian ship, killed 
 another boy while the ship was anchored at Jersey 
 City. He fled, but after a few hours returned to his 
 ship, where he was arrested by the police of New 
 Jersey, which police had been notified of his flight and 
 requested to aid in his capture. The Belgian consul 
 claimed jurisdiction for Belgium under the treaty be- 
 tween the two nations, and applied for a writ of 
 habeas corpus to the Circuit Court of New Jersey. 
 The court refused to deliver the prisoner, whereupon 
 the case was carried to the Supreme Court on an 
 appeal taken by the Belgian consul, where the decision 
 was sustained. Chief Justice Waite wrote the opinion 
 of the court, and stated what he conceived to be the 
 law applicable to such cases : 
 
 It is part of the law of civilized nations that when a 
 merchant vessel enters the ports of another for the pur- 
 poses of trade, it subjects itself to the law of the place to 
 which it goes, unless by treaty, or otherwise, the two coun- 
 tries have come to some different understanding or agree- 
 ment. . . . And so by comity it came to be generally 
 understood among civilized nations that all matters of dis- 
 cipline and all things done on board which affected only 
 the vessel or those belonging to her, and did not involve 
 the peace or tranquillity of the port, should be left by the 
 local Government to be dealt with by the authorities of 
 the nation to which the vessel belonged, as the laws of that 
 nation or its interest should require. 
 
 The court then held that a murder on shipboard 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 99 
 
 and in the port came within the treaty provision as 
 being a "disorder" that would disturb tranquillity 
 and public order on shore or in port. 
 
 It may not be easy to draw any certain conclusion 
 from what precedes as to the right of one of our 
 neighboring republics to search American vessels for 
 political refugees, where the vessel is innocent and in 
 transit from one neutral port to another. But I would 
 venture to suggest that there is enough to sustain the 
 view that it is no part of the duty of an American 
 minister to a Central or South American state to lend 
 the prestige of his position and the dignity of his office 
 to an act which is inconsistent with the general views, 
 usages, and practices of our people. Laws are good 
 and laws are bad as they represent the deliberate 
 sentiment of the mass of our citizens. The law of 
 nations is not a mummy embalmed in superannuated 
 practices and artificial formulas. It is, if a science at 
 all, a living, growing system, keeping pace with the 
 development of civilized mankind and dealing with 
 problems which Grotius did not dream of. Arbitrary 
 kings, cruel methods of dealing with prisoners, the 
 sacred duty of allegiance to the country of one's 
 birth, have long since disappeared.^ A nation whose 
 
 ' The doctrine that a man owes eternal allegiance to the country 
 of his birth came over to the States with the English Common Law, 
 and continued to Uve in theory long after it had died in practice. 
 Jurists and courts have insisted that no man could, of his own voli- 
 tion, sever the bond that fettered him to his native land. It is 
 only of late years that the doctrine has been a proper subject for 
 post-mortem autopsy, as it might theretofore be said to enjoy civil 
 life although it was, in fact, dead. From the earliest days of our 
 history, naturalization has been practised under laws made by Con- 
 gress. The Constitution of the United States itself vested that 
 body with the power to make citizens of alien material, by passing 
 uniform laws of naturalization, while at the same time the Supreme 
 
loo International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 greatness rests upon a successful rebellion will not look 
 upon popular uprisings with unmitigated abhorrence. 
 A new order of things has arisen with the establish- 
 ment of popular government in the United States. It 
 is inevitable that we should meet with new problems ; 
 
 Court of the United States felt bound to stand by ancient land- 
 marks, and refused to acknowledge the right of an American citizen 
 to exchange his nationality for another, although the machinery 
 provided by Congress for transmuting citizens of other countries 
 into citizens of the United States was in full and fruitful operation. 
 As Mr. Lawrence states it : 
 
 "While Congress has proffered a participation in political rights 
 to the people of all countries, and the Executive has gone to an 
 extent, the correctness of which may well be questioned, in sus- 
 taining reclamations on behalf of naturalized citizens even in the 
 country of their origin, and has declined to interfere for an Ameri- 
 can who had invested himself with a foreign nationality, the Judi- 
 ciary, the legitimate arbiter of the constitutional question, has 
 refused to sanction expatriation depending on the volition of the 
 party." 
 
 In 1799 Chief Justice Ellsworth attempted to give reasons for 
 the apparent inconsistency between the action of the legislative 
 branch and the decisions of the courts. His argument is probably 
 the best that could be made, but it does not follow that it is con- 
 clusive. Perhaps it was not possible to reconcile the naturaliza- 
 tion of foreigners with the refusal to recognize the transfer of 
 allegiance of our own citizens to another power, unless by frankly 
 conceding that the courts must continue to follow precedents which 
 had outgrown their usefulness and raison d'etre, until such prece- 
 dents were brushed aside by competent legislation. This is the 
 Chief Justice's language, in support of a ruUng that, allegiance 
 being unchangeable, evidence was not competent to show that the 
 American citizen had been naturalized elsewhere: "We do not 
 enquire what the relation of an alien seeking naturalization in the 
 United States is to his own country, we have not the means of 
 knowing, and the enquiry would be indelicate; we leave him to judge 
 of that. If he embarrasses himself by contracting contradictory 
 obligations, the fault and the folly are his own. But this implies 
 no consent of the Government that our citizens should expatriate 
 themselves" (Wharton's State Trials, p. 654). It might be re- 
 spectfully suggested here that while the "fault and the folly" 
 might be those of the alien applicant for naturalization, the re- 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships loi 
 
 it is plain that we shall have to deal with them even 
 to the extent of making our own precedents. We 
 shall deal with them justly and for the benefit of com- 
 ing generations by bearing in mind the precepts and 
 practices of our Washington, by striving on all oc- 
 casions to observe "the genuine maxims of an honest 
 
 sponsibility for these fell upon the Government, which, by accepting 
 him into its family of citizens, undertook to protect him and his 
 children as thoroughly and effectually as though his ancestry had 
 emerged from the Mayflower, and from that day to this their 
 descendants had never left American soil. 
 
 It might perhaps be "indelicate" to vex him with impertinent 
 enquiries, but unfortunately the most thorough cross-examination 
 as to his relations with any former prince or potentate would reveal 
 nothing material to the subject. If his character was shown to be 
 satisfactory, and his devotion to the principles of the Constitution 
 sufficient in quality and quantity to make him a desirable citizen, 
 he was entitled to his patent on proving that he had resided in the 
 country during the statutory period. Whether the Chief Justice's 
 reasons were or were not logically sufficient, commentators agree 
 that the decision reached by him was sound, and that the general 
 judicial consensus has been that no citizen of the United States 
 can throw off his allegiance without the consent of Congress. 
 
 It may be of interest to note here that as Kings of Spain have 
 in the olden times, by an act of royal bounty, turned the plebeian 
 inhabitants of a whole province into patricians, with the inesti- 
 mable privilege of prefixing the noble de to their names, so this Gov- 
 ernment has raised whole communities of foreigners to the dignity 
 of citizenship by one stroke of the legislative and executive pen. 
 
 Thus, by collective naturalization, following on annexation of 
 territory, the inhabitants of Louisiana in 1800, of Florida in 1819, 
 and of ceded portions of Mexico in 1848, became citizens of the 
 United States; so, too, by resolution of Congress, all the citizens of 
 the Texas Republic became, without any express declaration, citi- 
 zens of the United States. — Lawrence's Wkeaton, 897. 
 
 In 1868, however. Congress passed an Act which may be con- 
 sidered as an epitaph upon the grave of the old common-law 
 doctrine. It declared that the "right of expatriation is the natural 
 and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of 
 the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and pre- 
 scribes "that any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or de- 
 cision of any officer of this Government, which denies, restricts, 
 
I02 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 and magnanimous policy." Our territory is open to 
 all except to those whose crimes unfit them for com- 
 panionship with our people. Is it claiming too much 
 to demand that the flag at our masthead should, even 
 in a foreign port, symbolize something of our origin, 
 traditions, and practices? Or should it be no more 
 
 impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared 
 inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this Government." 
 
 Shortly before that year (1868) under the stress of the same 
 influences that produced the Act last cited, treaties to the same 
 practical effect had been made with various foreign countries, such 
 as the North German Confederacy, Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, 
 Belgium, Hesse, and Austria. Finally England, following our 
 example, sacrificed the time-honored fiction to which she had 
 clung so stubbornly, and on May 14, 1870, the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment declared that any British subject, who had prior thereto or 
 might thereafter become naturalized in any foreign State in which 
 he happened to reside, should be deemed to have ceased to be a 
 British subject, and be regarded as an alien. 
 
 While this legislation removes the chief objection in the way 
 of the American citizen who may choose to expatriate himself and 
 to become naturalized abroad, certain incidental questions are still 
 unsettled. President Grant, in his Fifth Annual Message (in 1873), 
 called attention to the fact that Congress had not indicated in the 
 statute, nor has it done so since that time, what acts were deemed 
 to work expatriation. 
 
 Students who may be interested in pursuing this subject will 
 find an interesting case recently decided in Louisiana by Judge 
 Billings (Comitis v. Parkerson), June 17, 1893. It turns upon 
 the vexed question, how far the status of an American woman is 
 affected by her marriage to an alien. The learned judge reaches 
 a different conclusion from that reached by Justice Brown (now of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States) in the case of Pequignot 
 V. City of Detroit, XVI. Federal Reporter, p. 211. These, how- 
 ever, are merely incidents to the general question, and are of minor 
 importance from the rarity of their occurrence. The chief diffi- 
 culty arises from the fact that a large number of Europeans seek 
 refuge in America and become citizens for the sole purpose of 
 avoiding military service, which demands the personal presence 
 under the flag, of substantially all able-bodied men. It is not to be 
 wondered at that foreign governments should look with jealousy 
 upon the facility held out to their people for evading the heaviest 
 
International Law — The Rights of Ships 103 
 
 nor less than an ornamental device which loses its 
 meaning as soon as it floats in the slip of a foreign 
 wharf? The question will have to be decided at some 
 future and perhaps not distant day. We may con- 
 fidently hope that it will be settled calmly, deliber- 
 ately, and justly; it will then surely meet a response 
 from and the hearty approval of the American people. 
 Since the above was written another episode of the 
 Barrundia order has occurred. Another Central Amer- 
 ican refugee has been demanded and taken from a 
 Pacific Mail steamer by the Government of Salvador, 
 and, it is said, summarily put to death on landing. ^ 
 Whether our Government will be disposed in the 
 
 of all burdens by a transatlantic voyage. The fact that during the 
 last twenty-five years we have maintained amicable relations with 
 the continental nations of Europe, and fairly adjusted all differ- 
 ences arising out of this state of things, reflects high honor upon 
 our diplomacy. (See Secretary Frelinghuysen's despatch to our 
 Italian Minister, December i6, 1883.) 
 
 » The details of the occurrence, referred to in the text, are taken 
 from despatches dated San Francisco and Washington, September 
 10, 1895, and printed in the New York World of September nth. 
 From these despatches it appears that the steamer City of Sydney, 
 which had just arrived from Panama, brought particulars of the 
 capture, by the Salvador authorities, of Florencio Bustamente, one 
 of Antonio Ezeta's favorite lieutenants. It was believed by Span- 
 ish Americans who arrived on the City of Sydney, that Bustamente 
 had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob, or publicly shot in 
 the streets of San Salvador. The surrender of Bustamente by the 
 people of Nicaragua was supposed to be in return for the friendly 
 action of Salvador in the Corinto affair. 
 
 The Washington despatch stated that although no official report 
 of the forcible seizure on board an American steamer of Bustamente 
 by Salvador officials had reached Washington, it was believed, 
 from the presentation of the facts made in the report, that the 
 seizure was lawfully made, and that the United States could not 
 make an international issue in the case. The writer of the de- 
 spatch cited, in support of this hypothesis, the language used by the 
 late Secretary Gresham, in the letter to the President of the Pacific 
 Mail Steamship Company, which letter is referred to in the text. 
 
I04 International Law — The Rights of Ships 
 
 future to take part in furnishing such bloody enter- 
 tainment to a lawless and cruel mob time will show. 
 But it must be a subject of grave concern to us that 
 such an anomalous situation should exist. Our De- 
 partment of State has not been governed by fixed 
 harmonious views in this important matter of sur- 
 render. The weight of authority thus far seems to be 
 in favor of yielding to the claims of demanding govern- 
 ments, but it would be idle to deny that another ad- 
 ministration may be disposed to adopt a different rule 
 and to follow the precedent created by the dismissal of 
 Mr, Misner to all its logical consequences. The worst 
 that can befall us is that the law should be vague and 
 uncertain. Possibly new treaty stipulations might be 
 effective and salutary. The restless republics with 
 which we have to deal might find it to their own 
 interest to put a curb upon themselves. The rebel of 
 to-day may be the successful patriot of to-morrow. 
 The statesman who signs a treaty to-day may to- 
 morrow, like Barrundia, Gomez, and Bustamente, 
 turn anxious eyes to the flag of the United States and 
 wonder whether its majesty can save him from the 
 angry crowd that clamors for his blood. It has been 
 said long ago that the distance is short between the 
 Capitol and the Tarpeian Rock. It might prove a 
 real service to our neighboring republics to teach them 
 by treaty restraints, as we have taught them by our 
 recent history, that the cause of free government is not 
 aided by bloody reprisals. Clemency after the battle 
 is the wisest of policies. If we can engraft this prin- 
 ciple upon our diplomatic records and conventions, we 
 shall add another to the list of our services to the 
 world. 
 
IV 
 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW * 
 
 IT may not be inappropriate — it is certainly en- 
 couraging — to preface the discussion of legal 
 subjects by the payment of tribute to the great- 
 ness and glory of our common profession. Here, at 
 least, we shall all agree, differing perhaps from a 
 considerable portion of the human race in our estimate, 
 but asking for no better evidence of its exceeding 
 usefulness than the denunciation and ridicule which 
 have been showered upon it from immemorial time. 
 Great wits and small ones have honored our calling by 
 their malice and shown its strength by the innocuous 
 results that followed the discharge of their noisy but 
 harmless artillery. Great kings have found that they 
 could subdue armies, fetter the press, and dazzle the 
 world by their exploits, yet fail to conquer the bar. 
 Napoleon himself, the Titan of modern times, was 
 helpless before it, and failed to cajole or terrify it into 
 silence. He could make decrees from Berlin and from 
 Moscow, and direct the passage of such laws as he 
 deemed wise to have enacted, but in the end it was 
 the lawyer who interpreted those laws and construed 
 those decrees. For the law is the spiritual monitor 
 
 ' Address delivered before the alumni and students of the Law 
 Department of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 105 
 
io6 International Law 
 
 and guide of nations, nay, the spiritual life itself ; her 
 ministers, however unworthy, cannot but represent 
 some of her majesty. The law is the concrete ex- 
 pression of justice, the great Hgament that holds com- 
 mimities together; the advocate is her mouthpiece 
 and interpreter. His the function to keep alive the 
 fires of human liberty, and as he succeeds or fails in 
 this so shall the honor of the bar rise or fall. The law 
 is the antithesis of force, they cannot co-exist on 
 equal terms. Force may triumph for a day, but only 
 for a day. As with the passing centuries, the world 
 grows wise, it learns the lesson more deeply, that force 
 is the most expensive and most costly, the most un- 
 certain of expedients for righting a wrong. The poet- 
 philosopher of the Augustan age boasted as one of the 
 titles to glory of his imperial master, that the forum 
 was free from lawsuits. A golden age, indeed, if the 
 absence of Htigation really meant that men honestly 
 performed their obligations without coercion ; a happy 
 state, the existence of which we may well doubt. 
 Perhaps the knowledge that courts did exist, which 
 were open to the oppressed and injured, might 
 account for this phenomenon; perhaps stagnation in 
 the lawyers' business meant that the general activities 
 and enterprise were paralyzed by war and the pursuit 
 of glory; perhaps, too, the poet exaggerated, as poets 
 sometimes will. We must remember that the bar of 
 that day resembled only in name the bar of to-day. 
 Justice, with bandaged eyes holding the impartial 
 scales with firm and steady hand, stands as our em- 
 blem. Apollo, flaying Marsyas who had dared to 
 compete with him in performance on the flute, stood 
 in front of the Roman rostrum, a ghastly spectacle 
 indeed, but whether a warning to the client or his 
 
International Law 107 
 
 co\insel, history does not tell. Even this cruel opera- 
 tion could not cure the flute-player of his love for art, 
 nor rob him of his gifts. At least, tradition says that 
 after it had been performed, and the hapless artist 
 bereft of his natural covering, the latter was turned 
 into a bag, and when filled with air gave out sweet 
 sounds if moved by the musical waves of a melodious 
 flute. Thus did the victim against lawless violence 
 protest, and as far as might be discourse in favor of 
 the liberty of speech. 
 
 The history of a free people is the history of its bar. 
 No nation, at least in modem times, has ever achieved 
 its freedom without the aid of the advocate. With us 
 this is a truism, and needs no demonstration. From 
 the earliest days we find our brethren in season and 
 out of season, at the risk of life and liberty using their 
 gifts in favor of freedom and against oppression. 
 While we note with regret that the greatest of our 
 national heroes, Washington himself, had not been 
 provided with a legal education, it is to his credit that 
 he surrounded himself with eminent lawyers, such 
 men as Jeft'erson, Hamilton, Adams, and took their 
 counsel. With these men to guide him, personal 
 knowledge of the law was scarcely necessary. He 
 was able to act judicially, and, as often happens with 
 good and honest judges, the abundance of learning in 
 the counsel supplemented any lack of learning in the 
 court itself. 
 
 That there is nothing in legal training to unfit the 
 advocate for sterner duties in the field a roll of honor- 
 able names, conspicuous in war and peace alike, is 
 with us to prove: the truth is shown in our history 
 that patriotism and devotion are not enfeebled by the 
 pursuit and mastery of legal studies. Cedunt arma 
 
io8 International Law 
 
 togcE is not more true than the converse of the propo- 
 sition. The same men have dropped or taken up the 
 toga or the sword as the necessities of the nation de- 
 manded; they have promoted the arts of peace, and 
 have stood out as the leaders in the conflicts of war, 
 eminent and great in both alike. 
 
 But it is especially in our own day that the usefulness 
 of the bar has been conspicuous and important. The 
 close relations of different nations have removed 
 ancient prejudices and quickened latent sympathies 
 into vigorous life. War has become less frequent, not 
 only, I might say not so much, because of the growing 
 regard for human life and impatience of human suffer- 
 ing, but because of the commercial spirit that has 
 taught men to calculate the cost of armed conflicts. 
 Few nations can afford to spend the money necessary 
 for the outfit of an army. It was easy enough and 
 cheap enough to send one hundred thousand men into 
 the field so long as they could use the muskets that 
 their fathers had used, or the spears and swords that 
 were deadly enough but inexpensive. When, how- 
 ever, the changing fortunes and feverish competitions 
 of rival nations require endless novelty in guns, forti- 
 fications, methods of transportation, of attack, and of 
 defence, greater care for the injured, better food for 
 those who do the fighting, and less freedom in dealing 
 with the property of non-combatants, a new order 
 of things arises. The perplexities of rulers serve to 
 keep the temple of Janus closed. Homicide becomes 
 absurdly expensive. Glory loses prestige as the cost 
 and risk rise to unheard-of proportions. Personal 
 prowess hesitates when rifles kill at 6000 yards ; strong 
 towns lose their confidence when Krupp guns thunder 
 destruction before they are in sight and treat ancient 
 
International Law 109 
 
 defences with brutal and ruinous contempt. The 
 banker in Lombard or Wall Street raises his voice and 
 threatens to cut off the needed supplies, while the 
 degenerate combatant prefers the farm or the work- 
 shop to the hazards and discomforts of a compaign in 
 midwinter. The instinct of destruction is still present, 
 for men are still human, the temptation to invoke the 
 ultima ratio of kings still agitates the breast of rulers, 
 but fear of results is as potent as the love of peace. 
 They arm millions of men to show that they are ready 
 for war, while year after year they proclaim their 
 pacific purposes, and their readiness to enforce these 
 purposes at the cannon's mouth. 
 
 There is, indeed, no more instructive and edifying 
 spectacle than this long-continued abstinence from 
 war when so many are ready to accept it if only 
 some one of the parties will throw down the gauntlet. 
 Fermentation thus indefinitely protracted without 
 explosion is a novel and cheering spectacle which must 
 fill the world with amazement and the bar with pride. 
 
 For, it must be remembered, the self-denial of 
 emperors and kings does not remove the causes of 
 irritation which once required blood-letting in nations 
 as in persons. Differences will inevitably arise. The 
 ambition of the strong is not dead, the sharp line 
 between right and wrong is not more manifest to-day 
 than in the past. Weak nations are as apt as ever to 
 offend by their exasperating debility, while territorial 
 expansion appeals with ever-increasing eloquence to 
 great and small. The rush to Africa and the eager 
 haste of the powers to seize a share of the Dark Conti- 
 nent without a dangerous fillip to the susceptibilities 
 of rivals is an illustration of this. The old countries 
 are being sorely crowded. America objects to being 
 
no International Law 
 
 partitioned, and the chief of American nations does 
 not hesitate to file a lis pendens on the hemisphere. A 
 war between any two powers might involve the world 
 in a destructive conflagration wherein old landmarks 
 might be obliterated and venerable constitutions 
 shrivelled up like a scroll before the fire. How, then, 
 shall the world settle its quarrels and contentions, 
 save by calling the lawyers to talk the matter over, 
 and to arrange affairs according to the principles of 
 ' 'natural justice"? True, no man has yet been found 
 who could, or at least would, accurately define what 
 these principles are, where they begin, and where 
 they end, what their origin, and how they sprang into 
 life or grew into recognition. Their starting-point js 
 a mystery, their development, if they be what they 
 claim, is a misnomer. But, fortunately for the world, 
 a shibboleth need not be intelligible : perhaps it com- 
 mands respect in the inverse ratio to its intelligibil- 
 ity. Its plasticity recommends it to those who might 
 refuse their acceptance if all agreed as to its meaning. 
 Even to-day, although international law, so called, has 
 reached the high- water mark of fashion and popularity, 
 who will venture a definition? Is it a science at all, is 
 it in any sense a law, or a system? How can that be 
 a law which finds no place for a superior or an inferior, 
 which recognizes no sanction, submits to no tribunal, 
 and shows itself in the critical periods of modern his- 
 tory to have been little more than a harmonious setting 
 to modern music of excellent rules which are easily 
 misunderstood, more easily evaded, and most easily 
 perverted to base uses. 
 
 The eminent Lord Chief Justice of England has 
 within the year added his own definition to the many 
 which had heretofore been presented as solving the 
 
International Law m 
 
 problem. Lord Russell says that "international law 
 is nothing more nor less than what civilized nations 
 have agreed shall be binding on one another as inter- 
 national law." A higher authority for a legal defini- 
 tion could not easily be found, not only because of the 
 eminent judicial position of the author, but because of 
 his cultured abilities, his large experience, and known 
 keenness of analysis. If we must abide by any one 
 attempt at definition, we might, out of respect for the 
 great jurist who honored us with his presence a few 
 months ago, accept this formula. It is at least free 
 from affectations of speech ; it does not offend by any 
 efifort to cover up faults of substance with ambition of 
 language. And yet, if it be not improper here to sug- 
 gest a doubt as to the practical aid thus given us, we 
 might well ask ourselves if, owing to the inherent 
 difficulty of the task, this eminent jurist has not failed 
 to simplify the subject to any appreciable extent. 
 
 " What civilized nations have agreed shall be binding 
 on one another" is international law. This seems so 
 obvious that criticism blushes at fault-finding as though 
 it were caught flagrante delicto in the commission of 
 some moral wrong. But the very words used are big 
 with potential deception. Who shall say whether any 
 given nation deserves to be called a " civilized" nation? 
 The line of demarcation may be as difficult to draw as 
 it is in private life to draw the boundary between a 
 gentleman and one who is not a gentleman, a wise man 
 and a fool, a scholar and an ignoramus. The ex- 
 tremes in each class are easily recognized and classed. 
 But the sinner may in a moment of inspiration rise to 
 the heights of the saint : what label shall we in general 
 terms affix to his character? George IV. was the 
 "first gentleman of Europe"; shall we accept him as 
 
112 International Law 
 
 a type like Sidney and Bayard? Benedict Arnold 
 lives embalmed in the contempt of a great nation be- 
 cause of the one act that sullied a brilliant life, but 
 another great nation received him with open arms, 
 allotted him an honorable livery, and treated, or 
 affected to treat him, as a patriot and a hero! Whose 
 standard was right, whose was wrong? 
 
 Probably the "civilized nations" will none of them 
 accept Turkey as one of their guild ; nay, they all treat 
 her, by reason of this excommunication, as they will, 
 simply because they are not dealing with one another. 
 It would, indeed, be a one-sided contract if Great 
 Britain or France, confessedly civilized, should feel 
 bound to treat the Turk as though he were a Christian, 
 while he recognized no authority, and bound himself 
 to no rules of good behavior. And yet, if there be a 
 moral sanction in these rules, how can they be taken 
 up or laid aside according to the station of the party 
 whose rights are involved? But the difficulty extends 
 much farther. Granting that the definition does not 
 prevent the abrogation or expulsion of Turkey, nor the 
 arbitrary and violent seizure of African territory, who 
 shall say when a nation is so civilized as to come 
 clearly within the definition? Shall she herself have 
 a voice in the matter? If her ports are about to be 
 bombarded or her territory torn from her by violence, 
 may she say, "Stop, I am civilized, and the rules do 
 not permit you to treat me in this brutal manner." 
 Or may the unquestionably civiHzed power justly as- 
 sume the judgment seat, and retort, "No, you are not 
 civilized, you have no habeas corpus, no trial by jury, 
 no liberty of the press. You do not belong to our 
 privileged brotherhood of states; ergo, you shall be 
 taught reason at the cannon's mouth." It is much to 
 
International Law 113 
 
 be feared that unless the balance of power, a big 
 brother, or some other Deus ex machina should appear 
 on the stage, the bombardment would have to go on, 
 the rules being suspended. 
 
 Nor is this all. The rules, it is said, are binding on 
 the civilized nations who have agreed to be bound. 
 But what becomes of the civilized nations that have 
 not agreed, because they came into the world as 
 governments too late, or ripened into salutary civili- 
 zation so recently that they have not had an oppor- 
 tunity to recognize the binding force of the rules? 
 This Republic, for instance, while generally recognized 
 as one of the civilized nations, even if peradventure 
 given to over-freedom of speech, dissents from some 
 of the rules — those on privateering, by way of example. 
 What is her status under the rules ? How far do they 
 apply to her? Rules of international law, if they 
 mean anything, are intended to promote the interests 
 of the nations that recognize them, to the extent of 
 giving them a just equivalent for what they concede 
 to one another. But the United States as a nation, 
 by its extent, its resources, the nature of its govern- 
 ment, its remoteness from European communities, 
 its natural sympathies for weaker neighbors, must 
 necessarily take a different view of many subjects 
 from others in the civilized combination. Shall she 
 be voiceless when right and justice according to her 
 standpoint are violated under the generally accepted 
 rules? Or may it not be fairly claimed that so im- 
 portant a factor in the society of nations shall have 
 its influence and be recognized, even if old ideas must 
 be modified, ignored, or set aside? 
 
 Much of the misconception on this subject arises, as 
 is often the case, from a confusion in terms. Not only 
 
114 International Law 
 
 is there no international law in the true sense of the 
 expression, but the expression itself is misleading. 
 The jus gentium is the right of nations, or, as it is 
 termed in the continental books, le droit des gens. 
 As individuals may be said to possess rights inherent 
 and inalienable, — at least our great Declaration so 
 states as a proposition beyond dispute, — so it may be 
 said that each nation has the right to preserve and 
 defend its existence, to assert and maintain its in- 
 dependence. Certainly in theory this may not be 
 gainsaid. From this right must of necessity arise and 
 grow corresponding duties on the part of others. To 
 what limit this right may be extended, how far it may 
 be circumscribed, to what extent the "pursuit of 
 happiness" may justify expansion, how far the right 
 of self-defence may interdict its indulgence, these are 
 the problems involved. No great nation has ever hesi- 
 tated to pursue her own advancement where it could 
 be done without danger and without shocking the 
 public opinion of civilized mankind. But great and 
 powerful nations have learned by experience that self- 
 denial might be more profitable than the application 
 of brute force, provided a like restraint was observed 
 by their neighbors. International law, if there be any, 
 is the law of enlightened self-interest, guided by 
 prudence, and by the consciousness that peace has 
 marked advantages to recommend its preservation. 
 It is a curb upon rashness, a moral adviser against 
 brutal measures, a reminder that the fortunes of war 
 are uncertain. The great purpose of and incentive 
 to a system of intercourse based upon mutual respect 
 for public rights is the approximation among nations 
 to the methods generally accepted among men in their 
 individual capacity. That is to say, the governments 
 
International Law 115 
 
 of to-day are willing, as a general proposition, to rec- 
 ognize the existence, in times of peace, of ethical 
 rules which it is to the general advantage that all should 
 obey. And as no ethical system devised by the wit of 
 man has ever approached in beauty and perfection the 
 Christian religion, the principles of the faith have been 
 accepted, with limitations of place and circumstance, 
 as the groundwork of international rights and duties. 
 
 Evidently it is no easy task to define such a system 
 or science as this. It is easier to state what it is not 
 than what it is. It certainly is not a system of law, 
 if any known definition of law has preserved its value. 
 No rule of action may properly be termed a law, which 
 has no sanction. A rule, to be efficacious, must be 
 imposed by a superior upon an inferior: there must 
 be the fear of punishment attached to its violation, or 
 the hope of reward must encourage obedience to its 
 mandates. When we speak of the divine law, the 
 federal law, the state law, we use words which present 
 an intelligible idea. Even if we speak of the law of 
 nature we are within the truth, for Nature punishes 
 the transgression of her edicts with unfailing severity. 
 But international law is different from all these, and 
 can no more restrain the anger of an aroused people, 
 than King Canute on his throne could drive back the 
 waves that took no heed of his royal commands. 
 
 If, then, I have ventured to criticise the language of 
 the eminent Justice in his attempt to formulate his 
 own idea of international law, it is not from any doubt 
 that it was as accurate as the nature of the case al- 
 lowed, but simply because it is not, or at least has not 
 yet been possible to define international law on the 
 theory that it is a law at all. 
 
 Under these circumstances it should be obvious that 
 
ii6 International Law 
 
 I cannot undertake with any confidence the task 
 which so many have attempted without absolute 
 success. I would venture, however, to describe my 
 own imperfect conception of what is termed inter- 
 national law, by saying that it is the result of an 
 implied agreement among civilized nations to abide 
 by those practices which have proved most conducive 
 to the promotion of profitable intercourse in peace, 
 and to the mitigation of suffering and hardship in war. 
 I hope that I am not overrating my own powers of 
 critical analysis when I add to this the confident as- 
 surance that I could detect many flaws in this rather 
 clumsy definition had it been presented by any other 
 person than myself. Possibly even this circumstance 
 may not be absolutely prohibitory, when time and 
 reflection have suggested needed improvements. 
 
 How far the Christian religion has contributed to 
 the fonnation of the jus or right of nations may not 
 be easy to determine, but it does, nevertheless, seem 
 clear that no such system could have existed when 
 Rome was mistress of the world, or could exist to-day 
 but for the lofty principles inculcated by that form of 
 religious belief. It is an offshoot of the teaching that 
 men are brothers even when they live on the opposite 
 banks of a river, even when they speak a different 
 language, even when they present wide divergences of 
 morals, tastes, habits, and customs. If men acting in 
 their political capacity were governed by the same 
 rules and principles as they are in their private lives, 
 Christian ethics might be a much more potent factor 
 in the adjustment of international relations. But, un- 
 fortunately, America is not the only country where 
 public men claim the right to own two consciences, one 
 for the guidance of their public, another for the di- 
 
International Law 117 
 
 rection of their private life. Great ministers and 
 kings have deemed it lawful to deceive, cheat, despoil, 
 and destroy their neighbors with such happy results 
 that to say, " Honesty is the best policy" in the public 
 conduct of nations would betray ignorance or suggest 
 sarcasm. Probably no great power in Europe may 
 boast that its record is entirely free from blemish. 
 After the treaty of Berlin a few years ago, the French 
 ambassador returned home with the boast that France 
 had kept her hands clean, which was certainly true 
 if cleanliness and emptiness had been interconvertible 
 terms. But it is no imputation upon her citizens to 
 add that they might have preferred some substantial 
 evidence of practical diplomacy, — an island in the 
 Mediterranean, for instance, — even if the perfect purity 
 of her motives and conduct had been thereby made 
 less apparent. We ourselves boast, justly, I think, 
 that our conduct of pubhc affairs has been, on the 
 whole, conspicuously free from reproach. Yet this is 
 what one of our reliable historians, an American of 
 Americans, has to say: "In the end far more than 
 one half the territory of the United States was the 
 spoil of the Spanish Empire, rarely acquired with per- 
 fect propriety. To sum up the story in a single word : 
 Spain had immense influence over the United States, 
 but it was the influence of the whale over its captors, 
 the charge of a huge, helpless, and profitable nation." 
 — Adams, v. i, p. 343. 
 
 It may be interesting here to note that the attempt 
 was made during the present century to subject in- 
 ternational relations to the exalted precepts of the 
 gospel. Alexander, the Emperor of Russia, after Wa- 
 terloo and the resulting restoration of Louis XVIII., 
 seems to have been deeply affected by his and his 
 
ii8 International Law 
 
 allies' triumph over the giant whom they had over- 
 thrown. He determined that, so far as lay in his 
 power, he would see to it that the world should be 
 governed by Christian principles, and, carrying his 
 theories into practice, he proceeded to convert the 
 king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria to his own 
 way of thinking. Poland was not represented in these 
 royal and imperial conclaves, except by those who 
 had themselves partitioned her. A league was formed 
 by which three mighty sovereigns agreed to consider 
 themselves as members of one great Christian family ; 
 their real and sole sovereign was Almighty God, 
 whose delegates they declared themselves to be. 
 Thenceforth, they would tend their respective flocks 
 according to the Word of God. Naturally, there could 
 be but one appropriate title appHed to this association, 
 and it was accordingly known as the Holy AlHance. 
 England refused to enter into this impressive and 
 picturesque concert of potentates, her representative 
 (Lord Castlereagh) having written that the Emperor 
 Alexander was out of his mind, but others gave their 
 assent to the initiation of Christian politics, and the 
 law of charity was thenceforth to rule the world. 
 
 But the effervescence which prompted this fine 
 innovation was soon over. Napoleon was chained to 
 his weather-beaten rock, and it was not likely that he 
 would ever be released except by death, a contingency 
 to which none of the parties to the new dispensation 
 objected, as he would then no longer be dangerous. Se- 
 curity of tenure is a conservative adviser. When the 
 recently shaken thrones had been repaired, and their 
 owners became firmly seated, it was evident that 
 the pestilence of liberal ideas must not be permitted 
 to spread. The divine power of kings and emperors 
 
International Law 119 
 
 was so valuable to the world that it should not suffer 
 jeopardy at the hands of turbulent people who wanted 
 the liberty to speak, to write, to think, to come and to 
 go at their own will. Reaction must be put down by the 
 royal and united brethren, and it would have been put 
 down and stifled, even in America, but for the timely 
 declaration made, in apt terms, by President Monroe 
 to Congress in 1823. In Europe the Alliance succeeded 
 in its efforts to suppress the clamor of the people, and 
 for some years to come the great monarchs could 
 contemplate with satisfaction the fruit of their com- 
 mon efforts. The Holy AlHance became, in Mr. Mc 
 Master's language, a mutual association to show that 
 diplomacy was less selfish or kings less ambitious, or 
 international law more certain or more efficient than 
 before the articles had been signed. 
 
 Their failiire to improve the moral character of 
 international relations should not be deemed of any 
 significance except to show that spasmodic attempts, 
 bom of temporary excitement and peculiar surround- 
 ings, accomplish but little, in the long run, for the 
 improvement of mankind. Self-interest, self-preser- 
 vation, and a prudent apprehension of disastrous 
 changes are not the only factors in the solution of 
 weighty problems. They may, in a measure, be 
 productive of good results where wholesome fear acts 
 in the direction of self-restraint. It is manifest that if 
 all the crowned heads of Europe had, at that time, 
 agreed to administer the weighty matters entrusted 
 to their hands on general principles of enlightened 
 Christian ethics, and had respected the obligation of 
 their mutual bond, the world would have been better 
 and wiser and happier. And so would society be 
 better and happier if all the members joined together 
 
I20 International Law 
 
 in a solemn league to obey the Decalogue and live up 
 to the sublime heights of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 But the practical difficulty would probably arise out 
 of the failure of men to overcome the laws of nature 
 which prompt them to violate the moral laws, not- 
 withstanding their promises of amendment. For- 
 tunately, courts and officers of the law are present to 
 supplement the imperfect execution of excellent in- 
 tentions where individuals are concerned, but this 
 important element is lacking where royal heads find 
 mischief for royal hands to do. So the emperors 
 and kings of the Holy Alliance might adopt noble 
 maxims of conduct, with excellent intentions, and 
 fail to carry them out with equally excellent inten- 
 tions ; they were the lords of the occasion, the masters 
 of the situation, and, worse than all, the sole inter- 
 preters of the rules which they professed to follow. It 
 is hardly necessary to say that conscientious men 
 have committed atrocious acts with unimpeachable 
 motives, and have found in the sublime precepts of 
 religious faith apologies for measures which are written 
 in crimson on the pages of history. It is not enough, 
 then, to find the masters of the world setting out to 
 reform international relations according to the most 
 approved rules. Certain plants, and those the most 
 enduring, are of slow growth. They thrive on the 
 summer rains and the summer heat, but they grow 
 strong and enduring only when they are able to stand 
 the test of storms and cold. No law, no system of laws, 
 no scheme of universal political ethics, may live unless 
 it be ratified by experiment and approved by lapse of 
 time. The confidence of the world is not easily won. 
 The people are not easily charmed by sweet promises 
 and dulcet protestations. They realize that the 
 
International Law 121 
 
 popular view is not always the kingly or imperial view, 
 and if they never knew it until the Holy Alliance 
 imdertook to consecrate the divine authority of rul- 
 ers, and to put down by force the aspirations of the 
 masses, they then learned that different points of view 
 often lead to opposite results. They may well prefer 
 slower international processes to sentimental proto- 
 cols, and ask, with Anglo-Saxon directness, whether 
 the innovations are likely to pay: not a picturesque 
 view, indeed, but one that saves trouble in the end by 
 forestalling rash experiments. 
 
 It may in truth be said that international law has 
 grown, and is likely to develop much as the Constitu- 
 tion of Great Britain and the Constitution of the 
 United States. These differ, I need hardly state, in 
 the important particular that the one is written, and 
 the other exists only by tradition. But the difference 
 is less in substance than in name, for the stubborn 
 conservatism of the English race and their strong 
 love for precedent make that stable and enduring which 
 would be evanescent and temporary with a differently 
 constituted people. Our Constitution, on the other 
 hand, left the framers' hands in outward form a 
 skeleton, which it became the duty, most admirably 
 discharged, of the Supreme Court to clothe with flesh, 
 to inspire with life, and to endow with motion. Its 
 written formulation is but a brief declaration of prin- 
 ciples to which legislation must conform, but which, 
 with its marvellous terseness and pliability remains in 
 unfettered activity ready to expand as the necessities 
 of a growing nation demand. In this do these consti- 
 tutions differ from the hand-made products of con- 
 tinental Europe. The written schemes of Sieyes, for 
 instance, were ingenious in the extreme, and were 
 
122 International Law 
 
 written in a few hours ; they lacked but one thing, — 
 they would not work in practice. The different parts 
 of the beautiful mosaic fitted each other with artistic 
 exactness, but alas! like a toy boat on a real ocean, 
 they went to pieces as soon as they were tried for the 
 business of a great people's political life. So must it 
 be with international law. It is in no man's — no 
 nation's — power to make it or add to it without the 
 acceptance of general civilized opinion, and it cannot 
 be so accepted until time and experience have demon- 
 strated its fitness. That additions must, from time 
 to time, be made to any international device cannot 
 be disputed without condemning the actual system to 
 death by anaemia. If the world moves, any method 
 or scheme of adjusting the relations of its component 
 parts cannot remain motionless, especially when yotmg 
 and vigorous nations are added to the family, and by 
 their restless activity disturb the old conditions of 
 paralyzed equilibrium. Our own country demands 
 recognition by her commanding position as queen of 
 the western world. She does not require the ex- 
 change of courteous protocols to assure her of that 
 recognition. It is said of General Bonaparte that a 
 treaty of peace was presented to him after one of his 
 dazzling Italian campaigns, in which proposed treaty 
 was an express recognition of the existence of the 
 French repubhc. He struck out these words, be- 
 cause, as he said, the French republic, Hke the sun, 
 needed no such acknowledgment; she was, like the 
 sun, visible to all mankind. The RepubHc of which 
 we are citizens does not need to be told what she is, 
 nor what her rank, nor how far her fiat is the law 
 of two continents. She cannot be ignored, nor her 
 legitimate influence minimized. It is not too much 
 
International Law 123 
 
 to say that no revision of ancient rules devised by 
 Grotius and Puffendorf and Vattel will be complete 
 without amendments and additions from her. To 
 ask nothing that is not right, to submit to nothing 
 that is wrong, was always a rule of our Government, 
 and is to-day. We shall be wise and remain strong if 
 we adhere to it. In the catechisms of Napoleon's day, 
 the children were required to give special thanks, be- 
 cause the Almighty in His mercy had vouchsafed so 
 excellent a ruler to France. Let us hope that, as 
 years roll on, the world shall become so much happier 
 and better because of our being part of it, that other 
 nations may, with grateful hearts, bless the Provi- 
 dence which inspired the fathers with wisdom to lay the 
 corner-stone so well. It only remains for the children 
 to love the work thus begun with earnestness enough 
 to preserve and protect it against enemies from with- 
 out, and the more dangerous foes within. Then shall 
 our mission be in the way of glorious accomplishment. 
 International law, if it is to keep step with the 
 progress of mankind, must take into account the fact 
 that the balance of power has passed from the throne 
 to the people. Whether for good or for evil, the 
 royal or imperial crown, with scarce an exception, is 
 held by gift. We see, at times, gHmpses of mediaeval 
 reverence for the great office of ruler over a nation, 
 and the ruler himself sometimes astonishes or amuses 
 the world by medieval claims to a Heaven-bestowed 
 dignity. But the gracious Queen who has so worthily 
 and so long held the sceptre of Great Britain claims 
 no title to her dignities and her palaces, outside the laws 
 of the land. No one fact in modern history shows 
 more strikingly the changes wrought by time than the 
 fact that the successor of Queen Elizabeth is queen by 
 
124 International Law 
 
 virtue of an act of Parliament, which may be unmade 
 as it was made ; while across the channel the palaces of 
 Louis XIV. are occupied by a reputable gentleman, 
 recently engaged in business, who, for a brief term of 
 seven years, executes the bidding of a plebeian legis- 
 lature. When we recall the fashion in which the Virgin 
 Queen and Le Grand Monarque treated the law-makers 
 of their day, we need no other reminder of the radical 
 changes that have marked the transfer of power from 
 the king to the people. 
 
 Obviously such vital differences in political con- 
 ditions, the world over, must have their influence on 
 international law. The moulding of the system has 
 passed into other and possibly ruder hands. The 
 niceties of diplomacy have assumed another shape, or 
 more properly have disappeared with the elegant 
 forms that accompanied and made part of them. 
 Directness of speech, open explanation, frank state- 
 ment of what is denied or objected to, are becoming 
 part of international law, or at least of international 
 procedure. We, of America, have done our inter- 
 national business without the intervention of pro- 
 fessional go-betweens, and we have not thus far had 
 cause to complain that we had no experienced di- 
 plomatists to embarrass our relations with foreign 
 powers by their ponderous and dilatory methods. 
 The secrecy of the old style cannot exist when the 
 Press is free. We cannot well imagine the king of one 
 nation subsidizing the king of another for any length 
 of time without a publication of the fact, with its 
 necessary consequence of putting an end to the rela- 
 tion of master and servant. Yet Charles II. was the 
 recipient of a salary in French gold, which he spent 
 with royal profusion in every way, except in the way 
 
International Law 125 
 
 of benefiting his people. This fashion of regulating 
 foreign relations and of settling international differ- 
 ences may be said to have disappeared. 
 
 That the gross form of bribery here alluded to was 
 exceptional may be granted, but it cannot be denied 
 that the personal relations of sovereigns had much 
 to do with the intercourse between nations, and to 
 that extent affected international law. The situation 
 of a whole people might be changed, and often was 
 changed, by a marriage. The kingdom of France 
 really became such by happy alliances adding duchies 
 of vast extent to the central power with as little 
 ceremony as a neighbor's farm is annexed with its 
 chattels to the lands of an owner who desires terri- 
 torial expansion. France virtually annexed Spain 
 when the king's son, Philip, ascended the Spanish 
 throne. But a war of gigantic destruction followed 
 the mere suggestion made in our day that a German 
 prince might take the place which Philip once filled. 
 It is true that the suggestion was afterwards with- 
 drawn, and the wrong of initiating a war without 
 necessity was imputed to France. Yet it cannot 
 fairly be doubted that if the attempt had been made 
 to place this German prince at the head of the Spanish 
 nation, the principles of international law, as generally 
 accepted and understood, would have been violated. 
 For if there be one principle which stands out to give 
 the appearance of substance to this vague and shadowy 
 law, it is that the equilibrium of power must not be 
 disturbed. This may be said to be the fons et origo of 
 the whole plan. The religious observance of the rule 
 is indispensable. Noli me tangere is the golden maxim 
 which permeates and gives life to it, and general ac- 
 ceptance; a maxim, too, that is not confined to the 
 
126 International Law 
 
 narrow limits of an actual injury, a direct assault, but, 
 with the elastic force of every great principle, insists 
 upon investigating remote and apparently unim- 
 portant facts. And it is, indeed, vital, for its acknowl- 
 edgment alone preserves the peace of the world. How 
 long, think you, would Holland retain her independ- 
 ence but for this? She is filled, it is true, with a brave 
 and patriotic people, but the German Uhlan would 
 water his horses in the picturesque canals of The 
 Hague, and the Watch on the Rhine would be sung in 
 that ancient city's cafes long before the dykes were 
 opened to drown the irresistible foe. How long would 
 Belgium retain her autonomy and flourish in art and 
 wealth and a prosperity all her own, if the tempting 
 prey were opened to the neighbors who, in the past, 
 made her a part of the French nation? But to touch 
 Holland, or Belgium, or Switzerland is to disturb the 
 equipoise, and an attack upon either would be re- 
 sented as swiftly in London as though a French or 
 German fleet were threatening the coast of England. 
 
 All which amounts to no more than saying that self- 
 protection and self-preservation constitute the corner- 
 stone of modern international law. This instinct is as 
 strong in communities as in individuals, and will, when 
 aroused by real or imaginary perils, sweep away forms 
 and law as worthless encumbrances if they interfere 
 with their first duty and most valuable right, the duty 
 to resist aggression and the right to live. 
 
 Utility is the chief ligament that binds together into 
 something like systematic arrangement the provisions 
 of international law. In the complicated European 
 affairs of to-day, with nations closely approximating 
 each other in financial resources and, therefore, in 
 military power, some concession by each to the other 
 
International Law 127 
 
 must be made in the form of self-denial. To live in 
 the family of civilized nations, no power shall appro- 
 priate the territory of a weaker neighbor without the 
 permission of the other parties in interest. This per- 
 mission may be obtained by a successful war, as was 
 done until and including Napoleon's time. But he 
 closed the era of the great conquerors who dispensed, in 
 the hurry of an agitated career, with the usual forms of 
 international courtesy. It is not likely that until the 
 present system is radically changed, a victorious em- 
 peror or king will tear down, build, remodel, patch up, 
 or create thrones as the requirements of his policy 
 or the importunities of his relatives might require. 
 "The House of Braganza has ceased to exist," was all 
 the notice that he deemed it necessary to serve on the 
 parties interested, or on the world in general, when it 
 suited him to abolish that ancient family; nor is it 
 probable that any other military genius will carry on 
 war at the cost of others, and reduce home expenses by 
 levying contributions far in excess of the actual and 
 necessary disbursements to which he had been put. 
 International law has, at least, benefited the world 
 in this, that the moral sentiment of mankind finds an 
 expression in the practices which civilized nations 
 have sought to establish among themselves for their 
 mutual guidance and mutual interest. 
 
 It is now chiefly by treaty that accessions of territory 
 are had. The advantages of such treaties as those 
 which followed the downfall of Napoleon are manifest. 
 They consecrated a distribution which silenced op- 
 position by its generous equity. That generosity was 
 exercised at the expense of other than the contracting 
 parties ; but the equilibrium that had been so unduly 
 disturbed must be restored, and it was done probably 
 
128 International Law 
 
 with as little harm to the smaller factors in the problem 
 as was consistent with its solution. 
 
 Returning for a moment to the beginnings of inter- 
 national law, we find that self-preservation and utility 
 are at its source. Indeed they constitute its raison 
 d'etre. For while we may say that it is the preserver 
 of peace, and the refuge of the weak, the same story 
 is told under a changed name. The strength of the 
 weak Ues in the jealousies of the strong, and the 
 preservation of peace in the greater benefits that na- 
 tions can reap from the quiet pursuits of commerce 
 and agriculture. A proper apprehension of the ad- 
 vantages which nations derive from a husbanding of 
 their resources, and an economy of men and treasure, 
 does more for the happiness of the world than the 
 most voluminous treatise on the rights of war and 
 peace. An intelHgent book on political economy is 
 really a demonstration of war's futility. The value 
 of a human hfe may be computed in money, and 
 shake the purpose of the potentate who meditates a 
 war. It is not only of the royal head of the animal 
 kingdom that we may say, " A living lion is worth two 
 dead." It is true of htmian beings as well. The 
 would-be conqueror may not be deterred by humani- 
 tarian pleas, nor hesitate because of brave men's 
 blood and women's tears, both shed for his caprice. 
 And yet he may hesitate at the cost of an armed 
 man if he computes the value of the man as well as the 
 expense of the accoutrement. 
 
 Nor can it be fairly gainsaid that, with our pro- 
 gressive civilization, which means the more general 
 diffusion of education, a broader, finer, stronger moral 
 sense has grown up among the nations. It shows 
 itself in many ways, and breathes its purifying spirit 
 
International Law 129 
 
 into the dry tomes of the international law writers. 
 War has lost some of its horrors because humanity 
 protects the wounded prisoner and cares for him as 
 though he were a forgiven foe or a recovered brother. 
 Human slavery is dying out, and the traffic has be- 
 come almost a record of the past. Unprovoked attack 
 upon a weaker enemy is less frequent than of old, not 
 only because of the danger of arousing defenders for 
 the weak, but because of a decent regard for the 
 opinions of mankind. One short century has wrought 
 a change in these respects that almost staggers belief. 
 The shocking absence of humanity that once char- 
 acterized the conduct of refined nations seems incon- 
 sistent with anything but barbarian depravity. And 
 we may, perhaps, venture the boast that at no time 
 has the intercourse between members of the himian 
 family been so near the Christian ideal, far removed 
 though it still be from its moral beauty, as it has been 
 since the people have been the predominant element 
 in the conduct of the world's business. The heart of 
 the people beats with more generous pulsations than 
 that of the artificial society which acquired and so 
 long kept control of htmian actions. Torture was 
 never the people's instrument of justice, although it 
 was the kingly implement : cruel and imusual punish- 
 ments disappeared from the statute books as soon as 
 the people's strong hand wrote the laws. War became 
 humanized, so far as its inherent brutality permits, as 
 soon as the people became the masters. For it was 
 of old the people who suffered the torture, fought the 
 battles, paid the taxes, and bore the burden of the 
 day and the heat. Small wonder if they have learned 
 that they could improve upon the old devices when 
 the class that made the harsh laws and imposed the 
 
130 International Law 
 
 heavy burdens never felt the edge of the law nor the 
 weight of the burden. 
 
 With the people's reign new ideas have come to the 
 front, and old ideas have gone to the rear. True bi- 
 partite, tripartite, and quadrilateral treaties and al- 
 liances may still be made, and the people may not 
 be told to what they have been committed ; but even 
 in those countries where such contracts are made, it 
 is not quite certain that when the decisive moment 
 comes the masses may be moved with sheep-like do- 
 cility. Then, too, a new and disturbing element has 
 entered the fold, — a young, restless, growing nation, 
 impatient of forms, a lover of action, a partisan of 
 justice. If left alone one people will not hate another 
 people. The resentments of monarchs are not always 
 echoed in the hearts of their subjects. Our United 
 States has given a practical example of what may be 
 done for peace by a nation that is able to be strong in 
 war, for we have an international law binding for- 
 ty-five States together under a written treaty. Our 
 differences are settled by a tribunal of arbitration that 
 deals with the communities as freely as it would deal 
 with the individuals that compose it. An experiment 
 was once made outside the jurisdiction of this tribunal 
 only a generation ago, and a great lesson learned. 
 
 That there may be grave peril in a situation which 
 gives free scope to the generous impulses of a strong 
 nation cannot reasonably be denied. Impulse, even 
 when directed to a noble purpose, is often the enemy 
 of right reason, and defeats its ends. It is in the na- 
 ture of things that a story of wrong, persistent and 
 unredressed, should rouse our people to wrath and 
 tempt them to chivalrous, even if imprudent action. A 
 great republic, unembarrassed by the barnacle growth 
 
International Law 131 
 
 of ages, lightly equipped, because free from oppressive 
 debt, earnest for liberty, and hating oppression, is 
 prone to generous folly that makes the Old World 
 stand aghast. The cries of our neighbors are quickly 
 caught up by ready ears. Differences of race are 
 soon forgotten when our sympathies are plausibly in- 
 voked. We are, perhaps, too ready to love our neigh- 
 bor as ourselves. A noble maxim in private life and 
 one which no doubt should find an honorable place in 
 the international horn-book. For international law 
 is based on, made up of, and permeated with, moral 
 law. It is nothing, if not moral. 
 
 The eminent Chief Justice of England says that 
 "the ultimate aim in the actions of men and of com- 
 munities ought to conform to the divine precept — ' Do 
 unto others as you would that others should do unto 
 you'"; an exalted, but, perhaps, not wholly safe 
 guide in the intricate labyrinth of international rela- 
 tions. While such a precept, if followed by individuals, 
 would raise society to a plane that it has never yet 
 attained ; while it may be followed by all who under- 
 stand it to be the essence of the precept of charity, the 
 application of the Golden Rule in the larger matters 
 of the world might be destructive of all pretence of 
 international law. Unrestrained emotion, however 
 generous, might and would be indulged in at the ex- 
 pense of nearly every rule that jurists have taught, 
 from Grotius and Puffendorf to Story and Wheaton. 
 Law, — every law, — means restraint and involves self- 
 denial. When these States were colonies in rebellion, 
 they longed for, sought, and obtained foreign inter- 
 vention. Does it follow that the mature nation shall 
 do to others what it then desired others to do for it? 
 The point of view of contending nations is naturally 
 
132 International Law 
 
 different. If to-day a foreign power seeks by force to 
 retain in subjection its reluctant colonies, how shall 
 the Golden Rule be applied? Which of the con- 
 testants shall receive the benefit of its application in 
 the form, not only of sympathy but of moral and 
 physical support? We have been at one time the 
 rebellious colonies, at another the power that under- 
 took to reduce its rebels to submission. In the one 
 case the Golden Rule meant, " Help those who struggle 
 for freedom"; in another, "Hands off!" Non-inter- 
 vention in the affairs of other communities is one of 
 the few principles that are generally recognized as 
 essential to the peace of nations, and yet it is hard 
 to keep the blood of a free and magnanimous people 
 from tingling and rushing to fever heat when the cries 
 of a despairing neighbor rise in protest against op- 
 pression. Yet our Washington, with prophetic vision 
 of the dangers lying in wait for his countrymen, 
 warned them against listening to the voice of natural 
 and brotherly sympathy. What, then, becomes of 
 the Golden Rule, if it is circumscribed by expediency, 
 fettered by law, and condemned in practice by "those 
 rules to which nations have agreed to conform in their 
 conduct toward one another"? 
 
 This apparently pessimistic view of the appHcability 
 of moral precepts to the regulation of international 
 affairs only serves to prove that the element of law 
 enters but inadequately into the system that we are 
 considering. Where the municipal law is concerned 
 no such confusion and difficulty arise, for the statutes 
 interfere to prevent the over-zealous moralist from 
 indulging, to the detriment of others, in his desire to 
 promote the welfare of his neighbors. He may give 
 his fortune and his time or his life to the improvement 
 
International Law 133 
 
 of his brethren, but even philanthropy has its legal 
 limitations. The best, the most exalted motives will 
 not give immunity to the violation of a statute. The 
 wings of charity are often clipped by the shears of 
 cold-blooded legislation. Wrongs often go unredressed 
 because a Christian Quixote may not do to his noisy 
 or peace-disturbing neighbor what his own construc- 
 tion of the Golden Rule would suggest as most expe- 
 dient. 
 
 It may appear from what precedes that the sanctions 
 of international law are at least imperfect and insuffi- 
 cient, if they exist at all. It may be accepted as a 
 fact, not encouraging, perhaps, to the student, that the 
 system is only an approach to a system, the law only 
 an approximation to a law, the rules no more than ab- 
 stract precepts which may be violated with impunity, 
 because there is no tribunal vested with the power to 
 restrain or to punish the violator. But imperfect as 
 the device may be, it deserves careful consideration. 
 Its aim is high and its purpose beneficent. It is of some 
 avail parcere subjectis, though it has never yet been 
 efficient dehellare superbos. It is in effect an attempt 
 of Christian civilization to propose humane rules for 
 the international regulation of the affairs of the several 
 nations. It has not yet taught forbearance to the 
 mighty, nor given assurance of justice to the weak, 
 but it has striven to do both, and in some measure it 
 has succeeded. It has not abrogated war, but it has 
 taught the value of charity, even when the laws were 
 silent. It has not abolished htunan slavery, but it has 
 brought nations to a common understanding that the 
 traffic in human beings should be, in the common in- 
 terest of their self-respect, crippled if not destroyed. It 
 has founded no tribunal, but has developed a monitor — 
 
134 International Law 
 
 public opinion — which may remonstrate and denounce 
 in a voice that goes around the world. And finally, 
 when clouds of dissension arise upon the horizon, it 
 teaches, by its very misnomer, that there is a class of 
 men who may be trusted to solve weighty problems 
 more safely and less expensively than those who rely 
 upon force to persuade, and gunpowder to convince. 
 The lawyer — or as he is finely called when his cHent 
 is a nation, the jurist, at the opportune moment, steps 
 upon the scene, and the halting march of progress is 
 resumed, the wheels of commerce continue to revolve, 
 protocols take the place of declarations, pleadings of 
 bulletins, and legal opinions of proclamations. No 
 ghastly list of dead and wounded sickens the homes of 
 the contestants. When the fight is over, no healing 
 processes of time and taxation are needed to repair 
 the waste, for reason has had the last word and has 
 reached a result quite as certain to be just as though 
 the debate had been fought out at Waterloo, Gettys- 
 burg, or Sedan. If this be one of the fruits of this 
 so-called science, it is indeed a blessed science that 
 deserves to live forever. 
 
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS ^ 
 
 THE early life of Columbus offers a most alluring 
 field to the historian of a speculative and 
 imaginative turn of mind. The story abounds 
 in doubts and rests upon a nice calculation of proba- 
 bilities. The writer must make a free use of the 
 potential mode, and may only indulge in positive 
 statements with misgivings as to his own accuracy. 
 While Homer has been claimed by seven different 
 cities, all of them anxious to secure the fame of having 
 given him birth, Columbus may boast even more. 
 Genoa seems to be the first in the race; to make her 
 claims sure a noble marquis, a few years ago, pointed 
 out a venerable structure in which he asserts that the 
 great discoverer was born. As nothing can be plainer 
 than the fact that the marquis speaks only upon in- 
 formation and belief, no imputation upon his veracity 
 is cast by those who name other claimants as entitled 
 to the much coveted honor. Unless the Genoese 
 champion may emulate Pythagoras, who assured his 
 hearers that he had been present, in the flesh, centuries 
 before, at the siege of Troy, in the person of Euphorbus, 
 and proved the assertion by pointing out the shield 
 
 'An address before the Catholic Club and the United States 
 Catholic Historical Society, Carnegie Hall, October ii, 1892. 
 137 
 
138 Christopher Columbus 
 
 which he then wore, we require other evidence to sus- 
 tain the marquis's assertion. If, however, Columbus 
 was not born in Genoa, who knows whether his eyes 
 did not first open to the Hght in Corsica? At least a 
 learned abbe so states, and the town of Calvi has given 
 earnest of its convictions by erecting a monument to 
 assure posterity of the fact and to place it beyond the 
 shadowy regions of historical controversy. 
 
 If we may without discourtesy venture to dispute 
 the abbe and the monument and turn our back on 
 Corsica, we shall find Cucaro, Cugureo, Piacenza, and 
 other towns, rapidly increasing in number as time rolls 
 on, to vindicate their claims. It is not here necessary, 
 fortunately for us, to settle the dispute. The part of 
 wisdom is rather to follow the example of the Chicago 
 Fair, and to photograph all the rival sites, with gen- 
 erous impartiality and unreserved confidence in the 
 judgment of the citizen who shall undertake to decide 
 the question for himself. It is enough to say here 
 that Colimibus, more fortimate than Homer, was cer- 
 tainly bom and lived and died — so far as such men 
 as Homer and Columbus ever die. 
 
 So, too, it may be said by hasty and reckless writers 
 that Columbus was of Italian descent, but even here 
 doubt throttles assertion and bids it pause. Is it 
 quite sure that Columbus did not owe part, at least, of 
 his daring and courage and tenacity to the French 
 blood, which, it is stated by some authorities, flowed 
 in his veins? Not a mean and plebeian blood, but 
 a bluish and gentle fluid, that had run in bright 
 channels through the bodies of gallant men and fair 
 women. An admiral in the French navy would, ac- 
 cording to some, be responsible in the far past for the 
 propensity, invincible and enduring in Columbus, to 
 
Christopher Columbus 139 
 
 scour the seas. A clear case of atavism, even if the 
 French ancestor was a bold pirate as well as a noble 
 admiral. Again it is our good fortune to-night that 
 we need not decide the question. But I deem it my 
 duty to warn you that no inference unfavorable to 
 this theory is to be drawn from the fact that French 
 writers lay no stress upon the possible circumstance 
 that Columbus may have been warmed and invigor- 
 ated by the same blood as themselves. They exhibit 
 a curious apathy and indifference in this respect. Do 
 they not pass without notice and without a proper ex- 
 hibition of exultation the well-ascertained truth that 
 Washington himself was one of their kinsmen? Is it 
 not probable that his strong, cold nature was occasion- 
 ally warmed up to its boihng point by an ebullition 
 wholly French? If the great, strange oaths that he 
 swore at Lee on the plains of Monmouth had been 
 accurately preserved, they might throw some light 
 upon the subject. What shall we say of a nation that 
 allows Scotland to capture St. Patrick and claim him 
 as her own, without regard to the truth of history or 
 the probable preferences of the good saint himself? 
 It is idle to pursue this digression; it was only in- 
 tended to explain why the possible right of Columbus 
 to claim a French ancestry was not diminished by the 
 negligence of French writers of history to uphold it. 
 
 Wherever born and from whatever parent root he 
 sprang, Columbus was, for the time, a well educated 
 man. I am tempted to say a well educated gentleman, 
 and upon the whole conclude that this term may be 
 safely adopted, although it is a matter of doubt 
 whether his parents were of noble rank or simply 
 carders of wool. This subject is not one of great im- 
 portance, however, if we adopt the suggestion made 
 
I40 Christopher Columbus 
 
 by an ingenious writer that wool-carding was a very 
 reputable business, in which persons of birth and 
 education not infrequently engaged, so that the two 
 theories may be happily reconciled by the conclusion 
 that neither excludes the truth of the other. 
 
 To decide where Columbus received his early edu- 
 cation is comparatively easy. There are but two 
 cities seriously claiming the title of pedagogue to the 
 future discoverer. These are Genoa and Padua. The 
 strongest argument thus far advanced in favor of the 
 latter is to the effect that Genoa being imperfectly 
 equipped with educational appliances, he must have 
 imbibed his learning at Paduan fountains. This is 
 very much as though one were to say, of any learned 
 native of Brooklyn or Philadelphia whose Alma Mater 
 was unknown, that he must have studied at Columbia 
 College. 
 
 Having thus settled that Coltmibus was born in 
 Italy or Corsica, that he was a descendant of French 
 or Italian ancestors, that he was bom of noble though 
 wool-carding parents, and educated at Genoa or 
 Padua, and without attempting to fix the date of his 
 birth as utterly beyond our ability to establish, the 
 remaining work before the student of the great man's 
 life is comparatively easy. The doubts and difficulties 
 that beset us are no greater than those that arise 
 when we deal with others of the world's great children. 
 We may trace his struggles and trials, sympathize 
 with him in the bitterness of his disappointments, 
 marvel at the unflinching courage and tenacity of his 
 purpose, and follow him, almost day by day, from the 
 moment when he stepped on his puny caravel to the 
 hour of his death. 
 
 It has been the fashion of many admirers of Colum- 
 
Christopher Columbus 141 
 
 bus to look for the elements of a special inspiration in 
 his life, labors, and successes. It has been assumed 
 by them that his fame would be magnified if he were 
 shown to be the special object of a divine selection for 
 the accomplishment of great ends. That he was 
 prompted, guided, directed, and protected by divine 
 providence, and that without this aid he would have 
 failed in the accomplishment of his purpose, is merely 
 to state a proposition in which all believers in the 
 ever-present influence of a divine will may acquiesce. 
 But there is nothing to justify the contention that 
 Columbus, like Joan of Arc, was called by an irresist- 
 ible command to perform a task which he was not in 
 every way, by nature and education, fitted to perform. 
 The little Maid of Orleans, who left her peaceful home 
 to save her country, with no knowledge of war, no 
 skill in arms, no taste for shedding human blood, 
 may well stand before posterity and challenge univer- 
 sal homage and tender admiration for deeds that 
 exhibit the luminous traces of special inspiration. It 
 is quite as easy to believe her own pathetic story as 
 to account in any other way for the development of 
 the plain, modest, pious, peasant girl into a skilful, 
 brave, and successful warrior. The two cases, of Joan 
 and of Columbus, may serve as illustrations of the 
 dividing line between that impetus which derives its 
 sole force and origin from an unseen and providential 
 cause and the natural, logical, and expected result of 
 genius and courage, working under God's providence 
 to a definite and well-conceived end. Columbus had 
 received the gift of genius, which is of itself a sort of 
 inspiration to accomplish great things. Genius is not 
 the result nor creation of education, nor the fruit of 
 toil, nor the gift of ancestry; it is a spark that is 
 
142 Christopher Columbus 
 
 blown into a flame, without the consciousness of its 
 possessor, and which then lights up the world, for good 
 or for evil. Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Mahomet, 
 and Napoleon stand apart from the rest of the world 
 as men thus gifted. Many would add Columbus to 
 the list, although his title to be ranked in such com- 
 pany is not universally conceded. 
 
 We are naturally disposed, after these four hundred 
 years, looking through the dim veil of commingled 
 history and romance, to treat the discovery of America 
 by Columbus as a marvellous and unequalled event, 
 which only a rare combination of circumstances could 
 produce. It is assumed that there was little in the 
 past history of the world, or in the knowledge then 
 held by learned men, to justify the belief that the ex- 
 tremities of the world had not been reached. But 
 such delusions cannot withstand a moment's scrutiny. 
 The marvel is, not that the discovery was made, but 
 that it had not been made long before. It was as in- 
 evitable that it should be effected at an early date as 
 the discovery of printing was sure to follow the in- 
 vention of paper. To use a common but expressive 
 form of speech — it was in the air. Proof abounded 
 that there was an undiscovered land far to the west 
 and that a continent, supposed to be the continent of 
 Asia, might be directly reached by saihng in a westerly 
 direction from Europe over the Atlantic. Evidence 
 sufficient to convict the strange land of being a reality 
 had been repeatedly furnished, in ahnost conclusive 
 form. Navigators driven by storm beyond the Azores 
 had found curiously carved woods, manifestly of some 
 other than European origin ; a large canoe, capacious 
 enough to hold twenty rowers, had been picked up at 
 sea, and also strange trees of a kind unknown to 
 
Christopher Columbus 143 
 
 Europeans; more striking than all, perhaps, the 
 bodies of men, of a dark color, had been thrown up by 
 the sea and had shown that somewhere in the west a 
 race of hiunan beings would be found, differing in 
 appearance from any then known, whether of European, 
 Asiatic, or African origin. Marco Polo, the great 
 traveller, had returned from his explorations and 
 told strange tales of the countries that he had visited, 
 Tartary, India, China; these were supposed to extend 
 as far as the continent now known as the continent of 
 America. 
 
 But neither the physical proofs thus furnished by 
 flood and tide and storm, nor the narratives of travel- 
 lers, could extirpate the deeply rooted prejudices of 
 men and overcome the invincible ignorance of the 
 great mass of mankind. 
 
 Men had eyes to see, but the lessons taught by the 
 bodies of dead men and strange plants and beasts, 
 they could not read. They had ears, but they would 
 not hsten to the tales of travellers, preferring, as 
 sluggish indolence always does, to call them Hes and 
 thus end the debate. 
 
 We must remember, however, that the world was 
 not plunged in absolute ignorance as to the conforma- 
 tion of the earth. The idea that its form was spherical 
 was old and accepted by learned men. Ptolemy and 
 the geographers of Arabia had long taught that the 
 earth was in the form of a globe and might be circvim- 
 navigated. The lodestone and astrolabe had been 
 invented and had made navigation comparatively easy 
 and safe. 
 
 Nor was this all. The fact must have been known 
 to many that there was a new land to the west of 
 Greenland. The hardy Norsemen had put their foot 
 
144 Christopher Columbus 
 
 upon it five hundred years before Columbus turned 
 his back on Palos. They had made repeated voyages 
 between Greenland and Iceland. Even were we not 
 assured by positive proof that such was the fact, we 
 must have drawn the conclusion from irresistible 
 evidence. The dauntless sailors who left Norway to 
 settle in Iceland, and from Iceland reached Greenland, 
 were not the men to permit the narrow seas to separate 
 them from the continent that was within easy reach. 
 Even had they been willing to leave the neighboring 
 ocean unexplored, some beneficent storm from the 
 northeast must have forced them into a reluctant 
 knowledge of their neighbors. The distance between 
 Iceland and Greenland is 750 miles; America is but 
 250 miles from Greenland. The old Vikings, who 
 were never so thoroughly at home as when they trod 
 the deck of a stout ship in a storm, are not open to the 
 reproach of having feared to test the mysteries of these 
 tmknown waters. The record of northern voyages is 
 too well known to leave a doubt as to their having been 
 made and having resulted in the discovery of America. 
 In the year 986, Bjorne Herjwissen saw the land which 
 we now call New England. It was originally called 
 Vinland on account of the grapes that were discovered 
 there and said to produce good wine. So satisfactory 
 and complete was the evidence of the existence of this 
 remote land, that Pope Paschal II., as early as the year 
 1 1 12, appointed Eric Upsi Bishop of Iceland, Green- 
 land, and Vinland, and the bishop, it is said, actually 
 visited Vinland in person during the year 1 1 2 1 . While 
 we have no accurate data as to the spiritual condition 
 of the new diocese, we know that it was extensive 
 enough in point of area. It certainly is interesting to 
 read that nearly four hundred years before Columbus 
 
Christopher Columbus 145 
 
 and his people undertook to evangelize the peaceful 
 inhabitants of the west, the Church was solicitous 
 enough to send out one of her servants to teach the 
 natives the truths of the gospel, and to bring them 
 within the fold. Unfortunately, the great plague 
 that well-nigh depopulated Nor^-ay put an end for 
 many years to schemes of distant philanthropy and 
 foreign adventure. 
 
 Nor was Vinland the only section of America on 
 which the European had set his foot. "Great Ire- 
 land" antedates even these early attempts and had 
 long been discovered by men from Ireland when Are 
 Marsen visited that region in 983. They occupied the 
 country south of the Chesapeake Bay, including North 
 and South CaroHna, Georgia, and East Florida. When, 
 in 999, Gudlief Gudlangson and his sailors were driven 
 by storms to America, they landed in an unknown 
 region where they were at once met by several hundred 
 natives whose language was apparently Irish. The 
 methods of these natives were not as courteous and 
 civilized as those of their modern descendants, for they 
 at once seized the foreigners and bound them, thus 
 forcibly signifying their doctrine of home rule and 
 their determination to retain the country for them- 
 selves as the rightful owners thereof. They did not 
 harm the unwilling invaders of their territory, how- 
 ever, but allowed them to depart unmolested, after 
 signifying with marked emphasis that it would not be 
 safe to remain — a piece of wise conduct that might 
 have been emulated with advantage by the natives 
 who afterwards received some of the followers of 
 Columbus with open arms. 
 
 From the historical fragments left us it is almost 
 certain that Columbus knew of the existence of a 
 
146 Christopher Columbus 
 
 continent in the far west. He was by profession a 
 geographer and earned his Hving by drawing and selling 
 charts that were highly esteemed for their accuracy. 
 The study of the physical world was his favorite pur- 
 suit. It is to be presumed that he knew of these 
 subjects all that the learned men of his day had ac- 
 quired; with these elements of fact to work upon, his 
 ingenious mind could reach but one conclusion. A 
 strong additional circumstance lends weight to these 
 considerations. There is no doubt that in or about 
 1477 Columbus visited Iceland, which has been 
 termed the hinge upon which the discovery of America 
 turned. There he must necessarily have learned 
 something of the traditions which preserved the old 
 Norse discoveries from oblivion. Can it be supposed 
 that he, filled as he was with the ambition of making 
 his way to India through undiscovered seas, never 
 heard of Vinland nor of the bishop appointed by 
 Paschal? Then, too, Adam von Bremen's account 
 had been published in 1073, if we may speak of publi- 
 cation before the invention of printing, and per- 
 petuated the brave deeds of the Norse navigators. 
 No wonder then that Columbus spoke and acted as 
 though he knew rather than conjectured, calculated, 
 or imagined. "When he had formed his theory," 
 says Washington Irving, " it became fixed in his mind 
 with singular firmness. He never spoke in doubt or 
 hesitation, but with as much certainty as if his eyes 
 had already seen the promised land." A very probable 
 statement and a very natural condition of mind if he 
 had read of the Norse discoveries, the Irish settlement, 
 the papal appointment of a bishop to Vinland, and 
 was familiar with the household traditions of the 
 Norsemen. 
 
Christopher Columbus 147 
 
 We may, then, assume the truth of the proposition 
 that the condition of the pubHc mind was such that 
 an attempt to penetrate the mystery of the western 
 seas was inevitable, and the further proposition that 
 of all men fitted for the task none was more competent 
 than Columbus. That he should have become pos- 
 sessed of this one fixed, absorbing thought was not 
 strange. He was ambitious of honors, title, wealth, 
 power, and fame; all these lay on the route to India, 
 the land of Solomon's Mines, the Ophir of boundless 
 promise, the undiscovered country which held in its 
 bosom treasures vast enough to challenge the wildest 
 imagination, to realize the wildest dream. 
 
 Why the effort was so long delayed, why Colimibus 
 himself, eloquent, learned, enthusiastic as he was, 
 wore away twenty long years in the vain attempt to 
 enlist royal sympathy in favor of his scheme, seems 
 difficult to account for, but some reasons for the 
 strange lethargy may be advanced. 
 
 The natural fear of the unknown has always fed 
 upon a superstitious fear of Providence. The Roman 
 poet strongly and beautifully expressed it when he 
 condemned the restless spirit of men who leaped over 
 the natural boundaries created by Jove — who dared 
 to sail over the waters which the deity had interposed 
 as a barrier between dissociated continents and who, 
 by their impious disregard of divine laws, challenged 
 Jove's wrath and never permitted his thimders to 
 intermit their destructive bolts. A feeling somewhat 
 akin to this still survived and was only beginning to 
 yield before a more general diffusion of enlightened 
 views. 
 
 The proposed attempt to brave the horrors of the 
 tinknown ocean was looked upon by many as impious 
 
148 Christopher Columbus 
 
 and dangerous, at one and the same time. The anger 
 of the sea was less to be dreaded than the wrath of its 
 Master. Men had been warned by divine hps that 
 they should not tempt the Lord their God; what was 
 this bold venture into the very jaws of death but a 
 challenge and a defiance to the Almighty? Scientific 
 reasons were often brushed aside even by learned men. 
 Some of these, while admitting the rotundity of the 
 earth, still urged the rashness of the attempt. Grant 
 that the world was round, grant that a hardy navigator 
 might sail far into unknown regions, the moment 
 would come when, the antipodes being reached, the 
 doomed ship must drop from the sea that had thus 
 far sustained her weight and, plunging helplessly into 
 infinite space, meet a fate as dreadful as it was deserved. 
 And if, by some strange and hitherto unknown physical 
 law, the fated bark still clung to the slippery waters, 
 how could it be expected that, in defiance of all prin- 
 ciples and all rules of physics, she would climb back, 
 upon the liquid and treacherous hill, to the point 
 whence she had started? Thus, a little knowledge 
 proved a dangerous thing; it gave the objector the 
 prestige of scientific acquirements in dealing with the 
 matter, and he was only the more dangerous because 
 he was somewhat less ignorant than his followers. 
 
 The arguments from Scripture were especially dan- 
 gerous, and were perhaps the most difficult to answer. 
 They came from pious and good men, who placed their 
 own narrow interpretation upon isolated passages, and 
 gave them a meaning which condemned such at- 
 tempts as blasphemous. The prophets and the fathers 
 of the Church were freely quoted as being conclusively 
 opposed to the plans of Columbus. Lactantius was 
 cited as saying that it was the height of absurdity to 
 
Christopher Columbus 149 
 
 pretend that there was such a part of the world as the 
 antipodes were supposed to represent, where men 
 walked about with their heels in the air and their heads 
 down; where human beings had their feet directly 
 opposite ours; where everything was reversed, the 
 trees growing with their roots in the air and the 
 branches in the ground. No one could deny that such 
 propositions were very absurd, and in fact incredible, 
 if faith in the antipodes obliged belief in such an 
 upheaval and reversal of physical laws. Then, too, 
 it had been said that all men came from Adam, which 
 was surely not the case if there was another race of 
 men in that fabulous country. Finally, some learned 
 doctors, applying a figurative test to the exigencies 
 of the discussion, cited the passage of the Scriptures 
 wherein it is stated that the Lord stretched the skies 
 over the land like unto a tent, which was clearly im- 
 possible if the earth was roimd. At least so they 
 argued, and with no small success. 
 
 Against these and other such adversaries, Columbus 
 waged his battle. He was himself a pious man, deeply 
 imbued with the doctrines of the Church. His reply 
 was, therefore, such as a devout Christian would ven- 
 ture to offer ; it was not the sneer of a scoffer, nor the 
 challenge of an infidel. He sought to reconcile the 
 truths of Scripture with those which he gathered from 
 science and experience, and to deal gently and patiently 
 with ignorance and prejudice, whatever their origin 
 and whatever the garb in which they were clothed. 
 He was eloquent, enthusiastic, learned, and skilful in 
 debate; but with all these qualities he might have 
 failed in his purpose but for the timely aid of church- 
 men whose orthodoxy was beyond dispute. Diego 
 de Deza, in particular, a Dominican, subsequently 
 
ISO Christopher Columbus 
 
 Bishop of Toledo, gave him his warm support, and 
 lent the color of religious regularity to the advocacy 
 of the new cause. Other religious men joined him to 
 overcome the opposition that had so bitterly assailed 
 Columbus and his strange theories; but even with 
 this valuable aid, it was a long and weary contest, that 
 wore out the great adventurer's best days. Portugal, 
 Genoa, Spain, — were, each in turn, appealed to. The 
 confident hope of a result that would startle the world 
 and enrich the promoters of his cause beyond their 
 dreams was urged in vain to incredulous ears. In- 
 conceivable as was this stubborn resistance to his 
 appeals, it baffled him for years, and he would probably 
 have ended his days without sight of the promised 
 land but for the friend whom a kind Providence 
 placed upon his path, when hope was well-nigh dead. 
 The prior of the humble convent of La Rabida received 
 the weary traveller when his fortunes were at their 
 lowest ebb; his charity revived the wanderer when 
 with his yoimg son he turned his back upon great 
 visions to seek for food and shelter. These, with 
 gentle sympathy, the good prior gave from his heart 
 to the baffled and dispirited chart-maker. He filled 
 him with new courage, started him afresh upon his 
 journey, put money in his purse, furnished him with 
 letters of commendation to the queen, with fitting 
 garments for one who aspired to enter and ask the 
 favor of a court; and, more than all, with the assur- 
 ance that, be the treatment of that court what it 
 might, the door of La Rabida was ever open and ready 
 to receive its one-time guest with unfaiHng love. 
 Wherever the story of Columbus is told, the name of 
 Juan Perez should be named with reverence. Amid 
 all the vanities and petty ambitions of the time and 
 
Christopher Columbus 151 
 
 occasion, he stands out almost alone as the embodi- 
 ment of all that is best in human nature. No selfish 
 motives tainted his action. As has been well and 
 truly said, the prior gave Columbus his heart, and, 
 strange to tell, he never took it back. 
 
 Thanks to Juan Perez, Columbus had audience of 
 the King and Queen, an admirably assorted couple for 
 the functions in which they were engaged. Ferdinand 
 contributed the caution, Isabella the liberal qualities 
 necessary to govern the country over which they 
 ruled. Isabella was ready to pawn her jewels for a 
 worthy cause, if funds could not otherwise be secured. 
 Ferdinand would be sure to enquire whether the ven- 
 ture was likely to pay expenses and a profit. Isabella 
 alone would have wrecked the treasury, with a glorious 
 disregard of financial results. Ferdinand would have 
 conducted the royal business by strict rules of arith- 
 metic, imrelieved by generous diversions or sentimental 
 deflections, even if these were calculated to secure 
 popular applause and sympathy. He would never go 
 to war for an idea, unless the expulsion of the Moors 
 be deemed such a one; but there was, even in that 
 attempt to drive out the imbeliever, a practical side. 
 In their dealing with Columbus, the dual nature of the 
 royal association was manifested. Isabella was anx- 
 ious to plunge into the adventure, without reference 
 to the terms proposed by Columbus; Ferdinand de- 
 cHned to invest his money except upon such con- 
 ditions as would make the risk a reasonable one. It 
 must be admitted here that the settlement of the 
 bargain, for such it was, involved no deception or un- 
 due advantage on either side. Columbus was quite 
 equal to the occasion, and quite a match for his 
 kingly patron. He was bent on carrying the faith to 
 
152 Christopher Columbus 
 
 the infidel, on bringing unnumbered heathen wretches 
 within the pale of the Church; he was eager to push 
 the glory and empire of Spain to the remotest ends of 
 the earth. This was the argument ad hominem, or 
 rather ad joeminam, with which he mastered the en- 
 thusiastic and pious temperament of Isabella; but 
 Ferdinand was made of harder and more practical 
 material. No doubt his feelings toward his unknown 
 brethren of the remote west were kind enough, but 
 then these people were far away and mysterious, and 
 it was not possible to say in advance how lovable or 
 valuable they would turn out to be. Then the great- 
 ness of Spain and her glory, though dear to the King 
 of Aragon, were expensive luxuries to sustain and re- 
 quired a surplus in the treasury; glory and a deficit 
 were incompatible and inconsistent adjuncts to his 
 crown. But when Columbus told him of the treasures 
 that he might secure while he saved the souls of the 
 heathen, and put his finger, as it were, on Solomon's 
 mines while he extended the Castilian Empire, Fer- 
 dinand's desire for profit was quickened into some- 
 thing like sympathy. The parties of the first part and 
 of the second part being agreed as to the expediency 
 of entering into the operation, the party of the third 
 part stated his terms. They indicated in clear lan- 
 guage the determination of the explorer to realize a 
 full share of the financial benefits likely to accrue 
 from the union of the capital to be contributed by his 
 associates and the labor to be contributed by him- 
 self. He did not betray any undue modesty in the 
 statement of his expectations. He required the title 
 and privileges of an admiral, the powers and pre- 
 rogatives of a viceroy, and ten per cent, in perpetuity 
 of the income to be derived from the new posses- 
 
Christopher Columbus 153 
 
 sions, this income to be paid to him and his heirs 
 forever. 
 
 These conditions startled the king, who refused to 
 accept them. The titles, no doubt, were well enough, 
 and he might consent to ennoble the successful adven- 
 turer and his remotest posterity with lavish profusion, 
 provided the commission on the possible revenues 
 were reduced to a reasonable percentage. But ten 
 per cent, forever! The royal conscience rebelled at 
 such demands; they far exceeded the Hmits which 
 any subject had a right to touch in negotiating with 
 his sovereign. The king was firm and Columbus 
 obstinate. Isabella was indifferent to the business 
 aspect of the affair. Her motives were of a higher 
 order, and to carry them out she was wilhng to sub- 
 scribe to any terms that her intended associate saw 
 fit to exact. Her consort was strong enough for the 
 time being, however, to carry the day, and Columbus, 
 firmly rooted in the commercial instincts of his Genoese 
 ancestors — if they were Genoese — once more turned 
 his back on the court and once more sought the society 
 and counsel of his old friend and helper, the monk of 
 La Rabida. 
 
 But once more, as in the past, the ready hand and 
 heart of Juan Perez did their work, and Columbus, 
 with renewed courage and hope, started to interest 
 the French monarch in his plans. Would the latter 
 have been more generous than his brother king? 
 Would he have added the percentage in cash to the 
 payment in honors and heritable titles ? That question 
 cannot be solved. The influence of the good queen 
 prevailed, the king relented and signified his assent to 
 the demands which he had thus far rejected. What 
 influenced him to this change of spirit we may only 
 
154 Christopher Columbus 
 
 conjecture. Perhaps it was a natural inclination to 
 please his gentle wife ; perhaps the fear that in striving 
 to save ten per cent, he might lose ninety; perhaps 
 he knew (and he remembered in after days) that 
 agreements between king and subject are always open 
 to royal revision and may be read in the right spirit, 
 that is, as the royal pleasure may suggest. Like the 
 lion in the fable, the share of the monarch is what he 
 chooses to claim: "I take this," says the lion, "quia 
 nominor Leo'' (because my name is Lion) — an im- 
 answerable argument from time immemorial. 
 
 Even at this stage of the proceedings the current 
 did not flow smoothly. The money, although prom- 
 ised, shrank timidly from the risks which it was to run. 
 Isabella had threatened to pawn her jewels, but this 
 sacrifice was not exacted from her. The brothers 
 Pinzon had become interested through Juan Perez in 
 the proposed trip to an imknown world, and, thanks 
 to them, the paltry sum was found which made the 
 voyage practicable. By virtue of a slight modifica- 
 tion in the agreement, Coltmibus was to furnish one 
 eighth of the funds, but this he was able to do through 
 his new friends. The contract, when finally reduced 
 to writing, was executed on the 17th April, 1492; it 
 was really the contract of Isabella of Castile, though 
 signed by both monarchs ; her subjects alone were per- 
 mitted to settle in the new country so long as she lived. 
 
 Columbus was not compelled to wait until success 
 had placed the seal on his work to receive some of his 
 reward. His name was changed from Colombo to 
 Colon; he was graciously permitted to use the prefix 
 Don, and his son was allowed to serve as a page to the 
 Queen, a privilege which gave him access to the 
 society of young people whose blood was blue. Thus, 
 
Christopher Columbus i55 
 
 to some extent, at least, was he paid in advance. 
 Ferdinand was a munificent king in the distribution 
 of all those rewards the giving of which in no wise 
 diminished the supply at his command. 
 
 When Columbus went back to the small monastery 
 and to the faithful friend who loved him still, the good 
 prior rejoiced as though the victory were his and he 
 were to receive large profits and brilliant titles. He 
 lent a wilHng hand to the preparations for the great 
 voyage; he helped to smooth over the countless im- 
 pediments that still grew, like rank weeds, in the 
 discoverer's path. Three poor caravels had been 
 found, the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta; 
 they had been made, thanks to the Pinzon advances, 
 fairly seaworthy, but when the time came to man 
 them, the old terror and superstition threatened de- 
 struction to everything. Men would not embark on 
 the ill-fated ships, rigged with curses dark as those 
 that brought young Lycidas to grief. Sailors were 
 plenty enough and daring enough, but they all wanted 
 to return from any voyage on which they started, and 
 how were they ever to get back to their own world 
 after they had dropped into infinite ether, or sailed 
 rapidly down the liquid hill? This difficulty, too, 
 was vanquished. The scum of the seafaring popula- 
 tion of the country was forced into the ships, and with 
 a motley crew of bankrupts fleeing from their creditors, 
 of criminals fleeing from justice, and of adventurers 
 eager to feast their eyes upon and to fill their hands 
 with the promised gold, the three ships sailed. 
 
 They left Palos on Friday, the third day of August, 
 1492, the good prior watching from the shore to the 
 last, and praying for the friend he had served so well. 
 Then commenced the weary journey, with its dangers 
 
156 Christopher Columbus 
 
 and its doubts, — a sullen crew, animated by sordid 
 motives, and ever ready to visit disappointment on 
 its master, mutiny in a chronic state, and a strong, 
 brave chief as well fitted to cope with the rebellion of 
 men as he was able to meet the hostile fury of the 
 waves. Of him, indeed, it might be said that his 
 heart was cased in oak and triple brass, as the poet 
 describes the fearless man who first entrusted his life, 
 in a frail bark, to the cruel sea. From the first day to 
 the last he was undaunted. His assurance of ultimate 
 success was such that the belief grows upon us, when 
 we contemplate it, that he knew that the land lay be- 
 fore him, and approximately calculated the distance 
 that he would have to sail. That he was wrong, in 
 one respect, no one doubts, — he expected to find the 
 continent of Asia, and found America blocking his 
 way. But his confidence can only be explained on the 
 theory that he had mastered the facts and was serene 
 in consequence of the assurance they gave. As to his 
 discontented and mutinous followers, he dealt with 
 them as men of his stamp alone can deal. He awed 
 them by his majestic bearing ; he encouraged them by 
 his unfailing confidence; he drew upon his vivid 
 imagination to depict in glowing words the incalcu- 
 lable wealth of the new countries they were about to 
 reach. He used the only argument potential with 
 them. They wanted gold, gold in abundance, without 
 stint, without labor, without hindrance; he promised 
 that they should have it to their hearts' desire. With 
 these promises and some deception as to the course 
 that they were daily running, he succeeded in keeping 
 them from open violence, until they entered upon the 
 pleasant waters of the south and met unmistakable 
 evidences that they were nearing land. Carved woods, 
 
Christopher Columbus 157 
 
 branches with fresh flowers, the Hmb of a tree, which 
 bore upon its fragile structure a bird's nest, with the 
 mother bird guarding her young covey, — these and 
 other signs left no doubt in reasonable minds that 
 the land was at hand. The balmy sweetness of the air 
 was like their own Andalusian springtime ; they only 
 lacked the nightingale, said Columbus. But a new 
 panic seized upon the men as confidence was beginning 
 to overcome unreasoning fear. The wind died out, 
 and days passed with nothing to relieve the anxious 
 monotony that suggested danger in a new form. What 
 if this were a region of endless calm, and they were 
 fated to die one by one in their motionless ships, the 
 victim of one man's folly and reckless ambition? He, 
 at least, was a scapegoat, and might be offered up 
 as a sacrifice or be punished for his crime. But he 
 waited and compelled their patience until the sluggish 
 winds once more filled their sails, and once more the 
 men forgot to compass their leader's death, in the 
 hope that they would reach land and fortune together. 
 Who first sighted that land is yet a question. Co- 
 lumbus, whether he felt himself unable farther to resist 
 the threats and importunities of his crew, or because 
 he had calculated to his own satisfaction that he was 
 about to reach his goal, solemnly promised that he 
 would turn back and sail homeward if land were not 
 seen within three days. The mutineers consented to 
 this delay, and their murmurs were quieted for awhile. 
 On the second day the signs were so favorable that the 
 seditious sailors fell upon their knees; they besought 
 their leader for pardon, and sang hymns of praise to 
 the kindness of the Creator who had brought them so 
 near the end of their labors and dangers. A reward 
 had been promised to the man who would first sight 
 
158 Christopher Columbus 
 
 the land. As Coliimbus, sleepless and vigilant, was 
 pacing the deck of the Santa Maria, he saw, or thought 
 he saw, a light; but previous disappointments had 
 made him wary. He called the attention of two of 
 his fellow- watchers to the Hght that rose and fell ; one 
 of them saw it, or thought he saw it, but, fearing a new 
 disappointment, they all remained silent. In the 
 early morning, however, the Pinta's cannon announced, 
 and truly, that land was in view; this was the con- 
 certed signal by which the joyful news might be loudly 
 proclaimed to all. 
 
 And now we have the culminating point of the 
 great explorer's life. His triumph was without alloy. 
 It was even greater in appearance than in fact. He 
 believed that he had at last found the land of prom- 
 ise and of untold wealth, and as he left his ship and 
 stepped ashore, clad in purple and bearing the insignia 
 of his newly won honors, he might well exult in the 
 fulfilment of his prophecies and the realization of his 
 dreams. He was now entitled, under his contract, to 
 the rewards which he coveted; he might now bring 
 the simple and harmless men, women, and children 
 who met him on the shore within the fold of the 
 Church. No misgivings entered his mind. The island 
 on which he first set his foot must be at the very door 
 of the Indies, and with becoming reverence he bap- 
 tized it in the Saviour's name, San Salvador. 
 
 Then commenced a series of adventures in dream- 
 land — by daylight ; at least such it must have seemed 
 to the travellers. The loveliness of the skies, the 
 gentleness of the inhabitants, the songs of the birds, 
 the pure and balmy atmosphere, — above all, the con- 
 fident hope of forthcoming gold, — were, indeed, such 
 as to fill their hearts with joy, and almost to justify 
 
Christopher Columbus 159 
 
 the belief that the earthly paradise had been found. 
 If that hope could only be realized, their happiness 
 would be complete; for we cannot close our eyes to 
 the fact that whatever Columbus personally may have 
 felt, the gentle heathen and his salvation were the ac- 
 cessory and not the principal subjects of the general 
 soHcitude. The feverish anxiety to secure the yellow 
 metal of which the trinkets were made that adorned 
 the persons of the inhabitants, the nimierous inquiries 
 as to the source whence that metal had been procured, 
 the interest exhibited for its acquisition, could not but 
 impress the astonished native, who believed that gold 
 was the god of his new visitors. Columbus, himself, 
 allowed his great and noble purposes to be deferred to 
 satisfying the greed of his crew, and with earnest ap- 
 peals to the Almighty, he prayed for instructions that 
 might lead him to fortune. "Our Lord, in whose 
 hands are all things, be my help!" he cries, "Our 
 Lord in His mercy direct me where I may find the 
 gold mine." They wandered from island to island — 
 kidnapping a dozen or two of the natives who had 
 never been taught resistance, greed, or cruelty — in 
 quest of the undiscovered treasures. Every point that 
 he touched was, according to Columbus' narrative, 
 more beautiful than all the rest ; in fact, he indulges in 
 such wild and extravagant expressions of delight, that 
 a suspicion is raised (as Prescott has it) that a tem- 
 porary alienation of mind is shown in the letters which 
 he wrote from Jamaica to the sovereigns. "Sober 
 narrative and sound reasoning were strangely blended 
 with crazy dreams and doleful lamentations. Vagaries 
 like these," adds Prescott, "which came occasionally 
 like clouds over his soul to shut out the hght of rea- 
 son, cannot fail to fill the mind of the reader, as they 
 
i6o Christopher Columbus 
 
 doubtless did those of the sovereigns, with mingled 
 sentiments of wonder and compassion. ' ' Our lamented 
 friend Dr. Gilmary Shea has pointed out, in his work 
 on Columbus, that "he seems to have succeeded in at- 
 taching to himself but few men who adhered loyally 
 to his cause. Those under him were constantly re- 
 bellious and mutinous ; those over him found him im- 
 practicable. To array all these as enemies, inspired by 
 a Satanic hostility to a great servant of God, is to ask 
 too much of our belief." 
 
 It would extend this paper far beyond any reason- 
 able limit if I sought to enter into anything more than 
 a rapid and cursory narrative of the four voyages that 
 Columbus made to America and thence back to Spain. 
 
 The first was the only one which gave him unmixed 
 glory and happiness. He then touched the pinnacle 
 of his fame, and the descent after that to ruin and 
 disgrace was as distressing as it was rapid. Up to the 
 moment of his death he believed that when he set his 
 foot on the soil of Cuba he stood on the continent of 
 Asia. With that delusion firm and fixed, he died. 
 At least we may assimie that it was really entertained 
 by him, although the dramatic conditions that accom- 
 panied his first declaration of the fact might shake our 
 belief in his good faith. One of his first acts on taking 
 possession of the island was to impose an oath upon 
 his men, making them declare that they had reached 
 the coast of Asia. Such an exaction seems hardly 
 consistent with entire sanity. 
 
 Perhaps nothing can give a better idea of the effect 
 produced by these strange sights upon so strong an 
 intellect as that of Columbus than the fact that he 
 was quite assured that he had seen mermaids in these 
 southern waters. The prosaic explanation given is 
 
Christopher Columbus i6i 
 
 that they were probably sea-calves, and that their 
 heads, when slightly lifted above the water, bore a 
 general resemblance to the human face. The truth is 
 that everything around him was new and mysterious ; 
 there was no difficulty in believing that such romantic 
 persons lived in the sea. 
 
 Columbus received a right royal reception on his 
 return. Both sovereigns rose to receive him standing ; 
 and when he stooped to kiss their hands, they gently 
 and graciously lifted him and bade him sit. Then he 
 told his story, and from time to time produced the 
 evidences of his veracity. He showed the Indians 
 that he had captured, the birds, the skins, the bar- 
 baric ornaments, and the samples of gold which he had 
 brought with him, and when the Te Deum had been 
 chanted, he was treated as a royal guest and assigned 
 lodgings under the royal roof. This period of a few 
 weeks was really the only time of unalloyed happiness 
 that Columbus ever enjoyed. He was not averse to 
 public scenes nor disposed to shrink from the plaudits 
 of an admiring multitude ; when he passed among the 
 excited throngs his face beamed with content. There 
 was no trouble then to find volunteers for another 
 transatlantic voyage; the specimens of hard and 
 yellow gold were more eloquent than any discourse 
 that had ever been spoken by Columbus. The curb 
 became more necessary than the spur when the new 
 expedition was fitted out. Capital had lost its shrink- 
 ing and sensitive modesty, in view of assured success. 
 All the ships in the ports of Andalusia were placed at 
 Columbus's disposal and he was authorized to compel 
 serv'ice from those whom he chose to carry with him 
 on his expedition. Military stores were abundantly 
 provided; able and intelligent supervisors aided 
 
1 62 Christopher Columbus 
 
 him ; among these we find the name of Americus 
 Vespucius. 
 
 The conversion of the heathen to Christianity was 
 formally declared to be one of the most important 
 objects of the enterprise. The King and Queen showed 
 their good faith by designating twelve learned priests 
 to accompany the expedition; one of them was the 
 apostolic vicar. Isabella's kind heart had been 
 moved by the accounts of the gentleness and simplicity 
 of the natives to consider them with tender com- 
 passion, and to her credit be it said that she strictly 
 enjoined that they should be treated with the utmost 
 kindness. Columbus was ordered to inflict signal 
 punishment on all Spaniards who should be guilty of 
 outrage and injustice towards them. 
 
 About fifteen hundred men started upon the second 
 expedition. They carried with them goats, sheep, 
 cows, and domestic fowls. Once more the fleet entered 
 the beautiful regions of the south. Porto Rico and 
 other islands were visited and taken possession of in the 
 name of Spain. The adventurers met the Caribs, who 
 were said by Coltmibus to be very fierce and given to 
 eating human flesh. Whether it be true that these 
 barbarous people were actually addicted to such re- 
 volting practices may well be doubted. Even Mr. 
 Irving, one of the most earnest defenders of Colum- 
 bus' fame, ventures to question the reliability of these 
 statements. There is but little to support and much 
 to contradict the charge. Hayti was reached and 
 visited for the second time. The natives had heard 
 of Columbus on his first voyage and still entertained 
 a friendly disposition toward him. They came on 
 board the ship without hesitation or fear. The Ad- 
 miral had left behind him a colony of men on the 
 
Christopher Columbus 163 
 
 former trip, and the fortress that he had built was 
 found and visited; nothing remained except vestiges 
 of ruin to show where it had stood. It had been 
 sacked, burned, and utterly destroyed. The story 
 was soon told, and there is no reason to doubt its 
 substantial truth. While Columbus was present he 
 was able to exercise some restraint upon the fierce 
 passions of his men, but no sooner had his ship dis- 
 appeared in the distance than the new colonists 
 abandoned themselves to all their brutal instincts. 
 They wandered uncontrolled among the Indians ; they 
 robbed them of their gold, of their homes, of every- 
 thing that was sacred in their domestic relations. If 
 the Indians did suppose, as has been said, that the 
 white men had come down from heaven to visit them, 
 that illusion was soon dispelled in the wild debauch 
 of unmerciful brutality. Even after these four cen- 
 turies, it is pleasant to draw a veil upon that scene 
 and many others that accompanied the first settle- 
 ment of America. 
 
 We may turn with comfort from this picture and 
 contemplate the good and holy men, members of the 
 same old faith, who were among the first to explore 
 the wilderness of America for the heathen's sake ; the 
 noble martyrs who with the staff and the cross, with 
 no hope of reward except the saving of souls, himgry, 
 worn, persecuted, and tortured, walked, alone and 
 unguarded, the wilderness of the lake country, pushed 
 their way to the Father of Rivers, preached the gospel 
 to the savage whom they startled by their audacity, 
 shed no blood but their own, permitted no torture but 
 of their own bodies, pitied all men except themselves, 
 and thought every danger and torment a gain if it 
 promised honor and glory to their God. If we feel at 
 
i64 Christopher Columbus 
 
 any time disposed unduly to honor Columbus the 
 Catholic let us evoke the picture of the Jesuit pioneers 
 of the country that he discovered. The testimony 
 of these martyrs will silence History if she exalts him 
 beyond his merits. 
 
 The third voyage was another step on the downward 
 plane. The machinations of unrelenting enemies pro- 
 duced their bitter fruit. But for the faithful brothers 
 Bartholomew and Diego, it is not likely that Columbus 
 would have survived to see his home once more. The 
 era of bloodshed had been opened; so-called battles 
 had been fought, and the natives, by thousands upon 
 thousands, were destroyed. Resistance to the steel- 
 clad horsemen was out of the question. We need not 
 wonder that the stranger, with two hundred infantry 
 and twenty horsemen, flanked by twenty bloodhounds 
 as fierce as tigers, was able to meet and conquer one 
 hundred thousand men, nor that the victory of the 
 Spaniards was complete, and that the natives were 
 crushed beyond hope of redemption! 
 
 It is pleasing, again, to turn to Isabella, who con- 
 tinued to regard these gentle and unoffending natives 
 as intrusted by God to her peculiar protection. Her 
 disinterested love was not turned into avarice even 
 by a cargo of five hundred slaves that was sent her. 
 An order was issued for their sale, but she counter- 
 manded it, and directed that the captives should be 
 returned to their own land. Again she sent a special 
 order that the natives should be treated with the 
 utmost kindness. But great wrongs had been perpe- 
 trated before this ineffectual evidence of a loving 
 heart reached its destination. 
 
 Meanwhile public sentiment was changing as to the 
 value of the discovery. The ship-loads of gold had not 
 
Christopher Columbus 165 
 
 come in; a few cargoes of slaves were but a small 
 realization of the brilliant expectations that had 
 charmed the imagination of sovereigns and subjects. 
 Men had come back from these transatlantic voyages 
 worn, disabled, broken in health and spirit. Extreme 
 measures were again necessary to secure crews. Con- 
 victed malefactors were offered pardon if they would 
 embark for the colonies. The enthusiasm had died 
 out ; discouragement and distress had set in ; the star 
 of Coltmibus had grown pale, it was soon to emit its 
 last fitful gleam of intermittent light. 
 
 It was on this third voyage that Colimibus, for the 
 first time, had a gHmpse of the continent which was to 
 be called America. But Sebastian Cabot the year 
 before had already discovered the continent; so had 
 Americus Vespucius. The trip was one of great 
 suffering and disappointment. To the mental distress 
 which well-nigh overwhelmed him were added the 
 tortures of gout and failing sight; still he did not 
 surrender to changing fortune, and with unshaken 
 fortitude he revisited the scenes of his first discoveries 
 and touched from time to time at new islands. 
 
 While Columbus was absent on his tmpromising, ill- 
 omened voyage the clamors against him swelled into a 
 chorus loud enough to reach the Court. Complaints 
 were many, some of them, perhaps, not without foun- 
 dation. One of his chief lieutenants rebelled and en- 
 tered into open conflict with him. In an unguarded 
 moment Colimibus requested that an umpire might be 
 sent out to decide the question. This was the signal 
 for his downfall. Ferdinand sent out an umpire in the 
 person of Bobadilla, and the result was that Colimi- 
 bus returned home in chains. 
 
 The Queen greeted her old friend with tears, while 
 
1 66 Christopher Columbus 
 
 he, moved by her compassion and sympathy, fell upon 
 his knees, weeping convulsively. He was old and 
 worn and broken physically: nothing but his lofty 
 spirit had stood the cruel tests to which he had been 
 subjected. The accusations made by Bobadilla were 
 disregarded. Favor and affection were once more 
 lavished upon Columbus, and abundant promises 
 made, which were never kept. If the account of Las 
 Casas be true of the condition of the natives under 
 Bobadilla, the estate of those unfortunate people was 
 made worse by the change of masters. 
 
 And now preparations were made for a fourth voy- 
 age. Other courts had been gained by the contagion 
 and inoculated with the ambition of great adventures. 
 De Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 was enriching Portugal with the products of the East. 
 Columbus was to start in quest of a strait, supposed to 
 be somewhere near the Isthmus of Darien and connect- 
 ing the two great oceans. After many delays, the 
 fleet of four vessels was ready to sail. The largest of 
 the caravels was but seventy tons' burden, and his 
 whole company amounted to but one himdred and 
 fifty men. He turned his back for the last time 
 upon Spain, an old man, exhausted with anxiety and 
 trouble, and racked with physical sickness. Time 
 and adversity had subdued all but the unconquerable 
 will, and once more his faithful brother Bartholomew 
 accompanied him to guard, protect, and defend him. 
 
 Colimibus now visited Honduras and Costa Rica. 
 He explored bays on the Isthmus of Panama, and 
 found evidence that gold in large quantities was to be 
 had in these regions, but his shattered health paralyzed 
 all physical exertion, while his leaking ships warned 
 him that he should hasten to return. He attempted 
 
Christopher Columbus 167 
 
 to establish a colony on the river Belden, where he 
 intended to leave his brother in command while he 
 returned to Spain for supplies. 
 
 The fourth voyage ended in almost total disaster. 
 It was full of disappointment and suffering. Cyclones, 
 insurrections, hunger, and the fear of starvation 
 caused Coltmibus the deepest anxiety. His ships 
 could not be repaired, nor could he build new ones. 
 The situation at Jamaica became so critical that 
 Columbus was constrained to send one of his followers 
 in a canoe to Hispaniola, a distance of one hundred 
 and twenty miles, to procure relief, for destruction 
 waited upon inaction. They dared not start upon 
 their return with their decayed and broken ships ; the 
 dreary weeks ran into months, every day bringing its 
 new weight of woe to the desperate situation. Mutiny 
 was added to the other elements of dissolution. 
 Finally, the Indians could no longer be forced to bring 
 food from a distance and continued to resist until 
 Columbus, working upon their superstitious fears, 
 called them together and predicted a total eclipse of 
 the moon, a sign, he declared, of the Divine wrath, 
 which would soon be directed against the disobedient 
 natives if they did not at once procure supplies. The 
 eclipse came, and the terrified Indians, in trembling 
 submission, helped their persecutors to live. 
 
 Finally, after new mutinies and a pitched battle be- 
 tween contending factions of angry Spaniards, Colum- 
 bus left the New World to return to Spain. He reached 
 his country a weak and tottering old man. His faith- 
 ful friend the Queen was herself upon her death-bed ; 
 no greeting from her, as formerly, warmed the drooping 
 spirits of the Admiral. He found his financial affairs 
 in the utmost confusion. His great expectations of 
 
1 68 Christopher Columbus 
 
 brilliant rewards had never borne fruit. Poor as he 
 was when he left Spain in August, 1492, he was actually 
 poorer when he returned home to die. The royal 
 contract, which he had been at such pains to secure, 
 gave him no rights that he could enforce. Ferdinand's 
 conscience was no longer quickened, his generosity no 
 longer stimulated, by the presence and kindness of his 
 queen. The pressure upon his treasury was great, and 
 the relief which he had expected from the promises of 
 Columbus had never come. Gold from America he 
 had seen, but only in such quantities as to sharpen 
 desire, not to satisfy greed. He could not read the 
 future, and he did not, therefore, know that royal 
 revenues were to flow into the coffers of his successors, 
 not so much from the gold mines that time would un- 
 cover, as from the marvellous tobacco plant that 
 Columbus had found in Cuba. He may have felt that 
 the exactions which he had been coerced to accept 
 when the agreement was made had been imposed upon 
 him by a sort of duress. At all events, he turned a 
 deaf ear to the suppHcations of his one-time associate, 
 and postponed the manifestation of his gratitude until 
 Columbus was beyond the reach either of his favor or 
 his anger. The discoverer was not suffering alone 
 from cruel disease, but for lack of the actual neces- 
 saries of life. " I live by borrowing," he said; "little 
 have I profited by twenty years' service, with such 
 toils and perils, since at present I do not own a roof in 
 Spain, and for the most time I have not the where- 
 withal to pay my bills . ' ' This came from the man who 
 had actually sat in the presence of royalty, and who 
 had been decorated with the titles of Don, of Admiral, 
 and of Viceroy! These poor honors were all he had 
 to leave his children. He earnestly besought the King 
 
Christopher Columbus 169 
 
 to appoint his son Diego to the viceroyalty, of which 
 he had been so cruelly deprived. "This," he wrote, 
 "is a matter which concerns my honor. Give or 
 withhold, as may be most for your interest, and I 
 shall be content. I believe the anxiety created by the 
 delay of this affair is the principal cause of my sick- 
 ness." But in spite of this care for earthly honors, 
 distinction, and titles for himself and those that were 
 to follow him, his thoughts were turned to greater 
 things. Be his weaknesses what they may, an ardent 
 love for the Church had been a conspicuous feature in 
 his life, in his thoughts, and in his acts. The sense of 
 responsibility for all that he had done was before him 
 to the end, Hghtened and brightened by a confident 
 hope, frequently expressed, that his shortcomings 
 would be mercifully condoned. His mind turned with 
 pathetic affection to the small town of Concepcion, in 
 Hispaniola, which he himself had founded, and there, 
 on the new land, which could never be mentioned ex- 
 cept in connection with his own fame, he desired that 
 a chapel should be raised where divine service should 
 be celebrated for his benefit and that of all whom he 
 loved. 
 
 Death did not take him unawares or vmprovided; 
 he saw its approach without dismay. Indeed, in his 
 straitened and distressed condition. Death was the 
 only friend upon whose face he could look with any- 
 thing like hope. Life had and could have nothing in 
 store for him but sickness and heavier sorrow. His 
 fortunes were broken, his glory on the wane, his family 
 poor, his body racked by pain. What wonder that 
 he should have longed for the hour of departure? 
 When the message came, he welcomed it with joy. 
 His last words were uttered in Latin : "In manus tuas, 
 
I70 Christopher Columbus 
 
 Domine, commendo spiritum meum. " " Into thy hands, 
 Lord, I commend my spirit." 
 
 Then, being dead and no longer an obstruction in the 
 royal path, or an tmpleasant reminder to the royal 
 conscience, royalty once more smiled upon him. A 
 gorgeous funeral atoned, so far as it could, for neglect 
 and injustice. Great honors followed his corpse to 
 the church of Santa Maria de la Antigua. His enemies 
 were silenced and comforted by the reflection that he 
 could no longer interfere with their fortunes. The 
 King was relieved and promptly placed a glorious seal 
 upon the greatest episode of his reign. He was able 
 to balance, by posthumous and inexpensive tributes, 
 the open account pending between himself and his late 
 partner. Isabella gone and Columbus in his grave, 
 the only one of the firm then left was Ferdinand. He 
 could wind up the business to suit himself. 
 
 But the remains of Colimibus were not permitted to 
 rest in Spain. Once more, but this time in unaccus- 
 tomed peace, he crossed the Atlantic to find a resting- 
 place. It is said that his body still sleeps in the 
 Cathedral of Havana, on that island which he had 
 solemnly declared to be part of the continent of Asia. 
 The claim of Havana to this honor is disputed, but 
 the evidence seems to be conclusive, and we may state 
 with something like certainty that the great discoverer 
 is now resting in the cathedral of that city. 
 
 Columbus, like all conspicuous actors in the history 
 of the world, has had his critics and his panegyrists. 
 Some have gone to the verge of extreme laudation and 
 others have condemned him with unsparing severity. 
 History will side with neither of these extremists. 
 We may fairly judge him by what he did and what he 
 failed to do. There is no recorded instance of more 
 
Christopher Columbus 171 
 
 admirable tenacity of purpose nor of more unflinching 
 devotion to one single idea; none of courage more 
 steadfast in the face of perils of every kind. If 
 we should measure him by the standard of to-day, 
 nothing that his modem accusers have said in con- 
 demnation of many acts alleged against him would be 
 too severe, but the standard of to-day may not with 
 justice be applied to the man who lived four centuries 
 ago. 
 
 The accusation against Columbus is the traffic in 
 slaves, but this had been and continued to be the 
 practice of every nation for centuries after him, and 
 of our own country almost to our own generation. It 
 may only be said, and this means much, that he was 
 better than the men who were with him. We may 
 not compare him to the venerable and humane Las 
 Casas, but his name, when placed beside those of 
 others who shared or marred his fortunes, will shine 
 with a lustre rendered brilliant by comparison. It is 
 much to say of any man that he was better than his 
 day. This can be asserted of Columbus. Personally, 
 he appears to have been, in the ordinary relations of 
 life, humane and just ; his pursuit of gold was certainly, 
 in a great degree, the result of his anxiety to satisfy the 
 King. Gold he had promised; gold he was bound to 
 furnish, and it was the failure to perform this promise 
 that poisoned his life, cost him his popularity, and 
 hastened his death. 
 
 Although the real merit to be attached to his dis- 
 covery is subject to question, because he started to 
 reach Asia and stumbled upon America, yet he is 
 entitled to our gratitude for the splendid service which 
 he rendered, and to be placed on the roll of humanity's 
 great servants. The obstacles in his way would have 
 
172 Christopher Columbus 
 
 daunted any man not of heroic mould. If he showed 
 an indifference to human life in dealing with the 
 natives, we may not forget that life was cheap in the 
 fifteenth century. Tenderness and hesitancy to shed 
 a brother's blood were not in the morals and practices 
 of the times, indeed they are not now when nations 
 imdertake for their own purposes to impress their 
 civilization on an inferior people. That one of the 
 motives which impelled and sustained him throughout 
 was the desire to spread the Gospel through new lands 
 can scarcely be disputed. Whether, after weighing 
 these motives in the scales of infallible and eternal 
 justice, it will be found that this was in truth the 
 mainspring of his action and the pure fountain of his 
 unflinching purpose, or merely incident to a personal 
 end, none can decide. I prefer to accept and to close 
 with the wise and prudent words of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff : 
 
 The eminently distinctive point in Columbus is that in 
 crossing the immense expanses of the ocean, he followed 
 an object more grand and more elevated than did the 
 others. Not that he failed to be influenced by the very 
 legitimate ambition to earn and to merit the approval of 
 society, not that he despised the attributes of glory, that 
 concomitant of success, whose spurs often cut more deeply 
 those greatest among men, nor did he disdain entirely the 
 pursuit of personal advantages, but above all those human 
 considerations soared the leading motive in the religion of 
 his forefathers. 
 
 Where, indeed, would he have supplied himself with the 
 necessary constancy and strength of soul to endure what 
 he had to suffer and submit to, had he not drawn upon a 
 motive superior to human interests ? Contradicted by the 
 learned ; repulsed by princes ; tossed by the tempest on 
 the furious ocean; more than once deprived of the use of 
 
Christopher Columbus 173 
 
 his eyes by the strain of the long and weary watches; to 
 these must be added the combats sustained against the 
 barbarians; the infideUties of his friends and his com- 
 panions ; the villainous plots and conspiracies ; the perfidy 
 of the envious; the calumnies of the traducers, and the 
 traps set against his innocence — this man must inevitably 
 have succumbed under the weight of such great trials and 
 such numerous assaults, had he not been upheld by the 
 conscience of his admirable enterprise, in the success of 
 which he foresaw the greater glory of the Christian name 
 and the salvation of an endless multitude. 
 
VI 
 
 THE KOSSUTH MEMORIAL CELEBRATION 
 
 WHO was this man whose memory we are met 
 to honor? What claim has he to our 
 reverence? What spell has been wrought 
 about his name that we should pause in our busy lives, 
 and, leaving business, pleasure, or welcome rest, should 
 in solemn reminiscence treat him as one of our kin? 
 Yet, of our kin he was not. The strong ligament of a 
 common ancestry did not bind us to him nor to his 
 people. He had not, nor had they, earned gratitude 
 for valuable service to our nation. Born and bred in 
 a remote and to us untravelled quarter of the world, 
 passionately devoted during all of his active life to 
 the gallant race from which he sprang, an alien in 
 every sense to us and our fathers, what strange history 
 has so deeply knit his name to our hearts that we 
 may mourn for him without insincerity and praise 
 him without affectation? While the funeral bells that 
 tolled a few days ago at Turin echoed throughout the 
 world, the older men among us remembered, and the 
 younger men were taught, that there were giants in 
 those days, and that one of them was dead. It is this 
 claim of his to our reverence that I propose briefly to 
 discuss to-night. It behooves us to single out for 
 
 I Address delivered at Cooper Union, April 4, 1894. 
 174 
 
Kossuth Memorial Celebration 175 
 
 special demonstrations of posthumous respect none 
 but those who have served the human race. " Is the 
 world better because they have lived?" is a ques- 
 tion that must and shall be put, and only when the 
 prompt answer is, that they have so lived as to make 
 men better or wiser or happier for their example, 
 may we justly accord them these funeral honors. The 
 conventional pomp that accompanies men great in 
 power or rank to the grave is of a different order from 
 this. The pathetic but rebellious impotence of wealth 
 yields a grudging assent to the inexorable demands 
 of death and seeks to cheat itself into the belief that 
 it is not all powerless. To this end it resorts to vain 
 and splendid fictions, but the victory of the destroyer 
 is none the less complete. None of the stately trees 
 that Dives loved so well to call his own will follow him 
 to the grave — except the gloomy cypress. 
 
 But there are men whom the world loves to keep 
 and fain would never lose. They stand out and apart 
 from the dark crowd that rushes headlong and heedless 
 on the road that all men must tread once. Mercury 
 with his pitiless wand drives them on to the end of 
 the journey, sparing none, though so many clamor 
 for special mercy, and compelling all to bow to the 
 inevitable. 
 
 Yet some were not born wholly to die. Non omnis 
 mortar may that man truly say who has written his 
 name upon the grateful memories of men. In return 
 for service rendered he may expect, what Kossuth 
 might justly hope for, flowers from loving hands, even 
 in far-away places ; kind words, even in a language not 
 his own; gentle thoughts from the lovers of truth, 
 courage, and unselfishness. 
 
 To speak at any length of Kossuth's public life and 
 
176 Kossuth Memorial Celebration 
 
 service before this audience would be presumptuous. 
 That life was short but singularly full. His objects 
 were all noble, his aspirations always high, his thoughts 
 and speech expressive of a nature as heroic as it was 
 generous. He belonged to a noble race. His blood 
 was prepared by generations of loyal forefathers to 
 do battle for his country and his country's freedom, 
 irrespective of personal advantage and of personal 
 peril. An eloquent tongue and a fearless pen made 
 him a formidable champion for the cause he loved. 
 And, as though Fortune had chosen him to be one 
 of her favored children, he reached his full maturity 
 when the moment seemed most propitious for shak- 
 ing off the burden of wrongs made tolerable only by 
 prescription. 
 
 The now dying century was in its early promise 
 when Louis Kossuth was born. Napoleon was yet 
 only Bonaparte, but his star was rapidly rising to its 
 zenith. Austerlitz was soon to startle the world, and 
 at the roar of its victorious guns Pitt was to fall as 
 though struck in the breast by a French bullet. The 
 new States of America were trying with hesitating 
 steps to fit themselves for their mission as the pioneers 
 of freedom. The father of modern democracy was at 
 the helm, hard pushed to steer the ship of state among 
 the breakers. Great Britain was sullen and con- 
 temptuous, ill-reconciled to the loss of the colonies 
 that she had so recklessly driven from their allegiance. 
 Andrew Jackson was sharpening his sword for battle 
 and unconsciously preparing for that day at New 
 Orleans when the parent state was taught that the 
 rebels had grown into free and independent men, and 
 had lost none of their vigor because they had changed 
 their flag. The power of the press was in its infancy, 
 
Kossuth Memorial Celebration 177 
 
 but promised to rule the world. War was the normal 
 condition of Europe. Austerlitz was followed by a 
 dazzling succession of triumphs until the final crash 
 came at Waterloo. But the French Revolution had 
 been marching on, clad in various dress, from the 
 plain garb of the citizen to the imperial purple of 
 that revolution's greatest parvenu. Congresses settled 
 matters to suit themselves, but the people had become 
 conscious of their power, and the Hungarian boy 
 learned with the alphabet that the Almighty had 
 not, by irrevocable transfer, committed His authority 
 to frail men who wore a crown and who boasted a 
 pedigree. From the first, the young Magyar was an 
 ardent patriot ; his country absorbed and exhausted 
 his faculty of loving. His heart was high and his 
 speech was bold. He had a message to deliver, and 
 deliver it he must. But Free Speech and Imperial 
 Authority make an ill-assorted couple. Free Speech 
 may reason, but Authority may strike. Right may 
 rejoice in Logic, but Might frowns and throttles Logic 
 and Right together and provides them with a jail, 
 until Right and Logic grow so strong that Might is 
 constrained to gentle manners and courteous forms. 
 The presence of cannon is a marvellous promoter of 
 poUteness, some one has truly said. But when Kos- 
 suth, barely out of adolescence, spoke his lesson, the 
 cannon were all on one side, and then politeness be- 
 came surplusage. He was called by the ugly name 
 of traitor, because he did not accept what he was bid- 
 den to with cheerfulness and uncomplaining alacrity. 
 The family of traitors is large, and we realize to-day 
 that, if some of the traitors who have been treated 
 with thumbscrews and made to dwell in dungeons and 
 to perish by the rope or the axe were to reappear on 
 
178 Kossuth Memorial Celebration 
 
 earth, we would kneel before them and kiss their 
 hands and bless them as martyrs. So Kossuth was 
 dubbed a traitor because he preached a series of ser- 
 mons with liberty as his text, and he tasted in this, 
 his early youth, the honor and the horrors of a prison 
 cell. But the world had moved since two great revo- 
 lutions had taught kings that their consecrated heads 
 could fall under the axe or the knife with the same 
 facility as though they had belonged to the common- 
 est plebeian. 
 
 The imprisonment of this one man started the press, 
 and the press stimulated public opinion, and then the 
 danger came to the jailers. 
 
 Such a fuss about this Magyar lawyer and scribbler 
 was, of course, absurd and almost indecorous; but if 
 people were unreasonable they must be cajoled and 
 petted into good-humor. And just then a French- 
 man with a small body and a stout heart was Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs in France, and knowing the temper 
 of his own people he gave notice that, unless this 
 young traitor were released, France would start a con- 
 flagration that would spread over Europe and possibly 
 burn up, in its indiscriminating fury, many things that 
 the world could do without, but which monarchy 
 would sadly miss. So the young traitor was not 
 maimed, nor branded, nor otherwise treated as traitors 
 deserve, and he once more saw the sunshine and 
 breathed the free air and went about his way. That 
 is, he was a deeper-dyed traitor than ever, and wrote 
 for freedom and spoke for freedom as few men had 
 ever spoken or written before. And thus, during the 
 years to come, up to the eventful period of '47, he 
 sowed the seed and watched its growth, and sought to 
 pluck out the cockle that grew with the seed. He was 
 
Kossuth Memorial Celebration 179 
 
 no wild and furious despiser of law. He was a lawyer 
 bred, — a conservative in the true and best sense, — 
 relying for the conservation of society upon those prin- 
 ciples which unite and do not divide the men of a com- 
 munity. All that he wanted was the sum of freedom 
 which permitted the free expansion of his fellow-coun- 
 trymen's faculties, and the right to develop after their 
 own fashion, not against, but under and in compliance 
 with wise laws. He belonged to that family of far- 
 seeing men who, living perhaps ahead of their day, as 
 such men do, saw that something durable must take 
 the place of the ephemeral structures upon which so- 
 ciety had theretofore rested. He knew that democracy 
 was, with giant strides, superseding the rule of the 
 few over the many, and that the future of the world 
 lay in the development of sound, equal, and demo- 
 cratic laws. 
 
 In 1847, a few months before the great tornado 
 swept over Europe, he was a recognized leader. He 
 was elected a member for Pesth. His fame had spread 
 and his name was known throughout the continent, 
 and when at last he, and other patriots like himself, 
 beheld the great movement started in France and 
 spreading over Europe, they might almost have said in 
 the enthusiasm of fruition, "Nunc dimittis, Domine, — " 
 "Now dost thou, Lord, dismiss thy servant, — " for 
 the fruit was well-nigh in their hands, mature and 
 beautiful, and the triumph of their cause seemed cer- 
 tain. But Providence did not so will it. The fall 
 was greater even than the triumph. The Old World 
 was not ready for the final leap, nor prepared to discard 
 old governmental superstitions, that it might take its 
 own affairs into its own hands. Events followed each 
 other in rapid and startHng succession. The tidal 
 
i8o Kossuth Memorial Celebration 
 
 wave of popular enthusiasm carried Kossuth to the 
 highest positions. For one brief period he was the 
 Governor of Hungary — an independent State! Then 
 came reaction; then disappointment and bloody de- 
 feat ; then followed persecution, flight, and the bitter- 
 ness of exile. 
 
 I shall not dwell upon these scenes; but what a 
 pathetic commentary upon the fate of a man whose 
 aspirations were all for the benefit of mankind, that 
 he should at last have found no refuge among his own 
 people, none among the neighboring nations, but be 
 left a suppliant for the hospitality of the Sultan of 
 Turkey! And a dependent upon his mercy he re- 
 mained — to the honor of that Sultan be it said, safe 
 and protected against the demand of those who would 
 have seized him to treat him as they chose. 
 
 Whether Turkey would have delivered Kossuth to 
 those who demanded him or not unless the United 
 States had intervened, and by friendly remonstrance 
 and entreaty impressed upon that Government the 
 duty of protecting the fugitives from their persecutors, 
 we may only conjecture and need not inquire. The 
 time did come when our Government, stimulated and 
 aroused by the demands of our people, sent a ship 
 carrying at its mast-head the stars and stripes, and did 
 itself the great honor of receiving as its guest the hero 
 of the Hungarian revolution. There for the first time 
 he felt safe and free. There he knew that neither 
 threats nor blandishments could imperil his safety; 
 that not a hair of his head would be touched so long as 
 that flag assumed the duty of protecting him. 
 
 But even when he reached our shores, and was re- 
 ceived with acclamations that rang through the whole 
 breadth and length of the land, his heart was sore and 
 
Kossuth Memorial Celebration i8i 
 
 sick. He made no pretence of being comforted even 
 by the glorious reception that was freely given him. 
 It touched but did not cure his heart, which ached in 
 spite of processions and banquets and ringing shouts 
 of welcome ; it continued to yearn for the land that he 
 had hoped to free, but which, alas! seemed farther 
 from freedom than when he undertook her cause. 
 Listen to the first words that he spoke when our city 
 received him. You will hear the note that rang 
 through all his addresses. His bodily presence was 
 in America, but the spirit and the high hopes were 
 buried in his native land. 
 
 Alas! [he cried, when he was received by our city au- 
 thorities on his arrival] I have no home, and the freedom 
 of my people is downtrodden. Young giant of free 
 America, do not tell me that thy shores are an asylum to 
 the oppressed and a home to the homeless exile. An asy- 
 lum it is, but all the blessings of your glorious country, can 
 they drown into oblivion the longings of the heart and the 
 fond desires for our native land ? My beloved native land ! 
 Thy very sufferings make thee but dearer to my heart; 
 thy bleeding image dwells with me when I awake, as it 
 rests with me in the short moments of my restless sleep. 
 It has accompanied me over the waves. It will accom- 
 pany me when I go back to fight over again the battle of 
 thy freedom once more. I have no idea but thee; I have 
 no feeling but for thee. 
 
 Never in our history was such a generous reception 
 accorded to a man of alien blood, unless we except the 
 welcome that Lafayette received when he revisited 
 America in 1824. Then, indeed, the popular heart 
 was touched and the imagination of the people pic- 
 tured many solemn scenes that were significant of 
 
1 82 Kossuth Memorial Celebration 
 
 personal participation to men then living. Jefferson 
 continued to raise tobacco and to dispense lavish 
 hospitality at Monticello, while his old enemy John 
 Adams, with unabated vigor, confided his resentments 
 and prejudices to his diary. Lafayette could compare 
 the growing city of 160,000 inhabitants with the small 
 village that he had seen at the end of the last century. 
 He could gaze at the banners that floated gaily to the 
 breeze and find famihar beauty in every stripe, well- 
 known grace in every fold, the memory of hopes now 
 ripened in every star. The republic was no stranger 
 to him, for he and men of his blood had done much to 
 build it; he needed no guide over the battle-fields, for 
 he had slept on them, fought on them, and with the 
 traditional gaiety of his race he had laughed there at 
 danger and played with death. Among the founders 
 and citizens he stood as one of themselves — nay, was 
 he not the first of all, since Washington had called 
 him " Son," and thus ennobled him as he had ennobled 
 no other man? What royal parchment ever bestowed 
 such a dignity as this ? And if perchance in the years 
 gone by he had forgotten something of the geography 
 of the old colonies and of the new States, we may be- 
 lieve that he still remembered the great days of York- 
 town, when he shared with Washington the glory and 
 immortal honor of deahng the heaviest and the final 
 blow to his adopted country's foe. 
 
 But Kossuth was a stranger save as fame had carried 
 his name over the seas from old Europe to new Amer- 
 ica. His heart was full of gratitude, but not of joy. 
 His hopes may not yet have died, but they clustered 
 about and clung to the old land of his people; they 
 had no dwelHng-place among us. Webster with great 
 beauty and pathos pictured the condition of these 
 
Kossuth Memorial Celebration 183 
 
 patriots when he wrote to Mr. Marsh at Constantinople, 
 and bade him in the name of our Government to inter- 
 cede for the Hberation of the Hungarian patriots. 
 
 For their attempt at independence, they have most 
 dearly paid, and now broken in fortune and in heart, with- 
 out home or country, a band of exiles whose only future 
 is a tearful remembrance of the past, whose only request 
 is to spend their remaining days in obscure industry, they 
 wait the permission of his Imperial Majesty to remove 
 themselves, and all that may remain to them, across the 
 ocean to the uncultivated regions of America, and leave 
 forever a continent which to them has become more gloomy 
 than the wilderness, more lone and dreary than the desert. 
 
 But Kossuth was not content with barren hurrahs 
 and splendid feasts. He undertook to storm the 
 citadel of a nation's heart, and he succeeded. He 
 ventured to capture their understanding, to direct 
 their will, to throw aside their traditional rules of con- 
 duct; he deliberately sought to involve this nation 
 into European quarrels. Earnestly and with almost 
 irresistible eloquence he besought our Government to 
 come forward as the champion of oppressed nation- 
 aHties, to relieve his struggling people by direct inter- 
 ference, and to turn its back upon the wholesome 
 rules of international neutrality which had thus far 
 been observed. Strange to say, the witchery of his 
 voice almost carried the day. Circe, with her accents 
 of resistless melody, was not more potent to lure men 
 to her will than this inspired stranger. He stifled the 
 voice of reason; he threw a spell over men of calm 
 judgment and led them captives in his triumphant 
 train. We may now realize that the United States 
 escaped one of the greatest perils in its history, but 
 
1 84 Kossuth Memorial Celebration 
 
 we must recognize, too, the matchless power and sin- 
 cerity of the advocate. How lovingly and tenderly 
 and earnestly he pleaded for his beloved Hungary — 
 his mistress, his divinity, his everything! The ex- 
 ample is unique. Demosthenes might inflame the 
 Athenians against Philip, but he urged them in his and 
 their own tongue to resist his and their own enemy. 
 Cicero might inveigh against Catiline, but he was the 
 advocate of those whom he addressed, and the pictures 
 that he drew of probable evils were dangers personal to 
 his hearers. Chatham and Pitt, Burke and Mirabeau 
 and Patrick Henry, what was their task in comparison 
 to his ? They and all of them touched the ever-respon- 
 sive chord of self-interest and of common advantage in 
 the audiences that they controlled. What man since 
 Peter the Hermit's day could preach a crusade based 
 purely on sentiment? Indeed, the comparison fails, 
 for the one appealed to the deep reHgious sense of all 
 who heard him, while the Hungarian exile could only 
 promise those vague and unsatisfactory rewards that 
 follow the accompHshment of a duty most uncertain 
 in its obligation, but most certain in its danger. 
 
 Yet he almost succeeded. And indescribably great 
 must the credit of this mitigated success be held. The 
 nation was startled from its propriety, and Reason, 
 confused and hesitating, ready to leave her throne. 
 But there was one voice still more potent than Kos- 
 suth's, even then. It came from Washington's last 
 resting-place, and warned the American people with 
 prophetic voice of the dangers of foreign adventure. 
 And finally the people, returning to their sober senses, 
 heeded the charmer's voice only so far as it com- 
 manded their love, respect, and sympathy. 
 
 But when America refused to interfere in behalf of 
 
Kossuth Memorial Celebration 185 
 
 his people Kossuth knew that he must surrender all 
 hope; he must submit to the inevitable and trust to 
 the slow processes of time to do what he had failed to 
 do. Yet the world knew and honored him. With 
 pen and sword and voice he had done his best, and 
 what epitaph is worth those simple words? He had, 
 indeed, done his best for the land that he loved. He 
 has just died full of years and of honor, but he saw, 
 as age began to dim his eyes, the flag of our Union, 
 crowded with ever-multiplying stars, foremost among 
 the nations. He saw and felt that the experiment of 
 government for the people and by the people was 
 triumphantly made, and that the result would silence 
 doubt, convince sceptics, and enfranchise the world. 
 He lived and died a patriot in the best, the truest, the 
 noblest sense. And if I may, in closing, link Kossuth 
 in my thoughts with our own country, I would ask 
 of Providence that in the hours of trial every one of 
 our people may love America as Kossuth loved Hun- 
 gary. With such Americans we may direct the 
 destinies of the world for the happiness of mankind. 
 
VII 
 
 JACKSON ^ 
 
 THE 8th of January is one of the halting-places, I 
 will not say of the American people, but of the 
 Democratic party. All great organizations, 
 political or religious, must have their day or days of 
 rest, when the hero or saint is honored by those who 
 revere his memory, admire his deeds, or find it profit- 
 able to hold out his example. The day that we cele- 
 brate is one of those, and serves to recall the services 
 and perpetuate the fame of Andrew Jackson. As 
 Montaigne once said that he loved sometimes to " wrap 
 himself up in the memory of his father," so may we 
 find it wholesome to take counsel with the wise and 
 brave men who speak from beyond the grave. 
 
 This is emphatically Jackson's day. The battle 
 that it more immediately recalls, so far as its import- 
 ance may be measured by the destruction which it 
 caused, scarcely deserves the name. We who have 
 gone through the ghastly experiences of a civil war 
 that dragged itself through four long, weary years, 
 marked by constantly recurring battles, each one of 
 which desolated thousands of homes, can scarcely 
 understand that this skirmish on the Mississippi's 
 
 I An address before the New York County Democracy, January 
 9, 1888. 
 
 186 
 
Jackson 187 
 
 muddy banks should have risen to the dignity of a 
 battle. And yet it destroyed the prestige of British 
 arms on American soil forever; it averted from New 
 Orleans the danger of capture at a time when in- 
 describable atrocities were tolerated by public opinion ; 
 and it crushed the insolence which the late "rebels" 
 had had to contend with since the recognition of their 
 independence. 
 
 By a strange freak of fortune, it was fought after the 
 peace had been made, and in the inter\^al between the 
 signing of that peace and the time when the news 
 could pitch and roll its slow way across the Atlantic. 
 If Morse had but anticipated his marvels by half a 
 century, the battle would never have been fought, 
 Andrew Jackson would never have been President of 
 the United States, and we would not have been here 
 to-night to do him honor. But the bHnd goddess, 
 Fortune, had evidently determined that our hero 
 should have that signal opportunity to show what a 
 hot-headed, strong-minded, reckless, fearless, earnest 
 Scotch- Irishman from South CaroHna could do, and 
 she saw to it that no telegraph, or carrier pigeon, or 
 fleet steamer interfered with him. As the convenient 
 deities of Homeric times disposed all things so that 
 their favored children should meet their foes under 
 such conditions that they could not well avoid de- 
 stroying them, so she, anxious lest the short period at 
 her command should rob her of her opportunity, 
 dropped some fatal poison into the British general's 
 mind, and he, bereft of reason and prudence, must 
 attack and assault his well-entrenched foe. It took him 
 just thirty minutes to lose all — except his honor. His 
 life and the hves or Hberty of 2600 men paid forfeit 
 for his rashness. In that half hour Andrew Jackson 
 
I 88 Jackson 
 
 became the foremost man of America. He had in- 
 flicted on the British army the most humiliating and 
 the most complete defeat that they had ever suffered, 
 and this at the cost of eight men killed and thirteen 
 wounded. The descendants of Cromwell's iron sol- 
 diers, of the men whose backs the enemies had never 
 seen, fled on that day in confusion and panic before 
 the ragged militia whom it was part of their profession 
 to despise. A more signal and complete victory for 
 the one side and a more humiliating discomfiture for 
 the other history does not record. Might not the 
 triumphant General exclaim, like Henry the Fifth after 
 Agincourt : 
 
 When, without stratagem. 
 But in plain shock and even play of battle, 
 Was ever known so great and little loss. 
 On the one part and on the other! 
 
 And when slow Peace reached our shores at last, and 
 was received, as she deserved to be, with wild exulta- 
 tion and delight, she found that the prestige of Ameri- 
 can arms had been raised in the twinkling of an eye — 
 to be more accurate, in the brief period of twenty-five 
 minutes — to an unexpected height. From that time 
 forth it was reasonably certain that the military 
 qualities of the American people would be spoken of 
 and treated with decent respect. 
 
 The hold which military men gain by their exploits 
 upon the affections of their fellow-citizens must ever 
 be a subject of wonder and despair to the civilian. 
 All the wisdom of Minerva, all the learning of the 
 schools, all the eloquence, the civic worth, and the 
 moral quahties that may be united in the person of 
 nature's most gifted children, must give way when the 
 
Jackson 189 
 
 conquering hero, clad in his martial glory, appears 
 upon the scene. For him no rewards are too brilliant, 
 no prizes too high — for him women smile and poets 
 sing. Him, for want of a better name, we call the 
 providential man, and reverently point out as the 
 chosen vessel, the standard-bearer, the anointed before 
 whom all others must bow in homage. And it is 
 natural that this should be, so long as the sword 
 typifies the guardianship of national honor, the pro- 
 tection of domestic safety, and the integrity of political 
 institutions. Jackson had been a lawyer, a district 
 attorney, a congressman, a judge, and a senator, but 
 none of his admirers had ever dreamed that his per- 
 formances in civil Hfe entitled him to especial regard. 
 As a practising lawyer, he was always ready to settle 
 his disputes by the rules of the code of honor. As a 
 judge, he no doubt rendered decisions more or less 
 satisfactory to his suitors, but as he wisely abstained 
 from putting his opinions in writing, he succeeded in 
 obtaining a negative fame which is, perhaps, all that 
 he could aspire to in that field of usefulness. As a 
 senator, he made few speeches of which we have any 
 record. His silence may have been due to another 
 cause than reticence or modesty. Jefferson said to 
 Webster that he had often seen him rise in his seat and 
 try to speak — an effort which the rage that choked him 
 made abortive. When he lost his temper — a not un- 
 common occurrence — he was an uncomfortable friend 
 and a still more imcomfortable enemy. Nothing was 
 easier for him than to get into a frenzy of rage, nothing 
 pleasanter than to fight. He was, in a sense, the 
 typical man of the age in which he Hved and of the 
 rough country in which he passed part of his life. His 
 duels were frequent ; in one he slew his adversary, but 
 
190 Jackson 
 
 it does not appear to have occurred to him that there 
 was anything reprehensible in the transaction. He 
 would have considered it eminently proper for his 
 adversary to mete out the same treatment to him- 
 self. 
 
 And even when he professed — with the sincerity 
 that was part of his nature — a deep religious devotion 
 and a thorough belief in divine revelation, he did not, 
 as far as we are informed, appear to have regarded 
 these matters as entitled to sorrowful retrospection. 
 
 In various instances he showed an arbitrary and re- 
 sentful spirit which his best friends must condemn. 
 His exercise of authority was sometimes harsh and 
 oppressive ; in Florida, in New Orleans, in Washington, 
 his proud and aggressive spirit led him into acts which 
 cannot stand the test of impartial criticism. And yet, 
 with all his faults, Andrew Jackson became the idol 
 of our people. His popularity was, and remains, an 
 accepted and abiding factor in our history. Even 
 now, after our Civil War has rooted up so many tra- 
 ditions and rudely removed so many of our land- 
 marks, we look back upon him with mingled pride, 
 gratitude, and admiration. We feel to this day the 
 benefits of his services and forget the defects, as we 
 contemplate the greater beauties, of his character. 
 
 If we are asked, then, "Why is Andrew Jackson a 
 popular hero? Why is this day celebrated and set 
 apart by so many of his people?" the answer is easy. 
 He was brave, unselfish, patriotic; he was of the 
 people and with the people. He was honest in his 
 acts, his words, his intentions, and men felt that there 
 was not a day of his life, nor an hour of a day, when 
 he would have hesitated one instant to lay down his 
 life for his country. He was emphatically and truly 
 
Jackson 191 
 
 a man of the people. I mean this in its real sense; 
 not that he failed in his education, or intelligence, or 
 moral training to be above the average of his country- 
 men, but that his instincts were all in favor of the 
 people, — their rights, their interests, their honor. 
 
 The majesty of Washington, the unruffled dignity 
 of Jefferson, the old-time courtesy of their successors, 
 was followed by the unrestrained, impulsive, ex- 
 plosive methods which accompanied the old hero 
 wherever he went. The calm serenity of the self- 
 contained gentlemen who preceded Jackson placed 
 them upon a higher plane than the mass of their fellow- 
 citizens. Democrats they certainly were in their 
 theories of government, in their love of the people, in 
 their hatred of tyranny, in their devotion to the popu- 
 lar cause, but at the same time the decorum of their 
 manners and the dignity of their bearing bore a close 
 resemblance to those traits which are popularly sup- 
 posed to be the accompaniments of gentle birth and 
 exalted poHtical station. Jackson was unlike his pre- 
 decessors in these respects, and it might well be said 
 that for the first time his fellow-citizens saw in the 
 White House a man Hke themselves. And yet he, 
 too, was a gentleman, not less than those who pre- 
 ceded him. 
 
 In the truest and best sense, no finer gentleman 
 lived in the land than he. The courtesy which is ever 
 tender to weakness, and respectful to woman because 
 she is a woman; the chivalry that makes a man the 
 prompt champion of those who need a champion ; the 
 self-respect which keeps from meanness, or treachery, 
 or coarseness, — all these things he had in the highest 
 degree. He was a gentleman like Bayard or like 
 Sidney, without fear and without reproach, and if he 
 
192 Jackson 
 
 lacked at times some of the graces, he never wanted 
 the true characteristics, of a genuine knight. 
 
 Perhaps the strongest element in Andrew Jackson's 
 character was his coiirage. Not only the courage to 
 defy death on the battle-field or on the dueUing- 
 ground. The soldier's courage is not rare. Readi- 
 ness to die for honor or for country's sake is common 
 in all nations. We have learned from a bitter ex- 
 perience that courage of that kind is a plant that 
 grows all over our country and flourishes at the North 
 and at the South, in the rich man's home, the farm- 
 house, the workshop — ever3nvhere. But there is an- 
 other kind of courage, — the courage to defy opinion 
 and the fears of self-interest, — because of conscience ; 
 the courage that Pilate lacked when he rendered an 
 unjust judgment because he feared the people; the 
 co\irage that can stand imshaken when expediency 
 throttles duty and interest 'demands silence while 
 Truth strives to raise her voice; the sort of courage 
 that is not quickened by the cry of the bugle, nor the 
 sound of the dnmi, nor the eyes of thousands looking 
 on, nor by the love of glory, but the courage of solitude 
 and the qtiiet study ; of the obedient pen, of silent re- 
 flection; the courage which will not be put off with 
 " It may not be, " but will firmly resolve " It must be," 
 when the right of the question is decided. This is the 
 rare courage to which I allude. It was this courage 
 that marked Andrew Jackson all through his life. 
 " I care nothing about a clamor," he once said; " I do 
 precisely what I think just and right." And our 
 people have a faculty, I think, of discovering this 
 courage when it exists in their servants. Andrew 
 Jackson is not the only Democratic President who 
 has been wilhng to take the risk of clamors. He is not 
 
Jackson i93 
 
 the only one who has shown himself ready to do his 
 duty to the people that honored him, by speaking 
 fully and freely what should be said, leaving the con- 
 sequences to blossom and bear such fruit as might be 
 best. The moral laws are the same in high office as in 
 common, every-day life. To be honest and brave is 
 simple duty in the one case as in the other, — a 
 commonplace truth, but one too often forgotten. 
 
 AUied to this quality in Jackson's character was 
 another which shines conspicuously through his life, — 
 I mean his sterling, burning, absorbing love of country. 
 Ambitious of personal fame he may have been, — he 
 doubtless was. He could not but feel that he was a 
 leader of men and strive for the position that nature 
 had fitted him to fill. But through all his public acts, 
 utterances, and efforts he was always a patriot. The 
 love of country was a part of his fiery nature and 
 burned fiercely through his life. The enemy of his 
 country was the enemy of Andrew Jackson, and as 
 such, it became the personal business of Andrew Jack- 
 son to punish him for daring to be his enemy. Perhaps 
 in our day of frequent and rapid communication with 
 other parts of the world, with a constantly flowing 
 tide of immigration to bring us into daily and friendly 
 contact with alien nations, the fierce and aggressive 
 love of coimtry, which animated such men as he, may 
 have been modified and may have lost some of its 
 intensity. But however this may be, the patriotism 
 of the early heroes of our country was of an uncom- 
 promising kind. They had, it is true, a sentimental 
 attachment for France, and for the brave men who 
 had helped the young States in their distress, but 
 beyond this they had nothing to draw them to 
 the peoples of Europe. The Atlantic was an angry 
 
194 Jackson 
 
 barrier to intercourse. The recollections of the war 
 were still alive and rankling. New York had but too 
 good reason to recall the horrors and cruelties that 
 had been wreaked upon her people, and it was not in 
 those early days of the century that British or Hessian 
 soldiers could be remembered without execration. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was not only brave and patriotic, 
 but he was also honest. Not in the vulgar sense of 
 that word do I use the expression. It is no praise — 
 or should not be — of a public man to say that he did 
 not filch money from the public treasury or enrich 
 himself by doubtful means. His honesty was of a 
 higher and broader order. It was of a generous 
 quality. It lay in his hatred of falsehood and of 
 trickery, in his directness and his truth, in his single- 
 mindedness, in his readiness to adopt straight and 
 open ways. He might be and often was wrong in his 
 hasty conclusions, in his rash advocacy of those whom 
 he loved, in his fierce warfare upon those whom he did 
 not respect. His feud with Henry Clay, his conviction 
 that that great and honored statesman had been 
 guilty of dishonorable conduct toward himself, ended 
 only with his life. Evidence had no weight with him 
 when he had made up his judgment. But no enemy 
 could ever say that his ways were tortuous or dark. 
 He was as honest to the adversary as to the friend, and 
 if the people loved and honored him during his life, it 
 was not only because of his conspicuous services on 
 the occasion that we now recall, but also and mainly 
 because they understood him, and knew how brave 
 and patriotic and true and honest was this irascible 
 warrior. He incarnated not only American democracy, 
 but American manhood, in its best qualities, and if he 
 gained such an ascendancy upon American minds it 
 
Jackson 195 
 
 was owing to the fact that he, more than any other man 
 of his day, represented in his person those manly 
 virtues which the American people most cherished as 
 their own. His failings were overlooked and for- 
 given, if they did not enhance his popularity. The 
 instinct of our people will rise in angry rebelHon at 
 those vices which spring from a mean and sordid 
 nature, — those are too deep-rooted to be cured, — but 
 they will generously condone the rank growth of a 
 generous vitality, the rich exuberance of an ardent 
 temperament, the exaggerated and even violent mani- 
 festation of honest sentiments springing from pure 
 sources and laudable ambitions. It mattered little to 
 the American people of forty years ago that their 
 favorite hero had been involved in countless brawls, 
 in many duels, in angry quarrels without cause, — the 
 opinion of the day tolerated these things. But the 
 people knew that the treasury of the nation, the honor 
 of a woman, the flag of the country, were all and al- 
 ways safe in Andrew Jackson's hands. 
 
 General Jackson's life was one brilliant success, but 
 the real greatness and beauty of his character never 
 shone forth so truly as when the hand of death was 
 laid gently upon him. The tough cords of the old 
 soldier's life did not snap suddenly from over- tension. 
 He had ample time to look the destroyer calmly in the 
 face and become familiar with his features. He was 
 ready for the conqueror, and made no murmur nor 
 repined at the sufferings which preceded the final 
 moment. With the patience of a martyr and the 
 gentleness of a tender woman, with absolute sub- 
 mission to the Divine will, with unflinching courage 
 and stoical endurance, with a persistent love of coimtry 
 that only died when he died, he watched his own 
 
196 Jackson 
 
 approaching dissolution, forgetting his own agony to 
 comfort those whom he loved. All the anger and re- 
 sentments of former days had been burned out by 
 much suffering, nobly borne, and it was the real 
 Andrew Jackson, true, generous, kindly, pure, and 
 brave, who finally surrendered his soul to his Maker 
 and his memory to his countrymen. 
 
 Why is it that alone we, of the Democratic faith, 
 claim this man as our own? Is there anything in his 
 fame to repel men of any political faith? Did he not 
 serve all his brethren? Was not his heart large 
 enough to embrace them all? Let us hope that the 
 only reason is that we seized upon and first appro- 
 priated him as one of our political patron saints. We 
 cannot well afford to part with or divide him. His 
 principles are ours, his objects are ours, his political 
 ideas are ours. He loved his country, and he loved 
 the whole of it. While he was battling at New Orleans 
 under such fierce odds, the Hartford Convention was 
 hatching treasonable doctrines which might have been 
 warmed into life but for his victory of that day. 
 
 But we may well feel assured that vigorous as would 
 have been his repression of rebellious acts, that re- 
 pression would never have been followed by persistent 
 hatred or malignant cruelty. His brothers of Con- 
 necticut or Massachusetts, even if it had been necessary 
 to coerce them into good behavior, would still have been 
 his brethren. To use past differences between sections 
 of his country as a means of aggrandizement would 
 have been as foreign to his nature as meanness or 
 deceit. The men of Kentucky and Tennessee would 
 never have been forgotten by him as the heroes of 
 New Orleans. And if he lived now, with his great, 
 generous heart beating in his heroic breast, on what 
 
Jackson i97 
 
 side, think you, would he be? On ours, when we pro- 
 claim the universal brotherhood of American citizens, 
 or with those who coin past horrors into present poHti- 
 cal agencies and seek to capture the country by divid- 
 ing it? Perhaps the Hnes of difference between our 
 great poHtical parties are dimly drawn. It may be 
 that the old and distinguishing characteristics have 
 been erased by time and newly developed interests. 
 But we may proudly and confidently assert that the 
 party of General Jackson, the Democracy of to-day, 
 will recognize and tolerate no dividing line between 
 the States of this Union; that the fatal war that 
 blotted out the only cause of difference between two 
 great sections is at an end, and rejoice that cruel 
 and harsh as was the experience of that war, it has 
 been compensated by the one fact that the fatal Hne 
 of demarcation between North and South has been 
 washed away in blood. And when demagogues, 
 hungry for spoils and eager for success, seek to revive 
 bitter memories and to re-create old animosities, the 
 party of Jackson will stand upon its old ground, it will 
 claim equal rights for all our people, it will recognize 
 no differences based on ancient feuds, but will seek to 
 adjust its methods to its aspirations, that its triimiph 
 may be the triumph of true, national, vigorous, 
 generous democracy. 
 
^^^^^^^^Shf^ 
 
 VIII 
 
 MEMORIAL OF CHARLES O'CONOR ^ 
 
 THE name of Charles O 'Conor has within the last 
 year been added to our mortuary roll. If our 
 practice of recording the memorable traits of 
 departed brethren were merely intended to erect a 
 monument to the perpetuation of their fame, we might 
 in this instance intermit our custom. His fame has 
 passed into history; whatever there may be that is 
 durable in a lawyer's greatness belongs to him by the 
 common consent of his contemporaries. 
 
 The career of our deceased brother was one of con- 
 stantly growing brilliancy, until he attained the high- 
 est eminence which a lawyer can reach. He was the 
 leader of our bar. No rival claimant disputed his 
 supremacy. His pre-eminence was recognized even 
 while he lived. His was the rare privilege of retiring 
 from active life of his own will, neither coerced by 
 failing powers nor admonished by hesitating cHents 
 that his usefulness was on the wane. When the end 
 did come, the final seal was placed upon the judgment 
 of his contemporaries. The press, the bar, the people, 
 united in the verdict which half a century's unremit- 
 ting work had earned. 
 
 1 Read before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 
 January, 1885. 
 
 198 
 
Memorial of Charles O'Conor 199 
 
 It is difficult on occasions of this kind to avoid 
 the language of apparently extravagant eulogy. Affec- 
 tion often misleads the living members of our calling 
 into an exaggerated expression of the virtues and 
 merits of our dead. Indulgent custom ieals leni- 
 ently with this failing, and makes allowance for its 
 exercise. But we may recall the career of the de- 
 parted in this instance without fear of such criticism. 
 That he was free from the weaknesses that beset, in 
 some form, all that is human, it would be folly to assert ; 
 that he did embody all the quahties of courage, honor, 
 industry, and fidelity which make up the highest 
 standard of professional excellence, it would be in- 
 justice to deny. The chief justice of our highest 
 court, while presiding at the meeting held for the 
 purpose of paying a tribute of respect to the memory 
 of Mr. O'Conor, spoke of his professional record as 
 " one \mri vailed in our annals for length of service and 
 brilliancy of professional achievement." This deliber- 
 ate language embodied the imiversal thought. 
 
 Every man's life, when it is worth recording, leaves 
 behind it a lesson worth remembering. More es- 
 pecially those of the same profession or pursuit may 
 ponder upon its teachings with advantage. How and 
 why was success attained? Was it the ripe fruit of 
 long study and patient labor? Was it taken by 
 storm in the temple which genius forces open, laughing 
 at time and difficulties and conventional rules ? 
 
 Was it bought at a higher cost than it deserved? 
 Did the fruit leave the aftertaste of bitterness when he 
 that plucked it recalled the means by which it was 
 secured? These questions are easily answered where 
 Mr. O'Conor is concerned. 
 
 The success of Charles O'Conor was not due to any 
 
200 Memorial of Charles O'Conor 
 
 combination of favorable circumstances, nor to any 
 of those brilliant gifts that dazzle the eyes of men and 
 take their judgment captive. It was from the be- 
 ginning logical. Other things being equal, it was as 
 certain as the harvest is certain after the seed has been 
 sown. He had all the qualities, moral, physical, and 
 intellectual, that compel success. Of a vigorous and 
 commanding presence, of a rugged and almost ag- 
 gressive conscientiousness, of a strong, acute, and dis- 
 cerning mind, he was singularly endowed by nature 
 to fill his part. Indeed, no combination short of this 
 could produce the result of that half-century's work. 
 When we examine the reports of the cases in which he 
 was engaged, remembering the minute labor that he 
 always bestowed upon their preparation; when we 
 consider the nature of the questions that he had to 
 grapple with, the time given to consultations, and the 
 writing of opinions, the days spent or wasted in court, 
 the work of that lifetime seems absolutely marvellous. 
 Nothing but unremitting and unrelieved toil could 
 achieve such a result. What a story of self-denial and 
 patience, of labor loved for its own sake, of professional, 
 all-absorbing zeal such a life reveals! If constant 
 toil, leavened by an ever- watchful conscience, ascends 
 to heaven as a prayer, no faithful monk, whose suppli- 
 cations began with the dawn and lasted through half 
 the hours of the night, more earnestly and persistently 
 clamored at heaven's gate. Of our friend indeed it 
 might be said: "To labor was to pray." 
 
 The real secret of Mr. O 'Conor's success — if that 
 term may be applied here — lay in no one element of 
 his character. He could not have succeeded without 
 either. Men have lived, and are living now, as brave 
 as he; others as industrious, others as true, others as 
 
Memorial of Charles O'Conor 201 
 
 able intellectually. But the union of these qualities to 
 the same extent, in one man, has probably not existed 
 in our generation, or in his. Without the courage, he 
 would have halted before many a danger that he over- 
 came. Strike out the indomitable industry, and the 
 enemy would have sown the tares that no after-labor 
 could destroy. Without that sleepless conscience, the 
 whole would have been marred and mutilated. Many 
 a richly gifted nature, fired by the noblest ambition, 
 has failed because the industry, the honor, or the faith 
 was gone — or slept. 
 
 The necessary limits of such a paper as the present 
 render even a cursory examination of Mr. O'Conor's 
 professional life out of the question. No effort at 
 condensation could successfully epitomize the history 
 of the professional battles in which he played a con- 
 spicuous part. There were few contests of any 
 magnitude or importance in which he was not called 
 on to participate. The suitor who succeeded in 
 securing his co-operation felt assured that the victory 
 would be his if ever-wakeful vigilance and untiring 
 effort could secure it. The responsibility, the care, 
 the anxieties, were transferred to, or at least shared 
 by, one strong enough and willing to take them all to 
 himself. If there was any weapon in the arsenal of 
 professional warfare that could help to win the battle, 
 it would be found and used. What he once told an 
 associate in the Forrest case, as it was ripening for 
 trial, might have been said of every great controversy 
 in which he was engaged: "I have not left a stone 
 unturned under which there crept a living thing." 
 And all the while, not content with unearthing the 
 proofs and precedents and laws that bore upon his 
 case, his watchful eye never left his foe. It may well 
 
202 Memorial of Charles O' Conor 
 
 be — indeed it must be — that he sometimes erred; but 
 in forensic contests he showed that, as in war, the 
 greatest leader is not the one who never blunders — for 
 such a one never lived, — but he who soonest sees and 
 repairs the blunder. The result of all this expenditure 
 of power and of labor was not only success at the 
 moment, but even now, when we look back and 
 study what time has left of these efforts, we are filled 
 with wonder and admiration at the perfect and artistic 
 finish of the performance. His arguments are pitiless 
 in their logic ; they leave no room for escape, no loop- 
 hole for evasion. There is no trusting to rhetoric, no 
 reliance on doubtful precedents, no assumption of 
 premises not based on principles. Authorities seem- 
 ingly against him are stripped of their sophistry, and 
 shown to be what they are. The sources of judicial 
 error are traced with the certainty of mathematical 
 demonstration. And to do this he is armed with a 
 command of language admirably fitted to his mind 
 and purpose, clear as the language of science, avoid- 
 ing ornament, deflecting neither to the right nor to the 
 left, simple but perfect, a creation of his own, — original, 
 unique, and inimitable. 
 
 It may suggest itself to the minds of our younger 
 generation, that with Mr. 'Conor the last of that 
 race of lawyers has gone. When he commenced to 
 practise, our now imperial city was still in its infancy. 
 At the time of his admission, New York counted less 
 than 200,000 inhabitants. Brooklyn was a mere rural 
 village. The new appliances for facilitating and ex- 
 pediting labor had not come into use. The lawyer's 
 business was not done by steam and electricity. 
 Stenographic reports, which nominally lighten his 
 work, did not then expand the volume of testimony 
 
Memorial of Charles O'Conor 203 
 
 into appalling masses of inextricable and bewildering 
 verbiage. Courts were not crushed under the ever- 
 increasing weights of their calendars, nor impatient of 
 speech, and anxious only to prevent the advocate from 
 making clear to them that which they can never get 
 by intuition, and seldom by briefs, unaided by oral 
 argument. The trial of causes, while exhibiting less 
 of the faculty of the advocate for witty personalities 
 and irrelevant humor, gave him full scope to develop 
 his case and to make it clear to the court and jury. 
 The secret of nursing a trial into months, of filHng 
 octavo volumes with miscalled evidence, of burying 
 the issues under depths beyond the reach of human 
 ingenuity, was not yet found. The judge took his own 
 minutes, and was generally satisfied with a narrative 
 from the Hps of each witness. He used this simple 
 record to settle the case. Occasional injustice may 
 have resulted from these primitive methods. Whether 
 the system was better or was worse, it w^as certainly 
 different from that now in force, and time alone will 
 tell whether the excited atmosphere in which both 
 client and counsel now live will ever give the world 
 such men as Charles O'Conor and other leading ad- 
 vocates of a past generation. 
 
 The courage of Mr. O'Conor, of which mention has 
 been made, was of a rare order. Whether he was one 
 of the very few men who are born without the sensa- 
 tion of fear, or whether his strong judgment and 
 cool will had taught him to control and thrust aside 
 all weaker impulses, it is not useful to inquire. His 
 courage was large enough to cover every emergency 
 and to brave every kind of danger. Indeed, it as- 
 sumed a very rare form in our nation and age, viz., 
 the ability to disregard and face the disapproval of 
 
204 Memorial of Charles O' Conor 
 
 the public. Many men whose personal courage is 
 equal to all requirements of the battle-field have 
 quailed before the adverse manifestation of public 
 opinion. It may fairly be claimed, that the fear or 
 the hope that public sentiment would be for or against 
 his action, in a given case, never influenced him to any 
 appreciable extent. He took counsel from his own 
 judgment and tested the results by his own sense of 
 right. Nothing that his reason approved and his 
 conscience endorsed could be omitted in deference to 
 the prejudices or sentiments of others. On many 
 questions of vital importance to our national policy, 
 he was at variance during the last quarter of a century 
 with the general sentiment of his countrymen. He 
 never concealed his opinions, nor apologized for ex- 
 pressing them. When he was misled into harsh 
 judgments of men, he did not hesitate to recall words 
 the injustice of which was made apparent; but his 
 opinions on public questions remained unchanged, 
 even when they were most unpopular. It is not a 
 little to the credit of his fellow-citizens that he never 
 forfeited their affection by differing from them, and 
 retained their respect even when he most offended 
 their judgment. 
 
 In one instance only did Mr. O 'Conor show an over- 
 sensitive regard for public sentiment and deem it his 
 duty to defend himself against unjust charges. Many 
 members of this Association will recall his appearance 
 here for the last time, to demand an investigation 
 into certain published statements reflecting upon his 
 treatment of Mrs. Forrest after the trial of her suit. 
 He was probably the only member of this body who 
 thought that such loose and palpably unfounded ac- 
 cusations should be noticed. But a suggestion to that 
 
Memorial of Charles O'Conor 205 
 
 effect met with indignant rejection at his hands. The 
 investigation was had, and not only showed the 
 charges to be absolutely untrue, but exhibited in a 
 striking degree the chivalrous character of his ad- 
 vocacy in that celebrated case. 
 
 But there is no trait in Mr. O'Conor's character 
 which is more deserving of mention here than that 
 which is perhaps the least known — I mean the tender- 
 ness and gentleness of his heart. To those who only 
 met him in the contests of the courts, it will seem 
 scarcely credible that this stern, unbending exterior 
 was but the outer covering of a nature as gentle and 
 loving as a woman's. The real man was not the one 
 that was seen, admired, and feared. Only a few had 
 the privilege of knowing the true man, when neither 
 the exigencies of his profession nor a certain ostenta- 
 tion of sternness held in concealment the lovable ele- 
 ments that were so strong within. 
 
 Strange to say, it was the very consciousness of his 
 weakness — if so inadequate and inaccurate an ex- 
 pression may be used — that made him the more timid 
 of betraying emotion. He was aware that if he 
 yielded for a moment to the promptings of his gentler 
 nature, his self-control would fail him. All those who 
 knew him well bear witness to this. A tale of distress, 
 a bit of pathos in literature, a touching poem, would 
 strike and thrill a chord of tenderest sympathy. In 
 the intimacy of private life — with those whom he 
 trusted and loved — his feehngs sometimes asserted 
 their mastery over his artificial nature, and then this 
 clear, practical, vigorous advocate would recite his 
 favorite verses or repeat his favorite prose passages 
 from great authors while the tears coursed down his 
 cheeks. 
 
2o6 Memorial of Charles O'Conor 
 
 An intimate friend of Mr. O'Conor recalls in a letter 
 to the writer of this memorial some touching illustra- 
 tions of this tendency. 
 
 The pathetic element [he says] was strong in Mr. O'Conor's 
 nature. I have many proofs of it, but the following will 
 answer our purpose: In 1867, we were passengers together 
 on the evening boat for Albany. Nearly all others had 
 gone to their rooms, but it being a balmy summer night, 
 we lingered, walking on the aft deck. Mr. O'Conor spoke 
 of the leading members of the Bar when he began the 
 practice of his profession. He extolled Thomas Addis 
 Emmet in particular, as a man of undeviating rectitude, 
 of wonderful power as an orator, a grand, natural man, 
 free from all artificial pretensions — "He was my idol; I 
 have seen none other like him." He then spoke of William 
 Sampson, whom he had known well, and quoted fragments 
 of his article on the " Irish Emigrant" : "He was bom in a 
 land which no longer was his; in the midst of plenty his 
 children ate the bread of poverty ; he toiled for a landlord 
 whose face he never saw; he heard there was a great 
 country beyond the sea where . . ." 
 
 Up to this I was not looking at Mr. O'Conor. I felt 
 that his emotion was increasing and his voice tremulous. 
 He had now lost control of himself, and suddenly rose. 
 The light shone full on his face. I saw that tears had 
 started from his eyes. Partly regaining his habitual con- 
 trol, he said: 
 
 "You must forget this. Pathos always overcomes 
 me — for that reason I avoid it. But there is no great 
 offence in it to-night. Are we not both sons of the Irish 
 Emigrant?" 
 
 Nor was it morbid sentiment, the outcome of an 
 overwrought mind dwelling only on itself; it was a 
 real softness of heart, manifested as well in the practical 
 channels of human sympathy. How many times his 
 
Memorial of Charles O'Conor 207 
 
 ready and generous hand dried the tears of the un- 
 fortunate, how often he has clothed the naked and 
 fed the hungry, no man can tell. What his right hand 
 gave, even his left hand never knew. But kindly 
 deeds will blossom up and smile at the efforts of their 
 author to keep them concealed. If Erskine's beautiful 
 thought be true, that at the last day men's good deeds 
 will stand by them, their advocates, to defend and 
 guard them, he will not at that hour be defenceless. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor never forgot a service or a kindness. 
 No man ever befriended him in vain. It was not in 
 his nature to forget anything, a service or an injury, 
 and in his earlier days at least he could bide his time 
 and punish the offender with a vigorous hand. But 
 he was still more faithful when he was deaHng with one 
 who had served him. A very prominent banker of 
 New York once did him a personal service of a peculiar 
 kind, neither involving money advances nor any con- 
 siderable sacrifice, but yet one which could only be 
 asked of and rendered by a friend. Years after, Mr. 
 O'Conor was called upon by this gentleman to lend 
 him professional assistance in an affair involving 
 millions of dollars. The assistance was given promptly, 
 efficiently, and satisfactorily. When asked to name 
 his compensation, Mr. O'Conor refused to fix or accept 
 any. He had not forgotten the service that he had 
 received. Every importunity failed, but at last, upon 
 being told by the client that he would never venture 
 to seek his aid in the future if he persisted, Mr. O'Conor 
 said to him, " Then fix my fee and give it to a charity." 
 The result was a contribution of $5000 to an orphan 
 asylum, that sum being, according to the client, a very 
 small compensation for the service rendered. 
 
 This is a single illustration of two of Mr. O'Conor's 
 
2o8 Memorial of Charles O' Conor 
 
 marked characteristics — fidelity to friends and gener- 
 osity in money matters. Indeed, money was ever 
 secondary in his estimate of professional life, and his 
 disinterestedness was as conspicuous as his learning or 
 his abihty. The gentleman of whom mention has 
 just been made knew Mr. O 'Conor better and more 
 thoroughly than most of those who enjoyed his con- 
 fidence. The earnest tribute that he has paid Mr. 
 O'Conor in conversation and in correspondence, the 
 many traits of gentle, kindly, considerate friendship, 
 which he has to relate, would depict him in his true 
 colors and make a picture of surpassing moral beauty 
 if it could here be reproduced. But his glowing 
 language of eulogy may well be adopted here, as em- 
 bodying the opinion of those who had fathomed the 
 depth and explored the wealth of that gifted nature : 
 "Can you wonder that I cherish and venerate the 
 memory of such a man, to whom the Almighty had 
 given the brightest intellect, the tenderest heart, and 
 the most fearless spirit?" 
 
 Mr. O'Conor's end was such as he would have 
 wished. He may be said to have twice crossed the 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death. It was a famiHar 
 face, and a friendly one, that smiHngly called him 
 away. He had had all of Hfe that it could give, and 
 as the infirmities of old age began with gentle admoni- 
 tion to remind him that the night was at hand, he felt 
 that his work was done. Life without labor would 
 have been beyond his ability to endure — beyond his 
 courage, perhaps, to face. So, with the old faith of 
 his fathers strong in his heart, with an unstained 
 record and a certain hope of glorious life beyond the 
 grave, he fell quietly asleep. The beautiful lines of 
 his favorite poet, Milton, — lines that he loved to quote. 
 
Memorial of Charles O'Conor 
 
 209 
 
 — come back to us a fitting close to this tribute of 
 affectionate reverence : 
 
 So may'st thou Hve, till like ripe fruit thou drop 
 Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease 
 Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature — 
 This is old age. 
 
IX 
 
 MONTESQUIEU 
 
 MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis Secondat de la 
 Brede, was born at Chateau de la Brede, 
 • near Bordeaiix, in the month of January, 
 1689. He lived sixty-six years, and died on the 
 tenth day of February, 1755. If we should omit 
 his literary performances from the record of his life, 
 and consider his existence apart from his books, the 
 record would end here, and it might be said of him, 
 as has been justly said of some royal personages, that 
 he was born, he lived, and he died. Not only was 
 that life uneventful, but it was studiously shut off 
 from the public eye. He shrank from those who 
 would peer into his privacy, and reserved that part of 
 himself for his family and his friends. He loved fame, 
 that is, the honorable repute that grew out of the in- 
 tellectual productions with which he enriched the 
 world. Apart from these, as Horace, whom he re- 
 sembled in many ways, has said of himself: "He 
 sought the secret way and unfrequented path of life 
 that steals away unknown." 
 
 That he was thoroughly a gentleman in the best 
 sense of the word — courteous, gentle, kindly, and 
 unassuming, — all who knew him testify; withal a 
 
 1 Introduction to a translation of The Spirit of Laws, 1899. 
 
Montesquieu 2 1 1 
 
 genuine Gascon in the sparkle of his speech, in the 
 southern brogue that he patriotically exaggerated, in 
 his wit and effervescence, in all the qualities that he 
 derived from the sunny atmosphere of his native 
 Gascony and the ruddy wines that flowed so freely 
 from the land that he dearly loved to the end. 
 
 Writers with an ingenious turn for the discovery of 
 analogies have compared him to Voltaire, who was 
 born but a few years after Montesquieu and survived 
 him many years. Voltaire was undoubtedly a man 
 of rare genius and unequalled skill when it came to the 
 work of destruction. To demolish ancient things was 
 the task in which he excelled and which he delighted 
 to perform. His bitterness against the social system 
 of which the Church was an integral part displayed 
 itself with all the venom of personal enmity; it was 
 flavored with the passion of revenge rather than a de- 
 sire to promote right and to prevent wrong. Through- 
 out all his aggressive life this feature was apparent; 
 it existed in fact and showed itself by unmistakable 
 symptoms. Nor was it without reason. In his early 
 youth he had been subjected to personal indignities 
 at the hands of blue-blooded men who considered it 
 the privilege of their caste to disregard the claims of 
 those whose pedigree was not as long as their own; 
 they laughed to scorn the demands for satisfaction of 
 such, however grievously and wantonly they had been 
 injured. When Voltaire sought to obtain redress for 
 deliberate affronts, they were repeated in most brutal 
 and offensive form; the only compensation that he 
 received was free quarters at the Bastile and abundant 
 opportunity, in the silence of solitary meditation, to 
 nurse his hatred and to lick his wounds. The friend 
 of Frederick II. never forgot the humihation of his 
 
2 1 2 Montesquieu 
 
 early life, and the sharpness of both his pen and tongue 
 may be traced in a measure to these days of wrong 
 unavenged and unpunished. The Church was the 
 ally and prop of the social scheme which permitted 
 these wrongs, hence the Church must pay the penalty. 
 His rage increased with his years, until he boasted, in 
 the heat of his madness, that one man might destroy 
 the religion which twelve men had founded. 
 
 But Montesquieu had no personal reasons for dis- 
 liking either Church or State . No insult had embittered 
 his early life, his unwounded pride never festered at 
 the recollection of personal maltreatment. He was 
 always decorous, conservative, and prudent. In the 
 rich soil of his generous nature no seed had been sown 
 from which hatred could grow. He was a lover of the 
 human race, and sought to promote its happiness. 
 If, in the effervescence of his early youth, he allowed 
 his brilliant pen to enter upon dangerous fields of con- 
 troversy, he never intended other than good results. 
 He meant to cure, not to kill; he hoped to make, not 
 to mar; he sought to repair and to improve, not to 
 tear down and to destroy. His warm Gascon nature 
 exulted in the mere fact of existence, the sunshine of 
 the merry Gascon country was in itself a delight. He 
 would have had the whole world as happy as himself. 
 He loved the companionship of friends, he deUghted 
 in the society of books. He had never known one 
 single sorrow in his life to resist the soothing influence 
 of these silent and eloquent companions. They were 
 part of his life ; indeed, the best part, the only part by 
 or through which we know him, the only part through 
 which he survives. 
 
 Montesquieu became famous in a day. His Persian 
 Letters, written when he was thirty years of age, 
 
Montesquieu 213 
 
 charmed, delighted, and irritated his countrymen, and 
 especially his countrywomen, who were quite as ready 
 and able as the male part of the population to make a 
 writer's fame. The Persian visitors whom he invented, 
 and whose comments upon the society and religion of 
 France he gives to the public, were very free in their 
 criticisms of what they saw, and it is not to be won- 
 dered at that the guardians of public morals looked 
 with suspicion and alarm upon the trenchant wit of 
 the Gascon sage, who dared to criticise abuses and to 
 laugh at practices which time had rendered venerable. 
 There was, indeed, much that might create grave con- 
 cern in the minds of those who studied the letters of 
 the Persian travellers. We must not forget that the 
 roots and branches of State and Church were closely 
 interwoven and intertwined. The blow aimed at the 
 one was in effect a blow at the other. Time showed — 
 and Voltaire lived to see the day — when the destruc- 
 tion of the existing State must needs bring with it a 
 shock and disturbance to the Church. The result of 
 the Letters was that the contagion spread which the 
 conservatism of Montesquieu would fain have arrested 
 and cured. He did not delay the current nor stem 
 the rising tide. Perhaps by calling attention to 
 abuses he aided in producing the calamity that he 
 would have deprecated. He gave aid and comfort to 
 the enemies of the social system that he would have 
 willingly saved; finally, by making these attacks 
 plausible, half a century after he was at rest, every- 
 thing gave way that he would have preserved, and the 
 foundations of the world were shaken. 
 
 Even when the Letters were at the full tide of success, 
 many readers who were attached to the existing system 
 of society looked with disfavor on their cold disregard 
 
214 Montesquieu 
 
 of respectable barnacles. D'Argenson said: "These 
 are reflections which a brilliant man can easily make, 
 but which a prudent man ought never to print." 
 Marivaux expressed the class sentiment with accuracy 
 when he said that a man should be sparing of his wit 
 on such subjects. Montesquieu himself realized that 
 he had become an object of suspicion to the "official 
 classes," who sought every occasion to slight him, 
 while they admired his ability — of which they thought 
 he had too much. Indeed, it was darkly suggested 
 that he was an infidel and possibly might be a traitor ! 
 These comments had their effect, so far as to induce 
 him to disclaim the paternity of a work which it might 
 not be quite safe to recognize as his offspring. 
 
 The sale of the Persian Letters was all that their 
 author could wish. His Jesuit secretary, Pere Des- 
 molets, had confidently predicted the result: "The 
 Letters will sell like bread," he had prophesied. And 
 so they did. They expressed, in delightful speech, 
 the thoughts of many who were neither able nor daring 
 enough in fitting phrase to attack the powers of the 
 day. As for himself, his reputation was, from that 
 moment, established as a wit. He was un homme 
 d' esprit. Perhaps he was surprised at the success that 
 he had achieved, possibly a little alarmed at the con- 
 struction that had been put upon the criticism of his 
 Persians. He had never desired to be looked upon as 
 an iconoclast. As he afterwards says: "I am not a 
 theologian; I am a historian." If he used the knife, 
 it was rather as a kindly surgeon than as a wilful 
 shedder of blood. He took no delight in angry con- 
 troversy. "Men forget," he said, "that when I 
 represent a Turk I must make him talk and act and 
 write like a Turk." The trouble is that his Turks 
 
Montesquieu 215 
 
 talk too much like Parisians and not enough like 
 genuine Turks. Their real nationality is but ill dis- 
 guised by their flowing robes, and the laughing face 
 of the Bordeaux wine-grower is seen through their 
 foreign mask. 
 
 The Causes of the Greatness and Decline of the Romans, 
 next issued from Montesquieu's pen, would have as- 
 sured his fame had the Spirit of Laws not belittled it 
 by its own superiority. His treatise on the Romans is 
 marked by the same perseverance and research as his 
 book on the laws. He delves at the roots of history 
 to learn how from general causes events have grown. 
 He is no believer in chance; there is a philosophy of 
 history with its rules and principles, and they must be 
 studied and foimd before we can know the nature and 
 reason of things. "It is not chance that rules the 
 world," he says; "witness the Romans, who had a 
 constant succession of triumphs while they managed 
 their government on a certain plan, and an uninter- 
 rupted series of reverses when it was conducted on 
 another. There are general causes, either moral or 
 physical, at work in every monarchy, exalting, main- 
 taining, or overcoming it." Upon this theory, he has 
 examined symptoms to ascertain causes, and has, 
 with a beauty of style that well became the dignity of 
 his subject, first taught men that the records of the 
 past might be found to contain sermons as well as 
 traditions, lessons as well as facts, and materials for 
 prophecy mingled with the dust of ages. 
 
 When the Spirit of Laws appeared, the work upon 
 which his title to the admiration of posterity must de- 
 pend, he was well known to the literary world as the 
 author of the Persian Letters, but it is not clear that 
 he was much helped by the celebrity thus acquired. 
 
2i6 Montesquieu 
 
 If there is one reproach in the arsenal of Gallic de- 
 nunciation from which a man seldom recovers who 
 aspires to instruct his people, it is the suggestion that 
 he is not a serious man {un homme serieux), and many 
 thought, no doubt, that the putative father of these 
 disrespectful Persians was too witty to be serious. 
 How could he write a grave and instructive book and 
 at the same time masquerade in Persian silks to the 
 tune of Parisian music! The professor's gravity did 
 not sufficiently appear, to entitle the aspiring peda- 
 gogue to a diploma. 
 
 Although the success of the Spirit of Laws was not 
 immediate in France, it was not long in doubt. In 
 England, intelligent opinion immediately seized upon 
 the work, and received it with enthusiasm. This was 
 due in a great measure to the fact that the author had 
 been a close student and admirer of the British Con- 
 stitution, and had adopted the shortest road to the 
 British heart by the intelligent tribute to the superi- 
 ority of that vague, shadowy, and unwritten charter 
 of British liberty. 
 
 The practical genius of the English mind was 
 happily shown on this occasion. The trans-channel 
 admirers of Montesquieu must needs know something 
 about this meridional wise man, who had studied, 
 assimilated, and understood and expounded the con- 
 stitution of England as intelligently and satisfactorily 
 as though he had opened his eyes to the light at London 
 or Liverpool. Inquiry into his residence and occupa- 
 tion naturally developed the fact that the expounder 
 was not only a book-writer but a wine-grower, where- 
 upon a British logic suggested that the man who wrote 
 so excellent a book must also grow excellent wine. 
 The orders for the wine grown at La Brede flowed in 
 
Montesquieu 217 
 
 as rapidly as the orders for copies of the Spirit of 
 Laws, so that Montesquieu's frugal mind rejoiced at 
 this double success, which deHghted his pride and 
 filled his purse. "The success of my book in that 
 country," he said, "contributed to the success of my 
 wine ; but I think that the success of my wine has done 
 still more for the success of my book." Whether this 
 estimate was based on an overestimate of the bouquet 
 of the wine or an underestimate of the greatness of 
 the book, we have no means of ascertaining. The 
 fame of the La Brede brand rests wholly on tradition. 
 
 It may not be without interest here to note that 
 Montesqtiieu, though frugal and modest in his personal 
 expenditures, was at heart generous and kind. He 
 was a ready giver, but he concealed his charities as 
 though they were grievous sins. Ostentation was 
 abhorrent to his nature. His simpHcity of Hfe was 
 such as to suggest avarice, whereas it was only indiffer- 
 ence to display. He was quite conscious that he did 
 not live and dress and shine like the gaudy members 
 of his own circle, and felt that love of money for its own 
 sake would be charged against him. But he repudi- 
 ated the reproach. " I have never made any display 
 in the way of expense," he said, "but I have never 
 been avaricious. I know of no task, however easy 
 of performance, that I would have performed to earn 
 money. I have, I think, increased my store, but it 
 was rather because I flattered myself that I thereby 
 showed a certain kind of abiHty, than from any desire 
 to become rich." He could not remember to have 
 spent four louis for show, but many a gold piece 
 quietly left his purse to reHeve a needy appHcant. 
 
 One instance may be cited. An EngHsh watch- 
 maker once wrote him: "I think of hanging myself; 
 
2i8 Montesquieu 
 
 but I believe I would not do it if I had one hundred 
 crowns." To which Montesquieu immediately re- 
 plied: " I send you one hundred crowns; do not hang 
 yourself, my dear Sully, but come to see me." How 
 many English clockmakers he thus saved from volun- 
 tary strangulation we do not know; he was the last 
 man to record the number of those or of others whom 
 he rescued from despair. 
 
 That Montesquieu did think highly of his master- 
 piece we know from his own expressions. He exulted 
 with a schoolboy's delight at the completion of his 
 task, and as his weary pen traced the last words of his 
 immortal work, his memory recalled the tempest- 
 tossed companions of ^neas as they touched the 
 shores of the promised land. " Italiam, Italiam!" he 
 exclaimed. The joy of triumph and the hope of re- 
 pose combined to make this the happiest moment of 
 his life. The long labor of twenty years was ended, 
 and the prize of endless fame secured. Like the 
 Augustan poet, he felt sure that he would not wholly 
 die, for he had erected a monument more enduring 
 than brass. But the labor and anxiety were almost 
 more than he could bear. As he revised his last 
 proofs, he said: "This work has well-nigh killed me; 
 I am going to rest. I shall labor no more." He lived 
 eight years longer, but made no effort to add to his 
 fame or to his claims upon the world. 
 
 It is curious to note how Montesquieu was at first 
 alone of his immediate circle to realize and adequately 
 measure the value of the Spirit of Laws. Whether the 
 long and faithful labor of years had satisfied him that 
 he could not have thus striven in vain, or the equipoise 
 of his trained mind allowed him to judge as correctly 
 as though he were passing on the performance of a 
 
Montesquieu 219 
 
 stranger, he knew from the outset that the book 
 would win him renown. He called his intimates and 
 asked for their opinion. The critic who showed the 
 most favor kindly declared that there was enough in 
 the work to make it valuable as a note-book from 
 which material might be drawn for another treatise. 
 The sternest and possibly the most candid of the 
 critics bluntly declared that the best plan would be 
 to throw the manuscript into the fire as the safest 
 method of guarding the author's reputation from the 
 injury which it would receive from publication. But 
 he trusted to his own judgment rather than to theirs. 
 Undismayed and undisturbed by his comforters, he 
 quietly sent his work to the printer, and awaited the 
 result without anxiety. 
 
 If the Spirit of Laws escaped the blazing logs of the 
 chateau, thanks to the self-confidence of the author, 
 another work of his was less fortunate. He had 
 written a history of Louis XL, one of the most extra- 
 ordinary and complex characters in the records of the 
 French monarchy. Mr. Watson, in his Story of France, 
 says of Louis XL that he was "a great king, a thor- 
 oughly bad man, and utterly unscrupulous in method, 
 yet his life-work was upon the whole a benefit to man- 
 kind. He was crafty, deceitful, cruel, and calculating. 
 Perhaps a man may be a great king even if his char- 
 acter is made up of such ingredients. But as he did 
 exhibit them in his life, it is not to be wondered at if 
 historians, with one accord — still according to Mr. 
 Watson — "decry him as a beast unclean." The 
 estimate of a French historian of modern times prob- 
 ably comes nearer the truth. He says that Louis XL 
 was not a great king nor a good king, but still a king! 
 Our curiosity to know what so competent a judge as 
 
220 Montesquieu 
 
 Montesquieu would have held upon this point will 
 never be gratified. The carelessness of the secretary, 
 who threw into the flames the complete and priceless 
 manuscript, has inflicted a permanent injury upon 
 mankind. Our regret is only heightened by the few 
 samples that we have of the work that the world has 
 lost. Who but Montesquieu could have described 
 Richelieu in fewer words and have given a more ac- 
 curate photograph of this towering figure of French 
 history? — "Richelieu made his king play the second 
 part in the monarchy and the first in Europe ; he de- 
 graded the sovereign, but he ennobled the throne." 
 
 The necessary limits of this paper will not permit 
 even a brief attempt at analyzing the Spirit of Laws. 
 D'Alembert has made the effort, and has written many 
 and dreary pages to show what Montesquieu intended 
 to accomplish. But no author is more difficult to con- 
 dense than Montesquieu. He is a dealer in epigrams, 
 and possessed the talent to a rare degree of squeezing 
 the sap out of an idea and of crystallizing it into apt 
 and pungent words. So marked is this faculty in him 
 that one of his contemporaries. Buff on, who did not 
 err in the same direction, accounted for this concise- 
 ness by saying that it was due to the author's defective 
 vision. His eyes had failed many years before his 
 death, and he was obliged to dictate to his daughter, 
 who performed for him the same pious office that 
 Milton's children performed for their father. As his 
 memory was bad, says Buff on, he was obliged to 
 formulate in his own mind brief sentences that he was 
 able to carry while the dictation was made, and in this 
 way he became accustomed to the form of expression 
 which is predominant in his work. Buff on may be 
 right, though this compensation to short-sighted men 
 
Montesquieu 221 
 
 is not usually given. If it were, the Spirit of Laws 
 would not stand out as a shining example of a style 
 that has never, in epigrammatic excellence at least, 
 been surpassed. 
 
 The foundation of the work was the attempt to find 
 those common principles and emotions which, oper- 
 ating upon men of every climate and degree of civiliza- 
 tion, produce certain results. He was satisfied that 
 those principles existed, and if found, would afford a 
 scientific explanation of what without their aid would 
 seem too chaotic and inexplicable. Or, to come nearer 
 to his own language, he rejoiced to find in " the nature 
 of things" the explanation of so many different laws 
 and customs. He was often discouraged and dis- 
 mayed at what he termed " the majesty of his subject." 
 Time and again he flung away the unfinished page, and 
 turned his back in despair upon his herculean task. 
 But his courage and the philosophy of his tempera- 
 ment never yielded long to debilitating influences. 
 He resumed his labors and continued them until he 
 was able to say, like Correggio, " I, too, am a painter! " 
 
 Montesquieu has been spoken of, and was no doubt 
 considered in his day by many, as a reformer. And yet 
 the reforming spirit in him was so mild as to be almost 
 innocuous. He did condemn the Inquisition — but 
 who did not even then shrink in horror from that 
 awful and mysterious tribunal? He advocated the 
 abolition of torture — who would restore it to-day? 
 He was supposed to be a champion of religious tolera- 
 tion, but went no farther in his anxiety to give the 
 benefits of generous forbearance to dissenters than the 
 restoration of the Edict of Nantes. Yet that edict 
 gave no equality, only faint-hearted toleration, to the 
 men who believed in the same religious doctrines once 
 
222 Montesquieu 
 
 held by the king who formulated the edict (assuming 
 that Henry IV. ever entertained any fixed belief on 
 religion). Montesquieu was not an advocate of what 
 to-day we consider the elementary rights of conscience. 
 He was willing that the Huguenots should be per- 
 mitted, with definite restrictions, to practise their own 
 religious rites, but he was not in favor of admitting 
 new beliefs to disturb the state and complicate the 
 machinery of political society. In other words, if he 
 was in advance of his day in these matters, his con- 
 servatism so dominated his theories of reform that 
 before the eighteenth century had ended he had long 
 been outstripped in the race for toleration by the 
 majority of his people. 
 
 The pecuharities of his style have been criticised, 
 and affectation imputed with scant justice. His 
 methods were certainly unusual; his brusque transi- 
 tions, the sudden breaks in the continuity of an argu- 
 ment, the dramatic outburst taking the place of a 
 formal conclusion, astonish the modern reader by 
 their unaccustomed and unexpected appearance. But 
 they fulfilled their object, for they captivated the at- 
 tention as they stimulated the curiosity of the reader. 
 He sought to be read not only by the scholars and 
 purists of the day, but by the many brilliant if frivolous 
 people who dabbled in letters and only dreaded one 
 thing in a book — to wit, being bored. The deadly sin 
 of a writer was to fail in making the attention of the 
 reader a prisoner, willing or unwilling. The solid gold 
 of learning and wisdom was not enough; the artist's 
 skill must call attention to the value of the metal so 
 that the taste might be charmed while the mind was 
 satisfied. There must be for the reader of the day 
 frequent halting-places where he might stop and get 
 
Montesquieu 223 
 
 his breath. He was not ahvays able to keep his mind 
 stretched on the rack of continuous attention; he 
 must be allowed at times to turn a corner abruptly 
 and catch a new view of men or things. 
 
 A few among the countless instances of Montes- 
 quieu's skill in cheating the sluggard and decoying the 
 unwary will illustrate the novelty, the charm, and the 
 effect produced by this accomplished artist. Who 
 would not prefer an aphorism to a sermon, if the 
 former conveyed all the instruction of the latter? As 
 he himself has said: "It is not enough to make one 
 read, he must be made to think." His chapter on the 
 "Idea of Despotism" contains exactly three lines. 
 Here it is : 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. (book v) . 
 
 Idea of Despotism 
 
 When the savages of Louisiana want fruit, they cut the 
 tree at the root and pluck the fruit. This is despotic 
 government. 
 
 His chapter on "Torture," of which he was a con- 
 stant and earnest adversary, closes thus : 
 
 So many illustrious writers have denounced this prac- 
 tice that I dare not speak after them. I was going to say 
 that it might be adapted to despotic governments, where 
 everything that produces fear enters into the government 
 policy; I was going to say that the slaves in Greece and 
 Rome . . . But I hear the voice of nature crying out 
 against me. 
 
 His definition of taxation has become classical, per- 
 haps commonplace: "Each citizen contributes to the 
 revenues of the state a portion of his property in order 
 that his tenure of the rest may be secure." 
 
224 Montesquieu 
 
 His objection to severe punishment for trivial 
 offences: "If we examine the cause of aU defiance of 
 the law, we shall see that it is to be found in the 
 failure to punish crime, not in the moderation of the 
 penalty." 
 
 He explains the unpopularity of the English by say- 
 ing that their arrogance is such that even in peace 
 "they seem to negotiate with none but enemies." 
 But of course this was much more than one century ago. 
 The proper limit of conquest: "There is a natural 
 limit to conquest, namely, the power of assimilation.'' 
 
 Of liberty he says: "Liberty consists in the ability 
 to do what one ought to desire and not being forced to 
 do what one ought not to desire." 
 
 Of poverty: "A man is not poor because he has 
 nothing, but because he does not work." 
 
 To multiply extracts would swell a modest preface 
 into a volume; the temptation to pursue so easy a 
 task must be resisted. 
 
 The close of his Hfe was marked by the same kindly 
 and gentle philosophy that he had exhibited from the 
 beginning. He appears to have been a devout and 
 consistent Christian, although making but few pro- 
 fessions and preferring to lock up in his own heart the 
 sentiments that he entertained on the most important 
 problems that can occupy the mind of man. He was 
 not only a beUever in, but a great admirer of, the 
 morality of the Gospel. He declared that he could 
 not share the humility of the atheists, but preferred to 
 believe that his soul was immortal and that he him- 
 self was not perishable like the beasts of the field. 
 When death was imminent, he looked it in the face 
 without bravado and without fear. He performed 
 the religious duties required by his Church with 
 
Montesquieu 225 
 
 decorous solemnity. His spiritual adviser said, as the 
 end was approaching: " No man, better than you, sir, 
 can realize the greatness of God." "No one," he 
 replied, "knows better the littleness of man." 
 
 Much and lavish praise waited upon the Spirit of 
 Laws, but the tribute paid by Voltaire during Montes- 
 quieu's own lifetime is the one which best expresses in 
 fewest words the opinion of his admirers. It is all the 
 more precious because Voltaire never loved him, and 
 he himself was never reckoned among Voltaire's 
 friends: "The himian family had lost its title-deeds — 
 Montesquieu found them and restored them to their 
 owner." 
 
IN MEMORIAM — HON. MORRISON R. WAITE 
 
 31 March, 1888 
 
 JUSTICE is the great concern of mankind, said Ed- 
 mund Burke. A recognition of this truth 
 brings us here together to-day to testify our 
 reverence for our deceased and honored brother, for 
 he represented in his person and in his office, more 
 than any other man of our nation, that justice which, 
 working the salvation of our people by regular and 
 decorous methods of adjustment, is intolerant of 
 "violence, oppression, and sword-law." 
 
 What greater homage to the majesty of justice and 
 the supremacy of law does the history of any nation 
 present than the spectacle of which this reunion is but 
 a fractional part — a great nation of sixty millions 
 following to his grave this plain citizen whose only 
 title to distinction was, and is, that he faithfully per- 
 formed the duties of his station. But that station is 
 so exalted, so noble, that office signified so much, that 
 when of its incumbent it may be truly said that he 
 has worthily fulfilled his trust, all the honors paid are 
 well earned, and the epitaph may be written in a line. 
 
 It was the privilege of our honored brother to form 
 part of and preside over a court which is unique in the 
 history of civilized nations. Those who fondly look 
 226 
 
Hon. Morrison R. Waite 227 
 
 for something of divine inspiration in the written con- 
 stitution that first moulded, directed, and welded to- 
 gether the members of this young and struggling 
 republic, must find material for encouraging specula- 
 tion in the few lines that created this tribunal. To its 
 hands have been committed interests that never had 
 been, and nowhere this day are, entrusted to the de- 
 cision of plainly clad and unarmed men. Not only 
 does this body possess the rare power to sit in judg- 
 ment on legislators, the direct creation and mouth- 
 piece of powerful communities, not only may these 
 few judges by their fiat annul the most carefully con- 
 trived plans of lawmakers, and paralyze their action, 
 but they may summon before their bar sovereign 
 States — the municipal representations of organized 
 millions — to hear the exposition of their duties, to be 
 warned as to the limits of their power, to be instructed 
 as to their rights and proper functions, to learn the 
 part that they must perform in the family of States 
 to which they belong. States rich, prosperous, and 
 jealous of their sovereignty must bow in submission 
 to a civilian's voice, and yield their preference, their 
 pride, their jealousies, to the only power that they dare 
 not defy. What a lesson, what a keen vision of the 
 future and its growing needs, what a giant stride in 
 the path of peace and law, the creation of this body 
 teaches, exhibits, and illustrates! The struggling and 
 tottering States of a century since have grown into 
 three times their mmiber, and into such wealth and 
 power that comparisons and statistics can scarcely 
 keep pace with the reality. The sixty millions of 
 yesterday promise to be one hundred before this dying 
 century has ripened into another; schemes of ag- 
 grandizement, of policy, of finance, of expansion, of 
 
228 Hon. Morrison R. Waite 
 
 admission, of exclusion, rise, grow, clash, succeed, or 
 fail, but all these millions feel and know that whatever 
 peril may threaten our nation, whatever ills may fly 
 from the scarcely opened box that contains the secrets 
 of our future destinies, no fatal harm can befall us so 
 long as that small body of men, sitting in that quiet 
 court-room in the Capitol, retains its power and com- 
 mands respect. The sovereign State that appears as 
 a suitor before that court knows that it has abdicated 
 the one power that men most sedulously guard, the 
 power to redress fancied wrongs by prompt violence. 
 The surrender of this right, more than aught else in our 
 scheme of government, marks our Constitution as the 
 wisest device that ever sprang from human minds. 
 A fatal hour did come when the compact was broken 
 and the voice of the law was drowned in the clamor of 
 battle, but the day has gone by when mad rebellion 
 against the law finds a friend or an advocate, and those 
 who love their country may, like the Roman poet, as 
 he touched upon a like passage in the history of his 
 people, turn away and cry out that it grieves and 
 shames us to think of scars and crime, and of brothers 
 — and of altars overturned and dishonored. 
 
 Of such a court the departed judge was the honored 
 chief. The chief magistrate of the nation, the states- 
 men and lawmakers, the judges and the bar, all 
 joined to honor him and to mourn his departure from 
 his accustomed places. The highest qualities of the 
 true judge were his: the native integrity which had 
 grown into the very life; the anxious desire to do 
 right; the kindly heart that was ever ready to miti- 
 gate, never to aggravate, the harshness of the law; 
 the unaffected exhibition of a genuine manhood, great 
 enough to rely upon itself, too great to seek for tributes 
 
Hon. Morrison R. Waite 
 
 229 
 
 of admiration or homage not fairly earned. Just, 
 true, gentle, kindly, clear in thought and clear in 
 speech, faithful in his intentions and useful in his life, 
 he has earned the honor that we now pay him. He 
 has deserved — and this crowns the glory of his life — 
 to be named as one of an illustrious line of public 
 servants. He may, as they have done, safely trust 
 his memory to his people. 
 
XI 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 IT was once said, with little exaggeration, that when 
 France had a cold in her head, the rest of Europe 
 sneezed, — an epigrammatic tribute, I take it, to 
 her genius, her power, and, perhaps, her restlessness: 
 or rather to that overflowing activity of life that would 
 not be restrained by narrow geographical or political 
 limitations, but must look abroad for moral and some- 
 times physical conquests to satisfy the cravings of ex- 
 uberant health. No disease could touch her that did 
 not move the world to ready and sympathetic imrest. 
 How could it be else? Was she not the mother of 
 civilization, the queen of the arts, the champion of 
 every great and generous cause? The tramp of her 
 victorious armies had been heard with almost weari- 
 some monotony on every battle-field of Europe from 
 Charlemagne to Saint Louis; from Saint Louis to 
 Louis XIV. ; from Louis XIV. to Napoleon. What a 
 record of heroism! what a catalogue of heroes! And 
 as she pursued her career of moral and physical 
 triumphs she effaced the traces of war with the same 
 hand that smote ; for she sowed the seed of a glorious 
 
 > Response to the Toast, "The President of the French Republic," 
 at the dinner to Whitelaw Reid on his return from France, April 
 i6, 1892. 
 
 230 
 
France 231 
 
 democracy while her philosophers, scientists, and lit- 
 erary men prepared the way for the brotherhood of 
 nations. Who can gainsay her title to the gratitude 
 of mankind? I need not rehearse her claims nor 
 produce her witnesses before an American tribunal. 
 Her blood, her treasure, her sympathy — she spent all 
 that she had to make American liberty her debtor. 
 Your honored guest will tell you that the tenderness 
 that she once lavished on America she has never taken 
 back. Whether or not that love has been fully or 
 constantly requited, whether in the dark hours of 
 desolation, when she wept in sackcloth and ashes and 
 refused to be comforted because her children were not ; 
 whether in the time of himiiHation her brethren of 
 America heard her voice and wiped her tears, why 
 should we ask? She never did. Her trust and affec- 
 tion were always as of old. Whatever else she might 
 question she could not doubt that those who honored 
 Washington would mourn with the bereaved country- 
 men of Lafayette. She comforted her bruised heart, 
 in sore defeat, by remembering the trials and sufferings 
 that culminated in the common glory of Yorktown. 
 So long as fortune could not obliterate the records of 
 the past, the jewel of American love and sympathy 
 must be hers forever. And then, while still weak from 
 loss of blood and soiled with the dust of defeat, she 
 raised the torch of Liberty, and, waving it that the 
 world might be gladdened by its rays, she called 
 America to witness that there was a new bond between 
 the two nations. Thus did she consecrate the old 
 allegiance by a gift embodying the glories and triiimphs 
 of the past, the union of the present, and the aspira- 
 tions of the future. 
 
 The president of the French republic! What a 
 
232 France 
 
 title, what an opportunity, what a burden! To direct 
 the destinies of the nation that knew Richelieu and 
 Henry IV., Louis XIV. and Napoleon; to be the fore- 
 most man in a nation of thirty-six million gallant 
 people, to represent before the world her rights; to be 
 responsible for the performance of her duties; to see 
 that no detriment shall befall the young republic that 
 has fallen heir to such priceless treasures! This is no 
 light task. He must remain faithful to sacred mem- 
 ories and march to the music of a brilliant future. He 
 must be the pioneer of the people in the emancipation 
 of thought and the development of freedom. He will, 
 if faithful to his trust and equal to its performance, 
 justify great expectations and fulfil great prophecies. 
 A heavy task, this, to fall on one man's shoulders! The 
 republican president who lives in Paris, and the re- 
 publican president who lives in Washington, with one 
 hundred million people behind them, are the real 
 representatives of the new civilization. To them is 
 committed the standard of all that is best in modern 
 progress. 
 
 The president of the French republic bears a name 
 well fitted to commend him to his people's affections. 
 In the battle for freedom that began a century ago the 
 great Carnot was at his post and faithful to his duty. 
 History reports his unflinching fidelity to republican 
 principles as one of his claims to the gratitude of 
 posterity, but history clothes him with a far stronger 
 title to posthumous veneration. He was a republican, 
 it is true, but, first and always, he was a patriot. The 
 love of country was stronger than the love of party or 
 the scruple of consistency. We, who have heard the 
 echo of Washington's voice warning us against the 
 destructive potency of party spirit as the danger most 
 
France 233 
 
 likely to disrupt our union, may uncover in reverent 
 homage to the Carnot of the French republic, the 
 organizer of victory. It was the same Carnot who 
 dropped and brushed aside his personal preferences to 
 join hands in patriotic forgetfulness of self with the 
 tottering Napoleon of 1814. For that Napoleon, what- 
 ever the blemishes upon his matchless genius, then in- 
 carnated in his person, though his star was on the wane, 
 the traditions, the honor, the patriotism of France. 
 It was no time for ponderous Senates to discuss nice 
 questions of constitutional law, nor to dilate in sonor- 
 ous periods upon the abstract blessings of civil liberty. 
 The enemy were thundering at the gates, the soil was 
 trodden and polluted by the invader, the grim warriors 
 of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Moscow were doing their 
 heroic duty, but melting away before the swarms of 
 their united enemies. Then the patriot Carnot has- 
 tened to the side of the lion at bay, and urged his 
 countrymen to forget all things except the insulted 
 land of their fathers. "Ah, Carnot," said the em- 
 peror, " I have known you too late!" And yet, when 
 he was the manufacturer of royalty and the master of 
 a continent, he had said to this same Carnot: "You 
 may have all that you want, as you want, and w^hen 
 you want." But the stern republican was not then 
 bound to yield allegiance to the man who had brushed 
 aside the republic. The hour came with the nation's 
 humiliation, and he only proffered his service when 
 it could not be rewarded. Well might the German 
 Niebuhr, glowing with admiration at this heroic and 
 patriotic citizen's deeds, declare: " If all that I had in 
 the world were a crust of bread, I should be proud to 
 share it with Carnot." 
 
 And now the grandson is the chief magistrate of the 
 
234 France 
 
 nation that Napoleon ruled and covered with renown. 
 Is he worthy of this conspicuous honor, and may we 
 hope that his hands will hold up the dignity and pros- 
 perity of his people? The years of his probation have 
 answered the question. It has been the rare good 
 fortune of the repubhc to find among her citizens a man 
 who knew how to fill this exalted part. Happy the 
 people who possess the man required for their emer- 
 gency! happier still the people who esteem him at his 
 worth and honor him accordingly! Party differences 
 are subdued and silent when he challenges judgment. 
 The people know him and repel partisan criticism of 
 their faithful servant. For such he is, and such they 
 know him to be. No craving for a wider sphere of 
 uncontrolled action, no selfish hope of personal ag- 
 grandizement, have ever marred his conduct or dimmed 
 his fame. He has learned, perhaps from the traditions 
 of his household, that the first citizen of France is 
 simply the most honored servant of the people; that 
 the duty of a president is to execute the laws, not to 
 make them; that the function of his office is to en- 
 Hghten the nation, not to endanger its peace or to 
 destroy the liberties of his people. The president of 
 the French republic is the pedagogue of Europe; his 
 chair is a pulpit whence he is to teach that Liberty 
 means Hght ; that she carries the book and pen where 
 she may, the sword only where she must; that his 
 first duty is to teach obedience to the law by prac- 
 tising it ; to accept, not to dictate ; to be vigilant and 
 true and honest and brave in his allegiance to the 
 sovereign, for the law is his master, even when he 
 reviews one hundred thousand men. 
 
 Truisms these things seem to us. A successor of 
 President Washington who would dream of usurping 
 
France 235 
 
 the power confided to his hands, and of placing himself 
 above the laws, could hardly hope for anything more 
 serious from an American audience than to be hissed 
 off the stage. More probably a continent would 
 shake with laughter, and a performance intended to 
 be dramatic would end in burlesque. The American 
 people are not without a sense of humor, though it is 
 often inadequately expressed. There are springs in 
 their intellectual make-up that may be touched with 
 effect, and they would rise to all the requirements of a 
 mirth-provoking situation if any citizen, whether in 
 the White House or out of it, should act upon the 
 theory that he was indispensable to the welfare of the 
 nation. The savior of society has no place here. He 
 is not classed among our vertebrate animals, and the 
 popular diagnosis would at once recognize the presence 
 of mental disease. Hellebore was the reputed cure in 
 the old Roman days; the strait- jacket or mild con- 
 finement is the more modem method. But we have 
 not ten millions of armed men in our close proximity, 
 most of whom may, in the chances of diplomacy or 
 accident, be our enemies to-morrow. The waves and 
 fogs and storms of the Atlantic are the steady and in- 
 expensive bulwarks to our main frontier, and as to 
 other possible foes — but we have none. 
 
 Not so, however, in the old land of France. The 
 man on horseback still lives in legend and tradition. 
 He has done great things in days gone by, and may, 
 perhaps, forget that he is no longer a factor in the 
 peaceful destinies of the country. One thousand 
 years of unremitting activity have surely earned the 
 right to repose. Glory may have its uses, but glory 
 palls in time upon the taste, and its music loses all 
 charm for modem ears. France wants a leader who 
 
236 France 
 
 will tap the boundless resources of her genius for the 
 pursuits of peace. He must insist that she shall freely 
 extend the new domain that she has chosen for herself. 
 True, a shadow is still on the wall, and the day may 
 come when her children shall be summoned again to 
 try the cruel chances of war. But should the fated 
 day come — which may Heaven avert ! — she will remem- 
 ber that of her fathers, the Gauls, it was said by their 
 Roman foes that they did not fear funerals. This is 
 a sombre theme, and we all prefer to watch her growth 
 in the field of her own selection, the arts and sciences 
 and literature, that adorn and delight and bless our 
 race. 
 
 Honor, then, to this, her chief magistrate ! May he 
 succeed in his mission of peace! The experiment of 
 free government is being made by a nation under 
 whose soil lie sleeping fifty generations of men. They 
 were born and bred under a system that made one 
 man better, by accident of birth, than all other men ; 
 what wonder if she has not, at one bound, mastered 
 the excellences of a wholly different scheme! The 
 habits of a nation may not be shaken off in a day. 
 Nor, on the other hand, must we forget that democracy 
 and republicanism are not convertible terms. France 
 has been for a century the most democratic of nations. 
 As one of our own great leaders of thought once said : 
 "True democracy does not consist in saying, I am as 
 good as you, but rather in saying, You are as good as 
 I." She knows this lesson by heart. True republican- 
 ism consists in obeying equal laws with ready and 
 cheerful alacrity. Why should not the young republic 
 live up to this simple canon of republican conduct? 
 Adversity has bowed the head of her people in hu- 
 miliation and sorrow. It were idle to deny that old 
 
France 237 
 
 wounds are not quite healed, or that retrospection is 
 unmixed with bitterness. But the nation has turned 
 its face to the light of a new dawn. Another genera- 
 tion is coming forward that will be slow to abandon 
 the fruits of their fathers' trials, and will readily be 
 taught that liberty is better than servitude ; that it is 
 better to be a citizen than a subject; that to serve 
 one's country is better than to serve a king. We, of 
 America, may be pardoned if we rejoice in that belief 
 and exult in our possession. May we not hope that 
 the old nation who was our friend when we sorely 
 needed friends may join hands with us, not for sel- 
 fish purposes and selfish aggrandizement, but for the 
 benefit of the human race? Made up as we are of so 
 composite a texture, representing every nation of the 
 world, because each one contributed from its best 
 citizens to our prosperity, we may truly say that 
 nothing that interests mankind is foreign to us. 
 
 And in drinking the health of the honored president 
 of the French republic we will, with grateful recollec- 
 tions and renewed affection, pledge the fair land that 
 still lives in undiminished brilliancy to instruct and 
 charm the world. 
 
XII 
 
 FRANCE 1 
 
 THE fact — or assumed fact — that the gentlemen 
 for whose especial benefit and edification I 
 am called upon to speak will probably not 
 understand one word of what I shall say gives me 
 renewed and cheerful confidence. Their traditional 
 courtesy will enable them to stand the severest test of 
 protracted addresses without betraying anything but 
 ill-suppressed delight, while the tried courage of their 
 race will not permit them to flee from occasions of 
 hardship and peril. It is not, we all know, their practice 
 to turn their backs on friend or foe. 
 
 I am pleased, too, that they shall not be able to treat 
 my expressions of laudation and gratitude as strained 
 and conventional expressions finding here a suitable 
 stage for display, but let me tell them in all sincerity — 
 and this, at least, I wish that they may understand — 
 that hyperbole ceases to be itself when American 
 citizens seek to express their grateful recollection of 
 French aid, French sympathy, and French generosity. 
 Our guests, as the benefactors, might think us ex- 
 travagant of speech when we recall the dark days 
 which their fathers turned into sunshine, but we who 
 
 » Address to the French Delegates, on presentation of the statue 
 of " Liberty Enlightening the World," June, 1885. 
 
 238 
 
France 239 
 
 have harvested and now enjoy the fruits of the seed 
 sown by them would indeed be cold of heart if we 
 measured the words that recalled their deeds in our 
 behalf. 
 
 The splendid gift which these gentlemen have 
 carried from their own soil to find a home in our bay 
 is not the gift of a king or an emperor or any govern- 
 ment whatever. It is not the fashion of political 
 bodies to manifest international regard by costly 
 presents. Many inconveniences might attend such a 
 practice if adopted — not the least, perhaps, the neces- 
 sity of reciprocity. Besides this, the lesson of the 
 Trojan horse is not without its value. We may well 
 hesitate to become the recipients of favors which 
 might imply too much. But the spontaneous offering 
 of a people, — and of the only people who stood the 
 sponsors of the infant nation that needed help as no 
 nation ever did before, — this may well be accepted as 
 a symptom of the same affection that approved itself 
 so long, so well, so often. 
 
 This bronze memento, out of which so many far- 
 reaching guns might have been made, typifies and 
 perpetuates the common aspirations of two great 
 nations, and symboHzes the hope that not only they 
 and their children shall see and Hve in the Hght of 
 liberty's torch, but that all nations and all people 
 shall be warmed and made happy by its rays. For 
 the instinct and spirit of Hberty is not one of caste, nor 
 of sect, nor of narrow limitations. It embraces the 
 universe with a bond of brotherhood that throws its 
 girdle around the earth as the magnetic wire that daily 
 draws the nations into closer and more fraternal con- 
 tact. But for this broad and all-embracing charity 
 the voice of stiffering America would never have reached 
 
240 France 
 
 the heart of France, and Freedom's knight-errants 
 would never have ventured their all in a quarrel not 
 their own. 
 
 As their pioneer Lafayette described it: "As soon 
 as I heard of American independence my heart was 
 enlisted." 
 
 This was the sentiment of that brilHant and gallant 
 Court which was soon to be scattered, ruined, and 
 destroyed. Even the kind-hearted king shared the 
 common madness, for in him and in them it was a sub- 
 lime folly that only hastened the impending and fatal 
 doom. There was much truth in the comment of one 
 of the members of the royal family, that Louis XVI. 
 signed his death-warrant the day that he signed a 
 treaty with the United States. But be this as it may, 
 the cause of American independence must have ex- 
 ercised a strange fascination on the hearts of men, 
 especially of that gifted people — when royalty herself 
 paused to listen to the charmed accents of the Circe 
 Liberty on the very verge of destruction. 
 
 An occasion hke the present is pecuHarly fitting for 
 a retrospective view of our relations with the people 
 who now come to us with a new link to add to the old 
 chain. We are, and pride ourselves on being, a practical 
 people — not given to sentiment, slow to emotional acts, 
 governed by reason, and apt to sneer at the ostenta- 
 tious display of Latin effervescence. In point of fact, 
 I take it that no people are more susceptible to these 
 very influences than our people — none more ready to 
 act on prompt impulses, none better able to act in har- 
 mony with genuine sentiment that strikes a correspond- 
 ing chord in their breast. And if no people other than 
 the French would or could have designed and carried 
 out without public patronage or pubHc moneys this 
 
France 241 
 
 sentimental idea of perpetuating in imperishable 
 bronze the common glory of two great nations — none 
 I think, could more readily respond to such a suggestion 
 than our own. 
 
 I have said that this was a popular, not a political 
 offering. The report of the original committee shows 
 how earnest the promoters of this great scheme were 
 that its true character should not be misunderstood. 
 They spoke in the name of 181 towns, all of them 
 represented by their municipal authorities; of forty 
 general councils of departments, of ten chambers of 
 commerce, and of one hundred thousand individual 
 subscribers. Were they not right when they said, 
 "The people of the United States will understand the 
 feeling which has inspired this great manifestation"? 
 And we on our side can show that the popular pulse 
 did respond ; one single newspaper of New York en- 
 listed upwards of seventy thousand subscribers to co- 
 operate in the work. We, too, will soon have our one 
 hundred thousand stockholders in this great enterprise 
 which will pay its dividends, let us hope, for ages to 
 come, to all who give this cause their sympathy. 
 
 It may perhaps be suggested that the fact that 
 France lavished her favors on the American people 
 in the past does not explain her present action. Logic- 
 ally — the objector may say — America should send 
 bronze statues to France, not France to America. We 
 never sent armed men to her aid when all Europe was 
 banded against her. While her land was overrun, and 
 German, Russian, English armies swept over her 
 fields and towns, leaving a track of ruin behind them, 
 only French blood was shed in her behalf. Our ships 
 did not go down with French ships at Trafalgar — our 
 treasure did not melt away in the fiery furnace of 
 
242 France 
 
 French tribulation and German triumph. If we are 
 paying taxes to support our credit and diminish our 
 debt, no part of that debt was incurred to save French 
 interests or French territory. True — but he knows 
 little of the hidden springs that control human action 
 who does not know that there is no gratitude Hke that 
 which is felt by the benefactor. It is far easier to 
 forget the favors that we have received than those that 
 we have conferred. That pattern of shrewd worldly 
 wisdom, Benjamin FrankUn, ingenuously tells us that 
 when he wanted to secure the good will of influential 
 men, he always sought to place himself under some 
 sHght obHgation : he borrowed (and returned) a book, 
 or asked some small service. The obligation incurred 
 was never heavy enough to trouble him, but it always 
 encouraged the other party to renewed bounty. The 
 habit of generosity is apt to grow with exercise, and it 
 is precisely because France was the friend and loyal 
 ally of America upwards of a century ago, that she is 
 now ready, and always has been, to testify the warmth 
 and fidelity of her attachment. And if there ever has 
 been at any time, on the face of our friendship, coldness 
 or estrangement, or the appearance of it, such a change 
 has never been exhibited by France. At all times, 
 under all circumstances, whether we were prosperous 
 or depressed, at peace or at war, her sentiments have 
 never varied, and her citizens, even those most de- 
 votedly attached to their own country, never deemed 
 it heresy to that country if they knelt and wor- 
 shipped at the shrine of American independence. 
 Jealous as France has been of the undivided allegiance 
 of her people, she has never prohibited this devotion 
 to another divinity. In our civil war the popular 
 sentiment was as true as the magnetic needle to the 
 
France 243 
 
 north star, and men of royal blood did not hesitate to 
 don American uniforms and risk their lives on battle- 
 fields long familiar to their own citizens. We are now 
 great enough in population and wealth and influence 
 to fear no nation of the world, but tho' we may have 
 no further need of it, we may rest assured that the 
 same sentiment is still deeply imbedded in the French 
 heart. No evil can touch us that will not leave a scar 
 in France. If she was ready to take upon herself such 
 enormous burdens, to encounter such risks for an 
 abstract cause, before one century's friendship had 
 cemented the two nations into unity of views and as- 
 pirations on so many subjects, how must it be now? 
 That the feeling has not grown cold and that the 
 ancient nation has preserved the old tradition let this 
 monument forever testify. 
 
 But it is not only as a memento of common efforts 
 ending in a common triumph that this monument is 
 to stand. Even without this or any other palpable 
 evidence to bring back the past, we have in history 
 and in tradition monuments more enduring than 
 brass. We must forget the birth of American inde- 
 pendence, and strike out all the record of its cost in 
 blood and treasure and hardship, before the memory 
 of these things can fade away. Those were no light 
 trials that could shake the soul of George Washington 
 — those were no small perils that could make him 
 doubt the final success of his and his country's cause. 
 If I were called upon to pick out from the mass of 
 concurring testimony proof of the priceless value of 
 French aid to the American colonies, I should go to 
 that dark and dreary winter at Valley Forge, when 
 even the stoutest hearts were despondent. All that 
 makes victory possible was absent except courage and 
 
244 France 
 
 faith, and they were fast faiUng before the cruel blows 
 of adverse fortune. What must other men have 
 thought of the future and its promises, when Wash- 
 ington, from the midst of his shivering, half -clad, and 
 half-fed followers, wrote this: " Unless some great and 
 capital change takes place the army must be inevitably 
 reduced to one or other of three things, — starve, dis- 
 solve, or disperse "? 
 
 Only a miracle could save the cause! Who would 
 help the struggling band of enthusiasts that had 
 nothing to offer as a reward for the aid which they 
 prayed for? Was it not against all history and ex- 
 perience that the vanquished cause should so com- 
 mend itself to the world that troops, and money, and 
 friends, and sympathy from strangers — strangers in 
 blood, in tastes, in language— should be provided as 
 though a rich return were sure to follow? It all came, 
 and, strangely enough, the prime mover in the battle 
 against monarchy was a king, the volunteers in the 
 people's fight were nobles, the treasury that made 
 success possible came from a well-nigh bankrupt 
 state! If logic had had a voice in French councils, 
 and French sentiment had not guided French action, 
 Lafayette would have stayed at home, Louis XVI. 
 would have closed his royal ear to these earnest ap- 
 peals, French gold would have remained in French 
 hands, and the galaxy of bright, brave, loyal, chival- 
 rous marquises, dukes, and counts would never have 
 fought, flirted, suffered, danced, and — died on Amer- 
 ican soil. And what people other than they would 
 have ignored the common-sense view of the case? I 
 have my misgivings that even now, when we look at 
 it quietly, we are inclined to shake our heads with 
 retrospective wisdom, and while admitting that once 
 
France 245 
 
 in a while such things may be done, yet they are not 
 to be repeated, and our people should be warned 
 against so dangerous an example. Let each nation 
 fight out its own destiny, and work out its own will. 
 The path before us is clear : strict neutrahty and our 
 best wishes for the right. But France, to her great 
 cost, has not, or had not then, been taught the lesson. 
 The American colonies have not been alone to incur a 
 debt to France, which no coin can repay, for it has 
 always been her effort " to hitch her wagon to a star"! 
 The world has profited, even if she has lost. 
 
 I repeat, then, that there is something besides a 
 memento in this. There is a lesson for all of us, one 
 that may be read by the thousands who shall first set 
 their eyes upon this our statue. It will typify the 
 part which liberty, with wise limitations, is learning to 
 play in the world. This torch, whose radiant Hght 
 will glorify our bay, will represent the real light of 
 liberty as it relieves mankind from the darkness of un- 
 controlled authority. Liberty is to the political world 
 as the sunshine and the air are to the sickroom, the 
 hospital, the abodes of physical and moral wretched- 
 ness and misery. How many problems in the hygiene 
 of politics as of science, hght and liberty will solve! 
 Let the light in upon all subjects, upon and into the 
 nooks, and corners, and byways of the world. The 
 scourge and the executioner are but poor guides and 
 poor physicians for the great and suffering masses. 
 Let the hght of a free press and free speech pour its 
 radiance into the dark recesses never reached by such 
 agencies before. Teach men before you punish them 
 — enhghten them as to their duties while you point 
 out their rights — show the world, as we are trying to 
 do, that the only panacea for the ills that human 
 
246 
 
 France 
 
 society has been groaning under and fighting against 
 during all these centuries is Liberty — Liberty, the 
 friend of morality, of virtue, of truth, of honor, of 
 learning — Liberty, the foe of oppression, of violence, 
 of murder, of cowardice — Liberty, which takes nothing 
 from man and gives him all, even a remedy for the ills 
 which a constantly changing and restless society will 
 ever generate. This let us all hope. And if our great 
 statue will preach this lesson for ages to come in our 
 own peerless bay, we will bless it and love it for the 
 givers' sake and for its own! 
 
MORALS AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 247 
 
XIII 
 
 LE DIVORCE 
 
 REPONSE A M. DUMAS. 
 
 "Quelques auteurs traitent la morale comme on traite la 
 nouvelle architecture, ou Ton cherche avant toutes choses la 
 commodity." — Vauvenargues 
 
 Alexandre Dumas fils. 
 Monsieur: 
 
 VOUS etes un homme de beaucoup d'esprit. 
 Pardonnez-moi cette fagon un peu brusque 
 de VOUS presenter I'encensoir, mais je suis 
 presse, car j'ai beaucoup de choses a vous dire. Si je 
 parlais de M. Dumas fils a tout autre qu'a vous meme, 
 I'observation que je fais en debutant, serait fort 
 inutile, sinon ridicule. Mon interlocuteur, pourvu 
 qu'il silt lire, hausserait les epaules et me demanderait 
 si je me moque de lui. Vous etes done le seul auquel 
 je puisse m'adresser de la sorte, parcequ'il est possible 
 que vous soyez ignorant du fait, patent pour le reste 
 du monde, que vous etes doue de beaucoup d'esprit. 
 Je soupgonne bien que le Diable dont vous vous vantez 
 de posseder I'amitie, a d1i vous dire cela et d'autres 
 choses encore, mais peut-etre ne I'avez vous pas cm. 
 Dans ce cas, soyez completement rassure; personne 
 ne doute que vous ne soyez un des hommes les plus 
 spirituels de la France, et par suite, de I'univers. 
 249 
 
250 Le Divorce 
 
 Si je vous parlais d'un autre que de vous meme, 
 vous me demanderiez sans doute ou je puise mon 
 autorite et qui m'a fait juge en pareille matiere. Mais 
 vous ne me ferez pas cette question, car je parle de 
 vous, et I'homme, pour son esprit, est un peu comme 
 la femme pour sa beaute. La louange n'a pas besoin 
 de pieces a I'appui; le jugement de Paris n'a pas 
 besoin de considerants. 
 
 Je viens de lire votre livre sur le divorce. Je ne 
 pretendrai pas qu'en entreprenant la lecture de cet 
 ouvrage, j'aie ete attire par le titre, ni que le sujet 
 possedat pour moi un attrait particulier; c'est sim- 
 plement parceque ces pages etaient signees de vous et 
 que depuis bien des annees j'ai contracte 1' habitude 
 de vous lire. Je ne m'en fais pas gloire, tant s'en faut, 
 et vos francs aveux de la part qu'a eu le Diable dans 
 la production de vos oeuvres me fait soupgonner que 
 j'aurais peut-etre mieux employe mon temps a autre 
 chose. Mais vous avez une fagon h vous d'eblouir les 
 gens et quand votre "Diable" parait en scene, ce qui 
 par parenthese n'est pas rare, il est mis avec tant de 
 go<it, il est si joli gargon, si parfume, il s'exprime avec 
 tant d'elegance, que Ton ne voit plus ses doigts crochus 
 ni ses pieds fourchus; I'odeur de soufre que tout 
 diable qui se respecte doit exhaler, est deguisee d'une 
 fagon dont vous possedez seul le secret. Pourquoi 
 done etes-vous venu avec une franchise quelque peu 
 brutale, nous ravir nos illusions, en nous le montrant 
 sans ce joli appareil qui lui seyait si bien? 
 
 Vous avez done ecrit un livre sur le divorce. Je 
 I'ai lu d'un bout a I'autre et je me suis demande, je 
 me demande encore pourquoi vous vous etes lance 
 dans cette singuliere a venture. 
 
Le Divorce 251 
 
 II m'est venu a la memoire, apres lecture de votre 
 nouvel ouvrage, une vieille histoire: Le reverend 
 Sydney Smith, rhomme le plus spirituel d'Angleterre, 
 excepte Macaulay, et M. Macaulay I'homnie le plus 
 spirituel d'Angleterre, excepte le reverend Sydney 
 Smith, se trouvaient ensemble chez un lord de leurs 
 amis ou ils passerent huit jours, durant lesquels M. 
 Macaulay ne tarit pas un instant. Sa verve inepuis- 
 able coulait a Acts si presses et si rapides que, sauf les 
 rares instants oti il s'arretait pour cracher ou pour 
 tousser, le reverend dut se borner au role ingrat de 
 simple ecouteur. M. Macaulay, sa visite finie, etait 
 deja en voiture pour partir, lorsque le ministre s'elance 
 k la portiere lui criant a tue-tete: "Je I'admets, je 
 Tadmets." Quoi done, qu'admettez vous? "Mais, 
 que vous parlez mieux qu'aucun homme en Angle- 
 terre." II ne nous fallait pas, monsieur, votre nou- 
 velle brochure, pour nous convaincre de votre talent 
 et nous etions prets k vous crier, chacun et tous en 
 choeur: "Je I'admets," 
 
 Peut etre aussi avez-vous voulu nous prouver que 
 vous avez lu la Bible ; car quelques uns de vos anciens 
 lecteurs ont pu croire que 1' etude des Saints-Evangiles 
 n'a pas figure pour une forte part dans votre educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Peut-etre dormiez vous avec un discours de M. 
 Ferry ou de M. Naquet sous I'oreiller, et, contraire- 
 ment a I'effet generalement produit en pareil cas, 
 r eloquence de ces messieurs vous ravissait le sommeil. 
 Enfin, quelque soit le motif, vous avez voulu rompre 
 une lance contre la vieille Eglise, et prouver qu'elle 
 n'entendait rien au metier qu'elle pratique depuis tant 
 de siecles. Vous devez etre content ; c'est vous main- 
 tenant qui attirez les regards de la foule — les autres 
 
252 Le Divorce 
 
 acteurs n'ont plus qu'a sauvegarder la dignite de leur 
 silence. 
 
 Comme theologien, Monsieur, permettez-moi sans 
 offense de vous le dire, vous reussissez mediocrement ; 
 c'est du reste, je m'empresse d'ajouter, un titre rare- 
 ment merite que celui de theologien. Ce grand et 
 eminent prelat, le Cardinal Newman, a dit recem- 
 ment qu'il n'y avait au monde qu'un ou deux veri- 
 tables theologiens, dignes de ce nom. La verite me 
 force d'ajouter que votre livre n'avait pas alors paru, 
 mais, eut-il vu le jour a cette epoque, Monseigneur 
 Newman n'aurait pas modifie son avis, et vous aurez 
 beau citer la Bible et jeter a I'Eglise toutes les turpi- 
 tudes que vous avez pu trouver dans les brochures du 
 jour, vous ne passerez jamais pour Saint Thomas 
 d'Aquin. II faut des etudes bien autres que les 
 votres, pour eclairer. Monsieur, I'obscurite du tombeau 
 et pour montrer a I'homme la voie qu'il doit suivre 
 pour arriver au but final. II ne suffit pas d'avoir em- 
 belli le theatre des plus charmantes immoralites, pour 
 oser precher sur des textes qui ont divise les hommes 
 depuis des siecles. L'on peut avoir ecrit "La Dame 
 aux Camelias" sans connaitre pour cela les secrets que 
 Dieu a places sous sa parole divine et, peut-etre meme, 
 avoir un diable pour guide et ne pas en savoir autant 
 qu'un moutard de dix ans qui a etudie son catechisme. 
 Non, Monsieur, croyez-moi, vous n'etes pas plus theo- 
 logien que — que moi! et le bonnet de docteur dont 
 vous vous affublez, sans rime ni raison, cache seulement 
 les jolies couronnes de fieurs que vous ont tressees les 
 doigts roses de vos heroines — heroines seduisantes, 
 quoique bien legeres ! 
 
 II est vrai que vous etes moraliste, du moins je me 
 le suis laisse dire. Entre la morale et la theologie il 
 
Le Divorce 253 
 
 ne doit y avoir qu'un pas, mais ce pas est bien difficile 
 k franchir! St. Denis a pu perdre la tete et cependant 
 faire le premier pas dont la difficulte est devenue 
 proverbiale; mais si vous perdiez la tete — au figure 
 je I'entends bien — vous ne reussiriez peut-etre pas 
 comme lui. Je vous accorde le titre de moraliste sans 
 difficulte. Au surplus, je ne sais trop ce que cela veut 
 dire aujourd'hui. Autrefois ce mot impliquait quelque 
 chose de grave, de studieiix, de pensif. L'on entre- 
 voyait I'ombre de Pascal, de Montaigne, de La Bruyere 
 — mais, de nos jours, nous n'aimons pas a evoquer les 
 spectres d'un ordre serieux. Le moraliste contem- 
 porain a peu de choses en commun avec ceux qui 
 portaient autrefois ce nom. II peut meriter ce titre 
 pour avoir examine de pres le vice moderne, pour avoir 
 rehabilite I'immoralite, et pour avoir porte le paradoxe 
 au dernier point de 1' elegance litteraire. Je ne sais si 
 vous etes moraliste pour avoir decouvert la " Dame aux 
 Camelias," ou pour avoir permis au mari outrage de 
 tuer sa femme infidele. Mais enfin, vous en avez le 
 titre et vous avez peut-etre voulu prouver que vous 
 y aviez droit. Vous avez reussi; ainsi n'en parlons 
 plus. 
 
 Comme je ne possede pas le moindre fonds de science 
 theologique et que vous avez d<i epuiser le livre de M. 
 le Docteur Drouet, je n'entrerai pas dans une discus- 
 sion qui n'aboutirait qu'a demontrer mon ignorance — 
 ignorance que j 'admets de la meilleure f oi du monde — 
 mais la question ne me semble pas appartenir k cet 
 ordre d'idees, au moins exclusivement, et je me propose 
 de chercher si, dans vos arguments principaux, vous 
 n'etes pas tombe dans quelques erreurs qu'il peut 
 etre utile de relever. 
 
 Vous etes trop sagace pour avoir pense que les 
 
254 Le Divorce 
 
 catholiques allaient devenir partisans du divorce pour 
 avoir lu votre livre. Vous savez comme moi que sur 
 ces questions ils acceptent sans reserve I'enseignement 
 de I'Eglise et qu'ils ne canoniseront pas M. Naquet, 
 meme si vous leur prouvez que Charlemagne s'est 
 marie aussi souvent qu'Henri VIII. lis vous re- 
 pondraient que c'est fort possible: ils admettraient 
 meme que Ton a pu dissoudre des manages au Moyen 
 Age avec une facilite qui peut paraitre extreme quand 
 vous nous la signalez. Mais ils vous diront aussi que 
 cette meme ardeur a rechercher des causes de nullite 
 demontre surabondamment le principe d'indissolu- 
 bilite. En effet, si le divorce etait chose si simple, 
 pourquoi ne pas I'accorder a priori, sans chercher des 
 pretextes futiles; pourquoi ne pas permettre a Henri 
 VIII. de quitter Catherine pour Anne et, prenant ce 
 monarque susceptible par le c6t6 faible — sinon par le 
 bon cote — pourquoi ne pas avoir conserve la vieille 
 Angleterre dans le giron de I'Eglise? Certes le peuple 
 anglais ne demandait pas mieux que de garder la 
 tradition de ses peres: il ne se doutait pas qu'il 
 gagnerait en morahte parce qu'il aurait Henri VIIL, 
 Elizabeth, George IV., ou Victoria pour pape au Heu 
 de Clement VII., Sixte Quint, Pie IX., ou Leon XIII. 
 
 Vos citations bibliques, monsieur, sont tres inter- 
 essantes. Vous les faites surtout avec une certaine 
 candeur qui est presque touchante. Vous etes un peu 
 sous ce rapport, comme Madame de Stael qui, lors- 
 qu'elle parlait de vertu, semblait croire qu'elle avait 
 fait une decouverte. C'est au moins ce que disait 
 Napoleon. 
 
 L'histoire d'Abraham, de Sara, de Rachel, de Lea, 
 mais, tout cela, c'est tres connu — non pas parmi les 
 enfants catholiques — j'admets que les parents ne tien- 
 
Le Divorce 255 
 
 nent pas k les moraliser par la lecture de ces exemples 
 de moeurs patriarcales ; mais vous n'avez pas ecrit pour 
 les enfants catholiques. Pour les protestants, vous ne 
 leur enseignez pas grand chose sur la Bible, puisque 
 c'est la base de leur edifice religieux. Je crois meme 
 qu'ils vous sauraient assez mauvais gre de traiter si 
 legerement le livre qu'ils venerent a si juste titre. 
 Si c'est pour eclairer M. I'abbe Vidieu, je n'ai rien k 
 dire, mais je ne pense pas qu'il ait oublie ces histoires 
 bibliques lorsqu'il a parle de la saintete du mariage. 
 Au reste, c'est la une affaire entre vous et lui, dont je 
 n'ai pas la pretention de me meler. 
 
 Mais laissant la Abraham et Jacob, revenons a une 
 epoque plus rapprochee. Cette epoque nous importe 
 quelque peu, puisque c'est principalement de I'Eglise 
 Catholique qu'il s'agit, et voyons ce que vous avez a 
 dire sur les usages anciens de la France. 
 
 II est certain que, du temps de vos premiers rois, 
 Ton enjambait assez lestement les barrieres de la 
 morale. La royaute en France n'a pas ete plus re- 
 marquable pour la purete de ses moeurs que chez les 
 autres nations de I'Europe. Le pouvoir absolu n'a 
 pas une tendance bien moralisatrice, et si vous ajoutez 
 k cela I'influence des moeurs rudes, cruelles, brutales — 
 vous ne devez pas etre surpris de trouver que vos 
 premiers souverains n'etaient pas precisement des 
 modeles de chastete, ni meme de les voir se marier et 
 remarier sans prendre le temps ou la precaution de 
 decapiter les epouses genantes, comme faisait le pere de 
 la Reforme anglaise, et (suivant vous) I'auteur du 
 syst^me du divorce en Angleterre. Je soupgonne 
 qu'ils prenaient leurs femmes un peu comme le chateau 
 qui leur plaisait, parcequ'ils s'appelaient "Lion." lis 
 ne devaient pas etre forts sur la loi canonique, ni sur 
 
256 Le Divorce 
 
 le droit romain, ni sur bien des choses que vous devez 
 connaitre a fond. Mais a cette epoque — il faut vous 
 le rappeler — M. Ferry n'etait pas ministre de I'in- 
 struction publique. 
 
 Enfin, il leur est arrive de changer de femmes, sans 
 beaucoup de phrases, et de ne pas attacher atix cere- 
 monies du mariage une valeur exageree — c'est avere. 
 Mais, lorsque vous nous dites que Childeric, Caribert, 
 Audovert, Bazine et Charlemagne ont commis ces in- 
 fractions aux lois de I'Eglise et que vous induisez de 
 la que I'Eglise autorisait ces mutations matrimoniales, 
 vous m'etonnez. 
 
 Je cherche autour de moi, et je trouve Monsieur 
 Merlin, dont je trouble assez rarement le sommeil — 
 mais qui cette fois invite mon attention. II avait 
 entendu parler de ces rois volages et de leurs methodes 
 irregulieres — il savait aussi quelque chose sur la loi de 
 I'Eglise qui, de fait, entrait dans le domaine de la juris- 
 prudence fran§aise. 
 
 Dans les premiers siecles de la monarchie frangaise 
 [dit-il] le divorce a ete admis parmi nous ; on en trouve 
 plusieurs exemples sous nos rois de la premiere et de la 
 seconde races: I'histoire nous apprend en effet que Bizine 
 ou Bazine quitta le roi de Thuringe pour suivre Childeric, 
 qui I'epousa. Cherebert, roi de Paris, repudia sa femme 
 legitime. Audovert, premiere femme legitime de Childeric, 
 roi de Soissons, fut chassde, parce qu'elle avait tenu son 
 propre enfant sur les fonts du bapteme. Charlemagne 
 repudia sa premiere femme, parce qu'elle n'etait pas 
 chr^tienne. 
 
 On trouve aussi dans le droit canon le terme. Divorce, 
 mais il n'y est employ^ que pour exprimer la separation 
 de corps et de biens qui n'emporte point la dissolution du 
 mariage: Car jamais I'Eglise n'a approuve le divorce pro- 
 
Le Divorce 257 
 
 prement dit; elle I'a toujours regarde comme contraire au 
 precepte ''Quod Deus conjunxit, homo non separet." 
 
 C'est done une maxime constante parmi nous que le manage 
 ne peut etre dissous par la vote du divorce; cependant on 
 peut attaquer un mariage de nullite par la voie d'appel comme 
 d'abus; mats dans ce cas, le mariage n'est point dissous; on 
 declare seulement qu'il n'y en a point eu de valablement 
 contracte. 
 
 Ces quelques lignes de Merlin me semblent bien 
 claires. II affirme tres positivement ce dont vous 
 doutez et n'est nullement embarrasse de distinguer 
 entre un divorce "proprement dit" et une separation. 
 Notez aussi qu'il etait parfaitement au courant des 
 irregularites domestiques de Charlemagne, Childeric et 
 autres — mais malgre cela il vous donne la maxime con- 
 stante basee sur le principe que I'homme ne doit pas 
 desunir ce que Dieu a uni. 
 
 Si cela ne vous ennuie pas trop, voyez maintenant ce 
 que dit Pothier. C'est un auteur fort estime, comme 
 vous le saurez si vous voulez vous renseigner sur son 
 compte. II ne se gene pas non plus pour dire leur fait 
 aux theologiens qui voudraient empieter sur les droits 
 de I'Etat. 
 
 " Quoique le divorce soit condamnS par I'Evangile, les 
 empereurs Chretiens, par des raisons d'etat politiques, 
 ne I'avaient pas aboli, et ils s'6taient bomes h en 
 restreindre la liberte." II cite a I'appui de son dire 
 une foule de textes, fort interessants sans doute, mais 
 que ni vous ni moi ne nous soucions de verifier. II 
 poursuit : 
 
 Quoique le divorce fut permis alors par les lois s^culi^res 
 et qu'en consequence, apr^s un divorce c^l^br^ dans la 
 forme legale, chacune des parties ptit, dans le for exte- 
 rieur, passer, du vivant de I'autre, k un autre mariage, 
 
258 Le Divorce 
 
 neanmoins VEglise regardait le divorce comme defendu par 
 VEvangile et comme incapable de rompre le lien du mariage; 
 en consequence, elle regardait comme un adultere, plut6t 
 que comme un mariage, celui que I'une des parties contrac- 
 tait, apr^s le divorce, du vivant de son conjoint, avec une 
 autre personne: et quoiqu'il fut r^put^ valable dans le for 
 ext^rieur, elle retranchait de la communion les parties qui 
 I'avaient contract^, jusqu'a ce qu'elles se s^parassent, et 
 elle les soumettait k la penitence k laquelle ^taient assu- 
 jettis par les canons les adult^res. 
 
 L'auteur cite St. Ambroise sur Saint Luc, Lib. 8, No. 
 5, puis encore le pape Innocent L, dans la lettre d6- 
 cretale a Exupere, etc. Puis il ajoute en forme de con- 
 clusion : "Remarquez que, quoique ces manages fussent 
 alors permis par la loi civile et dans le for ext6rieur, le 
 pape veut que ceux qui les contractent soient retranches 
 de la communion des fideles.'' 
 
 Cette distinction entre le for exterieur et le for in- 
 terieur vous semble peut-etre subtile, et si vous vous 
 occupiez des lois sur I'enseignement superieur vous 
 I'attribueriez sans doute aux machinations des Jesu- 
 ites. Mais il n'en est rien. Cette subtilite apparente 
 d^coule de la nature meme du mariage. 
 
 II y a la en effet une particularite qu'il convient de 
 noter pour eviter certaines confusions dans lesquelles 
 il me semble que vous etes tombe. 
 
 Le mariage differe de tous les autres contrats, en ce 
 qu'il est tout a la fois un contrat civil et un sacrement. 
 Je me sers du present quand je devrais peutetre me 
 servir du passe; mais comme le double caractere 
 existe toujours pour les catholiques et bon nombre 
 de protestants, nous pourrons en parler sans nous 
 preoccuper de la simplification que va introduire la loi 
 Naquet dans les affaires de ce genre. Or, comme con- 
 
Le Divorce 259 
 
 trat civil, il appartient k I'Etat de le definir, de I'en- 
 tourer de sauvegardes utiles et d'en r^gler les effets. 
 En tant que sacrement, c'est a I'Eglise de regler les 
 conditions auxquelles elle voudra s'associer a I'Etat 
 pour donner au mariage ce double caractere civil et 
 religieux. Par suite, lorsque vous trouvez dans 
 I'histoire certaines restrictions attachees au contrat, 
 aussi bien que certaines facilites qui permettent d'en 
 neutraliser ou d'en eviter les resultats ordinaires, il 
 faut d'abord voir si c'est I'Etat qui agit ou I'Eglise — 
 autrement vous risquerez bien d'attribuer a Cesar ce 
 qui appartient a Dieu et reciproquement. Votre Diable 
 pourrait bien gagner a cette fagon de traiter le sujet, 
 mais la verite pourrait en souffrir. Aussi, c'est k la 
 loi civile qu'il faut vous en prendre si vous trouvez 
 mal que les manages d'enfants de famille aient ete 
 declares nuls, lorsqu'ils etaient contractus sans le 
 consentement de celui sous la puissance duquel ils 
 etaient. C'est I'empereur Theodose qui a defendu, h 
 peine de nullite, le mariage entre cousins germains, qiii 
 etait permis avant cette loi. C'est Justinien qui a fait 
 de I'alliance spirituelle un empechement dirimant de 
 mariage. Celui de la disparite des cultes a ete etabli 
 par les empereurs Valentinian, Valens, Theodose et 
 Arcade, qui ont prohibe les manages entre Chretiens et 
 juifs. "L'Eglise," ajoute encore Pothier, "n'a jamais 
 regarde ces lois des empereurs sur les mariages, comme 
 des entreprises de la puissance seculi^re sur la puissance 
 eccUsiastique; bien loin de la, nous avons plusieurs 
 canons de concile qui en recommandent V observation et 
 qui prononcent des censures contre ceux qui ne les ob- 
 servent pas." Et puis il cite force theologiens pour 
 appuyer son opinion. 
 
 II est done evident que I'Etat et I'Eglise ont eu chacun 
 
26o Le Divorce 
 
 leur part dans cette question et que I'Eglise, tout en in- 
 sistant sur la qualite sacramentelle du manage, n'a pas 
 cru devoir s'opposer aux prohibitions que le pouvoir 
 seculier, agissant par des motifs d'ordre public, avait 
 cru devoir prononcer. Mais lorsqu'il s'est agi de 
 dissoudre le contrat une fois fait, et une fois la sanction 
 religieuse donnee k cet acte, I'accord a cesse d'exister. 
 Les lois civiles etant devenues tres relachees au sujet 
 du mariage, I'Eglise s'est interposee pour prot6ger la 
 saintete d'un sacrement aussi important. Les P^res 
 ont reconnu 1' element sacramentel dans les premiers 
 ^ges de I'Eglise: elle a impost des censures eccl6si- 
 astiques aux Chretiens qui desobeissaient a ses injonc- 
 tions — mais elle ne possedait pas le pouvoir civil 
 necessaire pour rendre ces foudres effectives. Plus 
 tard elle a pu se faire attribuer la juridiction exclusive 
 dans les causes ecclesiastiques et depuis le huiti^me 
 siecle, la doctrine sacramentelle du mariage a et6 mise 
 en vigueur: cela n'a pas cesse jusqu'au Concile de 
 Trente qui a mis le sceau de ses decrets sur la loi 
 anterieure. 
 
 Tout cela semble si simple, si clair, je pourrais dire 
 tellement demontre, que je me demande comment vous 
 avez pu vous y tromper. Quel dommage, Monsieur, 
 que tout en lisant la petition du Dr. Drouet qui vous a 
 tant aide k ^crire votre livre, vous n'ayez pas regarde 
 ce que disaient Merlin, Pothier et tant d'autres qui 
 en savaient autant, je pense, que ce medecin peti- 
 tionnaire — homme de science, sans doute et que, ne 
 connaissant nullement, je respecte parfaitement. II 
 est vrai que si vous aviez feuillete ces livres poudreux 
 vous n'auriez peut-etre pas ecrit ces charmantes pages, 
 car vous n'etes pas de ceux, je pense, qui crient " Tant 
 pis pour les faits" lorsque les faits sont contre eux. 
 
Le Divorce 261 
 
 Mais passons de la France a d'autres pays, a celui, si 
 vous le voulez, de votre predilection. Je ne parle pas 
 de I'Allemagne, mais de I'Angleterre, et comme il ne 
 s'agit pas ici d'histoire de France, que vous devez con- 
 naitre bien mieux que moi, je me permettrai de vous 
 signaler quelques erreurs capitales, si graves que vous 
 allez bien en vouloir k ce bon Docteur, si c'est lui qui 
 vous a renseigne, ou a votre Diable si c'est lui qui vous 
 a inspire. 
 
 D'apres vous, Monsieur, les pays moraux et heureux 
 sont ceux oti existe le divorce, et comme c'est a la 
 R6forme qu'est dii ce bienfait inestimable, les pays 
 r6formes valent bien mieux que les pays catholiques. 
 Ergo I'Angleterre est plus morale que la France. Je 
 vous avouerai, Monsieur, sans vouloir vous offenser, qu'a 
 votre place je me serais garde de parler ainsi de mon 
 pays, meme ce fUt-il vrai. Je crois que la patrie, c'est 
 un peu comme la mere qui nous a nourris ; elle peut 
 avoir commis des fautes, mais le fils qui I'insulte n'en 
 est pas plus genereux et plus brave pour cela. Mais 
 c'est la une affaire de gout et je n'ai certes pas la 
 pretention de rien vous enseigner sur des questions 
 semblables. Je crois toutefois qu'en vous relisant, 
 vous regretterez d'avoir ecrit que chez les Anglais, les 
 Allemands et les Suisses, la famille est plus nombreuse, 
 plus morale, plus unie, et plus respectee que chez vous. 
 Je crois meme que vous nous faites I'honneur, a nous 
 Americains, de nous comprendre parmi vos superieurs 
 dans toutes ces belles qualites, mais comme vous dites 
 en meme temps que les Etats-Unis contiennent deja 85 
 millions d'habitants, je ne suis pas aussi flatte que je 
 voudrais I'etre de cette concession importante. Le 
 dernier recensement ne nous a donne qu'une quaran- 
 taine de millions, y compris les Indiens, non taxes; 
 
262 Le Divorce 
 
 vous nous faites done croitre et multiplier avee une 
 rapidite qui ne peut-etre expliquee que par les efEets 
 merveilleux du divorce. Que dirait Malthus d'un 
 systeme qui viendrait tout d'un coup augmenter les 
 populations d'une fagon tellement vertigineuse ? II ne 
 serait certes pas partisan de M. Naquet, meme s'il ne 
 comprenait pas trop pourquoi la separation des epoux 
 d<it entrainer des effets tellement contraires a la 
 logique. Mais enfin, c'est Ik un petit detail de 30 a 40 
 millions, et comme vous assignez aux Etats-Unis place 
 pour un milliard d'habitants, ce leger surcroit ne 
 compte guere, 
 
 Mais revenons a TAngleterre. Vous nous faites, 
 Monsieur, une charmante photographic d'une famille 
 anglaise de vos amies, le mari septuagenaire, pere 
 d'une quinzaine de beaux enfants, la mere douce et 
 bonne, meme pour les enfants de son predecesseur, les 
 fils et les filles unis, aimants et obeissants — enfin le 
 paradis domestique dont les protestants ont seul le 
 privilege — en attendant la loi Naquet. Tout ce bon- 
 heur, pour vous, vient clairement de la loi du divorce 
 qui regit ces epoux si unis, et il est avere pour vous 
 que s'ils ne savaient clairement que cette union n'est 
 pas indissoluble, tout ce bonheur s'effondrerait; ces 
 insulaires seraient alors reduits k I'etat de Frangais. 
 Comme vous devez etre bien emporte par I'ardeur de 
 votre travail, Monsieur, pour n'avoir pas senti quelle 
 injure vous faisiez a vos amis, en supposant que I'idee 
 d'un divorce ait jamais pu effleurer leur imagination! 
 Pensez-vous serieusement que cette honnete femme, 
 en donnant sa main a cet honnete homme devant 
 I'autel — car je gagerais que ce n'est pas le mariage civil 
 qui les a unis — songeait deja a sortir de 1 'union qu'elle 
 contractait et preparait ses engins de sauvetage? 
 
Le Divorce 263 
 
 Croyez-vous que la pensee d'un adultere possible, d'un 
 divorce, d'une separation 16gale, d'un nouveau mariage 
 aient terni la purete de leur affection? Non, Monsieur, 
 il n'en est rien: et si vous demandiez a cette digne 
 epouse et m^re si la loi du divorce entre pour quelque 
 chose dans son bonheur, que ferait-elle? II est prob- 
 able qu'elle appellerait son mari pour vous expulser de 
 chez elle. Mais si, prenant votre qualite de moraliste 
 frangais en consideration, elle daignait vous repondre, 
 vous verriez quelle injustice vous lui faites. Elle vous 
 dirait qu'elle s'est donnee sans reserve et sans arriere 
 pensee, qu'elle avait foi en I'honneur de cet homme, 
 et si la pensee douloureuse d'une separation a et6 
 entre vue par elle, ce n'etait que la separation tem- 
 poraire de la mort — car la mort meme ne pourrait la 
 divorcer que pour un temps de I'homme que Dieu lui 
 avait donne pour mari. Et si vous lui aviez dit que le 
 divorce pour elle etait " une bouee de sauvetage ou une 
 pompe k incendie," comme vous le dites si gentiment 
 dans votre livre, je crois, pardonnez-moi. Monsieur, 
 qu'elle vous aurait ri au nez. 
 
 Quant au mari, si vous le consultiez et qu'il respectat 
 toujours votre qualite de moraliste frangais, si vous lui 
 disiez gravement, comme vous nous le dites a nous, 
 que Henri VIII. avait introduit le divorce en Angle- 
 terre, en m^me temps que la Reforme et que vous at- 
 tribuiez la superiorite de 1 'Anglais sur le Frangais k 
 cette heureuse transformation des lois, je crois, son 
 6tonnement passe et le temps ne lui manquant pas, 
 qu'il vous donnerait quelques explications que je suis 
 tent^ de vous donner ici. 
 
 En effet. Monsieur, si vous croyez sincerement que 
 ce monarque amoureux a dote sa patrie de la legislation 
 qui empeche M. Naquet de jouir du sommeil, si vous 
 
264 Le Divorce 
 
 vous imaginez qu'il y a depuis cette epoque des juges 
 et des tribunaux pour recevoir les epoiix malheureux 
 et leur octroyer le droit de convoler en de nouvelles 
 noces, si vous pensez que, meme en ce moment, votre 
 matrone anglaise trouverait un juge pour la debar- 
 rasser de son epoux, fiit-il coupable de trahison, vous 
 vous trompez bien, et je pourrais vous retorquer ce que 
 vous dites a Monsieur I'abbe, avec au moins autant de 
 raison: " Ou vous savez, Monsieur — et je recule devant 
 cette hypothese, ne Mt-ce que par politesse — ou vous 
 savez, dis-je, qu'il n'y a pas un mot de vrai dans ce que 
 vous avancez la, et alors, comment I'avancez vous? ou 
 vous croyez dire la verite, et alors comment etes vous 
 si mal renseigne?" Voyons ce qu'il en est de ces 
 affirmations si hardies. 
 
 Le roi Henri etait, comme vous I'avez entendu dire, 
 un catholique ardent. II passerait de nos jours pour 
 un clerical de I'espece la plus dangereuse. Lorsque 
 Luther, le grand Luther, commenga sa campagne anti- 
 papale, il n'eut pas d'ennemi plus convaincu que ce 
 roi devot. Sa main royale ne dedaigna pas de prendre 
 une plume pour refuter les erreurs dangereuses du 
 moine heretique, et ce livre qui n'est certainement pas 
 ecrit d'un style aussi brillant que le votre, lui valut le 
 titre de Defenseur de la Foi, que lui confera le Pape. 
 Ce titre lui sembla si honorable, qu'il s'en affubla 
 d'office et le transmit sans scrupule a ses heritiers. 
 Mais ne voila-t-il pas qu'apres une quinzaine d'annees 
 de mariage, des scrupules de conscience lui vinrent, et 
 le firent douter de la validite de son mariage avec 
 Catherine, sa bonne et fidele epouse. II est possible 
 que ces scrupules se fussent dissipes a I'aide de la 
 priere, de la mortification et des conseils de son di- 
 recteur — mais ne voilk-t-il pas, coincidence facheuse, 
 
Le Divorce 265 
 
 meme diabolique, que la semillante Anne vient, de ses 
 beaux yeux, aggraver les doutes penibles qui tour- 
 mentaient la conscience delicate du monarque. Et la 
 jolie Anne n'entendait pas la plaisanterie — elle voulait 
 etre courtisee pour le bon motif ou pas du tout. Enfin 
 vous connaissez la catastrophe. Le Saint Pere refusa 
 d'annuler le manage et de reconnaitre la valeur de ces 
 scrupules royaux. D'autres, plus complaisants, lui 
 vinrent en aide ; nombre de theologiens declarerent le 
 manage avec Catherine nul, et le grand scandale du 
 siecle fut consomme. Jusque la il n'y avait pas de 
 divorce dans ce que Meriin appelle le sens propre du 
 mot, mais cette dissolution qui a si souvent eu lieu 
 pour cause de parente ou autre, et qui parait tant 
 choquer vos sentiments quand vous la trouvez dans 
 I'histoire catholique. 
 
 Mais le regne de la belle Anne ne fut pas long. Je 
 crois bien qu'elle n'avait pas conserve sa vertu avec 
 beaucoup de soin avant le mariage; il est probable 
 qu'Henri ne trouva pas sans raison que sa conduite, 
 comme epouse, laissait beaucoup a desirer. Mais il 
 n'etait pas aussi difficile de se debarrasser de la jeune 
 femme que de Catherine, parente d'un monarque aussi 
 puissant que Charles V. Aussi Henri s'empressa de la 
 faire decapiter d'une fagon tres sommaire ; mais pas si 
 vite qu'il n'eiit eu le temps de faire declarer le mariage 
 nul. Vous avouerez que c'etait manquer de logique. 
 Si elle n'etait pas la femme legitime du roi, elle n'avait 
 pas commis de crime, et Ton ne devait pas lui couper la 
 t^te; si le mariage etait valable la sentence de dis- 
 solution etait injuste. Mais les rois ne se targuent pas 
 de logique ; c'est tout au plus bon pour vous et moi et 
 encore ne reussissons nous pas toujours k montrer que 
 nous possedons cette qualite utile dans la discussion. 
 
266 Le Divorce 
 
 La tete d'Anne n'etait pas encore tombee, que ce 
 monarque, dont Tamour de la vie domestique se mani- 
 festait d'une fagon si touchante, avait trouve une 
 autre epouse, et, tout de blanc habille, Henri I'alla 
 chercher le jour meme. Celle la, Jane Seymour, eut le 
 bonheur de mourir dans son lit. Jusque la nous avons 
 une separation, un divorce par le bourreau et un 
 troisieme par la main de Dieu — mais jusqu'a present la 
 loi Naquet ne parait pas sur la scene. 
 
 Maintenant arrive la pauvre princesse allemande, 
 Anne de Cleves qui avait eu le bonheur de plaire au roi , 
 en peinture. Malheureusement le roi, fort connaisseur 
 en beaute feminine, ne trouva pas sa nouvelle epouse a 
 son gre. II fallait done s'en d6barrasser, Mais elle 
 n 'avait pas ete fiancee de son frere comme Catherine, 
 il ne pouvait la decapiter, comme Anne, et I'ardeur de 
 sa vocation maritale ne lui permettait pas d'attendre 
 que la Providence voultit bien trancher les jours de sa 
 nouvelle epouse. Et puis, ces Allemandes ont la vie 
 si dure. II fallait done un nouveau moyen; car il ne 
 s'agissait pas de dire tout simplement que les charmes 
 de la pauvre Anne etaient insufftsants. Ce moyen 
 n'etait pas difficile a trouver. Henri s'etant octroye 
 la qualite de pape, avait son clerge k lui : la dissolution 
 fut bien vite prononcee, et cela avec un renfort de 
 theologiens qui aurait dti suffire a divorcer une dou- 
 zaine de rois. II y avait la deux archeveques, dix 
 sept eveques et cent-trente ministres qui s'empres- 
 serent de declarer ce mariage parfaitement nul et non 
 avenu: Le roi avait eu la main forcee (comme votre 
 ctiirassier) ; Ton avait faussement pretendu toutes 
 sortes de choses, I'induisant par Ik en erreur; enfin il 
 n'y avait pas eu de consommation. Tout cela comme 
 sous I'ancien systeme, n'est ce pas? Et puis I'Eglise, 
 
Le Divorce 267 
 
 car ces Messieurs s'intitulaient bel et bien I'Eglise, 
 declara gravement que le roi Henri et la reine ou 
 princesse Anne etaient parfaitement libres de se jeter 
 dans de nouvelles aventures matrimoniales. M. Froude, 
 que Ton appelle, par courtoisie, historien, nous assure 
 que cette sentence etait parfaitement legale. Henri, 
 du haut du ciel, sa demeure derniere, doit etre content 
 de cette approbation posthume. Vous comprenez 
 que, devant cette facilite dans les procedes, que lui 
 offrait son nouveau systeme, Henri ne s'arreta pas la. 
 Et puis, le Parlement le supplia de prendre une cinqui- 
 ^me femme, pour le bien de son royaume, sacrifice 
 auquel Henri se r^signa avec une promptitude qui 
 temoigne hautement en faveur de son amour pour ses 
 sujets. II choisit cette fois Catherine Howard, jeune 
 et jolie personne de bonne famille, et qui par son 
 education, lui promettait les satisfactions intimes 
 auxquelles aspirait son coeur. Mais il fut bien mal- 
 heureux cette fois. Au bout d'un an de mariage, la 
 nouvelle reine fut accusee d'un gros crime et faut 
 il a j outer, les apparences furent contre elle. Je dis 
 les apparences, parce que le prince dont nous parlons 
 avait introduit une nouvelle methode de procedure 
 qui consistait k faire condamner I'accuse sans proces 
 prealable. II s'adressait au Parlement, le Parlement 
 passait une loi ad hoc, et c'etait fait. Cela simplifiait 
 singulierement les choses, et le roi, qui etait assez peu 
 dispose a la patience, n'avait pas a attendre que les 
 formes ennuyeuses des tribunaux ordinaires fussent 
 remplies. II est juste d'aj outer que le nouvel arche- 
 veque Cranmer, avait essay e d'etablir que Catherine, 
 avait ete la fiancee, avant son mariage, de son complice 
 dans le crime dont elle etait accusee. Mais, il n'y eut 
 pas moyen d'etabHr le fait et Catherine dut perir sur 
 
268 Le Divorce 
 
 I'echafaud pour rendre Henri veuf une cinquieme fois, 
 Je ne vous conteste pas que vous puissiez trouver la un 
 argument en faveur du precede Naquet. En effet, si 
 Henri avait pu obtenir un divorce, il n'y avait plus 
 besoin de lois du Parlement, et Ton n'etait pas reduit 
 a invoquer I'aide du bourreau. Mais, d'un autre cote, 
 vous admettrez que jusqu'k present vous ne voyez chez 
 Henri ni chez ses conseillers spirituels aucune pratique 
 dans le genre de celle que vous defendez si eloquem- 
 ment. 
 
 Mais Henri ne s'arreta pas la. II se maria pour la 
 sixieme fois. Mais cette fois le divorce fut prononce — 
 bien a temps aussi — pour la reine. La mort vint inter- 
 rompre le cours de cette vie agitee et, chose singu- 
 liere, Henri VIH. eut enfin une veuve! Elle dut 
 bien respirer quan delle se vit libre, particulierement 
 quand elle put connaitre les noirs desseins que nour- 
 rissait a son egard son defunt consort. 
 
 Vous voyez done. Monsieur, que le roi Henri, dans 
 la vie privee — si ce mot est admissible — n'a pas 
 montre qu'il serait de votre cote lorsqu'il s'agit d'en- 
 courager les unions temporaires ou, si vous preferez, de 
 permettre aux epoux mal assortis de se debarrasser 
 I'un de I'autre sans homicide volontaire, Vous verrez 
 que ce meme roi etait fort Catholique dans ses theories 
 religieuses. II eut meme accepte le dogme de I'ln- 
 fallibilite — pourvu qu'il fiit reconnu comme Pape. La 
 discussion religieuse etait fort dangereuse en sa presence 
 et je ne vous aurais pas conseille de faire de la theologie 
 de fantaisie devant lui. De nos jours je n'y vois 
 guere d 'inconvenient puisque cela vous fait plaisir; 
 cela amuse vos lecteurs et cela vous range d'un coup 
 parmi les theologiens eminents qui s'occupent en ce 
 moment de fagonner la conscience de la France. Mais 
 
Le Divorce 269 
 
 Ton a vu dans ces premiers jours de revolte centre 
 I'Eglise, catholiques et protestants train^s sur la meme 
 claie, pour perir sur le meme echafaud. Vous me 
 direz que cela vous est bien egal comme vous n'etes ni 
 Tun ni I'autre: n'importe, la neutrality meme a ses 
 dangers. 
 
 Maintenant voyons si, dans la legislation Anglaise 
 faite pour le commim des martyrs, il y a une trace de 
 ces lois de divorce qui datent suivant vous de Henri 
 VIII., c'est a dire de plus de trois siecles. J'ai beau 
 chercher, creuser, demander, je ne vois rien venir. 
 Vous serez bien surpris d'apprendre que la premiere 
 loi etablissant des Tribunaux poiu- les causes de 
 divorce et permettant le divorce, date seulement de 
 quelques annees: elle est plus jeime que vous puis- 
 qu'elle date de 1858, epoque, si je ne me trompe, oil 
 vous aviez d6ja enrichi la litterature de votre pays 
 des "Aventures de 4 femmes et d'un Perroquet." 
 Cet ouvrage (que j'ai lu du reste avec I'interet que la 
 jeunesse porte tou jours a ces singuliers produits de 
 I'intelligence) fut 6crit, je crois, avant que vous ne 
 fussiez diplome moraliste : je le crois et je I'esp^re. 
 
 Avant d'examiner cette nouvelle loi, et de vous 
 demontrer combien peu elle repond a vos aspirations, 
 laissez-moi vous consoler par une petite concession — • 
 hommage dti k la verite historique: c'est que Ton 
 pouvait divorcer en Angleterre avant cette date r6- 
 cente pourvu que Ton etit les moyens de se procurer 
 ime loi sp^ciale du Parlement. Le Parlement, vous 
 devez le savoir, est omnipotent. II peut changer la 
 religion de I'Etat, la succession royale, les articles de 
 foi, — il peut bien accorder une separation k un epoux 
 influent et riche. Mais im court examen de cette 
 situation exceptionnelle ne fera, je crois, que vous 
 
270 Le Divorce 
 
 prouver la verite de ce que j'avance, lorsque je vous 
 affirme que la theorie du droit anglais et la theorie de 
 I'Eglise romaine se ressemblaient a s'y meprendre, 
 c'est a dire jusqu'en 1857. Si vous ne me croyez pas 
 sur parole, je vais vous citer ce que dit VEncyclopedie 
 Britannique, edition nouvelle — art. "Divorce": 
 
 Jusqu'au passage de la lot sur le Divorce de 1858 la theorie 
 de la lot d'Angleterre etait la meme que la theorie de VEglise 
 romaine. II y eut bien des efforts durant la p^riode de la 
 reforme pour introduire une plus grande facility dans le 
 divorce . . . mais la loi demeura la meme. La con- 
 stitution des manages 6tait du ressort des tribunaux 
 ecclesiastiques. Le lien etait indissoluble. Le mariage pou- 
 vait, il est vrai, etre declare nul dans certains cas, par 
 exemple lorsque la parente des conjoints les rangeait dans 
 les degr^s prohib^s. Mais cette procedure ne constituait 
 pas une dissolution du mariage autant qu'elle d^clarait 
 qu'aucun mariage n'avait eu lieu entre les parties. La 
 separation de corps et de biens ^tait accord^e pour adultere 
 et pour cruaute. Dans ces cas le mariage, etant dans 
 I'origine valable, n'6tait pas dissous, mais une separation 
 etait decretee pour une ^poque determinee ou pour un 
 temps indefini. 
 
 Voyez, Monsieur, comme ces quelques lignes viennent 
 se heurter contre vos affirmations! Que devient 
 votre theorie en tant qu'elle est basee sur les progres 
 moraux si surprenants qu'a pu faire le peuple anglais 
 par la simple enonciation d'une loi de divorce? Et 
 s'il est demontre que la superiorite morale du peuple 
 anglais ne decoule pas de la facilite supposee avec 
 laquelle les epoux se separent, comment pouvez-vous 
 affirmer que votre loi va vous relever de votre abaisse- 
 ment, purifier vos moeurs et vous rendre les egaux des 
 Allemands et des Anglais? 
 
Le Divorce 271 
 
 Maintenant revenons a ces actes du Parlement par 
 lesquels le divorce fut quelquefois prononce. Cette 
 bouee de sauvetage etait-elle suffisante pour emp^cher 
 les sinistres? Cette pompe a incendie fonctionnait- 
 elle de fagon a assurer le bien public? 
 
 II n'est pas difficile de vous repondre. Voyons 
 d'abord la procedure pour mettre en mouvement ce 
 corps auguste que Ton nomme le Parlement. II fallait 
 pour obtenir ce remede du divorce trois proces — c'est 
 tout. Mais comme ils etaient tous assez longs — je ne 
 parle pas ici de la depense — il est fort probable que 
 dans bien des cas la mort se chargeait de la poursuite 
 ou de la d6fense et tranchait la question sans appel. 
 La procedure etait celle-ci : 
 
 1 . II fallait s'adresser aux tribunaux ecclesiastiques ; 
 comme ils pouvaient seulement accorder ce que leur 
 permettait la loi, ils separaient les conjoints en at- 
 tendant mieux. 
 
 2. Mais il fallait aussi que le mari poursuivit le com- 
 plice de sa femme en dommages interets. 
 
 3. En admettant qu'il reussit dans ces deux affaires 
 et qu'il ne f<it pas mort de vieillesse ou autre cause 
 legitime, il pouvait s'adresser au Parlement. "Trois 
 proces" — je cite encore V Encyclopedie — "trois proces 
 ecclesiastique, civil et parlementaire etaient neces- 
 saires." Le divorce devint le remede du riche, Et 
 cependant ce ne fut qu'en 1857, et meme alors en face 
 d'une opposition determinee, que cet etat de choses 
 pi toy able fut modifie. 
 
 Voici comment un magistrat eminent expliquait les 
 absurdites de ce systeme k un pauvre diable accuse de 
 bigamie. Pour toute defense il avait pu seulement 
 expliquer que sa femme I'avait vole, puis qu'elle 
 s' etait enfuie avec un autre homme. Et cela, voyez 
 
2 72 Le Divorce 
 
 done, dans le pays de la Reforme et d' Henri VIII.! 
 M. le Juge Maule lui adressa alors la semonce suivante 
 (ceci se passait en I'an de grace 1845) : 
 
 Vous auriez d<i commencer un proces en dommages 
 interets. Des dommages obtenus, votre adversaire n'au- 
 rait probablement pas pu vous payer le premier sou, et 
 vous auriez eu a payer vos propres frais, soit, cent ou cent 
 cinquante livres sterling. Vous auriez du ensuite vous 
 presenter devant les tribunaux eccl^siastiques pour y 
 obtenir une separation de corps et de biens et alors a la 
 chambre des Pairs ou, apres avoir prouvd que vous aviez 
 rempli ces formalit^s pr^liminaires, vous auriez reju la 
 permission de vous remarier. 
 
 La d^pense aurait et6 de 300 k 1,000 livres sterling. 
 Vous dites que vous etes pauvre: mais je dois vous dire 
 qu'il n'y a pas une loi pour le riche et une autre pour le 
 pauvre. 
 
 Comme le pauvre forme un element tres considerable 
 de la population britannique, vous m'avouerez qu'une 
 procedure qui colite tant de peine et tant de temps et 
 qui exige une depense de 20,000 a 25,000 francs n'est 
 pas d'un secours bien efficace. Comme vous montrez 
 une sympathie tres naturelle pour la femme et qu'elle 
 aussi a besoin de protection, vous tiendrez ce remede par 
 voie legislative en mince estime lorsque je vous dirai 
 que cette chambre, peu galante, repoussait generale- 
 ment les petitions que presentaient les epouses out- 
 ragees. Pour preciser, je vous dirai que le premier 
 divorce accord^ k une femme date du siecle present, 
 et encore cela se fit-il sous des circonstances excep- 
 tionnelles. Si done vous excluez toutes les femmes et 
 tons les pauvres, vous avez un systeme passablement 
 arbitraire et bien peu propre a moraliser les masses. 
 Et m^me pour les hommes riches, les divorces parle- 
 
Le Divorce 273 
 
 mentaires ne commencerent a compter que lorsque 
 les Georges arriverent d'AUemagne et donnerent cette 
 impulsion a la cause des moeurs qui se developpa d'une 
 fagon si brillante sous George IV. 
 
 Mais il nous reste a examiner la loi de 1857. Celle-la, 
 elle existe: je vous en accorde tous les benefices, mais 
 franchement je crois que le systeme Naquet est peut- 
 etre moins mauvais. Cela peut paraitre invraisem- 
 blable, mais jugeons la d'apres vos propres regies. 
 
 La loi sur le divorce, dites-vous, doit etre egale pour 
 tous. L'homme ne doit avoir aucun avantage sur la 
 femme. Les lois qui refusent leur protection a I'etre 
 faible et opprime ne peuvent etre bonnes, puisqu'elles 
 commencent par consacrer I'injustice et par violer les 
 preceptes les plus elementaires de I'equite. 
 
 Or, que dit la loi de 1857? Elle est d'autant plus 
 interessante qu'elle est basee quant h la femme sur Van- 
 cienne coutume parlementaire. Comme vous I'avez vu 
 plus haut et comme vous pouvez vous en convaincre 
 en consultant McQueen {Proced. Parlemeyitaire, 473 
 et seq.), il ne fut jamais d'usage d'accorder a la femme 
 un divorce pour le simple adulter e du mari. II fallait 
 des circonstances aggravantes de la part de celui-ci, 
 quoique, de son cote, I'adultere de son epouse dans sa 
 simplicite la plus complete etait suffisant. La loi de 
 1857, se conformant a ces principes, accorde toujours 
 la meme faveur au mari, aussitot qu'il a etabli que la 
 femme depuis la celebration du mariage s'est ren- 
 due coupable d'adultere. Mais lorsqu'il s'agit des 
 torts maritaux, la simple peccadille dont il s'agit ne 
 suffit plus. II faut qu'il y ait de la part du con- 
 sort male : 
 
 1. Adultere. 
 
 2, Desertion. 
 
2 74 Le Divorce 
 
 3, Que la duree de cette desertion soit d'au moins 
 detix ans. 
 
 4. Qu'elle soit sans excuse raisonnable. 
 
 II y a quelques autres cas prevus de grossiere bru- 
 talite, de bigamie, d'inceste, etc., qu'il ne nous con- 
 vient pas d 'examiner, car je pense qu'ils sont rares 
 en Angleterre, meme, ne vous deplaise, en France. II y 
 a encore un cas oil la malheureuse epouse pourrait etre 
 debarrassee de son epoux ; c'est celui oil, non content de 
 former des liens immoraux hors de chez lui, le mari 
 traiterait sa femme avec tant de cruaute que les 
 tribunaux ecclesiastiques accorderaient la separation 
 de corps et de bien. C'est a dire que I'adultere lui est 
 permis, pourvu qu'il ne la batte pas et que la cruaute 
 n'entraine pas grand chose pourvu qu'il se passe de 
 consolations illicites. Vraiment M. Naquet doit etre 
 fier. II n'aurait pas trouve ces combinaisons ingeni- 
 euses pour encourager ses concitoyens volages. 
 
 Si done vous allez moraliser la France par le divorce, 
 parceque la moralite anglaise est due a cette cause, 
 vous m'avouerez, Monsieur, que votre edifice repose 
 sur un bien faible fondement. Cette vertu superieure 
 doit etre due a quelque autre cause, peut-etre a un 
 theatre plus pur, une litt6rature plus saine et autres 
 choses que vous connaissez mieux que moi. 
 
 Je me figure cette excellente dame anglaise ayant a 
 se plaindre de son mari. Charme par une de ces 
 sirenes aux cheveux blonds, que vous peignez si bien, 
 il oublie ses 70 ans, sa femme, ses enfants, son honneur. 
 II abandonne tout cela pour visiter Cythere en com- 
 pagnie de la dite sirene. II peut faire cela sans risque, 
 sans scrupules, legaux au moins, pourvu que, parti le i 
 Janvier, 1880, il soit rentre au domicile conjugal avant 
 minuit du 31 decembre, 1882. Le voyez vous d'ici 
 
Le Divorce 275 
 
 bouclant sa valise, embrassant sa Marguerite, prenant 
 son billet de chemin de fer, tout cela au grand galop 
 pour ne pas depasser le terme fatal — la pauvre delaissee 
 attendant, comptant les secondes de crainte qu'il 
 n'arrive avant I'heure attendue depuis si longtemps? 
 Quelques instants de plus, il sera trop tard, elle sera 
 libre. Helas! il n'a pas manque le train, les deux 
 annees auront encore cinq minutes a vivre — elle est 
 perdue ! il est sauve ! C'est la ce que vous appelez ce- 
 pendant sa bouee de sauvetage, sa pompe a incendie! 
 
 Pour I'Allemagne et ses vertus morales, inconnues 
 ou negligees dans votre pays, je n'y connais pas grand 
 chose, mais je m'etais laisse convaincre que le "Pays 
 des milliards" ne valait guere mieux que celui d'ou 
 provenaient ces tresors. Je sais que les Allemands 
 catholiques et protestants se sont fort bien battus 
 contre la France en 1870, mais je n'ai jamais suppose 
 que la question de divorce eut eu beaucoup d 'influence 
 sur les resultats de Reichshoffen et de Sedan. L'on 
 etait pauvre, bien discipline, bien commande d'un cote; 
 riche, delicat, orgueilleux, peu discipline, mediocrement 
 conduit de 1 'autre. Maintenant que vous avez vos 
 milliards en moins et les Allemands ces milliards en 
 plus, je crois bien que votre niveau moral est un peu le 
 meme. Vous aviez trop de prosperite, de bien etre et 
 de jouissance chez vous. Votre grand-pere, le general, 
 vous aurait dit que ce n'est pas avec cela que se font 
 les soldats patients et durs. 
 
 Pour la chere petite Suisse avec ses enfants blonds, 
 roses, boucles, aimant les militaires, je ne pense pas 
 que ces jolies qualites soient dues exclusivement a la 
 liberte conjugale, telle que vous I'entendez. J 'en ai 
 vu de blonds et boucles en France aussi, et j'aime h 
 croire que leurs meres etaient tout aussi pures que 
 
276 Le Divorce 
 
 ces blondes montagnardes que j'estime autant que 
 vous. 
 
 Arrivons maintenant aux Etats-Unis d'Amerique. 
 Ici, je I'avoue, je suis pris par mon cote faible, et je 
 veux bien admettre, puisque vous y insistez, que nous 
 possedons toutes les qualites morales, qui, suivant 
 vous, manquent a vos compatriotes. Seulement, nous 
 ne nous doutions pas, soyez en certain, que I'excellence 
 exceptionnelle de nos moeurs d<it etre attribuee a nos 
 lois de divorce. 
 
 Ces lois de divorce existent, dites vous, aux Etats- 
 Unis. Comme these generale vous avez presque raison 
 et je suis heureux de vous feliciter de ce succes relatif. 
 Mais vous n'etes pas dans la verite absolue, car I'Etat 
 de la Caroline du Sud n'a jamais voulu accepter une 
 legislation qui portat atteinte a la dignite du mariage. 
 Et cet Etat n'est pas un des moindres de I'Union, 
 si nous considerons le courage et I'intelligence des 
 citoyens comme elements de grandeur. Ses fils ont ete 
 parmi les plus distingues de notre histoire nationale. 
 lis ont brille dans notre legislature, dans nos guerres, 
 dans notre politique et meme dans cette guerre de 
 Secession a laquelle vous faites allusion. Elle a fait 
 presque oublier la faute primitive qu'elle a commise, 
 par I'ardeur de son courage et par I'heroisme d'une 
 resistance desesperee. Elle a demontre, dans tous les 
 cas, que la virilite de ses enfants a pu resister meme a 
 I'indissolubilite du mariage. 
 
 Quant aux autres Etats oil il y a en effet ce que vous 
 appelez vaguement " des lois de divorce," il ne faut pas 
 supposer qu'ils soient encore arrives a la perfection, 
 telle qu'elle apparait dans votre beau projet. 
 
 Dans I'Etat de New York — I'Etat Imperial de New 
 York — les epoux peuvent recourir a cette extremite, 
 
Le Divorce 277 
 
 mais il n'y a qu'une seule cause reconnue par nos lois. 
 L'epoux adultere — rnari ou femme — peut-etre declare 
 indigne du nom honorable de man ou de femme, 
 s'il a viole cette clause de son contrat. La loi le d6- 
 clare dechu de sa dignite domestique et lui interdit le 
 re-mariage} Cette loi vous semble bien peu satis- 
 faisante, n'est ce pas? Et puis la procedure n'est pas 
 trop facile. II faut que la faute soit bien et dument 
 constatee; il faut que la partie demanderesse n'ait eu 
 aucune part dans la commission du crime de lese 
 mariage, autrement elle ne pourra beneficier de la 
 faute, puisqu'elle y a trempe. Ce systeme me semble 
 tenement different du votre qu'il ne doit pas vous etre 
 d'un grand secours. Si vous ecartez I'element catho- 
 lique, il ne semble nullement etrange qu'un contrat 
 attaque dans son essence la plus intime par une des 
 parties puisse etre dissous au benefice de I'autre. Et 
 meme I'element religietix qui compte pour quelque 
 chose, meme en dehors de I'Eglise romaine, trouve une 
 certaine satisfaction dans le texte que vous citez de 
 Saint Mathieu et ne voit rien de contraire a la loi di- 
 vine dans une semblable separation. S'il doit y avoir 
 une legislation sur le divorce, nul ne pourra nier que 
 celle-ci soit la plus logique, la plus digne, la plus de- 
 cente, que Ton puisse inventer. 
 
 Dans les autres Etats vous trouveriez une legislation 
 qui varie suivant les besoins et les opinions des popu- 
 lations respectives. II y a parfois une bien regrettable 
 facilite dans la loi, mais nuUe part n'a-t-on vu proposer, 
 
 1 La loi de New York a €ti chang^e en 1879 afin de permettre k 
 r^poux convaincu d' adultere de se remarier en obtenant une 
 permission sp^ciale de la Cour ; cette permission peut-etre accord^e 
 lorsque cinq ans se sont ^couMs depuis le divorce, que le d^fendeur 
 fait preuve de bonne conduite pendant cet intervalle, et que le 
 demandeur est remari^. 
 
278 Le Divorce 
 
 a ma connaissance, un pro jet de loi aussi subversif, 
 aussi extravagant que celui que vous voulez imposer k 
 votre pays. Rien de la sorte n'est venu, Dieu merci, 
 souiller jusqu'ici notre legislation et si le jour arrivait, 
 j'aurais une aussi mince estime de la vertu de mes 
 concitoyens que vous avez vous-meme de la moralite 
 des votres. 
 
 Ceci est tres facile a dire : voyons si c'est susceptible 
 de demonstration. 
 
 D'abord, votre loi Naquet est absurde et illogique. 
 C'est clair comme le jour; voici pourquoi. (Je cite les 
 premiers articles tels que vous nous les donnez :) 
 
 . Le divorce a lieu par le consentement 
 mutuel des epoux, ou par la volonte d'un seul. 
 
 " Le divorce par la volonte d'un seul a lieu: 
 
 " I . Pour cause determinee ; 2 . Sur la demande ex- 
 presse et persistante de I'un des epoux, ajfirmant sa 
 volonte de dissoudre son mariage sans invoquer nean- 
 moins de cause determinee." ^ 
 
 Je vous defie, Monsieur, de faire une clause plus large 
 que celle-la. Elle couvre tous les cas possibles et 
 imaginables. Si 1' epoux peut dire: " Je veux dissoudre 
 mon mariage," sans alleguer d'autre motif cjue sa 
 volonte, quel besoin de donner des causes determinees ? 
 Stet pro ratione voluntas. Sa volonte prend place de 
 toutes les raisons, elle prime tous les arguments. II est 
 done aussi inutile qu 'absurde de declarer quelles causes 
 
 > "Je dois dire ici que je ne connais le projet de loi Naquet 
 que par le texte qu'en public M. Dumas. Je ne connais done pas 
 les details de procedure, de d61ais, etc., dont il ne parle qu'en 
 termes tr^s g6n^raux. II est possible que ces dHails viennent 
 modifier en quelques points la brutality du texte — mais ils ne 
 peuvent empecher que le conjoint m^content ait refu le droit 
 inqualifiable de dissoudre le mariage de sa propre volonte, sans 
 invoquer de causes determinees." 
 
Le Divorce 279 
 
 peuvent suffire puisqu'il n'en est besoin d'aucune. A 
 quoi bon parler plus tard, dans ce meme projet, de 
 causes determinees, telles que les sevices, I'abandon, les 
 maladies, 1' absence, etc. N'ai-je pas raison de dire que 
 c'est parfaitement absurde? 
 
 Quant au divorce base sur le consentement des deux 
 epoux, j'en comprends la logique. En effet, I'acte de 
 mariage ne constituant qu'un contrat ordinaire, de- 
 barrasse de tous les elements de religion, d'ordre public, 
 de necessite sociale, il est naturel que les epoux mal 
 assortis ou variables se quittent pour aller chercher 
 ailleurs ce qu'ils ne trouvent pas dans le conjoint qu'ils 
 possedent. Si je vous achete un cheval et qu'au bout 
 d'un mois, il me plaise de vous le rendre et h vous de 
 I'accepter, rien de mieux. Si je prends une cuisiniere 
 et qu'avant la fin du terme convenu, ses ragoilts ne me 
 convenant pas, il me plaise de la congedier, rien de 
 mieux, pourvu qu'il lui plaise de s'en aller. Mais ce 
 privilege inqualifiable accorde a I'une des parties de 
 rompre a son gre, sans cause determinee, le contrat le 
 plus important de tous, cette faculte exorbitante don- 
 nee a I'homme de chasser une femme honnete et pure 
 aussit6t sa passion assouvie, — k la femme d'aban- 
 donner le mari aussitot qu'elle en trouve un mieux 
 fait ou plus riche ou plus aimable que celui qu'elle a, 
 et qtii I'aime toujours, cela depasse tellement les 
 bornes, que je crois vraiment que vous deshonorez le 
 nom meme du divorce et que vous devriez inventer 
 quelque chose de nouveau pour qualifier une mon- 
 struosite semblable. 
 
 Mais, Monsieur, avez-vous refl^chi, lorsque vous nous 
 avez recommande cette nouveaute? Avez vous pens6 
 aux consequences fatales de cette ecluse ouverte aux 
 passions brutales, egoistes de notre pauvre humanite? 
 
28o Le Divorce 
 
 Quoi! vous, pere, vous elevez votre fille dans une at- 
 mosphere de candeur, d'innocence, d'affection, vous la 
 preparez a devenir la femme d'un homme de bien en 
 cultivant ces qualites de coeur et d'esprit que Ton 
 trouve tout aussi souvent chez vous qu'autre part; 
 vous la donnez en mariage, belle, chaste, aimante, a 
 I'homme qui lui plait; puis un beau jour, le caprice de 
 cet homme ayant dure un mois, deux mois, six mois, 
 il peut aller tranquillement chez un juge lui dire: 
 "Monsieur, je viens ici vous faire la demande expresse 
 et persistante exigee par cette admirable loi Naquet; 
 c'est ma volonte de dissoudre mon mariage. Depechez 
 vous, je vous prie, car j'ai devant moi une jeune fille 
 que je desire epouser et si vous ne vous hatez un autre 
 me I'enleverait." 
 
 Et si ce magistrat, peu rompu aux affaires de ce 
 genre, interpose une objection assez naturelle, s'il lui 
 demande les motifs, (est-ce I'adultere, les injures graves 
 la calomnie, etc.?) le postulant lui dira tout bonne- 
 ment d'aller se promener, qu'il n'y a rien de ce genre 
 et que la loi Naquet lui permet expressement de faire 
 dissoudre son mariage, sans invoquer neanmoins de cause 
 determinee. 
 
 Et cette jeune fille, de venue jeune femme, se trou- 
 vera la, avec I'enfant qui doit naitre et qui ne recevra 
 jamais les caresses d'un pere — divorcee sans faute, 
 sans etre entendue, puisqu'il n'y a pas de defense 
 possible; elle se trouvera la regardant son mari s'en 
 allant bras dessus, bras dessous, avec la voisine d'en 
 face et se rendant chez le maire pour recommencer ! 
 
 Cette pauvre creature qui a donne tout ce qu'elle 
 avait de tresors, sa beaute, son coeur, son corps, son 
 ame a cet epoux, elle devra suivant vous benir M. 
 Naquet qui lui a ouvert, a elle comme a lui, im vaste 
 
Le Divorce 281 
 
 horizon de manages libres et sans limites. Et vous 
 appelez cela une loi morale qui doit viriliser la France 
 affaiblie, anemique, relacheel 
 
 Ce systeme, Monsieur, vous n'avez pu le comprendre, 
 car vous auriez vu qu'il ne s'agissait plus de manage 
 mais de prostitution legalisee, prostitution d'autant 
 plus hideuse qu'elle se pare d'un plus beau nom, 
 d'autant plus a craindre qu'elle recrutera ses victimes 
 dans ce qu'il y a de plus pur et de plus beau chez vous. 
 
 Et que deviendra la securite du foyer devant cette 
 menace constante, contre laquelle la vertu la plus 
 pure ne peut se premunir? 
 
 Quel man sera bien stir de son bonheur domestique 
 — quelle femme pourra compter sur un lendemain? 
 Le menage sans nuages est bien rare, Monsieur, s'il 
 existe! La mauvaise humeur de I'homme, les nerfs 
 de la femme, les preoccupations de tous les jours, la 
 recherche du pain quotidien, I'amour propre froisse, 
 les deceptions de tout genre — cela entre dans toutes 
 les families par la porte, par les fenetres, par les toits. 
 Pensez-vous qu'une loi devrait venir souffler le mot 
 divorce a I'oreille des epoux, dans ces moments d'ennui, 
 de lassitude, pour ouvrir un champ a leur imagination, 
 en leur promettant une separation qu'ils regretteront 
 peut-etre, aussitot faite, une liberte qui, aussitot 
 acquise, ruinera leur bonheur? 
 
 Vous avez d'autant moins droit a I'indulgence que 
 vous ne faites pas une experience nouvelle. Votre 
 systeme a ete essay e, vous devriez savoir avec quels 
 fruits, non pas en Allemagne, en Angleterre ou aux 
 Etats-Unis, mais dans I'ancienne Rome. Et vous n'avez 
 pas le droit de supposer que les memes causes ne pro- 
 duiraient pas les memes effets. La nature humaine est 
 la meme aujourd'hui qu'elle etait dans Rome du temps 
 
282 Le Divorce 
 
 de Juvenal et vous vous rappellerez peut-etre qu'il 
 parle d'une dame qui s'etait octroy e huit maris dans le 
 courant de cinq automnes. Martial va bien plus loin 
 puisqu'il parle d'une matrone qui comptait dix maris 
 dans un mois ! Saint Jerome raconte et affirme avoir 
 vu un mari conduire au tombeau sa vingt et unieme 
 epouse ; elle avait eu, pour sa part, vingt deux maris. 
 Et cela sous un systeme qui avait bien de la ressem- 
 blance avec le votre. Si vous voulez etre plus am- 
 plement renseigne, lisez I'historien anglais Gibbon ; sa 
 double qualite d'Anglais et de non catholique en fait 
 un temoin recommandable. 
 
 Une theorie specieuse est refut^e par cette libre et par- 
 faite experience, qui demontre que la liberie du divorce ne 
 contribue pas au bonheur et d la vertu. La facilite de separa- 
 tion d^truirait toute confiance rdciproque et envenimer- 
 ait les discussions les plus futiles: le differend insignifiant 
 entre le mari et le tiers, qui pouvait etre si facilement 
 eclairci, pourrait etre encore plus facilement pardonne, et 
 la matrone qui dans cinq ans a pu recevoir les caresses de 
 huit epoux doit perdre son respect pour la chastet6 de sa 
 propre personne. — (Gibbon, Empire Remain, chapitre 40.) 
 
 Un mot de plus avant de vous exprimer 1 'assurance 
 de ma consideration distinguee. J'ai lu vos brillants 
 paradoxes avec le plaisir que j'eprouve tou jours quand 
 je vous vols faire vos tours de force litteraires, mais il 
 m'est reste, sur un point touche par vous, une im- 
 pression penible que d'autres peut-etre ont pu partager. 
 II peut done etre utile de vous la signaler. C'est de 
 vous entendre, vous, I'enfant g^te de la France in- 
 telligente, vous, roi de la mode et de la vogue litte- 
 raire, outrager votre patrie par des comparaisons qui 
 la mettent aux pieds des autres nations, ou par des 
 
Le Divorce 283 
 
 plaisanteries qui sont indignes de vous comme d'elle. 
 Pensez-vous serieusement que le type moral de Berlin 
 vaille mieux que celui de Paris, que toutes les femmes 
 chastes et les jeunes filles pures soient de I'autre cote 
 du Rhin ou de la Manche? Les liens de famille sont- 
 ils tenement relaches en France que vous puissiez 
 ^crire sans une exageration ridicule chez tout autre 
 que vous, des phrases comme celle-ci : 
 
 Pour subvenir aux besoins de la maitresse, on se reunit 
 plusieurs, tandis que pour satisfaire aux fantaisies de 
 r Spouse, on est seul, quelquefois. 
 
 Meme vous, etes vous assez siir de votre public pour 
 vous permettre ces vilaines choses la? Ah, Monsieur! 
 si Dieu m'avait donne votre talent — sans votre Diable 
 — ce n'est pas comme cela que je voudrais Im parler. 
 Je ne lui dirais pas que ses femmes et ses filles sont 
 indignes de regarder en face les femmes et les filles de 
 ses voisins. Je ne lui peindrais pas ses faiblesses en 
 termes exageres pour aiguiser un paradoxe. Mais je 
 les lui montrerais telles qu'elles sont — fortes, braves, 
 patientes, laborieuses, intelligentes, sachant accepter les 
 epreuves sans bassesse, et reparant par le travail et le 
 recueillement les blessures d'une guerre malheureuse. 
 Je lui montrerais I'histoire de ce passe si brillant, oii la 
 France fut toujours la premiere dans les arts de la paix 
 comme dans ceux de la guerre. Je lui nommerais ses 
 grands hommes qui ont ouvert de nouveaux sentiers a 
 I'humanite et devant lesquels on se decouvre encore. 
 Je releverais ce moral affaisse, par la verite sur ce 
 passe si beau, et je lui ferais comprendre que I'avenir 
 ne peut-etre perdu pour les descendants de pareils 
 ancetres. Dans les arts les sciences, la poesie, la phi- 
 losophic, la bienfaisance, le martyre, tout ce qui est 
 
284 Le Divorce 
 
 grand et beau, n'a-t-elle pas toujours ete le porte- 
 drapeau? Vous aurez beau faire, Monsieur, avec 
 toutes ses fautes, elle est encore creanciere dans son 
 compte courant avec la famille humaine. 
 
 Mais Dieu ne m'a pas donn6 votre talent — ni votre 
 Diable non plus. Je me console en pensant qu'il y a 
 compensation et que je suis peut-etre et apres tout le 
 mieux partage des deux. 
 
 Je dois m'arreter, Monsieur: vous seul avez le droit 
 d'exiger du public qu'il lise une brochure de 400 pages. 
 
 Veuillez agreer. Monsieur, I'assurance de ma grande 
 admiration et de ma consideration la plus distinguee. 
 
 New York, 15 mars, 1880. 
 
XIV 
 
 MORALS AND MANNERS^ 
 
 IF you will turn to Saint Paul's ist Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, 15th Chapter, Verse 33, of the version 
 commonly associated with King James, you will 
 find that he uses these words: 
 
 "Evil communications corrupt good manners.'^ 
 
 You may think it strange that the Apostle, who 
 had devoted his life to the weightiest matters that can 
 engage the attention of men, should give utterance to 
 a sentiment which, however true in itself, seems 
 almost beneath his notice. This reflection, coupled 
 with the fact, perhaps, that you do not place implicit 
 reliance upon that version of the Scriptures which I 
 have quoted, may induce you to look to some other, 
 and, in your judgment, more reliable text, in order to 
 ascertain whether justice is done to the illustrious 
 Saint. If, pursuing your investigations, you turn to 
 one of the most recent and approved versions used by 
 Catholics (Archbishop Kenrick's), you will find that he 
 makes the Apostle say : " Evil communications cor- 
 rupt good morals," which is much more in accordance 
 with what we know of the teacher's object in writing 
 
 1 An address delivered under the auspices of the Catholic Union, 
 1873- 
 
 285 
 
286 Morals and Manners 
 
 letters. Satisfactory as this may appear, I advise you 
 to go on still farther in your researches until you reach 
 the last edition, from the presses of a Society which is 
 distinguished for the excellent and orthodox character 
 of its publications. This contains precisely the same 
 words as the King James version, and puts into the 
 mouth of the Apostle the words " Evil communications 
 corrupt good manners." 
 
 You have, no doubt, been taught, and your expe- 
 rience must have confirmed the impression, that 
 manners were one thing, and morals another. You 
 may therefore be a little puzzled to understand how it 
 is that, on a matter of this importance, there should be 
 such a discrepancy in the enunciation of precepts 
 which you are bound to accept and to revere as pro- 
 ceeding from an inspired pen. You will ask yourselves 
 whether St. Paul alluded to morals— that is, the inward 
 graces and guiding principles which control the actions 
 of men, or to manners, which are only the outward 
 manifestations of those sentiments, which manifesta- 
 tions may be sincere or insincere, truthful or untruthful, 
 and consequently respectable or the reverse. Of one 
 thing we may be assured, that St. Paul cared but little 
 for mere external appearances, for "nods and becks 
 and wreathed smiles," and that he never presented 
 himself to his hearers as a teacher of deportment. 
 
 But the sentiment that I have quoted was not 
 original with the great Saint. It was borrowed from 
 the heathen poet Menander who lived two hundred 
 years before the Apostle, and wrote for his hearers 
 words which St. Paul afterwards made immortal by 
 retracing them. 
 
 Having gone back as far as Menander, I think I may 
 fairly abstain from farther retrogression, and ask what 
 
Morals and Manners 287 
 
 he meant by good manners, and, what concerns us 
 more closely, what the Apostle, who followed him and 
 quoted him, intended to convey by the expression. 
 
 As to the poet himself, I may take occasion here to 
 say that, from what we know of him, it is no injustice 
 to his memory to say that his manners were better 
 than his morals, and that if he came to the conclusion 
 that either were liable to corruption from evil com- 
 munication, he spoke from actual experience. 
 
 It is but fair, however, to add, that the time in which 
 he lived was one of great corruption, and required 
 something more than the harmonious generalities of 
 graceful poets to purify them. Nor must we forget 
 that both morals and manners have had different 
 standards in different ages, and in various countries, 
 and that nothing can be more unjust or more un- 
 philosophical than to judge of the manners of one age 
 or country from the standpoint of another. 
 
 Here let me enter my protest against one fallacy — 
 that is, the fashion of referring to bygone times as 
 "those good old times," from the excellence of which 
 we are supposed to have so sadly degenerated, and 
 which assumes that everything must have been good 
 simply because it existed in former days. I know 
 that such has been the tendency of men certainly for 
 two thousand years back, for the poet Horace, some 
 twenty centuries ago, spoke of the habit which old 
 people even then indulged in of bemoaning the ex- 
 cellence of the days "when they were boys." Indeed, 
 we may safely say that this tendency is a part of our 
 common nature, that all men have yielded to it, 
 except perhaps the first man Adam, who had no boy- 
 hood to regret or to praise ! 
 
 But if we look back, seeking to find that period in 
 
288 Morals and Manners 
 
 the past which deserves to be mentioned with favor in 
 comparison with our own, we may seek for it in vain ; 
 and the more we look the more fully shall we become 
 convinced that at no period have men been either more 
 moral, or braver, or manlier, or more truthful than 
 now. At no time have they been less cruel and san- 
 guinary, at no time more generous and just, at none 
 more merciful to the weak and helpless. I do not 
 when I make this assertion allude to any special year 
 or short series of dozen years, for there are brief periods 
 in which a people or a community might be said to 
 pass through a transition state. I think our own 
 country is going through such a state at this moment, 
 and many things which we now deplore are but the 
 result of a great convulsion such as no nation has yet 
 successfully withstood: we are reaping a harvest the 
 seeds of which were sown during five years of civil war. 
 
 But looking to the past, take any country that you 
 please, and compare its present condition with that of 
 a former period, and the truth of my statement will be 
 illustrated and proved. 
 
 Turn to France. She has always led the van of 
 modern civilization, has long been first in war, and 
 art, and science; she has ever shown a generous dis- 
 position to share with the rest of the world the treas- 
 ures that she had, or fancied she had, discovered. 
 How long would she now endure the base profligacy 
 and the elegant immorality of her Grand Monarque and 
 his Court ? How long would she submit to the degra- 
 dation of being ruled by such a king as his successor? 
 How long would she endure the unspeakable shame of 
 being governed by the regent that followed him? 
 
 Turn, if you please, to Great Britain. Commence 
 with the first of the Georges, following down through 
 
Morals and Manners 289 
 
 their reigns of egotism, madness, and brutality, and 
 tell me how they compare with the sovereign now 
 upon the throne? 
 
 Turn to Ireland, so long misgoverned and outraged, 
 and tell me whether her condition is not infinitely 
 better at this day than at any time since Cromwell's 
 soldiers spread ruin and death over the land? 
 
 Look at the legislation of all civilized nations: the 
 softened penal laws which no longer inflict death for 
 the most trifling violations; the condition of women 
 improved by a system that permits her to earn her 
 bread and feed her children; see slavery dying out; 
 the condition of the poor a constant object of solicitude ; 
 religion free to lead men to better lives and a better 
 end ; — and then tell me what age that went before is 
 to be regretted? 
 
 To return, then, to the line that I have quoted, and 
 which is thus differently translated, I ought to ex- 
 plain that for long after Menander's time, and after St. 
 Paul's, one single expression was used to denote what 
 we call manners, and what we designate as morals. 
 The necessities of more modern times have required 
 that we should subdivide the common word that 
 heretofore existed, and which was "mores" in Latin, and 
 " manners " in English. With this before us, we can 
 understand why the translators of the Epistle above 
 alluded to use the word "manners," which no longer 
 conveys the idea intended, and which would seem to 
 give to graceful carriage and elegant deportment an 
 importance which belongs to more substantial qualities 
 of mind and heart. What connection there really is 
 between the two, morals and manners, as now under- 
 stood; how it is that subjects, so dissimilar, bore the 
 same designation; how and when each assumed its 
 
290 Morals and Manners 
 
 own banner and dissolved the old association; how 
 far they still bear traces of their former relationship ; 
 the history and philosophy of what we call manners 
 as well as of morals; — to consider this would fill a 
 volume. 
 
 I propose only to visit the outskirts of the vast 
 territory and ask you to bear me company a while. 
 
 Whether we have an intuitive sense of morality or 
 not, is a question as to which great writers differ. The 
 arguments on both sides are ingenious and plausible. 
 
 It is undeniable that all men feel, or have felt at 
 some time of their lives, that they possess a conscience ; 
 though it may, unfortunately, be true, as a distin- 
 guished Englishman says, "that there are infinitely 
 more of his countrymen who are troubled by their 
 liver than by their conscience." But all, even those 
 whom years of rebellion have hardened against the 
 promptings of the inward monitor, recognize the fact 
 that there is somewhere lurking in their bosom a 
 moral intuition of right and wrong, and that the 
 silent voice within rebukes us when we disregard its 
 suggestions. 
 
 On the other hand, we must admit that what is 
 permitted or forbidden in the moral code has varied 
 at different times with different nations and various 
 stages of civilization. 
 
 It is manifest that in viewing this question in an 
 abstract point of view, we must consider it outside of 
 the fixed, definite, and controlling code promulgated 
 by Divine authority. That guide we are bound to 
 follow, and bound to obey, at our peril, whether its 
 dictates meet our approbation or not, whether we 
 consider them in accordance with natural law or not, 
 and whether it suits us, or suits us not. 
 
Morals and Manners 291 
 
 But if we look at nations that have Hved before the 
 dawn of Christianity, or that now Hve outside its pale, 
 we observe an immense difference in those fundamental 
 rules which are at this day universally accepted. 
 
 If a gentleman of extraordinary domestic tastes and 
 appetites takes unto himself more than the single wife 
 grudgingly allowed him, not only the law of morality 
 condemns, but the law of the land incarcerates him, 
 and yet he can point to the most illustrious examples 
 of wise men — nay, to the example of the wisest of all, 
 a king that lived in olden times — to justify him in his 
 practice. 
 
 If our needy neighbor, unable to dig, and ashamed 
 to beg, resorts to the only alternative left, and takes 
 his neighbors' goods without his neighbor's permission, 
 the stern prohibition of the Decalogue meets him, and 
 the offended majesty of the law ptmishes him; and 
 yet, if he is disposed to argue the case, he can point 
 to the illustrious example of the Spartan heroes, whose 
 republican system of laws ought to deser\^e some sym- 
 pathy and admiration from us; he can easily prove 
 that with them the crime lay not in the stealing, 
 which was rather a commendable profession, but in 
 the weakness that allowed detection. 
 
 So, too, filial reverence is ordained alike by human 
 and divine law; but we can turn to numerous in- 
 stances where, among the rude savage tribes of the 
 world, those whose moral instincts should approach 
 the nearest to nature's law, it is a pious practice for 
 men to kill their aged and useless ancestors. 
 
 So, again, you will find that even in Christian times, 
 the taking of interest for money was denounced as a 
 moral transgression, and forbidden alike by the Church 
 and by the law; and yet we have many respectable 
 
292 Morals and Manners 
 
 money lenders among us; and, fortunately for all 
 Catholic churches that I have ever known or heard of, 
 loans are sometimes made upon the sacred edifices 
 themselves, else we must fain say our prayers in the 
 parks. 
 
 Strange and illogical as all this may seem, there is 
 an explanation. 
 
 The Spartans, whom I have alluded to as encourag- 
 ing theft, were a warlike people, whose sole occupation, 
 I may say, was in warfare, and the great aim of their 
 system was to encourage daring, cunning, enterprise, 
 and skill. Living as they did, with no other resources 
 than those furnished by depredation upon their neigh- 
 bors, stealing was no longer stealing, but legitimate 
 spoliation; just as you find in our modern wars in- 
 vading armies and conquering legions making no 
 scruple to carry off the portable property of defeated 
 enemies, and yet they do not call it stealing. 
 
 So among the rude and savage tribes that I speak 
 of, where none but the strong and hardy could obtain 
 sustenance, and all must frequently experience the 
 cruel pangs of hunger, children thought it humane to 
 deprive their parents of life, rather than to allow them 
 to struggle under the burden and privations of old 
 age. 
 
 Again, with reference to the interest upon money, 
 it was only when the requirements of growing com- 
 merce and the increasing wants of men demonstrated 
 that it was unjust to expect that the possessor of 
 capital should loan it without a return, that the law- 
 ful and regulated usage of loaning money became 
 universal. 
 
 Slavery is another subject which strikingly illus- 
 trates the truth of what I have said as to the variable 
 
Morals and Manners 293 
 
 standard of morals. It is but a decade since slavery 
 was a household word in our land; and yet we are 
 already beginning to wonder that in our enlightened 
 Christian age we tolerated, as we did, a traffic in human 
 flesh, and that the theory of Christianity which makes 
 all men brothers in Christ, could permit the sale of 
 that brother and his offspring on the auction block. 
 And yet we can hardly doubt that the introduction of 
 slavery was a humane and kindly measure. It was 
 the practice in war to slay all prisoners, and gradually, 
 as men's manners softened, they spared the life of that 
 enemy, and used him as a servant ; so that, cruel and 
 wicked as we may believe slavery to be, we cannot 
 consistently condemn its origin. 
 
 In all these matters you will observe that the morals 
 and manners of men both concurred to the same end. 
 It was morally right to do those things, and the fashion 
 of doing them became prevalent. Indeed, it is not 
 always easy to say exactly where morals end and 
 manners begin. The dividing line between the two is 
 often so vague and shadowy as to be almost imper- 
 ceptible. What we may consider a mere fashion, may 
 have at one time been considered a very serious matter 
 of morality. For instance, we read in the Book of 
 Kings that when certain unruly and disrespectful 
 children called the prophet Elijah "Baldhead! Bald- 
 head!" the latter at once summoned several fierce 
 bears from adjacent woods, and they incontinently 
 devoured these turbulent and riotous infants. We 
 may fairly infer from the use of the epithet by the 
 boys, and the severe reprimand inflicted by the 
 prophet, that that epithet contained in it something 
 seriously offensive to the well regulated mind; and 
 yet we find no less a man than St. Clement of 
 
294 Morals and Manners 
 
 Alexandria denouncing the use of wigs as wrong and im- 
 moral — in fact, he seriously questions whether certain 
 ecclesiastical ceremonies might not be invalidated by 
 the use of that comfortable and ornamental cover; 
 and he puts the question, which I am entirely incom- 
 petent to solve, whether, when the hand is imposed 
 upon a head thus covered, the blessing falls upon the 
 cover or the thing covered. 
 
 The practice of coloring one's hair, according to 
 one's own sense of artistic fancy, seems to be harmless 
 enough; and yet Tertullian denounces the custom, as 
 contravening the declaration that man cannot make 
 one hair white or black of his own will. 
 
 The practice that ladies indulged in many centuries 
 ago, and which is now entirely past, of painting their 
 faces white or red to suit the caprice of themselves 
 or their admirers, that, too, was most vigorously de- 
 nounced by saintly men. When a certain lady of 
 fashion called upon Saint Leo, to ask his intercession 
 for obtaining the cure of her ailing son, and appeared 
 before him decked out with all the meretricious orna- 
 ments of a fashionable dame, he rebuked her for pre- 
 suming to interfere with the work of her Creator. 
 
 Do you not think [he said] that the Creator of all things, 
 that admirable Artist who made us all, will be justly 
 offended that you should thus accuse Him of ignorance and 
 incapacity; for you certainly would not put black paint 
 and white and red upon your face, did you not think that 
 it required it, and how can you entertain that behef with- 
 out charging your Maker with being incompetent to fashion 
 you properly ? 
 
 And it was only when she divested herself of all these 
 gaudy allurements that he consented to her prayer. 
 
Morals and Manners 295 
 
 Nothing can seem to us more innocent than the use 
 of tooth-powder. But one Apuleius, having written 
 a eulogy on tooth-powder, became conscious that he 
 had engaged upon a very daring undertaking, and felt 
 bound to defend himself by appealing to Nature, and 
 insisted that she rather approved of that process, — 
 to corroborate which, he cited the example of the 
 crocodiles which leave the banks of the river Nile at 
 certain stated periods, and open their mouth to a con- 
 venient bird, which quietly proceeds with its beak to 
 clean their teeth when they need it. Of course, this 
 cogent argument of Apuleius fixes the question; and 
 tooth-powder may be used without scruple by good 
 people. 
 
 But you must not think that it is only in olden times, 
 and by Catholic saints, that these little matters of 
 dress and fashion have been deemed serious and 
 weighty matters of morals. If you will read even 
 modern history, you will see that Protestant divines, 
 too, have undertaken to regulate, though with no very 
 marked success, the dresses and fashions and man- 
 ners of the fairer sex. If you will look to the regula- 
 tions drawn for the government of Geneva by the 
 Calvinist clergy, or for the government of England by 
 Archbishop Cranmer, or if you come down to the legis- 
 lation of the Puritans and the Methodists, you will 
 find this same subject of manners and morals so nicely 
 intermixed that one word would cover them both. 
 Even the Protestant clergy of France, in the time of 
 Louis XIII., though but a small, insignificant minority, 
 undertook to regulate these matters for the whole 
 people. They looked upon dancing as a most ungodly 
 amusement, and prescribed that dancing masters 
 should be admonished by the spiritual power, and 
 
296 Morals and Manners 
 
 desired to abandon their unchristian profession. They 
 ordered that all persons should abstain from wearing 
 gay apparel, and should arrange their hair with be- 
 coming modesty. They forbade women to paint, and 
 they declared that if, after their injunction, any woman 
 persisted in painting she should not be allowed to 
 receive the Sacrament. They ordered that no person 
 should go to a ball or a masquerade, nor ought any 
 Christian person to look at the tricks of the conjurer, 
 or at the game of goblets, or at the puppet show, for 
 all such amusements should be suppressed by the 
 magistrates, because they excited curiosity, caused 
 expense and a waste of time. They declared that the 
 faithful must by no means let their hair grow long, 
 lest by so doing they end them in luxurious and las- 
 civious curls. Their garments must be made so as to 
 avoid the new-fangled fashions of the world. They 
 were to have no tassels to their dresses, their gloves 
 must be without silk or ribbons, they were to abstain 
 from fardingales, and especially were they warned 
 against the monstrosity of wide sleeves. — (Buckle, 
 vol. i., 413-) 
 
 To illustrate how still further, in matters which would 
 seem to belong exclusively to the domain of manners, 
 morals often assert their claims with inflexible rigor, 
 let me call your attention to the question of hats and 
 bonnets. 
 
 The propriety of removing one's hat in the presence 
 of ladies seems to be founded entirely upon an arbi- 
 trary though well settled rule of social decorum ; and 
 though we may condemn the violator of that regulation 
 as a boor, and recommend that he mend his manners, 
 we would hardly feel justified in impeaching his morals ; 
 and yet, if the same omission takes place in a sacred 
 
Morals and Manners 297 
 
 building, where the solemn mysteries of our religion 
 are being celebrated, our moral sense is shocked and 
 outraged. We are then likely to forget the mere 
 question of manners in our indignation at what seems 
 gross irreverence. On the other hand, a very respect- 
 able and peculiarly amiable body of Christian people 
 invariably retain their hats out of religious principle. 
 Their founder happened to read in the Book of Daniel, 
 iii., 20, that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were 
 cast into the furnace of burning fire with their coats, 
 and their caps, and their shoes, and their garments. 
 Impressed by this example, though perhaps with no 
 very apparent logic, they have refused to uncover their 
 heads since their attention was called to the important 
 fact. As for the fairer portion of the human family, 
 they are absolutely enjoined to cover their heads in 
 churches ; and it is wrong morally for them to remove 
 as it is for us to retain our headgear in a building de- 
 voted to divine service. If a conscientious Hebrew is 
 called upon to take a solemn and binding oath, he re- 
 tains his hat ; but if a Christian calls the Almighty to 
 witness the truth of his statement, he takes it off — 
 both of them thus bearing witness that the relation of 
 the head and its covering is one of great delicacy and 
 hedged around with fine moral distinctions. 
 
 There is perhaps no subject upon which we find 
 fashion or manners and morals running together so 
 closely, and none in which we find more strikingly 
 exemplified the truth of what I have stated, viz., 
 that the opinions upon these subjects change with 
 time, place, and occasion, than in the matter of reli- 
 gious persecution. We have all read of the persecu- 
 tions of the Catholic Church; and it has been the 
 fashion to claim that upon her alone rested the charge 
 
298 Morals and Manners 
 
 of having persecuted men for mere conscience' sake. 
 I do not propose to-night to vindicate her from the 
 accusation. That in bygone days she did seek to 
 retain her rebelHous children within her fold by 
 threat of death and by sanctioning the infliction of 
 cruel punishment, is true. Considering, as she did, 
 that all that man could gain in this world was worth 
 nothing if he lost his soul, she did seek to restrain 
 heresy by fearful examples. That the means resorted 
 to in those days were such as make us shudder with 
 horror at present, cannot be denied. Exaggerated 
 though the denunciations be of the English queen who 
 earned for herself the name of "Bloody Mary," yet 
 there is enough in the recital of the sufferings in- 
 flicted by her in the name of her Church to fill us with 
 regret. Vacillating and insincere as was the chief of 
 her victims, we are apt to forget his faults when we see 
 him expire at Smithfield. Surpassed in number, in 
 magnitude, and atrocity as were her tortures of 
 Protestants, by Elizabeth of Catholics, we view the 
 executions committed under her reign for religion's 
 sake with horror. But when we make this admission, 
 we have a right to say that both morals and manners 
 then united to sanction religious persecution. That 
 it was the order and fashion of the day ; that no church 
 that ever got a foothold in any land hesitated one 
 instant to resort to it, is undeniable. When we see 
 John Calvin instigating the murder of Servetus ; when 
 we see John Knox approving, if not taking part in, the 
 assassination of Bishop Beaton ; when we read of the 
 horrors perpetrated for long years upon unoffending 
 CathoHcs by the sovereigns of England, we have a 
 right to say to those who, with exulting exaggeration, 
 count the crimson drops on the white robes of 
 
Morals and Manners 299 
 
 Mother Church, that it does not lie with them to re- 
 proach her with cruelty. If none but those without 
 reproach will cast the first stone, aU must abstain. 
 
 The old Church, we may add, had at least a fair ex- 
 cuse and a plausible reason to assign for persecution; 
 and she alone of the countless sects that have under- 
 taken to persecute those who dissented from their 
 views can allege such excuse and such reason. 
 
 And lest I may seem partial upon this subject, let 
 me read to you a striking passage from an author who, 
 unwiUing as he may be to recognize the claims of the 
 CathoHc Church, is at least entitled to respect for 
 his candor: 
 
 Catholicism [he says] was an ancient church. . . 
 She might point to the priceless blessings she had bestowed 
 upon humanity : to the slavery she had destroyed ; to the 
 civilization she had founded ; to the many generations she 
 had led with honor to the grave. She might show how 
 completely her doctrines were interwoven with the social 
 system; how dreadful would be the convulsion if they 
 were destroyed; and how absolutely incompatible they 
 were with the acknowledgment of private judgment. . . . 
 But what shall we say of a Church that was but a thing of 
 yesterday, a Church that had, as yet, no services to show, 
 no claims upon the gratitude of mankind, a Church that 
 was by profession a creature of private judgment, and was 
 in reality generated by the intrigues of a corrupt court, 
 which nevertheless suppressed by force a worship that 
 multitudes deemed necessary for their salvation, and, by 
 all her organs, with all her energies, persecuted those who 
 clung to the religion of their fathers? What shall we say 
 of a religion which comprised at most but a fourth part of 
 the Christian world, which at the first application of pri- 
 vate judgment shivered into countless sects, which was 
 nevertheless so pervaded by the spirit of dogmatism that 
 
300 Morals and Manners 
 
 each of these sects asserted its doctrines with the same 
 confidence, and persecuted with the same unhesitating fu- 
 riousness, as a Church that was venerable with the homage 
 of more than twelve centuries ? What shall we say of men 
 who in the name of religious liberty deluged their land 
 with blood, trampled on the very first principles of patri- 
 otism, calling in strangers to their assistance, and openly 
 rejoicing in the distress of their country, and who, when 
 they at last attained their object, immediately established 
 a religious tyranny as absolute as that which they had 
 subverted. 
 
 This was the attitude which, for more than a century, 
 Protestantism uniformly presented; and so strong was 
 its intolerance that for some time — I believe it to be 
 truly said — there were more instances of partial toleration 
 being advocated by Roman Catholics than by orthodox 
 Protestants. 
 
 Sir Thomas More, though he was himself a persecutor, 
 at least admitted the abstract excellence of toleration and 
 extolled it in the Utopia. 
 
 L'Hopital and Lord Baltimore, the Catholic founder of 
 Maryland, were the first two legislators who uniformly 
 compelled religious liberty when in power. And Maryland 
 continued the solitary refuge for the oppressed of every 
 Christian sect, until the Puritans succeeded in subverting 
 the Catholic rule, when they basely enacted the Penal 
 Code against those who had so nobly and so generously 
 received them. 
 
 This statement comes not from a partial Catholic 
 pen, but is uttered by a man who, I repeat, is no 
 friend of the Catholic Church. 
 
 So, too, as I suggested above, the French Huguenots 
 have undertaken at times to dictate laws of morals 
 and manners to the French people. And I can hardly 
 dismiss the subject without one word as to those men 
 
Morals and Manners 301 
 
 who constituted, at one time, the most turbulent race 
 of fanatical demagogues that ever brought confusion 
 upon any country or ruin upon themselves. 
 
 No impartial man can read the early history of that 
 politico-reHgious faction and deny the justice of this 
 statement. 
 
 To corroborate my assertion, I shall abstain from 
 Catholic sources and from any reference to Catholic 
 authors. And I unhesitatingly declare that in the his- 
 tory of reHgious dissensions in modern times you will 
 find nowhere so noble, generous, and magnanimous 
 toleration on the one side, and such base and in- 
 solent ingratitude on the other : 
 
 The religion of France was, and always had been Catho- 
 lic. An enormous majority of the people were Catholic. 
 The traditions and fashions, habits and feelings were all 
 Catholic; and yet we find a class of men, insignificant in 
 numbers, as well as influence, taking advantage of the 
 generous — I might almost say indiscreet — tolerance al- 
 lowed them, to become rebels and traitors to their country, 
 persecutors of those who had the power to persecute them, 
 and finally so disturbing the peace of the whole nation, 
 that they practically taught that toleration of themselves 
 was impossible. 
 
 It was stipulated in the edict of Nantes that the Protes- 
 tants should enjoy the full exercise of their religion, and 
 this right they continued to possess until the reign of 
 Louis XIV. To this there were added several other privi- 
 leges such as no Catholic Government except that of 
 France would have granted to its heretical subjects. But 
 these things did not satisfy the desires of the Protestant 
 clergy. They were not content to exercise their own re- 
 ligion unless they could also trouble the religion of others. 
 They called upon the Government to limit the performance 
 of those rites which the French Catholics had long revered 
 
302 Morals and Manners 
 
 as emblems of the national faith. To this purpose, 
 directly after the death of Henri IV. they held a great 
 assembly at Saumur, in which they peremptorily demanded 
 that no Catholic procession should be allowed in any town, 
 or place, or castle occupied by the Protestants. As the 
 Government did not seem inclined to countenance this 
 monstrous proposition, these intolerant sectarians took the 
 law into their own hands. They not only attacked the 
 Catholic processions wherever they met them, but they 
 subjected the priests to personal insults, and even endeav- 
 ored to prevent them from administering the Sacrament 
 to the sick. If a Catholic clergyman was engaged in bury- 
 ing the dead, the Protestants were sure to be present in- 
 terrupting the funeral, turning the ceremonies into ridicule, 
 and attempting by their clamor to deaden the voice of the 
 minister so that the service performed in the church 
 should not be heard. Nor did they always confine them- 
 selves even to such demonstrations as these. Certain 
 towns having been perhaps imprudently placed under their 
 control, they exercised their authority in them with the 
 most wanton insolence. At La Rochelle, which from its 
 importance was the second city in the Kingdom, they 
 would not permit the Catholics to have even a single 
 church in which to celebrate what for centuries had been 
 the sole religion of France, and was still the religion of an 
 enormous majority of Frenchmen. They ordered that in 
 none of the Protestant towns should a sermon be preached 
 by a Jesuit on any day, by any ecclesiastical person com- 
 missioned by a Bishop. They forbade any Protestant 
 even to be present at a baptism, or at a marriage, or at a 
 funeral if the ceremony was performed by a Catholic priest. 
 And as if to cut off all hope of reconciliation, they not only 
 vehemently opposed those intermarriages between two 
 parties by which in every Christian country religious ani- 
 mosities have been softened, but they publicly declared 
 that they would withhold the sacrament from any parents 
 whose children were married into a Catholic family. . . . 
 
Morals and Manners 303 
 
 When Louis XIII., in 1620, visited Pau, he was not only 
 treated with indignity as being a heretical prince, but he 
 found that the Protestants had not left him a single church, 
 — not one place in which the King of France, in his own 
 territory, could perform those devotions which he deemed 
 necessary for his future salvation. 
 
 This [adds Mr. Buckle] was the way in which the French 
 Protestants treated the first Catholic Government which 
 abstained from persecuting them — the first which not only 
 allowed them the free exercise of their religion but even 
 advanced money to them. 
 
 This is the language used by a non-Catholic his- 
 torian, and testimony without end might be accumu- 
 lated to show the truth of this statement. You will 
 find in the books of the day that when, as frequently 
 happened, Protestant converts returned to their 
 Church, they were mildly designated "dogs returning 
 to the vomit of popery," or gently admonished as 
 "swine wallowing in the mire of idolatry," and thus 
 was the majority stung into driving these noisy and 
 intolerant men from the country. 
 
 They had demonstrated that the beauty of re- 
 ligious Christian toleration was lost upon them, and 
 that all that they required in order to become cruel 
 persecutors was power. 
 
 If I have gone at some length into this subject it is 
 because, living as we do in a country where religious 
 persecution finds no place, we can well see how different 
 is the standard of morals and manners in this particu- 
 lar. Deeds that we would now look upon, whether 
 Catholics or Protestants, with horror, were then re- 
 garded not only as the natural dictates of earnest 
 religious sentiment, but as acts of virtue and of mercy. 
 
 If I say that the spirit of religious persecution has 
 
304 Morals and Manners 
 
 almost died out from our modern society, I am not un- 
 mindful of the relentless persecution inflicted at this 
 moment upon good and venerable men for conscience' 
 sake in another land. But even there you will observe 
 that it is not one religion seeking to exclude another, 
 but it is the old fight between the state, claiming to be 
 preeminent, absolute, all-powerful, and conscience, 
 bearing and suiTering everything to maintain its 
 rights. The day is not far distant, I think, when the 
 whole Christian world will recognize the fact that in 
 the oppression of the Catholic Church now going on in 
 Germany, the CathoHc prelates who are suffering im- 
 prisonment and indignity are the champions not only 
 of the rights of that Church, but the asserters of the 
 sanctity of the human conscience; and it will be 
 recognized before long, I think, that it is not only the 
 old mother Church that is assailed, but the war upon 
 her is upon all who try to draw a line limiting the 
 power of Caesar, and who venture to assert that while 
 rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar we should 
 also render unto God what belongs to God. 
 
 You may, perhaps, think from what I have hereto- 
 fore said that it is only with the weightier subject of 
 morals that the good men of bygone times have been 
 concerned, and that mere outward politeness was a 
 subject entirely beneath them. But this I can demon- 
 strate is a great mistake, and I will briefly show you 
 that even great saints have not disdained the Hghter 
 grace of courtesy. 
 
 When St. Anthony was living in the desert, it was 
 reported to him that there was a saint somewhere 
 even greater than himself. It would seem from his 
 action upon receiving that intimation that St. An- 
 thony had not yet by vigils and by fasting, by soHtude 
 
Morals and Manners 305 
 
 and by privation, driven all human leaven out of his 
 heart. He at once started to discover who that saint 
 could be. As it would have been highly difficult upon 
 the very slight intimation that he had received to find 
 the person of whom he was in quest, he was very much 
 pleased, no doubt, to meet a little man with horns and 
 goat's feet to point out the way to his destination. 
 He followed his guide until he reached a cell occupied 
 by St. Paul, a hermit. St. Paul had lived many years 
 in saintly solitude, and fearing the contamination of 
 the outer world, and not knowing the excellence of his 
 visitor, at first refused to receive him. Being at last 
 prevailed upon, he yielded to the impulse of curiosity, 
 and asked him what there was going on in the world, 
 whether there was much building in the towns, whether 
 there were any idolaters still living, etc. While this 
 colloquy was proceeding to the mutual satisfaction of 
 both, a crow appeared which bore a loaf of bread in 
 its beak; whereupon St. Paul at once observed that he 
 had done quite well to admit his visitor, as was evi- 
 denced by the fact that heretofore the bird had only 
 carried half a loaf but on this occasion had produced 
 a whole one, evidently meaning that the loaf should 
 be shared by the visitor. 
 
 The two pious men having given thanks sat down 
 to share their repast, but a very serious difficulty at 
 once arose. Who was to break the loaf before the 
 other? St. Paul courteously insisted that his visitor 
 should have the priority, according to the most familiar 
 rules of elegant hospitality. St. Anthony, however, 
 insisted, with proper deference, that St. Paul should 
 commence, as St. Paul was then 113, and St. Anthony 
 comparatively young (he was only 90 years old). So 
 scrupulous was each to do justice to the other that 
 
3o6 Morals and Manners 
 
 they discussed the matter the whole afternoon, until 
 at last, as the shades of evening gathered about them, 
 a happy inspiration released them from their dilemma, 
 viz., that each should hold an end of the loaf and that 
 they should pull together. This settled the matter 
 to the satisfaction of both. Here, then, you observe 
 an instance of scrupulous politeness, at a time, and on 
 an occasion, and between men, where we might not 
 expect it. 
 
 Although it is not exactly in point, I will finish this 
 pious legend where it ought to end, by adding that St. 
 Paul soon died, and his new friend, being anxious but 
 unable to give him Christian burial, was greatly re- 
 lieved by the appearance of two lions who, with their 
 paws, dug a grave, deposited the body into it, and, 
 having raised a howl of lamentation, prostrated them- 
 selves before the surviving saint, asking him, as far as 
 in their language they could ask him, for his blessing. 
 
 There are other instances, too, of this gentle spirit 
 of courtesy, the courtesy of the true kind, for it con- 
 tains the element of charity. When St. Macarius was 
 sick (we read in the history of the monks), some 
 friendly visitor left him a bunch of grapes, but the 
 saint, thinking more of others than of himself, gave it 
 to another hermit, who in turn passed them to still 
 another, and finally the same bunch of grapes, having 
 made the circuit of the entire desert, was returned to 
 St. Macarius. 
 
 So, too, St. Avitus being on a visit to St. Martion, 
 the latter saint placed bread before him and invited 
 him to eat. But St. Avitus refused, averring his cus- 
 tom never to taste food until after sunset. St. Mar- 
 tion, however, insisted, and gave as an excuse that he 
 was unable to defer his own repast and implored his 
 
Morals and Manners 307 
 
 guest, for that once, to break his habit, and being 
 refused, exclaimed, "Alas! I am filled with anguish 
 that you have come here to see a wise man and a 
 saint and you find a glutton!" St. Avitus was then 
 grieved, and said he would rather even eat flesh than 
 hear such words, and he sat down as desired. St. 
 Martion then declared that his custom was the same 
 as that of his guest, "but," he added, "we know that 
 charity is better than fasting, for charity is enjoined 
 by the Divine law, and fasting is left in our power and 
 will." 
 
 How beautifully blended do we here find morals and 
 manners ! 
 
 When St. Epiphanus, having invited St. Hilarion to 
 his cell, placed before him a dish of fowl, "Pardon 
 me, father," said St. Hilarion, "but since I have be- 
 come a monk I have never eaten flesh." "And I," 
 said St. Epiphanus, "since I have become a monk 
 have never suffered the sun to go down upon my 
 wrath." "Your rule," replied the other, "is more 
 excellent than mine." 
 
 These instances, I think, will serve to estabHsh the 
 truth of my assertion as to saintly courtesy. 
 
 The practice of ejaculating a brief and courteous 
 prayer when a person sneezes in our presence, although 
 it has well-nigh died from among us, still prevails 
 among the Latin races. With us, who are more 
 practical than sentimental, the fact that our neighbor 
 sneezes merely suggests cold in the head and suitable 
 remedies to cure the affliction. But when the subject 
 is considered in all its bearings it becomes quite re- 
 spectable, I may say classical and venerable. Few 
 men and women sneeze with a full appreciation of 
 the importance of the act. Some writers, seeking to 
 
3o8 Morals and Manners 
 
 explain the practice of saluting, go back to the time of 
 Gregory the Great, and show that during his pontifi- 
 cate an epidemic prevailed which proved deadly to all 
 who sneezed. This, however, falls far short of the 
 justice due the ancient custom, for Pope Gregory only 
 lived some 1200 years ago, and we read that as far 
 back as the Roman emperor Tiberius this pious and 
 courteous practice was generally observed and no man 
 of self-respect and well informed as to the morals and 
 manners of the day would have failed to ejaculate 
 "Jupiter," or "Jove," when his friend or even himself 
 sneezed. We have a proof of this in an old Greek 
 epigram which is translated thus : 
 
 Proclus with his hand his nose can never wipe — 
 His hand too little is his nose to gripe. 
 He sneezing calls not Jove, because? he hears 
 Himself not sneeze, the sound's far from his ears. 
 
 Antique as this makes the practice, the rabbinical 
 accounts invest it with even greater age. They say 
 that sneezing was a mortal sign even from the first 
 man until it was taken off by the earnest supplication 
 of Jacob, and from that time, as a special acknowledg- 
 ment, was continued on all occasions of sneezing. 
 
 Nor was the practice of sneezing, or, as Sir Thomas 
 Browne more elegantly denominates it, the "custom of 
 sternutation," merely an occasion of pohte or rehgious 
 demonstration. It also conveyed very solemn warn- 
 ings if we are to beHeve ancient histories. As far back 
 as the times of Homer, who died so long ago that 
 learned men are now uncertain whether or not he was 
 ever born, an Athenian captain would have retired 
 from battle because his boatman sneezed, while it is 
 said that in those ancient days men were wont to go 
 
Morals and Manners 309 
 
 to bed again if they sneezed while they put on their 
 shoe. So Aristotle demonstrates that sneezing from 
 noon unto midnight was very good, but from night to 
 noon unlucky, while another Greek writer observes 
 that sneezing to the left hand was unlucky, but pros- 
 perous unto the right. All of which shows that no 
 man of well-balanced mind should sneeze lightly, 
 and without a careful inspection of the surrounding 
 circumstances. 
 
 Before closing I desire to call your attention to the 
 subject of duelling. Nothing, I think, can more 
 forcibly illustrate what I have sought to prove than 
 the consideration of this matter of private combat. 
 One of the most serious offences known to our law is 
 that of dueUing. The penalties inflicted by the code 
 of all Anglo-Saxon countries are of the severest kind. 
 To slay a man in a duel is akin to deliberate murder. 
 The stain of shedding a brother's blood without justi- 
 fication can only be atoned for by the severest ex- 
 piation. Public opinion in this country has become 
 utterly intolerant of this barbarous and illogical mode 
 of settHng differences, even when the parties call 
 themselves gentlemen! And yet if we go back to the 
 origin of the practice we find that it sprang from a 
 deep sense of religious sentiment. Not only the man- 
 ners but the morals of the past sanctioned — I may say 
 sanctified — the practice. The Church itself looked 
 with favor upon this mode of adjusting variances and 
 of righting the oppressed, while the laws then pro- 
 vided for and regulated this mode of bringing and 
 trying suits. It was supposed that the innocent man 
 could not fail to receive the aid of the Almighty, and 
 who could withstand Him? What test could be 
 surer, safer, and more expeditious, when men not only 
 
3IO Morals and Manners 
 
 possessed full confidence in the justice of God, but un- 
 hesitatingly assumed that they could at their will call 
 Him to interfere in their quarrels in a manner and at 
 a time of their own choosing? Faith in this divine aid 
 might well give the one more than human courage and 
 strength and might well dismay the other. But in 
 time men found that they could not summon Him from 
 His throne at their call, and that He chose His own 
 good time and His own means of visiting the guilty 
 with punishment. That the innocent frequently fell 
 was, in time, discovered, and the Church, long before 
 secular laws interfered to prevent what had become a 
 barbarous and murderous practice, put her veto upon 
 duelling as a mode of administering justice. Even 
 Blackstone says (and he is no friend of the Church), 
 "To give it its due praise, we find the canon law very 
 early declaring against trial by battel [ordeal] as being 
 the fabric of the devil and as against the divine pre- 
 cept 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' " 
 
 From that time it became bad in morals, though it 
 remained good in manners, to engage in single combat, 
 often for the most trifling causes. Of late years only 
 has the code of manners contained a provision to the 
 contrary effect, and as morals and manners firmly 
 united to sanction, so they are now both alHed to con- 
 demn a bloody and senseless method of settHng dis- 
 putes, or a cowardly device for punishing a less skillful 
 enemy. 
 
 And yet the traces of the old practice are still found 
 in modern morals and manners. In France, for in- 
 stance, the custom prevailed that villeins, as all of low 
 birth were called, should fight with uncovered face, 
 while the men of gentle blood wore a visor down. 
 Hence only villeins could be struck on the face, and 
 
Morals and Manners 311 
 
 hence to strike a man on the face was to treat him 
 as a villein and inflict on him a very gross outrage. 
 The traces of this distinction are still seen in the feel- 
 ing that a blow on the cheek is an insult of pecuHar 
 indignity. 
 
 So, too, the villeins fought with a stick or staff; 
 hence to strike a man with a cane was to treat him as 
 a villein, another form of aggravated injury, which 
 ordinary methods of retaliation were insufficient to 
 punish. 
 
 But to us, the most singular fact connected with 
 this ancient method of conducting law suits is that, 
 after the old law that allowed and provided for trial 
 by " battel " had slept uninterruptedly on the statute 
 books for many centuries, within the memory of many 
 now living, a defendant, on being sued in England, 
 boldly flung down his glove before a solemn English 
 court and defied his adversary to single combat — a 
 summary and inexpensive, though unusual, method of 
 getting at the facts — and the greatest judges of Eng- 
 land were compelled to acknowledge that the law 
 never having been abrogated was still the law, that 
 the party was entitled to his "battel," and that they 
 were powerless to deprive him of his right. 
 
 Fortunately for the cause of both morals and man- 
 ners, the fiery litigant was prevailed upon to conform 
 to modern notions, and the judges lost the spectacle 
 which, from their opinion, I feel bound to say, they 
 seemed rather anxious to enjoy. 
 
 But if the practice of duelling is now condemned by 
 morality and dying out of our manners, there are cer- 
 tain races of men among whom the love for that 
 dangerous exercise still exists. In Latin countries the 
 most stringent laws have been passed on the subject 
 
312 Morals and Manners 
 
 without success. In Ireland, where duelling was long 
 the most delightful of pastimes, severe legislation has 
 but partially succeeded. An Irish judge within a few 
 years past reflected the feelings of many when he said 
 to the jury: " I am bound by law to charge you that 
 such a practice is highly criminal, but I also feel bound 
 to add that I never saw a fairer jooel in my life!" 
 
 The changed condition of woman in the social and 
 domestic world forcibly exemplifies my statement as 
 to the variable standard of morals and manners. From 
 a state of comparative slavery, and oftentimes of ab- 
 solute degradation, she has been raised to a condition 
 of dignity and honor. The laws of modern times have 
 been altered with a view to her protection and benefit. 
 She may compete with the inferior being who is sar- 
 castically denominated her lord and master, in nearly 
 all the walks of Ufe — art, science, Hterature, the 
 learned professions — and beat him in all. She may 
 receive and retain the fruits of her earnings, and the 
 law, no longer taking them from her to enrich or sup- 
 port the lazy, idle, or vagabond husband, jealously 
 watches his interference. It compels him to maintain 
 her or go to jail. It allows, nay, encourages her, in 
 living on his substance, and keeping her own. So far 
 does this kind and generous legislation proceed in the 
 direction of protecting the woman that she is allowed 
 the utmost latitude in oppressing her husband, who 
 may well wonder at times if he has rights that she is 
 bound to respect. She may acquire and own property 
 without let or hindrance. She may create debts as 
 freely as she likes, but when it comes to payment she 
 has but mildly to suggest that she is a married woman 
 and does n't care to pay, and of a sudden her married 
 condition is one of priceless value. If the unfortunate 
 
Morals and Manners 313 
 
 creditor does succeed, after years of expensive litiga- 
 tion, to compel payment, she is justly indignant at the 
 iniquity thus heaped on a defenceless woman, and 
 clamors for more equal laws. I know that it is but a 
 few years since an English judge, who was no doubt 
 born and bred somewhere in the middle ages, decided 
 that a British husband still possessed the right to in- 
 flict corporal chastisement on his wife; he cautiously 
 added, "He must not use a stick larger than his 
 finger." The British nation, naturally anxious to 
 ascertain the precise limits within which marital ex- 
 postulation might be exercised, addressed him a polite 
 note inquiring the precise size of the judicial finger. 
 That question he was not, I think, able to answer with 
 mathematical accurac3% and there the matter rests in 
 Great Britain. But here, I may proudly say, she is 
 not troubled with any such nice discrimination. If 
 he beats her, she sends him to prison, and makes him 
 support her in the meanwhile. If she beats him, and 
 he goes to law, the verdict is "served him right" for 
 being a brute. And finally, if she gets tired of his 
 company and has no special cause to allege against 
 him, she goes west, at his expense, of course, and gets 
 a divorce. In fact, I may safely say that no prudent 
 man who cares for his wife would allow her to go west 
 without him. 
 
 So complete is the change in the respective relations 
 of the parties to the marriage contract that we may 
 reasonably expect to see at no very distant day laws 
 enacted for the more effectual protection of the person, 
 property, and rights of married men. This, too, will 
 very forcibly illustrate, when it does occur, the change- 
 able standard of morals and manners. 
 
 I ought not to close without a reference at least to 
 
314 Morals and Manners 
 
 that curious institution wherein the morals and man- 
 ners of a bygone age seem so strangely blended. I 
 speak of chivalry, in which we can observe the germs 
 of our modern civilization struggling for life. How 
 strange it all seems! What a mixture of fable and 
 reality, of the sublime and the grotesque! What a 
 brilliant though unreal pageant "Orlando the Furi- 
 ous" striking off the heads and limbs of his foes, so 
 that they fall about him like rain; "Richard the 
 Lion-hearted" dealing those ponderous blows that 
 still ring through ages in our ears; Bayard, the 
 knight without fear and without reproach, and more 
 real and loveable than all, the good, dear knight of 
 La Mancha. How we follow him through his wondrous 
 adventures, his fearful contest with the windmill and 
 desperate onslaught on the flocks of sheep, until the 
 end approaches, and, the clouds that obscure his mind 
 being lifted by the hand of approaching death, he lies 
 down forever — he and the old poetry dying together! 
 
 Lack-a-day, dear sir [cried honest Sancho, blubbering, 
 as his master began to settle his affairs], do not die — take 
 my advice and live many years upon the face of the earth, 
 for the greatest madness a man can be guilty of in this life 
 is to let himself die outright, without being slain by any 
 person whatever or destroyed by any other weapon than 
 the hands of melancholy. 
 
 But the brave knight was not to be moved by such 
 arguments. "Gentlemen," he said to his squire and 
 those about him, "let us proceed fair and softly, with- 
 out looking for this year's birds in last year's nests. I 
 was mad, but now am in my right senses. I was Don 
 Quixote de la Mancha, but now I am Alonzo Quixmo, 
 the Good." And having dictated his will he died, 
 
Morals and Manners 315 
 
 so wisely and bravely that his biographer might truly 
 say 
 
 That in his life tho' counted mad, 
 
 He in his perfect senses died. 
 
 Nevertheless, says that same biographer, his niece 
 ate her victuals, the housekeeper drank to the repose 
 of his soul, and even Sancho cherished his little car- 
 case, for, he wisely adds, the prospect of succession 
 moderates that affliction which an heir ought to feel 
 at the death of the testator. From all which I infer 
 that there are certain respects in which manners and 
 morals do not change. 
 
 And now I must close, with the hope that I have not 
 quite failed to show you that morals and manners are 
 so closely allied, in nature and by tradition, that you 
 can hardly disregard the one without offending the 
 other. They are both near relatives of charity, out- 
 side of whose gentle influence they both lose their true 
 character and real virtue, so that, rightly understood, 
 the precept is well worth keeping, whether you follow 
 King James or adopt Archbishop Kenrick — the safer 
 way, if I may offer counsel, being to follow them both. 
 
XV 
 
 LYING AS A FINE ART 
 
 PERHAPS it may be no more than justice to the 
 excellent institution which has done me the 
 honor to invite me here to-night, to begin with 
 the positive assurance that the Catholic Union is not, 
 in any sense, a society for the protection or encourage- 
 ment of the fine arts in general, or of the art to which 
 I allude, in particular. 
 
 Indeed, after examining its constitution and in- 
 vestigating the fundamental principles of its organiza- 
 tion, I think I may truthfully say that it is of the 
 reverse order, and that the faithful accomplishment 
 of its objects will very greatly tend to the destruction 
 of that art of which I am to speak this evening. Its 
 chief object is the inculcation and protection of sound 
 Catholic principles, and I need hardly say to this 
 audience that at the bottom of this is the inculcation 
 of truth. 
 
 I have been incited to adopt this title for my lecture 
 this evening, not only because after some reflection I 
 have thought that it sounded well, but because a very 
 celebrated writer whose genius was equalled, and per- 
 haps marred, by his eccentricities, once wrote an 
 
 » An address at Cooper Union under the auspices of the "Catholic 
 Union." — 1873. 
 
 316 
 
Lying as a Fine Art z^7 
 
 essay which he entitled "Murder as a Fine Art"; and 
 it has occurred to me that, considered from an esthetic 
 or artistic point of view, if the art of destroying our 
 neighbor's life is entitled to particular mention and 
 even a qualified sort of admiration when it is ac- 
 companied with pre-eminent skill, much more so the 
 art of lying, for, after all, the murderer can only take 
 away that which must eventually and certainly be 
 lost. He anticipates the destroying effect of time by 
 a few days or months or years. All that he is able to 
 do is to send his brother to his grave at an earlier 
 moment than Nature intended. But he who deals in 
 lies has a much wider field and a much grander scope 
 for the exercise of his abilities. Not only a human 
 life can he take away, but he may destroy character, 
 fame, reputation, glory, happiness. He may ruin em- 
 pires. He may subvert the peace of kingdoms. He 
 may shake the foundations of the best and noblest 
 institutions. He may sow the seeds of the most wide- 
 spread calamity and wretchedness. And when we 
 consider the extent to which he may carry his powers 
 of destruction, if he sets artistically and earnestly to 
 work, we can only exclaim with an inspired writer: 
 " Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth." 
 
 And then, too, the author to whom I have just 
 alluded, and who has viewed Murder as a fine art, 
 speaks with glowing admiration of the various forms 
 which that art has assumed. How much more varied 
 and attractive and wonderfully ingenious are the 
 shapes which the father of lies has been able to give 
 to his pet productions! He may call to his assistance 
 resources which none but he can command, and which 
 even he can only command when he starts the lie upon 
 its mission. All the arts that are known to men will 
 
3i8 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 act as handmaids to assist in perfecting the work. 
 Monuments of stone, tablets of brass, the poet's fancy, 
 the historian's skill, the painter's cunning, and the 
 sculptor's genius will all come forward when sum- 
 moned. Nay, even the solemn legislator, the great 
 potentate, and the grave philosopher — they, too, at 
 his bidding, spring forward to embelHsh, adorn, and 
 make imperishable the He. 
 
 It is true that murder, considered purely as I have 
 represented it, may boast of its great antiquity. The 
 world was still young and fresh from the hands of its 
 Maker when the first murderer shed his brother's 
 blood. But even before that the pure air of the 
 earthly paradise had been polluted by a lie. Before 
 that the great master, nay, the very father of lies, 
 first gave an instance of his power. It was in that 
 fair garden that he deceived the first woman, and that 
 she misled the first man. But upon this picture I do 
 not propose to dwell, and I only mention it to show 
 the great antiquity of this oldest of the arts. It is not 
 a pleasant picture to dwell upon, for, after all, the 
 noblest of us look to this woman and this man as our 
 ancestors, and if we owe them nothing else, we owe 
 them what good Sir Thomas Browne held that we owe 
 to the pope, "at least the duty of good language." 
 
 The lesson taught in the smiling garden of Eden was 
 not taught in vain. It continued to find imitators and 
 admirers, and to spread over the world, until the dis- 
 ciples and students became so numerous that the 
 prophet king was constrained to exclaim, " All men are 
 liars." And many centuries later, we find that one of 
 the greatest of the apostles, speaking of the inhabitants 
 of a certain island, and lamenting the condition into 
 which they had fallen, exclaimed, "They are all liars." 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 319 
 
 It is true that this allegation is less sweeping than the 
 other, for he spoke of one little insignificant island and 
 did not embrace the whole universe in his statement. 
 Whatever comfort or consolation there may be in that 
 reflection you are welcome to. He did not state that 
 the inhabitants of all islands were Hars, nor did he say 
 they were not. 
 
 Before proceeding any farther with the discussion of 
 my subject, it is well to ascertain precisely what we 
 mean when we talk of a lie. The common idea is that 
 a lie is an intentionally false statement. I am hardly 
 willing to accept this definition. It is popularly cor- 
 rect, but like many other popular definitions it is 
 neither morally nor theologically true. If any false 
 statement, intentionally false, be a He, then we have 
 some very respectable members of a disreputable 
 family. We have the heroic lie, the charitable lie, the 
 social lie, and many others that certainly rebel at the 
 paternity that is assigned to them. But whether they 
 are entitled to the name or not, they do not reach that 
 point of artistic excellence which entitles them to much 
 consideration at my hands to-night. They are at 
 best the mere manifestation of the art in its most 
 rudimentary condition. They are dictated often by 
 loving friendship, social necessity, and kindly feehng. 
 They lack the true smack of genius. They do not bear 
 the signature of the king and prince of liars. They 
 are not tainted with some selfish hope or selfish fear, 
 or at least some desire and expectation of doing an in- 
 jury or an injustice, and theologians and moralists 
 concur in saying that the very essence of a lie is in- 
 justice. It may be well, however, to give you an 
 instance of the Heroic Lie, if we must so call it. I 
 select one of the few that have come down to us. 
 
320 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 It was in the bloody days of the French Revolution. 
 Under pretence of sweeping away all shams and 
 hypocrisy the great artist in the department of false- 
 hood had taken things in his own hand and had 
 started an army of lies which kept on multiplying and 
 increasing each day that it lived. Then, indeed, the 
 admirers of artistic murder and artistic falsehood 
 might well be satisfied. Hand in hand they walked the 
 fair land of France, and for a time held undisputed 
 sway. They were not more numerous, perhaps, than 
 their predecessors, but their giants took the place of 
 pygmies. A father and son were arrested upon some 
 charge — charges were easily made, were easily proved, 
 and more easily punished. They were to defend 
 themselves before one of the sanguinary tribunals 
 whose judgment almost always ended in death. The 
 son, perhaps by a refinement of cruelty, was tried the 
 first. His doom was soon fixed, and the court ad- 
 journed in the evening with the usual formalities re- 
 quiring that he should be executed the next morning. 
 The father's trial was postponed, perhaps through in- 
 difference, or more probably that the judges might 
 dine. It may be in order that he might suffer a worse 
 punishment than death — that of being present at the 
 execution of his boy. They passed their last night 
 together in loving conversation, and towards dawn, 
 but a few moments before the fatal cart arrived, the 
 son fell asleep. His name was soon called, and the 
 father answered, "It is I; here I am," and stealthily 
 leaving his sleeping son he was taken off to execution, 
 the last word upon his lips being a lie — if, indeed, I 
 repeat, that falsehood which I class among the heroic 
 lies be entitled to that designation. He was executed 
 and his son lived many years to tell the story with 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 321 
 
 moistened eyes; and the father's memory lives em- 
 balmed in that falsehood. 
 
 I have cited this as an instance of what I would not 
 consider an artistic specimen of prevarication. If 
 there was any sin in that falsehood, we can only hope 
 that, like "Uncle Toby's oath," the recording angel, 
 as he wrote it, blotted it out with a tear. But I have 
 no hesitation in giving such an instance as this, nay, in 
 holding it out for admiration as an example; for if 
 only those will depart from truth whose mendacity is 
 directed to saving the lives of others at the expense of 
 their own, then, indeed, will the race soon die out, and 
 all reproach upon the practitioners of the art be ab- 
 sorbed in admiration and gratitude. It will soon be 
 added to the catalogue of the lost arts. 
 
 The falsehood that I speak of as an artistic one 
 must be accompanied, as I have suggested, by treach- 
 ery, cowardice, injustice, blasphemy, or selfishness, and 
 these must be beautified and exalted by the hues and 
 colors of truth. 
 
 They must as far as possible be attended by plausible 
 circumstances, eloquence of statement, and reasonable 
 probability. They must be adapted to the hearer, 
 to the time, to the place ; and when these concur, then 
 does the lie deserve to be ranked among the fine speci- 
 mens of the art. If some, at least, of these elements 
 are not contained in the subject that may be ex- 
 amined, you have an instance of vulgar mendacity, 
 but nothing that belongs to that group of exquisite 
 productions that have been numerous in every age, 
 but which have never been so common as since they 
 enlisted as their handmaid the accessories of printing 
 presses and electric wires. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, to explain, in connection with this. 
 
322 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 that I do not mean that all great liars have given a 
 careful attention or study to the subject. Some men 
 attain greatness and pre-eminence by labor, by years, 
 perhaps, of toil, and by constant practice, whereas the 
 real artist and child of genius at one jump reaches the 
 very pinnacle. Many men are born great in this branch 
 of art as in others. Their unaided efforts have ap- 
 peared wonderful at times, and as it has finally been 
 discovered that absolute license to lie is not unac- 
 companied with danger to society, scientific men have 
 come forward, have diagnosed it, have recognized it, 
 classed it, and labelled it, and called it "pseudo- 
 mania.'' This mania, like many others, is apt to ex- 
 ist only in a certain class of cases. Where it affects 
 Dives in purple and fine linen the scientific man or 
 accomplished physician is called in, and with a very 
 serious air, befitting so solemn an occasion, he pro- 
 nounces his patient in need of treatment. But if 
 Lazarus in his rags is afflicted with the same dis- 
 temper, science can do nothing for him except to send 
 him to the penitentiary and the workhouse whenever 
 his mendacious disposition assumes a practical form, 
 to the detriment of his neighbor. The same disease, 
 you will see, requires a physician or a policeman ac- 
 cording to the circumstances of the patient. 
 
 I would not encourage any man, however, even if 
 he has the means to employ the best medical skill, 
 to indulge his fancy in unlimited fabrication. For 
 it has been discovered that scientific indulgence in 
 this particular might possibly be injurious to the best 
 interests of the community. And I observe that the 
 most recent and most esteemed works upon this sub- 
 ject suggest that although there is undoubtedly such 
 a disease as pseudomania, or an irresistible propensity 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 323 
 
 to lie, it can be cured by a judicious application of the 
 rod, and a more or less extensive term of imprison- 
 ment. — (Wharton & Stille, Medical Jurisprudence.) 
 
 Dr. Rush, among others, traces the origin of this 
 mental disorder to voluntary adoption, but this, he 
 thinks, may be cured. " Lying," he says, " is generally 
 the result of a defective education. It is voluntary in 
 childhood, and becomes involuntary, like certain mus- 
 cular actions, from habit. The only remedy is bodily 
 pain, inflicted by the rod, confinement or abstinence 
 from food. It would be a mistake to suppose that 
 even when it has become an involuntary and almost 
 uncontrollable habit falsehood brings with it no re- 
 sponsibility. The law will not permit an habitual 
 liar to say that he got goods by false pretences because 
 he cannot help lying, or that he deceived his neighbor 
 in any other way because the nature of his disorder 
 was such that he was incapacitated from telling the 
 truth ; but it wisely declares that if a man is habitually 
 false this habit is only viewed as aggravating his 
 guilt, so that after all, the lucubrations of wise and 
 learned men are much less injurious in this direction 
 than might at first sight be supposed. 
 
 If the time and occasion allowed, it might here be 
 interesting to stop and inquire how far a taste for lying 
 is a natural or an acquired one. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher of great celebrity, 
 holds that it is easier for men to speak the truth, and 
 therefore they are more incHned to do so than to utter 
 falsehood. Carlyle is of the same opinion, and says 
 that "man everywhere is the born enemy of lies." 
 
 How far this may be true I do not care to investigate, 
 nor will I express an opinion on the subject. It is 
 flattering to our fallen nature to believe that we are 
 
324 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 born only with good and honest instincts, and that the 
 natural condition of our moral being is that of recti- 
 tude; but while admitting this, if you please, in 
 theory, it is safe to proceed upon the opposite as- 
 sumption in practice. I fear that if the children 
 about us are allowed to follow the instincts of their 
 nature, without a judicious care to instruct them in 
 the higher duties they are called on to perform, their 
 natural propensities to virtue will soon disappear. 
 That virtue will be rewarded, that vice will be punished, 
 that crime cannot escape retribution, are maxims 
 which it were well to instill into their youthful minds, 
 even before they learn the rule of three. I think that 
 I have not seen exceptionally bad cases of infantine 
 human nature but it always seemed to me that it came 
 naturally to the average boy to rob the neighboring 
 orchard, or even invade the sacred precincts of his 
 neighbor's henroost, and that he only discovered the 
 enormity of the offense and the virtue of abstinence 
 when a judicious application of the usual instrument 
 of torture inculcated the lesson. 
 
 It is particularly when we study what is called his- 
 tory, or the narration of past events, that we find the 
 art of lying assuming its most beautiful and artistic 
 development. Indeed it has become a very serious 
 question of late with students of history whether the 
 presumption was not rather against any historical 
 statement than in its favor ; and I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that if a balance could be struck between what 
 we absolutely know to be false of the statements of 
 history and what we believe to be true, the balance 
 would be very greatly on the side of falsehood. 
 
 It was perhaps a bit of irony on the part of the 
 ancients to present the Muse of history as a woman; 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 325 
 
 but whatever may be the sex of the divinity that pre- 
 sides over historical narratives, it is certainly true that 
 with him, or her, or it, truth is stranger than fiction. 
 I need hardly say that I omit from this rather sweep- 
 ing assertion the books of Holy Writ, but I think I 
 may, without irreverence, cite them in my favor to 
 prove the unreliability of any human testimony. A 
 quaint and learned author says that, man being de- 
 luded before the flood, it is no wonder the conceptions 
 of our first parents were deceitful, and they could 
 scarce speak without error; and he makes the very 
 remarkable statement (which he himself says that no 
 man that he knows ever has observed) that in the 
 recital of the Scripture before the flood there is but one 
 speech delivered by man wherein there is not an error, 
 or, as he terms it, erroneous conception — one, too, he 
 adds, strictly examined, most heinously injurious to 
 truth. The pen of Moses, he says, is brief in the ac- 
 count before the flood, and his speeches recorded are 
 but six. These six, on examination, are found to con- 
 tain either a gross mistake or a very unsatisfactory 
 reply, or impious error, or open impudence, as in the 
 speech of Cain, where, upon the demand of God, 
 "Where is thy brother?" he answered, " I know not "; 
 superadding to the guilt of falsehood the folly of re- 
 turning a He unto his Maker, thereby denying the 
 omniscient power of God from whom nothing can be 
 concealed. But I will not dwell upon this very inter- 
 esting subject, preferring to refer you to the work 
 itself: Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar and Common 
 Errors. It is full of learning, full of interest, and of 
 what the author, with great clearness, terms "illus- 
 trative argumentation to induce their enthymemes 
 upon the people." 
 
326 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 I shall not undertake to explain what "inducing en- 
 thymemes " may mean. In the first place, because you 
 may happen to understand the expression, and then 
 explanation would be superfluous ; and in the second 
 place, because I do not quite understand it myself. 
 
 The difficulty of illustrating my broad statement as 
 to the mendacity of history consists not so much in 
 the scarcity as in the over-abundance of my material, 
 and it would be sufficient for me to open almost any 
 historical work at almost any page and say to you, 
 "This story is untrue." Sir Robert Walpole, on a 
 certain occasion, when his secretary proposed to read 
 to him some work on history, refused, saying that he 
 preferred hearing something that was true, whereas 
 history he knew to be false. Herodotus, who has been 
 called the father of history, has also been denounced as 
 the father of lies, and yet Macaulay considers him one 
 of the most reliable and truthful of ancient historians. 
 Indeed, if I were called upon to name, without further 
 preparation, one single important historical narrative 
 which I can accept as truthful, I know of none that I 
 could cite with entire and absolute confidence except 
 that dramatic, moral, and patriotic history which 
 represents the illustrious father of his country in the 
 act of freely admitting to his angry father that he had 
 destroyed one of his choicest cherry trees with his 
 hatchet. It would be almost treason, which the Eng- 
 lish law declares to be the sum of all villanies, to deny 
 the exact truth of this narration, and therefore I am 
 quite willing to let it stand, not only as an illustrious 
 instance of truthtelling in high places, but also as an 
 exception to the rule which I have laid down, of gener- 
 al historical inaccuracy. I confess that so far as 
 the moral of the story goes it seems to me to be an 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 327 
 
 extremely bad one, and I have always considered that 
 the lesson sought to be inculcated had entirely failed 
 of its object. It seems to be assumed that the absence 
 of lying in a boy is most meritorious, and that the fact 
 that a child failed to tell a gross, patent, flagrant 
 falsehood to his father was one of those heroic and 
 meritorious actions which could only be rewarded with 
 the presidency of the United States. This seems to 
 me very much as though a child were to be lauded — 
 extravagantly lauded— because with filial devotion he 
 abstained from killing his grandmother, or blowing 
 up his grandfather with nitro-glycerine ; both which 
 things it would be undeniably wrong to do, but ab- 
 stinence from which does not seem to me to entitle 
 the youthful practitioner in the ways of virtue to 
 special mention or distinction. 
 
 I will now endeavor to select a few of these his- 
 torical fallacies which have been so carefully prepared 
 or so delicately nurtured, fostered, and finished as to en- 
 title them to a prominent place in the gallery of the art. 
 
 Among all the fictions that history has narrated to 
 an eager and credulous public, there is no class which 
 unites, to the same degree, all the elements of splendid 
 and masterly mendacity as that which we might call 
 the anti-church or anti-papal lie. We find instances 
 of this in every shape — in portly volumes, in magnifi- 
 cent monuments, in sober laws, or in venomous pam- 
 phlets. Take, for instance, the monument that is 
 known to many here present, called the London Monu- 
 ment — a coliimn in the city of London which has ex- 
 isted some two hundred years, and which bears these 
 words : 
 
 This monument is erected in memory of the burning of 
 the Protestant City by the Popish faction in September, 
 
328 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 A.D. 1666, for the destruction of the Protestant rule and of 
 old English liberty, and for the introduction of popery and 
 slavery, but the fury of the papists is not yet satisfied. 
 
 That monument still stands. It was torn down 
 during the reign of James II., but his successor, 
 William, restored it. 
 
 That the statement is a lie, historically speaking, 
 that the expression with which it closes is not only a 
 lie but a gratuitous insult to many faithful British 
 subjects, no one denies. That the so-called popish 
 faction had nothing whatever to do with the terrible 
 calamity that visited London at that time, all are 
 ready to admit; yet the monument still stands, and, 
 as Pope expressed it, 
 
 Like some tall bully lifts its head and lies. 
 
 Burnet, it is true, the English bishop, says that 
 Hubert, a French papist, confessed that he began the 
 fire; but it turns out, and is admitted by Protestant 
 historians, that Hubert was not a papist at all. This, 
 however, is a matter of very little consequence. Mr. 
 Hubert, or Monsieur Hubert, may have called himself 
 what he liked. If he undertook to destroy the city of 
 London he was no Cathohc and a very bad Protestant, 
 or let us more charitably suppose a poor maniac, whose 
 mortal malady entitled him to compassionate incar- 
 ceration. I leave this, however, as a good instance of 
 the historical and monumental lie combined into one. 
 
 So, too, there is the twin brother of this wicked 
 fiction — not only the historical and monumental com- 
 bined, but a little savor of blasphemy added. And 
 this is the prayer for the 5th of November in the Eng- 
 lish Prayer Book, wherein good people who read and 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 329 
 
 pray from that book are taught to call all Catholics 
 indiscriminately their blood-thirsty enemies, and to 
 invite the vengeance of Heaven upon them for the 
 attempted perpetration of a crime denounced by their 
 faith, condemned by their Church, and abhorrent to 
 their loyalty. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of the monumental lie, 
 I might adduce many instances in ancient and modern 
 times of tall and stately monuments that record the 
 benefactions of great and good men, who were neither 
 great nor good; and I might even allude to the com- 
 mon inscriptions upon the headstones of the departed, 
 on which so many virtues are ascribed to those who 
 have gone before, in which it so uniformly appears 
 that the dead were all good and virtuous, that we 
 must think either with a sense of discouragement that 
 human nature has sadly changed since they fell 
 asleep, or else we must believe that our proneness to 
 fallacy invades even the sanctuary of the dead and 
 writes a falsehood upon their last resting-place. But 
 it is pleasanter to attribute this to a more creditable 
 part of our nature — a tenderness which, after death 
 has put its seal upon the life of those we love, only 
 remembers the kindly and gentle virtues and leaves 
 their failings, if they had any, to them and to their 
 Judge. 
 
 A very neat illustration of the anti-papal lie is to be 
 found in the story of Pope John VIII. If you will 
 examine works pubhshed say half a century ago you 
 will find it gravely stated that this pope, who died in 
 the year 854 (Mosheim), was not what he professed to 
 be, a man, but that he was in fact a woman. I can 
 hardly say that this fiction originated as a lie, for at 
 the time that it was first started there was but one 
 
330 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 Church, and there is no special reason for believing 
 that the originator of this fiction undertook to bring 
 any particular discredit upon his faith. In after 
 times, however, this story was eagerly seized upon, 
 enlarged, embellished, revamped, and reframed, until 
 it became an extremely beautiful specimen of the art. 
 I am not sure that even now you may not find some 
 pious and harmless lunatic as fully satisfied that Pope 
 John was not John at all, but Joan, as of any other 
 well-established fact in the anti-popery catalogue. 
 
 Perhaps there may be seen nothing at all discredit- 
 able to the papal office, at least to those who are taught 
 to see in woman the purest and best part of human 
 nature, in the supposition that a woman ever filled that 
 chair. But the Church, following the direction and 
 advice of the great apostle whom I have already cited, 
 has always been extremely reluctant to permit even 
 the best of women to speak in Church. And it must 
 have been manifest that a very serious blow would be 
 dealt at the papal institution if it could be shown that 
 a woman had ever occupied the papal throne. 
 
 As the strength of a chain is the strength of its weak- 
 est link and no more, so the glorious boast of an un- 
 broken succession would be forever lost. This may 
 account for the protracted existence of the Pope Joan 
 fiction. 
 
 When we consider, however, the difficulties under 
 which the historian labors in the performance of his 
 duty, we must extend to him a large amount of charity. 
 Not only must he or should he contend against and set 
 aside his own prejudice, feelings, and opinions, moral, 
 religious, and political, but he must bring the im- 
 partiality of a judge to bear upon the selection of his 
 material. 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 331 
 
 When a long period of time has gone by since the 
 occurrence of the important event he seeks to trace, 
 and the atmosphere in which he writes is compara- 
 tively freed from the prejudices of the hour, his task 
 may to some extent appear comparatively easy; but 
 this facility to get at the real truth by a dispassionate 
 examination of all authorities that he may have at 
 hand is, after all, but illusory, for he must of necessity 
 go back in his investigations to those who lived con- 
 temporaneously with the events which he describes, 
 and there he cannot but find bias, prejudice, fixed 
 opinions, partial judgments, and falsehood. 
 
 Take, for instance, the case of the historian who, 
 after our generation has passed away, will undertake 
 to trace a narrative of the civil war that desolated our 
 own land but a few years ago. In the absence of the 
 actors and witnesses in that dreary conflict, he will 
 resort to the publications of the day. If he seeks to 
 describe the bloody battle say of Cow Ridge, he finds 
 among the most reliable of his authorities the Btm- 
 combe Gazette and Trumpet Blast of Freedom, pub- 
 lished in a loyal northern city, containing a special 
 letter from its special correspondent, describing in 
 glowing and enthusiastic terms the utter rout, con- 
 fusion, and destruction of the rebel army. That 
 correspondent graphically says: "The God of Battles 
 has at last enabled the Northern Army to triumph 
 over this wicked rebellion. The traitors who com- 
 posed the Southern Army have fled in dismay, and the 
 valiant troops who fought in behalf of freedom have 
 at last struck a final blow for liberty and their country." 
 
 He then turns say to the Slaveholders' Bugle and 
 Journal of Liberty, published a few miles south of 
 Mason and Dixon's line on the very same day, and 
 
332 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 containing a special letter from its special correspond- 
 ent, as to that particular battle : " The hour of victory 
 for the Southern Army has at last sounded. The God of 
 Battles has at last spoken in thunder tones in our 
 favor. The Northern horde of barbarous invaders 
 has been driven in confusion back from our sacred soil. 
 Our band of heroes, though contending against fearful 
 odds, has utterly and gloriously defeated the enemy. 
 Our victorious generals are now on the very eve of 
 striking the final blow, and affixing the seal of victory 
 to the triumph of our glorious cause." 
 
 And so on. The historical investigator will find 
 ample authority to sustain whatever view of the case 
 he may feel incHned to take. He may be a little 
 puzzled to explain the official surrender of the one 
 side after such a series of triumphs as he has read of in 
 the Slaveholders' Journal of Liberty, and on the other 
 hand he will not very easily understand why a contest 
 which was so surely to have been settled in ninety 
 days lasted so many bloody years. 
 
 The city papers reported, a short time since, an 
 eloquent discourse by a reverend gentleman who 
 seems to be afflicted with the now very common dis- 
 order which I might term, for want of a better ex- 
 pression, " Jesuitophobia," in other words, a serious 
 and patriotic apprehension that the brothers of the 
 order of Jesuits are about to overturn all our glorious 
 institutions and hand over the whole country, bound 
 hand and foot, to their general, who resides in Rome, 
 after having, of course, delivered over a few dozen 
 heretics to the secular arm for instant combustion. 
 
 In order aptly to illustrate the formidable character 
 of this order, and to give an instance of the many 
 atrocities which are to be laid to their charge, he cited 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 333 
 
 the case of Joan of Arc. You may wonder, perhaps, 
 what Joan of Arc has to do with the Jesuits, but he 
 explained it in a very satisfactory manner: The 
 dreadful tragedy in which that pure maid expiated the 
 only crime which she had committed, viz., the saving 
 of her country, would never have been perpetrated had 
 it not been for the machinations of that dark and mys- 
 terious body of men. They, and they only, are respon- 
 sible to history and to posterity for this dreadful event. 
 Now it happens that Joan of Arc was executed (if 
 she ever was executed) in the year 1431, and that the 
 famous order which disturbs the dreams of this pious 
 gentleman was foimded about one hundred years 
 after that event. Of course so insignificant a period as 
 one century is not worth noticing when you are dealing 
 with an unprincipled and wicked adversary, and I 
 should not have thought it worth our while to con- 
 sider this matter, or even to mention it, had it not been 
 that I am afraid the whole story is a myth, after all. 
 I say afraid, because it is never pleasant to give up one 
 of the delusions of your boyhood; and we have all 
 heard so much and read so much and seen, perhaps 
 wept over, so many beautiful pictures connected with 
 this tragedy, that if that romance is torn out of our 
 memory we will feel as though we had been deprived 
 of some of our personal property. And yet, it is not 
 at all certain that the heroic maid ended her life in the 
 blazing fire of Rouen. Modern investigation seems to 
 point to a much less romantic but quite as satisfactory 
 termination of that glorious life. Newly discovered 
 documents have led to the supposition that Joan not 
 only escaped martyrdom, but was actually married. 
 The documents cited in support of this theory are 
 certainly very strong and very plausible. They are 
 
334 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 entitled to a great deal of weight, indeed to so much 
 weight that if the Jesuit fathers who did not put her 
 to death and the fanatical and bigoted men who did 
 (or who are supposed to have done so) were upon 
 their trial, there would be sufficient doubt in the case 
 to acquit them all. Here, for instance, is a translation 
 of an extract from a manuscript register of the events 
 that had taken place only a short time before. It was 
 found in the city of Metz by Father Vignier of the 
 Oratory, who is described as "a learned and zealous 
 philobiblion," ever in pursuit of literary discoveries, of 
 which so many are due to the institution of the Oratory. 
 The manuscript is as follows : 
 
 In the year 1436 Messire Phlin Marcon was Sheriff of 
 Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the aforesaid year, 
 came the maid Jeanne, who had been in France, to la 
 Grange of Ormes, near St. Prive, and was taken there to 
 confer with any one of the Sieurs of Metz, and she called 
 herself Claude: and on the same day there came to see her 
 there her two brothers, one of whom was a knight and was 
 called Messire Pierre, and the other "petit Jehan" a Squire, 
 and they thought that she had been burnt, but as soon as 
 they saw her, they recognized her, and she them, and on 
 Monday the 21st day of the said month, they took their 
 sister with them to Boguelon, and the Sieur Nicole, being 
 a knight, gave her a stout stallion, of the value of thirty 
 francs and a pair of saddle clothes; the Sieur Aubert 
 Bouelle^a riding hood; the Sieur Nicole Grognet a sword; 
 and the'; said maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and 
 said several things to the Sieur Nicole, by which he well 
 understood that it was she who had been in France and she 
 was recognized by many tokens to be the maid Jeanne of 
 France, who escorted King Charles to Reims; and several 
 declared that she had been burnt in Normandy, and she 
 spoke mostly in parables. 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 335 
 
 The narrative then goes on to relate how a certain 
 count saw her and loved her greatly, 
 
 and when she wished to go away he had a handsome cuirass 
 made for her to equip her therein, and there was solemnized 
 the marriage of Monsieur de Hermoise, Knight, and the 
 said maid Jeanne. And afterwards said Sieur Hermoise 
 with his wife, the maid, came to live at Metz in the house 
 that the said Sieur had opposite to St. Seglenne and re- 
 mained there until it pleased them to depart. (De Quincey 's 
 Essay). 
 
 A satisfactory illustration of the purely patriotic 
 fallacy may be found in the charming story of William 
 Tell. If there is anything that that sturdy little 
 nation Switzerland feels proud of, besides its moim- 
 tains and its cheese, it is the traditional glory that 
 hovers about the exploits of that ancient hero. And 
 now come more of these image-breakers, who insist 
 that William Tell did not amount to much, after all — 
 chiefly because he never existed, and secondly because, 
 if he did exist, he was a Dane or Scandinavian, which 
 would not make the case much better for the Swiss, 
 who have claimed that he was peculiarly and ex- 
 clusively their own. The whole story seems to be a 
 fable. And the gallant exploit of shooting the apple 
 off his boy's head, and his fierce answer to the tyrant 
 Gessler, and his nimble jump into the rowboat are all 
 swept away by the ruthless hand of subsequent his- 
 torians. Perhaps, and we offer this by way of con- 
 solation, two or three hundred years hence it will be 
 found that they, too, are in error, and some new and 
 even more interesting history may be substituted for 
 the one we now have. 
 
 I will not attempt to enter with particularity into 
 
33^ Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 farther instances of the patriotic He. It is a very 
 common and in many cases, I think, a harmless one. 
 Surely the harmony of the universe will not be dis- 
 turbed if that sturdy little people that I have just 
 spoken of continues to turn a Danish or Scandinavian 
 fable into a Swiss reality, nor could other nations 
 plausibly find fault with the French people of bygone 
 ages who were entirely satisfied that the oil which 
 anointed their newly-made kings had come down 
 from Heaven, where it had been made expressly for 
 that purpose. Even if it were not absolutely settled 
 and placed beyond the reach of historical controversy 
 that St. Patrick destroyed all the serpents in Ireland, 
 I can see no sound reason for disturbing a belief which 
 only does honor to that excellent saint, which gratifies 
 the patriotic and religious sense of his people, and 
 inflicts no serious mischief upon the reptiles. 
 
 The political lie, or the art of fabricating false re- 
 ports for political ends, is also one entitled to notice. 
 
 It is said to have been a maxim of Catherine de 
 Medici that "a false report if believed during three 
 days may be of great service to the state." 
 
 Whether she said it or not is of little consequence. 
 Many before her acted upon this theory, and many 
 since her day have practised the lesson impliedly 
 taught, with signal ability and marked success. 
 
 The beauty of this class of fiction consists in circum- 
 stance and in a mixture of reality, or what has been 
 happily called "a just discrimination between solid 
 lying and disguised truth." 
 
 In every such fable there should be some bit of 
 homely detail to throw a realistic coloring about the 
 picture. Thus, for instance, in a momentous crisis 
 in English history it became necessary to deny the 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 337 
 
 legitimacy of James II. 's son, commonly known as the 
 Pretender. An inexperienced artist would have con- 
 fined himself to a direct denial of the child's title. He 
 would have said and sworn that the queen had no son, 
 never had had a son, and never would have a son. 
 But not so the real artist who took charge of the work. 
 He pictures a most probable and most plausible scene 
 ending with the conveyance into the queen's bed- 
 chamber of a spurious infant that a bigoted and 
 unscrupulous popish king was seeking to palm off on 
 a free and Protestant country. But that was not 
 enough to satisfy the exigencies of true art. He gave 
 the hour, the names of the attendants, the language of 
 the actors, and then came the finishing and artistic 
 touch, the stroke of genius which challenges admira- 
 tion to this day : he positively assured his hearers that 
 the infant had been carried to the queen's room in a 
 warming-pan. The warming-pan crowned the picture 
 with imperishable glory and with absolute success, 
 and so high an authority as Lord John Russell has 
 stated "that the fiction of the warming-pan, enclosing 
 the young pretender, brought more adherents to the 
 cause of the Whigs than the Bill of Rights." 
 
 So, too, it is important that there should be an 
 element of truth, if possible, in the story. After the 
 battle of the Boyne, for example, Pere Londel, who 
 published a register of the times, recorded the event in 
 the following brief but not entirely satisfactory man- 
 ner: "The battle of the Boyne in Ireland. Schom- 
 berg is killed at the head of the English," and that was 
 all. This has been referred to as an equivocation, and 
 condemned as an unfair way of putting things. Still 
 you will observe that every word is strictly true ; and 
 if the writer did not say what became of King James 
 
338 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 on that momentous day he may have had good reason 
 for his abstinence. Perhaps he did not know, or such 
 was the rate of speed which that hasty monarch ex- 
 hibited on that occasion that perhaps he did not care 
 to follow him. 
 
 A very pretty bit of this sort of political fallacy was 
 exhibited when Philip sought to conquer England with 
 his fleet. To say that he was a bigot and would send 
 an indefinite number of heretics to the stake was not 
 enough. Perhaps, too, it might have been true. So 
 that wiliest of statesmen, Elizabeth's minister, spread 
 reports of the thumbscrews and other instruments of 
 torture which the Spaniards were supposed to have 
 brought with them, and this inflamed the fury of the 
 people in the most satisfactory manner. 
 
 Though why they should have been troubled at the 
 importation of thumbscrews or racks it is not very 
 easy to understand, for surely Elizabeth had a very 
 respectable supply on hand, which she did not much 
 scruple to use when her Roman Catholic subjects were 
 concerned. Indeed, the sovereigns of England, Catho- 
 lic or Protestant, in those ages did not much scruple 
 to make use of that or any other means of distressing 
 their subjects, of whatever faith. 
 
 To sum up this part of my subject I will borrow a 
 passage from an author who joins to his other titles 
 to the admiration of posterity that of being the 
 father of the present English premier : 
 
 There is no class of political lying which can want for 
 illustration if we consult the records of our civil wars. 
 There we may trace the whole art in all the nice manage- 
 ment of its shades, its qualities, and its more complicate 
 parts; from invective to puff, and from inuendo to pre- 
 varication! We may admire the scrupulous correction of 
 
Lying as a Fine Art 339 
 
 a lie which they had told, by another which they are tell- 
 ing ! and in triple lying to over-reach their opponents Royal- 
 ists and Parliamentarians were alike ; for, to tell one great 
 truth, the father of lies is of no party!" (Disraeli's Curi- 
 osities of Literature.) 
 
 It would not be just to close without a word of 
 praise bestowed upon what may be called the minia- 
 ture lie, I allude to the nickname — one of the most 
 powerful of all the weapons in the arsenal. In no way 
 can calumny be so charmingly epitomized and false- 
 hood so exquisitely abridged as in the nickname. It 
 is a homely old-fashioned saying that "if you want to 
 hang a dog, give him a bad name" ; but it is not only 
 the four-legged friend of man who has suffered from 
 this compendious form of vituperation. Take re- 
 ligious discussion, for instance, and you will see the 
 truth of this most strikingly exemplified. Advocate, 
 if you please, any doctrine of your Catholic faith, 
 and you are silenced with the contemptuous retort 
 that you are merely advocating a popish superstition. 
 If you obstinately persist and get the best of the argu- 
 ment, then you are called a "Jesuit in disguise," 
 which means that you are taught to lie, and that 
 prevarication is one of the cardinal virtues of your 
 creed. If, however, you still refuse to yield, and 
 vanquish your adversary in a fair discussion of a sub- 
 ject, whatever it may be, say, if you please, " Church 
 and State," the newly -created nickname "Vatican- 
 ism" is fired off at you, and you leave the field in 
 confusion, none the less perhaps because you do not 
 absolutely comprehend what the epithet means. 
 Somewhat as the famous fish-wife whom Dr. Johnson 
 encoimtered in wordy strife. The tide of battle ran 
 against the doctor for a while, until he summoned the 
 
340 Lying as a Fine Art 
 
 parts of speech to his assistance. He called her a 
 noun, a pronoun, an adverb, and she hesitated. He 
 vigorously charged her with being conjunction and 
 preposition. She wavered. And when at length with 
 stentorian voice he accused her to her face of being a 
 parallelopipedon, she broke in disorder and fled in the 
 utmost confusion. 
 
 I ought, perhaps, to say a word about that sort of 
 mendacity which is of the newspaper order, but am 
 a little timid about anything that may disturb the 
 serenity of that Olympian divinity which we call the 
 press. So I will content myself with offering you 
 what an old writer, Patin by name, said some years 
 ago. Whether it is true now or not you can judge for 
 yourselves. He characterizes the race of newspaper 
 scribes, as reporters were then called, in Latin that I 
 will cite, but not translate, namely, hominum genus 
 audacissimum, mendacissimum, avidicissimum. 
 
 He goes on thus : 
 
 These writers insert in their papers things they do not 
 know and ought not to write. It is the same trick that is 
 playing which was formerly played; it is the very same 
 farce, only it is exhibited by new actors. The worst cir- 
 cumstance I think, in this is, that this trick will continue 
 playing a long course of years, and that the public suffer 
 a great deal too much by it. 
 
 I have now touched upon the art in some of its 
 varied manifestations, purposely refraining from refer- 
 ence to it in its strictly moral aspects. I am sure you 
 need no advice on the subject in connection with the 
 morality thereof, but if you should, perchance, ask my 
 counsel, I will merely say as Mr. Punch did, when con- 
 sulted by certain young people about matrimony, 
 '' Don'ty 
 
XVI 
 
 M 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE BAR ^ 
 
 Y subject this evening, ladies and gentlemen, 
 is the Church and the Bar, the Priests and 
 the Lawyers. A very fruitful and suggestive 
 theme, you must all admit, and one upon which many 
 lectures might be delivered. If I should undertake to 
 exhibit the virtue and merits of the clergy and their 
 title to your admiration and respect, I might speak all 
 night and still, when I concluded, you would feel that 
 I had not said half enough; while I might occupy 
 your time and attention many evenings without satis- 
 fying you that I had exhausted the catalogue of the 
 lawyers' iniquities. I must be careful, then, to steer 
 clear of such appalling dangers and endeavor to attain 
 my end at a lesser cost of time and of patience. 
 
 Whatever else you may think and say of my subject, 
 this you must admit, viz., that for once at least the 
 bar, coming before you hand in hand with the clergy, 
 is found in good company. That it has some sort of 
 right to enter into that company without incurring 
 the danger of merited dismissal I shall try to prove. 
 For the only body of men whose superiority over, nay, 
 whose equality with, the bar, I am ready to concede, 
 is the body of the clergy. If I can prove that clergy 
 
 1 An address under the auspices of the CathoHc Union. 
 341 
 
342 The Church and the Bar 
 
 and bar have been for centuries connected and in- 
 timately united — that so little peril to their souls did 
 good and reverend men discern in the practice of the 
 law that they only abandoned it when they could not 
 help it — then I shall claim that I have done much to 
 reinstate my worthy brethren in the favorable opinion 
 of all sensible men. Of course I well know that there 
 ever will and ever must be much abuse and injustice 
 done to those whose mission is to bring the wicked to 
 punishment and to tear away the veil from knaves 
 and hypocrites, but this must needs be in the very 
 nature of things. 
 
 No rogue e'er felt the halter draw 
 With good opinion of the law. 
 
 So all the rogues will be against us, and they are numer- 
 ous enough to make a very considerable noise. But, 
 even rejecting these, what class of men can claim to 
 sit in judgment upon the bar? How we might retort 
 upon them if time were not so valuable and we were 
 not used to abuse! To the faultfinding merchant, for 
 instance, we might answer: Remember that the first 
 genuine mercantile operation on record is Joseph sold 
 by his brethren, and, alas, have you not been doing 
 the same and selling your brothers ever since! If 
 the broker should venture to open his lips in dispraise 
 of our cloth, we might cite against him the definition of 
 his own calling, made so long since and by such high 
 authority that we must fain accept it as true: A 
 broker is a man who, when two persons are doing 
 business, steppeth in between the two and robbeth 
 both! Nor has the carping tailor a right to whisper a 
 syllable against us, for it takes nine of him to make 
 one man, and such a fractional bit of humanity were 
 
The Church and the Bar 343 
 
 wise to hold his peace. As for that useful and re- 
 spectable member of society the shoemaker, we may 
 say to him, in the time-consecrated language of the 
 proverb, " Shoemaker, stick to your last." As for the 
 doctors, they are so busy fighting and devouring each 
 other on the grotmd of different and hostile practices 
 that they never think of the lawyer except when it be- 
 comes necessary to sue their patients for their fees — 
 so I leave them out of the question. As for the mighty 
 banker, what is he but a money-changer, whose fre- 
 quent little "mistakes" subject him to ignominious 
 expulsion from the Temple of Justice, much as near 
 two thousand years ago he was expelled from the 
 Temple of Jerusalem! It is true a certain class of 
 social reformers to be found in one of Shakespeare's 
 plays cry out, " The first thing we do we 'II hang all the 
 lawyers.'' But as it has generally turned out that the 
 lawyers reversed the proceedings and hung them, 
 their opinion is of no great practical value. If the 
 reverend clergy, however, should take up the swelling 
 note of denunciation — which, of course, is a wild suppo- 
 sition — then we would answer with a lecture on the 
 clergy and the bar! 
 
 The clergy and the bar are old and tried friends. 
 Not only have they fought the good fight shoulder to 
 shoulder on many a well-contested field, but time was 
 when they were, as one might say, Siamese twins, and 
 the mud flung at the lawyer's gown was certain to 
 bespatter the cassock of the priest. This a short 
 historical narrative will show. 
 
 I will carry you back to days gone by, to that "once 
 upon a time" that becomes more charming as it 
 recedes into the mists of antiquity, illuminated by 
 no magical stenographer, nor quick-witted newspaper 
 
344 The Church and the Bar 
 
 interviewer, away back to the time when a Norman 
 knight fought at Hastings for a kingdom and won. 
 
 Now this new-made king as soon as he had seated 
 himself upon his throne bethought him of his con- 
 science, and, lest in the hurry and confusion of business 
 he should lose it, he sought out a keeper to guard it 
 for him. He had but two valuable commodities, it 
 would seem, that he was not capable of guarding with 
 his stout lance and sturdy warriors; the one, as I 
 have said, his conscience, and the other, the great 
 seal that evidenced his royal authority. So he ap- 
 pointed a Norman priest to the office of Chancellor or 
 Keeper of the great Seal, one Maurice, who sub- 
 sequently became Bishop of London — thus uniting 
 the office of a judge to the priestly functions. Per- 
 haps I might be satisfied with tracing the office of the 
 chancellor to such a source and one so respectable by 
 reason of antiquity and priestly dignity, but I can 
 confer still higher honor on the judge's robes by 
 carrying you more than two centuries back of William's 
 time and showing you not only a bishop but a saint, 
 Swithin by name, filling the same office. He was a 
 judge, hence must have known some law, whence I 
 infer that he was a lawyer before that. His respecta- 
 bility was so well established that even after the 
 separation of England from the Holy See, Saint 
 Swithin 's name was kept upon the calendar, and there 
 it is to this day, the 15th of July. He is called the 
 raining saint, because, as the popular rhyme has it in 
 Scotland, 
 
 St. Swithin's day, if it do rain, 
 For forty days it will remain ; 
 St. Swithin's day, if it be fair, 
 For forty days 't will rain na mair. 
 
The Church and the Bar 345 
 
 I only know of one reported case of this saint, 
 bishop, and magistrate, but if we can judge of all from 
 the specimen transmitted, he certainly stands far 
 above the modern chancellors who have occupied his 
 judicial seat. I translate it from William of Malmes- 
 bury. " An old woman came to complain to him that 
 the eggs in her basket which she was carrying to market 
 had all been wantonly broken. He ordered the poor 
 and squalid woman to be brought before him, and 
 when he had heard her piteous story he was moved with 
 compassion, and having at once blessed himself, he 
 restored all the eggs to their former sound condition." 
 
 But I must return to King William and his chan- 
 cellor, merely remarking that before his time we find 
 distinct traces of a class of lawyers, known as Masters 
 in Chancery, all of them in holy orders, all of them 
 well trained in jurisprudence, and all of them no doubt 
 quite as well able to perform the duties of a master's 
 office as their successors, not excepting, perhaps, the 
 drawing of a bill of costs. 
 
 Chancellor Maurice, then, was not by any means 
 the first lord chancellor. The office was over two 
 hundred years old when he was appointed to it, and 
 long before he was called upon to divide his time be- 
 tween the Church and the bench there was a sort of 
 college of justice, composed of the chancellor and his 
 clerical lawyers, who dispensed justice and law, divine 
 and human, and, so far as we know, to the general 
 satisfaction. 
 
 We can all understand and readily appreciate the 
 keepership of a kingly conscience when the custodian 
 was a priest, whose holy function it was to keep that 
 delicate part of the royal organism in good condition, 
 but I confess that I cannot quite conceive how lay 
 
346 The Church and the Bar 
 
 chancellors went about it when they by virtue of this 
 high office undertook the same duty. Fancy the lord 
 chancellor who had within his keeping that infinitely 
 delicate organ, Henry VIII. 's conscience; fancy, to 
 bring the matter more nearly home to us, that hard- 
 swearing, godless, immoral old Thurlow, George III.'s 
 lord chancellor, giving ghostly counsel to his sovereign 
 and advising him not to swear, nor blaspheme, nor 
 violate the decencies of domestic life, nor set bad ex- 
 ample to his subjects ; or, if you can, imagine a keeper 
 of George IV. 's royal conscience trying to do his duty. 
 Indeed, I think the guarded language of an ex-chan- 
 cellor, who ought to be an expert on the subject, may 
 be fully trusted. 
 
 " The custody of the royal conscience may possibly 
 be considered one of the obsolete functions of the 
 chancellor, for he is no longer a casuist for the sovereign 
 as when priest, chancellor, and confessor." I cannot, 
 interesting as the subject would surely be, carry you 
 through the long list of bishops, archbishops, nay, 
 cardinals, who filled the lord chancellor's seat. Many 
 of them have left great names, and to their honor and 
 the honor of their Church be it said that as a rule, and 
 considering the rudeness and freedom of the times in 
 which they lived, they have left an honorable record 
 behind them. It was no rare instance of self-denial 
 for one of these great bishops and judges, after ad- 
 ministering the laws of God and man for years, to 
 descend from this eminence to seek the peace and 
 retirement of a cloister, there to await his end. No 
 ribbons, garters, pensions, nor splendid gifts could 
 help him then and he knew it. 
 
 But I feel in conscience bound to make one state- 
 ment that will, I fear, greatly lower these holy men 
 
The Church and the Bar 347 
 
 in your esteem. You have many of you no doubt 
 received a bit of paper, half-printed, half-written, 
 generally very dirty, and which is thrust into your 
 reluctant hand by a seedy but penitent gentleman, 
 against whom your feelings for the moment are simply 
 of hatred unalloyed. That paper, he says, is a 
 "speeny." Your lawyer calls it a "subpoena." You 
 don't call it anything, but invoke something not a 
 blessing on its inventor. Alas, my friends, be careful: 
 it was invented by a bishop, a real genuine bishop, 
 John of Walt ham. Bishop of Salisbury, and that I 
 should have to confess it! — it is recorded in the. books 
 that great encouragement was given to suitors in that 
 court for the sake of the fees to the chancellor and 
 his officers. 
 
 Pray bear these things in mind when you frame 
 your indictment against or pass judgment on the bar; 
 subpoenas and fees were devised by good and holy 
 men, and therefore must be good and wholesome 
 things ! 
 
 There was another court that was of equal, or almost 
 equal, importance — I mean the Court of the Justicier, 
 or Chief Justice, an office now the first in England with 
 the exception of that of lord chancellor. The latter, 
 however, continues to rank above all others, for no 
 other magistrate carries the king's conscience and the 
 king's seal in the bag. 
 
 The first important controversy that we find any 
 mention of as having been tried before this court was 
 about the year 1080. The presiding officer was Geof- 
 frey, Bishop of Constance, but in order that lay suitors 
 may take some comfort to themselves and not remain 
 imder the serious error that going to law is a sin, I 
 hasten to say that the plaintiff in the case was an 
 
348 The Church and the Bar 
 
 archbishop and the defendant a bishop. It is but 
 fair, however, to qualify this statement by adding that 
 this latter bishop (the Bishop of Bayeux) was Earl of 
 Kent as well, and in that capacity had seized certain 
 lands and privileges belonging to the church of Canter- 
 bury. I may here narrate, by way of illustrating the 
 inconvenience of being an earl and a bishop at the 
 same time, that this distinguished personage was some 
 time afterwards arrested by the Conqueror, who was 
 his half-brother, and who laid his own hands upon 
 him, because the officers of justice out of respect for 
 ecclesiastical immunity scrupled to execute his com- 
 mand, the bishop insisted that being a prelate he 
 was exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, whereupon 
 William piously exclaimed : " God forbid that I should 
 touch the Bishop of Bayeux, but I make the Earl of 
 Kent my prisoner!" and incontinently sent him to 
 prison, where he kept him five years. From this ready 
 and nice distinction of King William and his prompt 
 escape from a painful dilemma, I am inclined to think 
 that he had himself given a little attention to the trials 
 held in his court and had profited thereby. 
 
 The clergy continued for a long time almost ex- 
 clusively to fill the judicial offices as well as to engross 
 the practice and the legal profession; indeed they 
 gained great distinction therein, and it is a comfortable 
 reflection that if, as we trust, these worthy churchmen 
 are with the saints, there is a goodly number of lawyers 
 in Paradise. 
 
 I do not find that the reverend, very reverend, and 
 right reverend judges objected to the profession of the 
 law or to dispensing justice, nor have I discovered that 
 they ever expressed any fear that such occupations 
 were either derogatory to their character or perilous to 
 
The Church and the Bar 349 
 
 their spiritual welfare. No doubt they understood 
 that the scriptural anathema upon "lawyers" did not 
 apply to the advocate, whose duty it was to aid in the 
 administration of justice, but to the Jewish expounders 
 of the Mosaic law ; and it is only reasonable to presume 
 that when the reverend fathers preached on Sunday, 
 after having argued their cases in court on Saturday, 
 they explained this to their flocks, lest they themselves 
 should suffer in their hearers' estimation. I am not 
 aware, if such was their practice, that it has been 
 followed since the profession of the law has become 
 an exclusively lay employment, so that the solemn 
 "Woe to you, lawyers" still adds a note to the chorus 
 of denunciation which I have complained of. As I 
 have said, the clergy continued to fill these offices with 
 very marked ability. Not only did they not murmur 
 at the two-fold occupation to which they were sub- 
 jected, but the fascination of the bar grew so strong 
 that it seemed a matter of serious apprehension 
 whether the priestly function would not be seriously 
 interfered with by the other. At any rate so the 
 Holy See determined in the reign of Henry II., that 
 monarch having appointed three bishops as com- 
 missioners to hold the office of chief justice. The 
 Pope, on hearing of their appointment, wrote to say 
 that it was the duty of pastors to feed their flocks, not 
 to act the part of any secular magistrates, and he bade 
 them leave the court to attend to the diocese to which 
 they had been consecrated. This interference of the 
 holy father in this particular instance does not appear 
 to have been regarded as a positive prohibition, for 
 nine years after we find the Bishop of Durham in 
 possession of the chief justiceship. 
 
 It was not until the reign of Edward I. (in 1278) 
 
350 The Church and the Bar 
 
 that a serious attempt appears to have been made to 
 select the judges from among laymen. Though all 
 judicial knowledge had been the monopoly of the 
 clergy and they continued long after this exclusively 
 to cultivate a knowledge of the civil law, yet a school 
 of common or municipal law had been slowly growing 
 up for the legal education of laymen; the societies 
 formed by them were known as "Inns of Court," and 
 from their body Edward resolved to select and did 
 select his chief justice, Ralph de Hengham. In con- 
 nection with this a singular statement is made by 
 historians. This Ralph de Hengham, when he be- 
 came a candidate for business at the bar, had not re- 
 ceived the tonsure. An unshaven head was a serious 
 obstacle to professional success, owing to the popular 
 belief that no man could be a good lawyer who was not 
 a priest ; in fact so serious was it that he felt obliged 
 to take holy orders, and he was made a canon of St. 
 Paul's in order to practice law! The absence of this 
 distinguishing feature of the clerical lawyer was deemed 
 so important an objection that to conceal the want of 
 the tonsure the sergeants at law adopted the coif, or 
 black velvet cap, which became the badge of their 
 order. Fancy a lawyer obliged to pretend that he is 
 a priest in order to get clients! Fancy the client in- 
 sisting upon a view of the crown of the lawyer's head 
 before he would give him a retainer! This resort to 
 laymen was confined, however, to the law judges and 
 was not extended until a much later period to the 
 chancellors. Their functions, both as keepers of the 
 king's conscience and as judges of a court of equity, 
 were deemed specially to require ecclesiastics for their 
 discharge. Perhaps you may not all quite understand 
 the distinction between courts of law and courts of 
 
The Church and the Bar 351 
 
 equity, nor will I undertake to explain it any farther 
 than to say that the law judges were bound strictly, 
 and in many cases literally, to observe the law as they 
 found it, while the equity judges decided according to 
 good conscience and equity; very elastic terms, you 
 will observe, and depending much upon the discretion, 
 perhaps the whim, of the magistrate. At the present 
 day the rules regulating equity courts are well settled 
 and generally of ready application, but in the infancy 
 of these courts it was easy to go astray and great dis- 
 satisfaction has been sometimes expressed at the work- 
 ing of the system. The following passage illustrates 
 this: 
 
 Equity [says Selden in his Table Talk] — equity is a 
 roguish thing — For law we have a measure. Equity is 
 according to the conscience of him who is Chancellor, and 
 as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. It is all one 
 as if they should make the standard for the measure we 
 call a foot, a chancellor's foot, what an uncertain measure 
 would this be! One chancellor has a long foot, another a 
 short foot, a third an indifferent foot! it is the same thing 
 with the chancellor's conscience. 
 
 So, too, the well-known language of Lord Camden 
 on judicial discretion : 
 
 The discretion of a Judge is the Law of Tyrants; it is 
 always unknown; it is different in different men, it is 
 casual and depends upon constitution, temper and passion. 
 In the best it is ofttimes caprice; in the worst it is every 
 vice, folly and passion, to which human nature is liable. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the objection of which the 
 above extracts give a forcible and eloquent exposition, 
 equity continued to thrive, bishops to fill the chan- 
 cellor's ofhce, priests to practise in his court, and 
 
352 The Church and the Bar 
 
 laymen, as the homely and expressive saying is, "to 
 remain out in the cold." I am bound to say that the 
 churchmen were very fond of the business, and when 
 they did retire from their forensic and judicial practice 
 they did so, as Falstaff was a coward, only on com- 
 pulsion. I do not think that it was the regular salary 
 that attached them to this court, however, for in these 
 early days that was not extravagant. Originally the 
 chancellor received an allowance of " five shillings a 
 day, three wheaten cakes, one measure of clear wine 
 and one of household wine, one large wax candle, 
 and forty pieces of candle." The clerks were allowed 
 "ten pence a day and one wheaten cake and half a 
 measure of the household wine and one large candle 
 and twelve pieces of candle." What they did with 
 the seasoned cakes and clear wine after their ex- 
 haustive labors in court during the day I can readily 
 conjecture, but the necessity of so many candles is not 
 apparent. 
 
 During the century that followed the invasion and 
 conquest of England by the Normans only Normans 
 were appointed to the important duty of keeping the 
 royal conscience. The first Saxon who was honored 
 with such a distinction was Thomas a Becket. An 
 English biographer describes him as one of the most 
 distinguished men of any race that England has ever 
 produced, and he adds "he is now invoked as a saint 
 by all the votaries of the Roman Church." 
 
 This celebrated man is therefore peculiarly entitled 
 to notice. His story sounds strangely like a fascinat- 
 ing romance, and whatever may have been his failings 
 when in power, his courage, his spirit, his genius, his 
 eventful life, his tragic end, appeal at once to our 
 imagination, to our admiration, and to our sympathy. 
 
The Church and the Bar 353 
 
 I regret that time will not allow me to transcribe 
 freely from the abundant materials before me. Fitz- 
 stephen, his secretary, has given a narrative of his life 
 showing in a graphic manner the mode of living and 
 entertaining at that day. 
 
 The Chancellor's house and table [he says] were open to 
 all of every degree about the Court who wished to partake 
 of his hospitality, and who were, or appeared to be, re- 
 spectable. He hardly ever sat down to dinner without 
 Earls and Barons whom he had invited. He ordered the 
 rooms in which he entertained the company to be daily 
 covered during the winter with clean straw and hay, and 
 in summer with clean rushes and boughs for the gentle- 
 folks to lie down upon, who on account of their numbers, 
 could not be accommodated at the tables, so that their 
 fine clothes might not be soiled by a dirty floor. His house 
 was splendidly furnished with gold and silver vessels, and 
 was plentifully supplied with the most costly meats and 
 wines. The prime nobility of England and the neighboring 
 Kingdoms sent their sons to be servants to the Chancellor. 
 . . . The Chancellor was in high favor with the King, 
 the Clergy, the Army and the people, on account of his 
 eminent virtues, his greatness of mind and his good deeds, 
 which seemed to spring spontaneously from his heart; 
 serious business being finished, the King and he consorted 
 as young comrades of the same station, whether in the 
 palace, in church, in private society, or in excursions on 
 horseback. 
 
 But the sunshine of royal favor did not last forever, 
 and he, too, learned not to put his trust in princes. I 
 shall not attempt to recite the quarrel between the 
 King and his chancellor nor its grounds. I will hasten 
 to the culmination. After a hollow truce, in which 
 the King seems to have acted with deliberate perfidy, 
 
354 The Church and the Bar 
 
 they parted for the last time after an interview which 
 was held on French soil. Becket's mind misgave him 
 that he would not be fairly dealt with, but in spite of 
 the warnings which he received and his own fore- 
 bodings he determined to return to England as Henry 
 wished. When he left he gave utterance to these 
 mournful but pathetic words: "Necessity obHges me 
 in the lowly state to which I am reduced to revisit my 
 afflicted church; I go, Sir, with your permission, per- 
 haps to perish for its security, unless you protect me. 
 But whether I live, whatever may befall me, may the 
 blessing of God fall upon you and your children." 
 Would you not say that the near approach of impend- 
 ing martyrdom had already cast its shadow upon his 
 soul? The dying year was not yet closed when 
 Henry uttered that exclamation which will alone 
 suffice to condemn his name to infamy as lasting as 
 his victim's glory : " Of the cowards that eat my bread 
 is there* not one who will free me from this turbulent 
 priest!" While we may in Christian charity hope 
 that these reckless words came not from a murderer's 
 heart, yet they certainly were taken as a license for 
 one of the cruelest and most cowardly crimes that 
 stain the pages of English history. Four knights at 
 once started upon the unholy errand. They at first 
 sought to intimidate him with threats, but there was 
 no room in that stout heart for fear of living man even 
 were that man a king. Undaunted he replied: "In 
 vain you menace me. If all the swords of England 
 were brandishing over my head, your terrors wo\ild not 
 move me. Foot to foot you would find me fighting the 
 battle of the Lord." And with no tremor on his lips, 
 no fear in his heart, no hesitation in his step, he left 
 their presence to join in the vesper service that had 
 
The Church and the Bar 355 
 
 commenced in the adjoining cathedral. Already the 
 voices of the choir singing the praises of Him who at 
 that solemn Christmas season had come to teach peace 
 and love to men were resounding through the sacred 
 building. Never on earth was Thomas a Becket to 
 join in singing his Master's glory. As soon as he had 
 entered the church his trembling attendants ordered 
 the gates barred behind him, but he at once ordered 
 them to be reopened. "The temple of God," he said, 
 "was not to be fortified like a castle." He had not 
 reached the altar steps when four mail-clad knights 
 with twelve companions, all in armor, burst into the 
 church. The archbishop disdained to fly, as he might 
 well have done with the aid of the darkness that was 
 fast gathering about them all. A voice was heard, 
 "Where is the traitor?" No answer was made. 
 "Where is the archbishop?" was the next cry. He 
 replied, "I am here, the archbishop, but no traitor. 
 Reginald," he added, turning to the leader of the 
 murderous mob, " I have granted thee many favors, 
 what is thy object now? If you seek my life, let that 
 suffice, and I command you in the name of God not 
 to touch one of my people." He was then told that 
 he must absolve certain prelates whom he had ex- 
 communicated, much to the king's displeasure. He 
 refused. "Till they make satisfaction I will not ab- 
 solve them!" "Then die," said one of the assassins. 
 The blow aimed at his head was partly warded off by 
 one of his assistants, whose arm was broken by the 
 weapon intended for his master. The prelate felt the 
 blood trickle down his face, but his heart was still firm 
 and his spirit untroubled. He joined his hands and 
 bowed his head, saying, " In the name of Christ and 
 for the defence of His Church, I am ready to die," 
 
356 The Church and the Bar 
 
 His assailants then wished to remove him from the 
 church, as though the murder would be less heinous 
 in any other place, but he declined. " I humbly com- 
 mend my spirit to the God who gave it" were the last 
 words that passed his lips, and hardly had they been 
 uttered when blow upon blow was showered upon him. 
 He was left a corpse at the foot of the altar. In spite 
 of all the protestations, proclamations, and prohibi- 
 tions of the King he was looked upon as a martyr. He 
 was canonized shortly after his death, and the shrine 
 of St. Thomas of Canterbury became one of the most 
 honored and the most popular in England. To be 
 perfectly impartial, however, I am bound to state that 
 four hundred years after, Henry VIII., having con- 
 cluded to throw off the authority of the Pope and 
 substitute his own, determined that if the Pope could 
 make a saint, the King could unmake him; and, not 
 approving of St. Thomas a Becket's principles touch- 
 ing State and Church, he caused his attorney-general to 
 bring an action, technically known as a quo warranto 
 information, against the dead bishop for usurping the 
 office of a saint. Thomas a Becket was summoned to 
 leave the bed where he had slept for centuries, to 
 appear in court to answer the charge. Alas! King 
 Henry could summon spirits from the vasty deep, but 
 would they come? St. Thomas failed to appear. 
 Thereupon this impartial and generous king appointed 
 a lawyer to appear for and defend him. After counsel 
 had been heard the following sentence was pronounced : 
 
 Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, having 
 been guilty of contumacy, treason and rebellion, his bones 
 shall be publicly burnt to admonish the living of their duty 
 by the punishment of the dead: and the offerings made at 
 his shrine shall be forfeited to the Crown. 
 
The Church and the Bar 357 
 
 The last clause of the sentence, you will observe, 
 was not the least important nor the least profitable to 
 his Majesty, who could well afford to appoint counsel 
 at the public expense to defend the ex-chancellor's 
 title to a saintship. 
 
 To close this part of my subject I will give you the 
 language of the proclamation issued upon the rendering 
 of this judgment : 
 
 For as much as it now clearly appeared that Thomas k 
 Becket had been killed in a riot excited by his own ob- 
 stinacy and intemperate language and had been afterwards 
 canonized by the Bishop of Rome as the Champion of his 
 usurped authority, the King's Majesty thought it expedi- 
 ent to declare to his loving subjects that he was no Saint, 
 but rather a rebel and a traitor to his prince, and therefore 
 strictly charged and commanded that he should not be 
 esteemed and called a Saint: that all images and pictures of 
 him should be destroyed, the festivals in his honor be 
 abolished, and his name and remembrance be erased out 
 of all books under pain of his Majesty's indignation and 
 imprisonment at his Grace's pleasure. 
 
 You may therefore take your choice and call Thomas 
 a Becket a saint and martyr or an instigator of riots, as 
 you acknowledge the authority of the Pope or of 
 Henry VIII. in the premises. As it only strengthens 
 my argument to-night to add as many saints as possible 
 to my roll of lawyers and judges, I trust you will take 
 the papal view of the case. Still there is something 
 so strikingly and refreshingly original in the idea of 
 the "riot" instigated by the defenceless archbishop, 
 who provoked the sixteen mail-clad men by his ob- 
 stinacy and bad language, that I have not a word to 
 say against those who may differ from me on this 
 
35^ The Church and the Bar 
 
 point. Do not fail to remember, however, that what- 
 ever else he was or was not, he was a lawyer! 
 
 I hope that I may now not unfairly claim that I 
 have redeemed my pledge and that I have shown you 
 that the clergy and the bar went hand in hand for 
 centuries, and that distinguished prelates and zealous 
 churchmen did not deem the profession of the law one 
 of which they need be ashamed — nay, so important 
 and sacred were the duties attached to its exercise that 
 for a long time they kept it all to themselves! Per- 
 haps you may say in answer to this that I have only 
 satisfied you that the bar was entitled to admiration 
 and respect so long as this state of things lasted, and 
 ask how it was when untonsured gentlemen took the 
 place of holy fathers in the courts. Although I have 
 well-nigh exhausted my time, and perhaps your 
 patience, I shall say one word in reply to this. 
 
 I must premise by observing that I do not pretend 
 that all the judges who succeeded the ecclesiastical 
 incumbents were by any means perfect ; indeed some 
 of them were very bad and unprincipled men. Numer- 
 ous reasons had contributed to make the appointment 
 of clerical chancellors imperative. They were the 
 best informed, I might almost say the only well-in- 
 formed, men of the day. They gave particular at- 
 tention to the study of the law, they did not endanger 
 the crown by accumulating wealth or influence in 
 their families, and, as the historian Hume (Vol. II., p. 
 409) admits, they were restrained by the decency of 
 their character from that open rapine and violence so 
 often practised by the nobles. Indeed these early 
 chancellors did their duty in such a manner as to de- 
 serve the praise and gratitude of posterity. The Eng- 
 lish nation, says a distinguished modem historian, 
 
The Church and the Bar 359 
 
 owes "a debt of gratitude to the chancellors who must 
 have framed and revised the statutes which are the 
 foundation of our judicial system, who must, by ex- 
 planation and argument, have obtained for them the 
 sanction of Parliament, and who must have watched 
 over their construction and operation when they first 
 passed into law." It is not to be wondered at if the 
 sudden introduction of a new class of men was not 
 attended with the best results. Indeed Edward III., 
 who was the first to resort to lay chancellors and who 
 appointed one in 1340, found the experiment to work 
 but indifferently. Partly owing to this and somewhat, 
 perhaps, because the bishops murmured at the with- 
 drawal from them of the office which they considered 
 belonged to their order, he returned to the Church 
 for his conscience-keeper. But after this, though 
 several church dignitaries continued to hold the office, 
 laymen were from time to time appointed until the 
 reign of Henry VIII., when the office ceased to be 
 entrusted to any but laymen. 
 
 We have a curious specimen of the opinion which 
 learned and book-loving bishops entertained of their 
 ignorant brethren outside of the church. Bishop de 
 Bury was in every sense a lover of books: they were 
 his comfort, his delight, his recreation, and their ac- 
 quisition the darling object of his ambition. No 
 jealous lover could speak more fondly of his beloved 
 than the pious bishop of his precious books. Hear him 
 when his wrath is aroused on his favorite topic, the 
 use and abuse of books : 
 
 You will perhaps see a stiff-necked youth, lounging slug- 
 gishly in his study, while the frost pinches him in winter 
 time ; oppressed with cold, his watery nose drops ; nor does 
 he take the trouble to wipe it with his handkerchief till it 
 
360 The Church and the Bar 
 
 has moistened the book beneath it with its vile dew. For 
 such a one, I would substitute a cobbler's apron in the 
 place of his book. He has a nail like a giant's, perfumed 
 with nastiness, with which he points out the place of any 
 pleasant subject. He distributes innumerable straws in 
 various places with the ends in sight, that he may recall 
 by the marks what his memory cannot retain. 
 Furthermore, laymen to whom it matters not whether they 
 look at a book turned wrongside upwards or opened before 
 them in its natural order, are altogether unworthy of any 
 communion with books. Let the clerk also take notice 
 that the dirty scullion reeking from the pots, do not touch 
 the leaves of the books unwashed. 
 
 But if I do not find you at least one instance of a 
 real Christian chancellor and lawyer who was not a 
 priest or a bishop you will think that I am unable to 
 fulfil my promise. I mean, then, before closing to 
 cite a single example and to say a word of one who 
 comes as near representing the ideal perfection of 
 Christian character as any man whose name I have 
 mentioned to-night. Indeed I know of no blemish in 
 that character, of nothing that could be added to 
 make his name shine with purer brilliance; and as 
 though it had pleased Providence to make his fame 
 complete, he died the death of a martyr after living 
 the life of a saint. I allude to Sir Thomas More. 
 
 This distinguished man, as celebrated for his learning 
 as his piety, came very near entering a convent in 
 early life and ending his days as a monk, but finally 
 changed h;^ mind before becoming irrevocably bound. 
 He concluded to marry, in order that he might be a 
 pattern (this is his own language) "to pious married 
 men how they should carefully bring up their children ; 
 how dearly they should love their wives; how they 
 
The Church and the Bar 361 
 
 should employ their endeavors wholly for the good of 
 their country, yet excellently perform the duties of 
 religious men." 
 
 After his admission to practice he rose so rapidly 
 that there was scarcely any cause of consequence in 
 which he was not engaged. I regret that I am not 
 able here, from lack of time, to give you a full insight 
 into his beautiful private life, to which there are so many 
 testimonials. His son-in-law, who dwelt under his 
 roof, says that "his custom was daily (besides his 
 private prayers with his children) to say the seven 
 psalms, the litany, and the suffrages following: so 
 was his guise with his wife and children and household 
 nightly, before he went to bed, to go to his chapel and 
 there on his knees ordinarily to say certain psalms 
 and collects with them." Erasmus says: "His house 
 was a school and exercise of the Christian religion. 
 All its inhabitants, male or female, applied their 
 leisure to liberal studies and profitable reading, al- 
 though piety was their first care. No wrangling, no 
 angry word was heard in it; every one did his duty 
 with alacrity and with a temperate cheerfulness." In 
 an evil hour for him he was appointed lord chancellor 
 by his king, Henry VHI. How he filled the office I 
 need not say. The wish that Shakespeare put into 
 Cardinal Wolsey's mouth when told of More's ap- 
 pointment beautifully expresses it, for he was all that 
 that cardinal (himself a chancellor) once wished him to 
 be: 
 
 May he do justice. 
 
 For truth's sake and his conscience: 
 
 That when he has run his course 
 
 And sleeps in blessings, his bones 
 
 May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on them! 
 
362 The Church and the Bar 
 
 But, alas! King Henry must be pope — a harmless 
 wish enough to all but himself had he not insisted that 
 others must recognize him as such. One — the first 
 — layman called upon to give the example of this rec- 
 ognition was More. The whole trouble arose out of 
 Henry's wish to repudiate his wife, Catharine, and to 
 take a new one. How many learned and great men 
 gave in to his wish we all know. Luther did not, it 
 seems, approve of repudiating Catharine, but was 
 willing that Henry should take Anne too. As Lord 
 Campbell writes, he (Luther) had a great leaning to 
 polygamy and thought that it would be better that a 
 priest should be allowed several wives than none at 
 all, and that the practice of the Jewish kings might be 
 safely followed. But More persisted in following the 
 dictates of his conscience. Persecutions, imprison- 
 ment, threats of death, separation from all those whom 
 he loved ; and finally, by a refinement of cruelty which 
 was no exceptional fact in that bloody reign, his few 
 books in his prison cell were taken away from him. 
 But nothing shook him — nay, nothing seemed to im- 
 pair that quaint and gentle cheerfulness that so 
 peculiarly distinguished him. There is one sight more 
 beautiful than a strong man struggling with adversity : 
 it is the spectacle of a brave man who silently and 
 smilingly bows his head to the inevitable ! 
 
 There was one short struggle in his breast at the 
 commencement, but it was soon over and the only 
 evidence we have of it is in the beautiful words that he 
 uttered after an examination before the lords who 
 sought materials for his conviction. " In good faith," 
 he said, his old merry smile lighting up his face, "in 
 good faith I have given the devil a foul fall : because I 
 have with those lords gone so far that, without great 
 
The Church and the Bar 363 
 
 shame, I never can go back." And he never did. 
 When he was threatened with death if he resisted the 
 King: "Is that all?" he said; "why, then there is no 
 difference between your Grace and me, but that I 
 shall die to-day and you to-morrow." And in that 
 same spirit, with that same brave cheeriness, he lived 
 through the dreary time until his spirit left his body 
 for the world in which he already seemed to dwell. 
 What more beautiful picture of a saintly life and 
 saintly end than this? It remains for me but to show 
 you how he felt towards his enemies and I leave him, 
 reluctantly, I confess, for of all the names that stand 
 out in the long roll of English lawyers and chancellors 
 none, I think, is more lovable and none more admi- 
 rable than that of Sir Thomas More. Thus he spoke 
 to the judges who sentenced him to death : 
 
 This farther have I only to say, my Lords, that like as 
 the blessed apostle Saint Paul was present and consenting 
 to the death of the protomartyr, Saint Stephen, keeping 
 their clothes that stoned him to death, and yet they be now 
 twain holy saints in heaven, and there shall continue friends 
 together forever: So I verily trust and shall therefore 
 heartily pray, that, though your Lordships have been on 
 earth my Judges to condemnation, yet that we may here- 
 after meet in heaven merrily together to our everlasting 
 salvation; and God preserve you all, especially my sover- 
 eign Lord the King, and grant him faithful councillors. 
 
 It is not my province to pass historical judgments, 
 but I ask the privilege of reading to you one short 
 passage from an author whom I have often referred 
 to. Lord Campbell, a learned writer, once chief justice 
 and lord chancellor of England, on the character of 
 Henry VIII., the king whom Sir Thomas thus prayed 
 
364 The Church and the Bar 
 
 for. I do this because it is the fashion now to rewrite 
 the verdicts of history and I think you may not be 
 displeased to hear the opinion of one who, in addition 
 to his distinguished abiHty and experience in weighing 
 evidence, is not open to the objection of taking the 
 CathoHc view of history : 
 
 We may be amused by a defence of Richard III., but 
 we can feel only indignation and disgust at an apology of 
 Henry VIII., whose atrocities are as well authenticated as 
 those of Robespierre and are less excusable (vol. i., Lord 
 Chanclr., p. 473). It is impossible that there should not 
 have been general joy at the deliverance of the country 
 from the rule of such a heartless tyrant (p. 522). 
 
 I should have wished to carry you down to a later 
 period, to cross the channel with you that we might 
 catch a glimpse of that grand old French bar, to which 
 as far back as Charlemagne none could be admitted 
 except "mild, pacific men, fearing God and loving 
 justice." 
 
 I wish that I could show you some of the splendid 
 figures of our own American bar, second to none in 
 ability, in honest independence, and fearless dignity: 
 our Marshalls, Storys, Choates, Websters, and, shining 
 brightly among them all, the serene and gentle figure 
 of brave old Chief Justice Taney, who lived down 
 obloquy and slander by the purity and modesty of his 
 life even more than by the superiority of his genius — 
 but time will not permit. 
 
 If you should ask me the name of the bar's patron 
 saint I should feel bound to say that I cannot answer. 
 I am not sure that it has one or has not, but I will give 
 you the facts and let you decide. 
 
 Carr, a very old writer, tells this story: Saint 
 
The Church and the Bar 365 
 
 Evona, a lawyer of Brittany, came to Rome to entreat 
 the Pope to give the lawyers a patron saint, to which 
 the Pope replied that he knew of no saint but what 
 was disposed of to other professions. At which Evona 
 was very sad, and earnestly begged of the Pope to think 
 of one for him. At last the Pope proposed to St. Evona 
 that he should go round the church of St. John of 
 Lateran blindfold, and after he had said so many Ave 
 Marias that the first saint he laid hold of should be his 
 patron ; which the good old lawyer willingly undertook, 
 and at the end of his Ave Marias he stopped at the foot 
 of St. Michael's altar, where he laid hold of the devil 
 under St. Michael's feet and cried out: "This is our 
 saint ; let him be our patron. ' ' So, being unblindfolded 
 and seeing what a patron he had chosen, he went to 
 his lodgings so dejected that a few months after he died. 
 And now to conclude, and that I may magnani- 
 mously end with the laugh against myself, I will give 
 you a poetical effusion, attributed, falsely I doubt not, 
 to a clerical pen (Jeaffreson) : 
 
 Professions will abuse each other; 
 
 The priest won't call the lawyer brother, 
 
 While lawyers still be-knave the parson, 
 
 And say he cants to keep the force on. 
 
 Yet will I readily suppose 
 
 They are not truly bitter foes, 
 
 But only have their pleasant jokes 
 
 And banter, just like other folks. 
 
 And thus, for so they quiz the law, 
 
 Once on a time th' Attorney Flaw, 
 
 A man to tell you as the fact is, 
 
 Of vast chicane, of course, of practice; 
 
 A notice had to quit the world, 
 
 And from his desk at once was hurled. 
 
366 The Church and the Bar 
 
 'T is said (without ill-natured leaven) 
 
 "If ever lawyers get to heaven, 
 
 It surely is by slow degrees." 
 
 (Perhaps 't is slow they take their fees). 
 
 The case then now I fairly state: 
 
 Flaw reached at last to heaven's high gate ; 
 
 Quite short he rapped, none did it neater; 
 
 The gate was opened by St. Peter, 
 
 Who looked astonished when he saw, 
 
 All black, the little man of law; 
 
 But charity was Peter's guide, 
 
 . . . he would not o'er pass 
 
 The penitent of any class ; 
 
 Yet never having heard there entered 
 
 A lawyer, nay, nor ever ventured 
 
 Within the realms of peace and love, 
 
 He told him mildly to remove, 
 
 And would have closed the gate of day, 
 
 Had not old Flaw, in suppliant way, 
 
 Demurring to so hard a fate. 
 
 Begged but a look, tho' through the gate. 
 
 St. Peter, rather off his guard. 
 
 Unwilling to be thought too hard. 
 
 Opens the gate to let him peep in, 
 
 What did the lawyer? Did he creep in? 
 
 Or dash at once to take possession ? 
 
 Oh, no, he knew his own profession: 
 
 He took his hat off with respect, 
 
 And would no gentle means neglect; 
 
 But finding it was all in vain 
 
 For him admittance to obtain, 
 
 Thought it were best, let come what will, 
 
 To gain an entry by his skill. 
 
 So while St. Peter stood aside. 
 
 To let the door be opened wide, 
 
 He skimmed his hat with all his strength, 
 
The Church and the Bar 367 
 
 Within the gate to no small length. 
 St. Peter stared ; the lawyer asked him 
 "Only to fetch his hat," and passed him; 
 But when he reached the hat he'd thrown, 
 Oh, then was all the lawyer shown; 
 He clapt it on, and arms akimbo 
 (As if he had been the gallant Bembo), 
 Cry'd out — "What think you of my plan? 
 Eject me, Peter, if you can." 
 
 And there he remained, it is said, " the black sheep 
 of the saintly family!" But the whole story, as you 
 must know, is a malicious fabrication, for a profession 
 that counts priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, 
 saints, within its ranks need resort to no such subter- 
 fuge to enter heaven. To assert the contrary would 
 be a libel on all these good and reverend men, and as 
 they need no defence from me, upon their merits I 
 may rest my case. 
 
XVII 
 
 ATTORNEY AND CLIENT ^ 
 
 LET me ask you to note, by way of preface, that 
 the President has said that this is simply a 
 "law talk." I have been called upon so fre- 
 quently, with the full consciousness of my own short- 
 comings, to make addresses, and lectures, and speeches, 
 which taxed my sesquipedalia to the utmost, that when 
 I am told that I may " talk," and that all that I possess 
 in my vocabulary need not be produced, there is a 
 sense of refreshment about it which you younger men 
 cannot understand. This is to be simply a conversa- 
 tion between you on the one part and myself on the 
 other, differing from ordinary conversations only in 
 this — that I shall speak and you shall listen. 
 
 It being settled between us that nothing further 
 shall be expected of me than simply some desultory 
 and informal talk on matters in which we are all inter- 
 ested, I shall proceed to say a few words upon the 
 subject assigned to me, viz.. Attorney and Client. 
 
 You will observe that there are certain topics which 
 are always treated jointly. You never read a book on 
 "Parent," or "Husband," or "Guardian." It is al- 
 ways "Parent and Child," "Husband and Wife," 
 
 > A law talk before the students of the Columbia College Law 
 School, January 15, 1892. 
 
 368 
 
Attorney and Client 369 
 
 "Guardian and Ward," because it is evident that one 
 cannot well be a parent without a child, nor a guardian 
 without a ward, nor a husband without a wife ; neither 
 may he be an attorney without a client. But the client 
 does not rush up to you at the first appeal of your 
 eager voice. You may have an office, which is a great 
 deal of itself, and you may rejoice in a signboard, gold 
 and black, and you may take great comfort in the 
 possession of a degree from Columbia College, but 
 until you have felt the quickening influence of the 
 client's presence, until his coming has aroused your 
 dormant possibilities, you can earn no fame, accumu- 
 late no estate, and, like the king, you can do no wrong ; 
 in a word you cannot flatter yourselves that you have 
 attained the dignity of a real lawyer. Therefore it is 
 that whenever the subject of attorneys is treated, you 
 will always find that the "client" is coupled with him 
 as in those other subjects that I have spoken of — 
 husband and wife, guardian and ward, etc. — although 
 I can conceive of the client without an attorney much 
 more readily than of an attorney without a client. 
 
 You have all of you read, being students of Columbia 
 College, how Prometheus stole the fire from heaven to 
 animate the senseless clay ; so, too, with the attorney — 
 obscurity and despondency are his companions until 
 the client, bringing sunshine into the desolate office, 
 has given him animation and life, and then together 
 they rule the world. 
 
 An exaggeration, you will say, but it is not. No 
 great question can be or ever has been settled except 
 by arms or by judicial decision, and the judicial func- 
 tion can only be exercised when attorney and client 
 set the springs in motion. All our political freedom 
 and progress depend in a great measure on the fact that 
 
370 Attorney and Client 
 
 we have attorneys, and that attorneys have clients. 
 The majestic figure of Marshall would not loom up in 
 our calendar of great judges if attorney and client had 
 not appeared hand in hand before him ; nor would his 
 great and brilliant successors and brethren of the same 
 bench have had the opportunity to lay down our 
 political landmarks and define the rights of govern- 
 ment and citizen but for this beneficent union of the 
 two. 
 
 Nothing of any practical value ever has been or can 
 be done under our system of government unless settled 
 by the law, and the law is powerless until the attorney 
 and client together set its machinery in motion, invoke 
 its aid, and procure its judgment. 
 
 In spite of this, I feel bound to say that if we look 
 to modern or ancient literature, if we study the records 
 of the past, we will find that the attorney has always 
 borne a bad name, and that his reputation has always 
 been of the worst. 
 
 I will presently make a distinction between the at- 
 torney and the barrister, but for the present we will 
 look at the subject as if they had always been united, 
 as they are with us now, under the one name of lawyer, 
 or of advocate. English literature is full of allusions to 
 the attorney, and invariably depicts him in the same 
 colors, shrewd, adroit, unscrupulous; never generous 
 nor chivalrous. Writers of fiction, who reflect and 
 mould public opinion, have vied with each other in 
 describing him in unflattering terms. Quirk, Gam- 
 mon & Snap have earned undying fame. Uriah Heep 
 will go to posterity, with Tidd's Practice in his hand, 
 known to many who have never heard of Lord Mans- 
 field. Some of you may, and others of you who are 
 graduates of Columbia must, remember that charming 
 
Attorney and Client 37^ 
 
 ode of Horace, in which he addresses Mercury thus: 
 " Merctiri fecunde nepos Atlantis," and take therefrom 
 comfort in the antiquity of eloquence and advocacy. 
 But I cannot help observing that he goes on and de- 
 scribes him as " calliditm quicquid placuit jocoso condere 
 jurto" or, as old Smart translated it a hundred years 
 ago, "a sly practitioner to conceal whatever he chose, 
 in merry theft." 
 
 So we find in the Acts of the Apostles that Barnabas 
 was spoken of as Jupiter, while Paul was called Mer- 
 cury because he was the chief speaker. 
 
 One of the stories of a conspicuous after-dinner 
 speaker, whom you all know by name, illustrates this 
 tendency. It relates to an attorney by the name of 
 Strange who was on his death-bed. He called his 
 wife, and he told her that he wanted no inscription 
 upon his tomb except these words : " Here lies an 
 honest lawyer." She said, "Why is that?" "Well," 
 he said, "nothing more is necessary; when people go 
 by they will see the epitaph and they will say, ' That 's 
 Strange.' " 
 
 The story, ancient as it is, clearly exhibits the 
 prejudice against the attorney, — but it will not be 
 necessary to discourage you by multiplying examples. 
 
 I have been unable to find all through history, from 
 the earliest days, any kind words for the attorney. 
 Perhaps this deep-rooted prejudice may be on the de- 
 cline, perhaps not. My own hope is that Columbia 
 College will send from her walls men who will drive the 
 detractors of the profession to confusion and retire- 
 ment. We have often had lawyers, be it said by way 
 of consolation, who bore such fruit that they became 
 eminent in the church, and in fact in some instances 
 have been canonized. For instance, Yves of Chartres, 
 
372 Attorney and Client 
 
 many hundred years ago, was a celebrated lawyer, but 
 for some reason he abandoned his profession and threw 
 himself into the Church. He became noted for his 
 good deeds, his virtue and his learning (some of it, let 
 us hope, acquired at the bar), and finally was enrolled 
 among the saints. But justice requires me to add, 
 lest we should be unduly inflated by knowing that the 
 bar produces such men, that in the office recited on 
 that good saint's day occur these words : " Advocatus 
 sed non latro: res miranda populo!" 
 
 So, too, St. Philip Liguori was an advocate con- 
 spicuous for his learning and integrity before he 
 graduated from the bar to the Church and became one 
 of its distinguished doctors. 
 
 Another lawyer who entered the Church made such 
 progress therein that in time he became Clement IV. 
 
 We may fairly claim, I think, that the seeds of 
 future greatness and of moral excellence were sowed 
 in the professional careers of these good men, and that 
 the soil was first prepared by diligent pursuit of legal 
 studies. 
 
 The first duty of an attorney is, of course, absolute 
 loyalty and fidelity to the client. This is the golden 
 rule which he must never lose sight of. All personal 
 considerations must yield to that. His contract and 
 his duty both require it, and he may not omit anything 
 within the limits of his own self-respect that can serve 
 the client. 
 
 You will observe that there is a distinction, when 
 you read the books, between the attorney and the 
 counsel, or, as he is sometimes called, the barrister. 
 
 In England they have practically abolished the title 
 of attorney, but have preserved the function under 
 the name of solicitor. 
 
Attorney and Client 373 
 
 There are various reasons why the office of barrister 
 has been one of increasing importance and dignity. 
 The attorney cannot address the court, but must find 
 a medium of communication, and a dumb lawyer cer- 
 tainly cannot be highly esteemed. His position is 
 one of palpable inferiority. If there is any underhand 
 work, it is done by the attorney and is often suspected, 
 whether it exists or not, by the other side. He sees 
 (and may tamper with) the witnessess; he proposes 
 the machinations and devices and furnishes the means 
 of defrauding justice of her due when any of these 
 things are done. Whereas the barrister utters noble 
 sentiments, is spoken to by the court, airs his eloquence 
 at will, snubs the attorney when things go wrong, and 
 dines with the court. Then the law, jealous and sus- 
 picious wherever he is concerned, limits the attorney's 
 compensation. How can a client esteem the man who 
 is forbidden to charge more than eighteen pence for 
 reading or two and six-pence for writing a letter, and 
 who grows rich on the multiplication of such items? 
 
 Perhaps this practice of charging small sums for 
 trifling services has had as much to do as any other 
 one cause with bringing bad repute upon the attorney. 
 The temptation to make motions and to take various 
 dilatory proceedings for the sake of making costs has 
 been a constant source of pettifogging and of conse- 
 quent discredit. A certain attorney in a remote sec- 
 tion of this State was famous for his vexatious methods 
 and grasping anxiety for costs. It was said of him by 
 a brother attorney who had, no doubt, smarted under 
 his successful efforts to place him, too, under contri- 
 bution, that he never prayed for his daily bread with- 
 out adding a supplemental petition that it might be 
 granted with costs. 
 
374 Attorney and Client 
 
 Warren, who is chiefly known as the author of Ten 
 Thousand a Year, declaims with loud, and no doubt 
 justified, indignation against the practice, which he 
 found most pernicious in one instance at least, of 
 resorting to frivolous objections for the purpose of 
 making costs. 
 
 He once had a declaration on a bill of exchange de- 
 murred to, because, instead of the words "in the year 
 of our Lord 1834," he had written "a.d. 1834." Mr. 
 Warren says, in his Duties of Attorneys: 
 
 I attended the late Mr. Justice Littledale, at Chambers, 
 to endeavor to get the demurrer set aside as frivolous, or 
 leave to amend on payment of a shilling, but that punc- 
 tilious, though very able and learned Judge, refused to do 
 either. "Your client, sir," said he, "has committed a 
 blunder, sir," which can be set right only on the usual terms, 
 sir. "a.d.," sir, is neither English nor Latin, sir. It may 
 mean anything or nothing, sir. It is plain, sir, that here is a 
 material and traversable fact, and no date to it, sir"; and 
 so forth: , whereupon he dismissed our poor summons, with 
 costs. That demurrer had been spun out by a pleader to 
 an inconceivable length, in ringing the changes on that one 
 objection, and my client had positively to pay out of his 
 own pocket between seven and eight pounds. Now, was 
 not that a dirty, a detestable piece of pettyf ogging ? Will 
 any of you ever descend to such conduct ? And take care , 
 in your turn, not to expose yourselves to these attacks. This 
 "a.d.," which I have mentioned, happened to have been 
 left standing, because the clerk who drew the declaration 
 had been, observe, "in a hurry," which same hurry cost 
 his master between seven and eight pounds. 
 
 This decision upon the letters a.d., thus held not to 
 be Latin, adds some zest to a story which I once heard 
 from your own president. It seems that a member of 
 
Attorney and Client 375 
 
 the Brooklyn Board of Education, whether appointed 
 by Mayor Low or his predecessor does not appear and 
 is not material, was walking in the suburbs of Brooklyn 
 with a friend more recently arrived from abroad than 
 himself. It happened that they found on their way 
 a newly -erected schoolhouse, which bore on its front 
 this strange device, "a.d. 1870." "What on earth 
 does A.D. mean?" enquired the comparative stranger. 
 "Oh, that means Annexed District." That explana- 
 tion might have seemed satisfactory to Mr. Justice 
 Littledale; it certainly was not open to the objection 
 of being in Latin, 
 
 There is much loose and idle talk about the duties 
 of the attorney. Many sonorous maxims are laid 
 down by ethical teachers, but the trouble is that the 
 maxims are so high and require so much self-denial that 
 few will undertake to follow them. In law, as in 
 everything else, there are heights that men will some- 
 times reach. But general rules are made for the mass 
 and are of no value if they require superhuman virtue 
 to carry them out. The standard with us is high — it 
 must be high; higher, I think, than in any other pur- 
 suit. But even attorneys are human. They desire 
 to live out of their labor, to provide for their families, 
 to lay aside some provision for old age. They will, as 
 a rule, prefer wealthy clients to poor ones and will not 
 consider themselves criminals because they do not 
 always attach a sacerdotal character to their pro- 
 fession. But when the character of the profession 
 goes down, it is evidence that the community at large 
 is on a declining grade, for there has been no time when 
 the honor of the profession has not compared favorably 
 with that of the most favored pursuits. 
 
 I shall not here undertake to discuss the question 
 
376 Attorney and Client 
 
 how far, if at all, the great profession of the law has 
 abdicated its dignity or surrendered its moral great- 
 ness ; many, indeed most of the writers, seem to answer 
 the question in the affirmative, and mourn over the 
 decay of the bar. They may be right, or they may be 
 wrong, but it must be borne in mind that as we grow 
 older the beauties of the past are touched with the 
 glow of the setting sun, and we recall the time — ^we 
 being boys — when things generally were better than 
 they are. 
 
 That the former high standard of professional 
 decorum and dignity has been to some degree im- 
 paired may not be disputed by those who have studied 
 the subject. If it be so, various causes may be as- 
 signed for the fact, prominent among which are the 
 right to sue for fees, the frequency of bargains with the 
 client for contingent compensation, and a feverish 
 desire, common to every profession in every community, 
 to acquire wealth as rapidly as possible. Still we 
 hardly deserve to be called, in the vigorous language 
 of Judge Sharswood, "a horde of pettifogging, bar- 
 ratrous, custom-seeking, money -making lawyers," al- 
 though we shall agree with him that such a class 
 constitutes one of the greatest curses that can afflict 
 the state. 
 
 Napoleon seemed to consider the legal profession 
 somewhat in this light. He was quite willing that the 
 lawyers should practise their calling provided they did 
 not interfere with him or his business. He once ex- 
 pressed a wish that a lawyer's tongue might be cut out 
 if he ventured to use it against the state ; a summary 
 remedy which the great Emperor never literally carried 
 out, although it must be confessed that he showed no 
 tenderness to those who were not satisfied that the 
 
Attorney and Client 377 
 
 victor of Marengo and Austerlitz could rule the country- 
 wit hout their aid. He became more gentle, be it said, 
 in time, for in 1810 he made a decree running thus: 
 
 "Advocates shall have free scope for the exercise 
 of their office in the defence of justice and truth ; at 
 the same time it is our wish that they should abstain 
 from all invention in their facts and from other evil 
 practices as well as from all useless and superfluous 
 speeches " ; thus evidently aiming at an ideal bar. 
 
 I may here cite as bearing upon the ethics of the pro- 
 fession two or three of the causes ceUhres in which the 
 duty of the attorney and the limitation upon that 
 duty were involved. 
 
 One Cancemi was tried many years ago, in the city 
 of New York, for a murder committed in the street. 
 He was arrested while fleeing (or while supposed to be 
 fleeing) from the pursuit of those who had seen him, 
 they said, commit the crime. The case excited a great 
 deal of newspaper comment and it became correspond- 
 ingly difficult to find an impartial jury. When the 
 panel had been exhausted it was found that only 
 eleven jurors had qualified and it was then suggested that 
 the case might be tried before eleven men. Counsel 
 for the defence acquiesced, apparently in good faith, 
 and, as I believe, without any thought that they were 
 jeopardizing the rights of their client or in any way 
 exceeding the limits of their duty. The presiding 
 justice was a man of great ability and experience. 
 Cancemi was convicted and sentenced to death. The 
 point was taken on appeal that counsel had no power 
 to make such a concession, that the accused was en- 
 titled to a jury of twelve men, and that his counsel 
 had no authority to stipulate that right away. The 
 point was held well taken by our Court of Appeals and 
 
378 Attorney and Client 
 
 the judgment was reversed. Cancemi was tried a 
 second time, convicted of a minor degree of man- 
 slaughter, manifestly a compromise verdict, and, I am 
 informed, after serving out his term of imprisonment, 
 returned to his country, where he obtained a position 
 of distinction. It is now stated and generally believed 
 that he was absolutely innocent. 
 
 Much obloquy was thrown upon the counsel be- 
 cause, it was said, they had violated their stipulation. 
 I do not hesitate to express the opinion that they 
 would have failed in their duty if, upon discovering 
 their error, they had not frankly stated it to the court 
 and asked the court to give their unfortunate client 
 the protection to which he was entitled. Counsel in 
 a capital case have no right, nor authority, to concede 
 anything that jeopardizes the client's life, and if they 
 subsequently discover that they have erred, and that 
 a life is to be thereby sacrificed, it is infinitely more 
 manly, and more in accordance with the traditions of 
 the profession, to throw themselves into the breach — 
 to stand the reproach of unreflecting or prejudiced 
 persons and to undo the mischief that they have 
 ignorantly caused, — than to remain silent. Human life 
 is too sacred to be tampered with on the ground of 
 etiquette or to be sacrificed because of counsel's re- 
 luctance to confess their fallibility. No one would 
 have blamed these gentlemen if they had retired from 
 the case and if a new-comer had repudiated the bind- 
 ing effect of their stipulation. Was it not more honor- 
 able on their part, instead of resorting to such an 
 evasion, to lay aside all personal risks, to face the 
 difficulty bravely, and do their full duty as they under- 
 stood it? 
 
 The great Courvoisier case, in which Mr. Phillips was 
 
Attorney and Client 379 
 
 counsel for the prisoner, elicited very considerable 
 discussion covering a broad range of professional 
 duties. Courvoisier was charged with the murder of 
 his master, and Mr. Phillips undertook the defence 
 under the strong belief that his client was innocent. 
 In the early part of the trial, however, evidence was 
 developed tending strongly to show that that belief 
 was unfounded. On the second day of the trial the 
 accused called his counsel aside and stated that he was 
 guilty. 
 
 "Then you propose to plead guilty?" said Mr. 
 Phillips. 
 
 " By no means," said Courvoisier ; "I insist that you 
 go on and defend me." 
 
 Phillips at once said that he would throw up the 
 case. His associate, however, insisted that he had no 
 right to do so and the matter was privately laid before 
 Baron Parke, who very properly advised Mr. Phillips 
 that it was his duty to go on and make every fair 
 argument in his client's behalf. The trial was a very 
 exciting one and resulted in Cour\^oisier's conviction. 
 
 Charges were made against Mr. Phillips : 
 
 First, that he should have thrown up his brief upon 
 discovering his client's guilt ; 
 
 Second, that he had invoked Heaven to witness that 
 he believed in his client's innocence; and, 
 
 Third, that he had attempted to throw suspicion of 
 guilt upon the other servants in the house, knowing 
 them to be innocent. 
 
 As to the first: There cannot be two opinions 
 among persons who understand the relation of coun- 
 sel and client in criminal cases. If Mr. Phillips had 
 abandoned his cHent's cause after the trial had com- 
 menced, he would have been guilty of a gross breach 
 
380 Attorney and Client 
 
 of professional propriety. He had taken the retainer 
 and he was bound to see that — if his dient was con- 
 victed at all — it was upon legal evidence, in the absence 
 of which he was entitled to acquittal. He ought to 
 have known and must have known that this was the 
 contract between him and his client, and the only one 
 between them. Counsel of his experience should not 
 have hesitated one instant upon his course. 
 
 It is a great mistake to believe that there is the 
 slightest impropriety in defending a man known by 
 counsel to be guilty. It is to the interest of the 
 republic that no man should be convicted except upon 
 legal evidence, and in such cases it is a matter of public 
 policy as well of professional duty that counsel should 
 stand between the accused and the prosecuting officer 
 in defence of his client's right to be tried according to 
 the law of the land. Counsel are not judges nor 
 juries; they are instrumentalities for the administra- 
 tion of justice, and justice can better suffer the oc- 
 casional escape of a guilty party than to tolerate a 
 conviction not sustained by clear legal proof. 
 
 As to the second : The invocation to Providence at- 
 testing his belief in his client's innocence was blas- 
 phemous if he knew the client's guilt; it was in bad 
 taste and unnecessary if he did not. His opinion upon 
 this point was absolutely irrelevant and should have 
 no weight either with court or jury. 
 
 As to the third, viz., throwing suspicion upon other 
 parties: Any reckless attempt to injure persons who 
 had committed no crime would, of course, be highly 
 censtirable ; but at the same time, if by a fuller cross- 
 examination the counsel could show that there was as 
 much probability that other persons had committed 
 the crime as his own client, it is difficult to hold that 
 
Attorney and Client 381 
 
 respect for the feelings or reputation of third persons 
 should curtail such cross-examination and deprive his 
 client of the benefit which he might otherwise derive 
 from it. 
 
 Lord Brougham certainly would not have been 
 troubled by such scruples if his declaration in Queen 
 Caroline's case as to the duties of counsel was really 
 entertained by himself : 
 
 An advocate in the discharge of his duty knows but one 
 person in the world, his client, and no other. To save that 
 client by all expedient means, at all hazards and cost to 
 others, and amongst others himself, is the highest and most 
 unquestioned of his duties, and he must not regard the 
 alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction which 
 he may bring upon others. Nay, separating even the 
 duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, he must go 
 on, reckless of consequences, even if his fate should unhap- 
 pily be to involve his country in confusion. 
 
 This is evidently rhetoric — nothing more ; but Lord 
 Brougham had an object and a meaning. 
 
 The suggestion that the duty of the advocate might 
 compel him to throw the kingdom into confusion was 
 intended to warn George IV. that if he proceeded with 
 his purpose to procure an Act of Parliament freeing 
 him from Queen Caroline, he (Brougham) would claim 
 that by reason of his marriage with Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, 
 a Roman Catholic, his royal Majesty was, for official 
 and legal purposes, dead and his throne vacant. The 
 threat seems to have been effectual. 
 
 It is not true that the attorney knows but one person 
 in the world. 
 
 He is an officer of the court, a servant in the Temple 
 of Justice, and as such he is bound to do nothing that 
 
382 Attorney and Client 
 
 will bring discredit upon the court, his own profession, 
 or himself. He should always keep before him the 
 distinction between the attorney, who is a representa- 
 tive and mouthpiece of another, and his own individual 
 self. The two are distinct and should be so kept. 
 Many of the difficulties in which honorable barristers 
 and attorneys have found themselves arise from ig- 
 noring this distinction. When counsel declare their 
 personal belief in the integrity of their client, they are 
 overstepping the line. What they believe or do not 
 believe is of no moment or concern to any one. 
 
 The rules of the ancient avocats of France were akin 
 to the rules that governed the knight and were fash- 
 ioned after them. The advocate was warned against 
 taking just and unjust causes alike, or maintaining 
 them by trickery or other disingenuousness ; he was 
 to respect the court; to be moderate in his charges; 
 to make no bargian with his client for part of the 
 fruits; he was to aid the innocent, no matter what 
 happened to himself; he was to distinguish between 
 the right and the wrong; he was to do justice to all; 
 he was to reject no man, woman, or child because of 
 poverty, or refuse his services to the oppressed. In 
 other words, like the brave knight Bayard, he was to 
 be without fear and without reproach. 
 
 The attorney has the right to look to his profession 
 for advancement, but it is a profession and not a trade. 
 The rules of commerce will not apply. He does not 
 deal on equal terms with the client. He may not 
 drive hard bargains nor take advantage of the client's 
 necessities. He should be a gentleman, which implies 
 the doing of his duty and the preservation of his own 
 dignity. Let him so act that he will not fear to have 
 his conduct published to the world. Let him be 
 
Attorney and Client 383 
 
 truthful and brave. Let him not be awed in his duty 
 by pubUc clamor or by the frowns of judges. His 
 conscience must be satisfied and not any other man's. 
 Let him not set up a very high standard in words for 
 other people, and follow another for himself. Truth 
 and loyalty, if faithfully observed, will carry him 
 through many perils. And above all, when he is in 
 doubt between two courses, one of which offers him a 
 large reward and the other a small one or none, let 
 him turn his back on the great temptation, if it in- 
 volves the slightest sacrifice of professional or personal 
 honor. His self-respect cannot be measured in money. 
 And let him so act, if he be one of our brothers, that 
 Columbia will look upon him with pride, and hold him 
 out as an example to those who have not had the ad- 
 vantage of her training nor the privilege of being 
 numbered among her children. Let us remember and 
 be strengthened by the reflection that, in the language 
 of Chancellor D'Aguesseau, our order is as ancient as 
 magistracy, as noble as virtue, as necessary as justice. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE BAR OF NEW YORK FROM 1792 TO 1892 ^ 
 
 EVEN De Tocqueville, in his great work on the 
 United States, comments upon the exceptional 
 position occupied by the bar in the United 
 States, and concludes that the profession in our country 
 constitutes an aristocracy. In one sense, probably the 
 one in which it was intended, the remark is true. In 
 every free country the bar constitutes, and necessarily 
 must, an order of unusual importance. Its function 
 in peace is similar to that of the army in war, viz., to 
 defend society and to guard the general welfare. 
 Whether special privileges are, or are not, conceded in 
 terms to such a body of men, enlightened opinion must 
 realize its value and rely upon its service. It is the 
 natural organ by which outraged law protests against 
 tryanny, whether from above or below; the sentinel 
 and advance post which signals danger and warns the 
 community of impending peril. The chosen men who 
 gather around a monarch as the fountain of honor, 
 shine with reflected lustre because of their proximity 
 to the royal person. So it is with the bar. Its mem- 
 bers and they alone can serve in the Temple of Justice 
 and see that due reverence is paid to the only recog- 
 nized sovereign, the Law. To be the mouthpiece of 
 
 > Written for the New York Press, Oct. 9, 1892. 
 384 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 385 
 
 that sovereign, to expound his decrees, to stand firmly 
 by his throne, to protect his dignity, this is no mean 
 function. Take away the sanction of the law and 
 nothing is left in Pandora's box, least of all freedom, 
 for freedom without law ceases to be anything of 
 value. It changes its name and is not worth pre- 
 serving. The history of free government shows the 
 truth of this so clearly that illustration drawn from 
 past records becomes unnecessary. Whether an un- 
 wholesome transition has not already begun is another 
 and far different question. 
 
 Government Chiefly by Lawyers 
 
 It may be that plutocracy is gradually displacing 
 the profession of the law. There are signs that point 
 in that direction, but thus far the peril has only been 
 a threat and not a reality. With scarcely an exception 
 every president of the United States has been a lawyer 
 by profession; the two candidates now before the 
 people have been eminent as members of the bar; 
 senators and representatives are almost universally 
 trained and reputable lawyers, and if it be true that a 
 practice has of late years been growing, in remote 
 States, to confer high legislative office on men of 
 wealth because they are able and willing to pay for the 
 privilege of serving the public, these are but rare ex- 
 ceptions. We may still truly say that the government 
 of the United States for the last one hundred years has 
 been in the hands of the legal profession. As we have 
 prospered and grown on a scale of greatness heretofore 
 unknown, it may not be a reckless instance of deduc- 
 tive reasoning to suggest that government by law, as 
 administered by lawyers, is the best that has thus far 
 
386 Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 been tried. Some persons, in other respects rational, 
 claim that our progress is due to paternal government 
 protection. It may be curious to speculate upon the 
 effect of a possible combination of free trade and 
 lawyers in office as common factors in the future 
 prosperity of our country, but this would be foreign 
 to my purpose. 
 
 True, Washington was not a lawyer, at least so far 
 as I am informed. Probably there were many occa- 
 sions in which this chasm in his early training was to 
 him a source of deep but unavailing regret. But the 
 necessity for a legal training was not as obvious in his 
 day as it has been since his great service to the nation. 
 
 The seeds of our revolution were sown and cultivated 
 by the lawyers, who plainly saw that the struggle must 
 come. The young giant was stretching his long and 
 awkward limbs and fretting at the shackles which 
 bound him and checked his growth. He was uneasy, 
 then impatient, and finally angry. He was slow to 
 wrath, but when he was at length moved to righteous 
 indignation, the lawyers told him why he was justified 
 in his complaints; they taught him the duty of re- 
 sistance; they encouraged him in its assertion; they 
 instructed him as to his rights, and helped him, by 
 voice and pen, and often, too, with musket and sword, 
 to vindicate his dignity by claiming his independence. 
 Years before the war broke out the lawyers of Boston 
 and of New York had formed societies to discuss the 
 great questions that agitated the public mind. The 
 Sodality of Boston was one of these : composed not of 
 striplings trying their young voices on their neighbors 
 and practising their arts on open-mouthed rustics, but 
 men of years and standing, like John Adams and James 
 Otis; earnest, thoughtful, patriotic, and wise men, 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 387 
 
 who might well assume to act as self-constituted 
 pedagogues of a young and rising community. The 
 "Moot" was another, which had its headquarters in 
 New York, and consisted of the ablest lawyers of the 
 State. Their debates were of great importance, and 
 their opinions so highly valued that coimsel often cited 
 them as bearing upon, illustrating, and estabhshing 
 the law. In one case it is recorded that the chief 
 justice of the State of New York referred a difficult 
 point of law to the Moot for its opinion. 
 
 Lights of the Bar Long Lost 
 
 There were many conspicuous men at the bar as the 
 last century closed and the present one displaced it — 
 men of imsurpassed ability and independence of char- 
 acter. The war that had just ended was a training 
 school that kept its influence for many years, indeed 
 until the next conflict revived the warlike spirit and 
 made the peaceful disputes of the forum seem tame and 
 unprofitable. 
 
 What young lawyer of to-day has ever heard of 
 Egbert Benson, Brockholst Livingston, John Lansing, 
 Melancthon Smith, or Josiah Ogden Hoffman? And 
 yet they were learned, eloquent, honorable, and pa- 
 triotic men. They were giants while they lived, and 
 did much to settle important questions for the genera- 
 tions to come. They served the public as well as their 
 cHents faithfully and well, but the lawyer's fame is 
 evanescent as the speech that makes it. His con- 
 temporaries bear testimony to his merits, but when he 
 has passed from the scene of his labors, his glory sleeps 
 with his perishable body. 
 
 Seeming exceptions there are to this, but only 
 
388 Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 exceptions in appearance. The names of the two 
 greatest lawyers, the acknowledged leaders of the bar 
 of one hiindred years ago, still live, but only because 
 the men who bore them have entered into history in 
 a public capacity, and because their names are boimd 
 together in one bloody tragedy. Alexander Hamil- 
 ton and Aaron Burr were the leaders in their day. 
 Hamilton especially enjoyed an undisputed title to 
 pre-eminence. Chancellor Kent, in an address de- 
 livered in 1836, speaks of him in terms of imstinted 
 admiration. 
 
 Among all his brethren [he says], Colonel Hamilton was 
 indisputably pre-eminent. This was universally conceded. 
 He rose at once to the loftiest heights of professional emi- 
 nence by his profound penetration, his power of analysis, 
 the comprehensive grasp and strength of his understanding, 
 and the firmness, frankness, and integrity of his character 
 We may say of him in reference to his associates, as was 
 said of Papinian, Omnes longo post se intervallo relinquerit. 
 
 Such praise as this, coming from such a source, is 
 sufficient to place Hamilton on the pinnacle of pro- 
 fessional fame ; but it is the gallant soldier, the friend 
 of Washington, the writer of the Federalist, the founder 
 of our financial system, and the victim of Burr's pistol 
 who is really recalled by tradition and who will be 
 remembered by remote posterity. He might other- 
 wise be discovered only by the patient explorer into 
 those musty records that history half scornfully 
 glances at, to mitigate the dryness of more important 
 themes. Who, for instance, will know or care to know 
 a generation hence that another Hamilton made the 
 great speech in Zenker's case, and argued with success, 
 fifty years before Erskine, that the jury in a libel case 
 were the judges of the law as well as the facts? 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 389 
 
 Nor can it be said that Burr's name would arouse an 
 echo of even passing interest but for the part he took 
 in great events, wherein he show^ed his consummate 
 abiHty and absolute indifference to principle. As the 
 would-be usurper of the presidency, as Jefferson's vice- 
 president, as the defendent in a great treason trial, and 
 as the slayer of Hamilton, his place is fixed forever 
 beyond the destructive processes of time. Unfor- 
 tunately for him, if there be such a thing as posthu- 
 mous misfortune, he will not be forgotten. 
 
 These two men, great lawyers as they were, cannot, 
 therefore, be cited as exceptions to the rule. If they 
 had been engaged in the manufacture of tin plate they 
 would have been equally (if not more) conspicuous, 
 provided other elements of their fame had concurred 
 to make them prominent. 
 
 A Story of Livingston 
 
 One of the most eminent of the lawyers whom I have 
 named, Brockholst Livingston, became chancellor of 
 the State, and subsequently a justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. Mr. Hunt, in his charming 
 biography of Edward Livingston, narrates an incident 
 in the chancellor's life which is very characteristic of 
 the times, and for that reason deserves repetition here. 
 It seems that Mr. Livingston was a bit of a wag — this 
 was, of course, before he was placed on the bench — 
 and amused himself on a certain occasion in writing an 
 account of a political meeting which had been at- 
 tended by some of his political adversaries. These 
 he sought to turn into ridicule. His raillery seems to 
 us at this day quite harmless. He spoke of a Mr. Fish 
 as a stripling about forty-eight years old, and of a Mr, 
 Jones as " Master Jimmy Jones, another stripling about 
 
390 Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 sixty." Why Messrs. Jones and Fish should have 
 resented so mild a form of pleasantry does not appear, 
 but they did feel very deeply whatever sting there may 
 have been in these mysterious imputations. They de- 
 manded an explanation of Mr. Livingston while he 
 was walking on the Battery with his wife and children. 
 The explanation does not appear to have suited Mr. 
 Jones, who proceeded to chastise Mr. Livingston with 
 a cane, whereupon Mr. Livingston became, in his turn, 
 dissatisfied and gave evidence thereof by challenging 
 and killing Mr. Jones ; after which performance he felt 
 at liberty to resume his promenade, en famille, on the 
 Battery, which he did without further molestation. 
 Mr. Jones having been removed in this summary but 
 orthodox fashion, there was nothing to prevent Mr. 
 Livingston from reaching high political preference. 
 He accordingly became chancellor, and shortly after a 
 justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 This gentle toleration of a duellist who had killed an 
 adversary is in striking contrast with the treatment 
 of Burr after he had killed Hamilton. Certainly the 
 provocation in the latter case was real, the fashion of 
 duelling was still recognized as a legitimate mode of 
 settling differences between gentlemen, both men were 
 tried and brave soldiers, accustomed to face death 
 without flinching, and the fight was a fair one, in 
 which the regular forms were minutely observed. 
 And yet Burr became practically an outcast, and spent 
 the balance of his life in friendless soHtude. He was 
 punished for his other offences ; not for the venial sin 
 of duelling. The man whom he happened to kill was 
 an eminent citizen, honorable and respected. If Ham- 
 ilton had slain Burr his own social and professional 
 standing would probably have remained imimpaired; 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 391 
 
 possibly it might have received something of increased 
 dignity. But Hamilton enjoyed a good character and 
 Burr did not. The moral of this seems to be that be- 
 fore a man determines to commit an offence against the 
 law, he should be sure that his character is good. If 
 his character is bad the risk is greatly enhanced. The 
 jury or the public, as the case may be, will convict 
 him of something. Sir Jonah Barrington assures his 
 readers that a man was once convicted at the Irish 
 Assizes of murder, although the victim came into 
 court apparently alive and ready to swear that he had 
 not been killed. The jury was then about retiring, 
 and, in spite of the judge, did so. They explained 
 their verdict of guilty by saying that, while they knew 
 that he had not killed that particular man, they also 
 knew that he had stolen a cow that belonged to one 
 of the jurors and they might not find another and so 
 good a chance to hang him. 
 
 It is, of course, the fashion to decry the bar of to-day 
 and to cite illustrious examples in the past to shame 
 the advocates and practitioners of our own time. But 
 this is natural enough; at least it has been universal. 
 Those who look back upon the men and things of a past 
 generation, to which their own life was linked, the 
 memory of which comes back with the joyousness of 
 departed youth, will always find a fitting theme for 
 mournful retrospection in the degeneracy of the times. 
 Imagination uncontrolled joins hands with vain regret; 
 the harsh contours of unpleasant fact are smoothed 
 into beauty by the softening process of uncounted 
 years and grow beautiful in proportion as our vision 
 grows dim. Chancellor Kent himself indulged in this 
 pessimistic fashion of reviewing the past. In the 
 lecture above cited, he mournfully descants upon the 
 
392 Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 "tendency of things at present to disenchant the pro- 
 fession of much of its attraction. The spirit of the 
 age," he says, "is restless and presumptuous and 
 revolutionary. The rapidly increasing appetite for 
 wealth, the inordinate taste for luxury which it en- 
 genders, the vehement spirit of speculation, are so 
 many bad symptoms of a diseased state of the public 
 mind." Who would have believed that our profes- 
 sional forerunners were afflicted with such fearful 
 propensities? Good, great, venerable gentlemen we 
 supposed them to be, eminently respectable from the 
 top of their bald heads to the soles of their gaitered 
 feet, moving with decorous deliberation from their 
 shabby office to their uptown residence in Prince or 
 Houston street for dinner, returning to work until 
 supper time, unmolested by telephones, undisturbed 
 by| telegrams, ignorant of messenger boys, living in 
 happy though unconscious immunity from stenog- 
 raphers, interviewers, law reporters, daily law journals, 
 and other sources of unhappiness. To think that the 
 virus of avarice, gambling, selfishness and the like had 
 polluted their simple and virtuous natures! Perhaps 
 we may be better than they after all, for we have to 
 contend against all these insidious foes, and yet we 
 still exist as a body and upon the whole may claim, in 
 comparison with the rest of the community, to con- 
 stitute a very respectable class of citizens. 
 
 Whatever may have been the merits or shortcomings 
 of the bar when Chancellor Kent spoke thus mourn- 
 fully, there was a class of young men coming to the 
 front than which the history of our bar offers nothing 
 more admirable. From 1835 to 1870 our roll was 
 bright with splendid names and our courts filled with 
 life and learning. Cutting, with his splendid presence 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 393 
 
 and perfect mastery of the commercial law; George 
 Wood, the massive expounder of all the learning that 
 related to trusts and real property; Evarts, polished, 
 self-possessed, keen-witted, the hero of the three great 
 cases of our generation— the Johnson impeachment, 
 the Tilden election case of 1876, the Geneva arbitration 
 case; Fullerton, the peerless examiner and cross-ex- 
 aminer, — both of these last still ready with memory 
 intact to tell of the great battles which they fought 
 and the giants that they met; David Dudley Field, 
 aggressive, earnest, impressive, relentless, and like 
 Achilles that Horace describes : 
 
 Impiger, iracundus, inexorahilis, acer. 
 
 He, too, is still among us in the radiance of an un- 
 dimmed intellect, to show of what material were made 
 the men whom Chancellor Kent looked upon with such 
 mournful suspicion, "Prince" John Van Buren, too, 
 who covered up his real genius with a cold affectation 
 of cynical indifference and lived to be the putative 
 father of numberless sayings from Aristophanes to 
 date; William Curtis Noyes, ever courteous and ever 
 ready, diligent and indefatigable until the overstrained 
 cords suddenly snapped while he was still in his prime ; 
 and James W. Gerard — "Jimmie" to his friends — 
 with the polish and wit of his French ancestry, his 
 inexhaustible bonhommie and good nature, his irresist- 
 ible facility and felicity in winning juries over to the 
 wrong side, on which he was most at home. "Never 
 attack your adversary with a bludgeon," the writer 
 once heard him say, " run him through with a rapier," 
 He lived up to his own precept. He ran his adversary 
 gracefully and thoroughly through the vital parts, and 
 when he was sure that his victim was thoroughly dead 
 
394 Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 he held out his hand to help him to his feet. And 
 Benjamin D. Silliman, the veteran of sixty odd years' 
 practice, still ready to counsel his many clients, to un- 
 ravel intricate knots of law, and to delight hosts of 
 friends with his winning smile, his wise speech, his 
 kindly judgments of men long since gone. Time, alas! 
 will not let my willing pen run on to tell of so many 
 others whom the young bar of my generation looked 
 upon with something akin to superstitious admiration. 
 A volume would hardly suffice to tell of their virtues 
 and their frailties, ^ — for it is a comfort to think that 
 they, too, were human. 
 
 The question is often asked: Who is the greatest 
 lawyer you have known? If the interlocutor would 
 explain what he means by the term "lawyer" the 
 answer could be made more readily and easily than 
 without such an explanation. I could name several 
 men who answer this superlative description. But 
 the qualities that make up a great lawyer are so 
 diverse that the question might be objected to as 
 vague and indefinite. 
 
 Charles O 'Conor was the greatest lawyer that my 
 generation has known, in one sense of the word. He 
 was thoroughly imbued and saturated with the law, its 
 principles, and its philosophy. He exuded law learn- 
 ing as some men are said to radiate goodness. If the 
 law had been an inflammable substance he might have 
 been expected to perish in a blaze of spontaneous 
 combustion, the material being furnished from the 
 essence of numberless tomes which he had perused and 
 digested. 
 
 The reports, textbooks, treatises, briefs, essays on 
 the subject of the law which he had assimilated would 
 in their original form have heated the baths of some 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 395 
 
 modern cities as long as the baths of Alexandria were 
 kept in operation by the volumes that a ruthless 
 barbarian conqueror turned into fuel. 
 
 To build up a clean-cut, technical case was as much 
 an object of love to him as the erection of a temple 
 would have been to an architect of old Athens. Logic 
 was his constant companion and friend. Rhetoric he 
 looked on with suspicion, and if at times he did allow 
 himself to be drawn away from the mathematics of his 
 profession, it was only a short-lived truancy. He did 
 show in these brief moments of infidelity to his stern- 
 browed mistress that he might enter the lists with the 
 best sophists of them all and gather laurels with them 
 on the slopes of Hymettus or Parnassus. But he soon 
 tired of the flowers that he picked and flung them 
 aside, as though weaving garlands were beneath his 
 dignity. 
 
 To put it in plainer prose, he sometimes gave me the 
 impression that he was reining in his fancy, lest it carry 
 him away. It was a disappointment, and I longed to 
 see him lose his self-control and give a free field to his 
 imagination, and a touch of the spur to the poetical side 
 of his genius. But he never yielded wholly to the 
 temptation. He rode back in season to the beaten 
 track and grappled with court and jury on the pro- 
 saic ground of hard, practical sense and absolute 
 demonstration. 
 
 As a lawyer, and simply a lawyer, he was great. If 
 he had allowed himself to be an orator besides, he 
 probably could have done so. Imagine Demosthenes 
 with no Philip to denounce, and making it his business 
 to elucidate the law of trusts, and to make contingent 
 remainders intelligible, you have my idea of Charles 
 O 'Conor. I may add that some of his philippics are 
 
39^ Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 still extant, and you feel sorry for the modern Philip 
 when you read them. 
 
 If, however, you mean by the greatest lawyer the 
 most persuasive, the most delightful, charming, fas- 
 cinating, and irresistible of men, then you must take 
 Ogden Hoffman. He may not have been great at be- 
 sieging strongholds. He may not have understood 
 counterscarps, circumvallations, redoubts, and the like. 
 I really believe he could not have captured Alesia 
 two thousand years ago as Caesar did; but when it 
 came to storming the jury box, to sweeping away 
 intervening obstacles in spite of all the rules of war — 
 except those that rested on honorable carriage — Ogden 
 Hoffman was the chief of them all. 
 
 His onslaught was simply irresistible. He was in 
 the jury box with the jurors telling them what to do, 
 and they obeyed him, before the case was out of the 
 judge's hands. He charmed men from their deter- 
 mination, as Apollo with his lyre drew the oaks by the 
 roots from their mother soil. He hypnotized and 
 wrought a spell about them. His voice was like a 
 silver flute in the hands of an enchanter. And it was 
 all done so modestly and gently and courteously that 
 really it was not fair to the other side. 
 
 Fortunately for the administration of justice, nature, 
 in giving Hoffman such possibilities of wrong-doing, 
 had limited his capacity for mischief by a double and 
 very effective infliction: he was lazy, and he was a 
 gentleman. He would never willingly harm a human 
 being, even if it could be accomplished without labor, 
 because he was a gentleman. And as for doing a 
 wrong or anything else to any one where labor was 
 involved, — he scorned such baseness. He was incapable 
 of thus flying in the face of the good fairy who had 
 
Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 397 
 
 lovingly endowed him at his birth with a splendid fund 
 of unconquerable laziness. 
 
 James T. Brady completes the trio of great lawyers 
 whom I have known. Perhaps he was the most richly 
 endowed of them all. He was a man of intense per- 
 sonality. His massive head with the deep-set eyes, 
 his charming smile and winning ways, his exquisite 
 command of language, his wit, his fancy, his eloquence, 
 his genius, were his, and the union his alone. On the 
 whole, take him altogether, he was second to none. 
 Had he chosen he might have been first. 
 
 But there was a cui bono note in his efforts before 
 court and jury that handicapped success. Except in 
 great cases, especially criminal cases, he seldom called 
 out his reserves. He fought his battle with a Hght 
 brigade, as it were, and made use of a brilliantly uni- 
 formed cavalry when less picturesque allies might be 
 necessary. But you knew that he had his forces be- 
 hind him, and when he did take upon himself the re- 
 sponsibility of a human life he was inimitable and 
 never failed to do his best ; and more than his best no 
 man could do. In a word, Brady was one of the few 
 lawyers of those I have known who deserved to be 
 called a genius. 
 
 The impression that he left on the mind of his 
 jimiors was that he could do anything — if he only cared 
 to try. He might have commanded an army or written 
 an epic poem if he had settled down doggedly to work. 
 But such men do not set doggedly to work. Nature's 
 partiality to her chosen children does not often go so 
 far as to hatch genius and industry from the same egg. 
 
 Have these left successors worthy of themselves? 
 Certainly they have. The bar is now as firm as it ever 
 has been in the possession of learned, upright, sagacious 
 
SgS Bar of New York, 1792 to 1892 
 
 and honorable members. We are too near them now 
 to judge them fairly, but we may feel assured that the 
 young men of to-day will, after their hair has turned, 
 recall the broad and scientific arguments of Carter, 
 the brilliant versatility of Choate, the deadly keenness 
 of Parsons, the scholarly erudition of Butler — nay, the 
 splendid qualities of a host of others whom it would be 
 tedious and invidious to single out; they, too, will 
 rank with the best examples of what our profession has 
 produced. But until their work is done who can tell 
 what material will appropriately serve to preserve 
 their memory? Shall it be enduring bronze or brittle 
 clay? You may safely call no man happy, nor great, 
 nor good, nor wise until he has turned his back forever 
 on friends and foes alike. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE lawyer's responsibilities LAW REFORM 
 
 CODIFICATION ^ 
 
 RESPECTABLE tradition requires that no body 
 of young lawyers be allowed to start upon its 
 mission of mercy and benevolence without 
 being first subjected to an address. It may be an 
 exaggeration to liken this process to that of vivisection, 
 but the two have this in common: that, while the 
 benefit to be derived by the sufferer in each case is un- 
 certain, the chief operator usually enjoys and protracts 
 the pleasure of the performance. 
 
 There is a poetical fancy, perhaps, at the bottom of 
 this ancient usage, which suggests that the parting 
 words addressed to the eager beginner by the learned, 
 venerable, and ponderous sages of the bar who gener- 
 ally perform these functions, may have been intended 
 to take the place of the happy-omened slipper that is 
 thrown after those who enter upon the cares and duties 
 of matrimonial life, or at least that the oration with 
 which you are served may take the place of the kindly 
 horseshoe which, attached to the door of the new 
 building, brings luck to its fortunate possessor. Let 
 this be the spirit, at least, in which my duty to you is 
 now performed; and be assured that were I to go 
 
 « Address to Graduates of Columbia College Law School, 1884. 
 399 
 
400 The Lawyer's Responsibilities 
 
 through a literal performance of either of the acts 
 above alluded to, I would not wish you success more 
 warmly than I do. 
 
 There is another, and, perhaps, truer theory which 
 accounts for our relative positions to-night. Learned 
 as your wise and distinguished instructors, aided by 
 your industry, may have made you, it is barely possible 
 that you may not yet know all that you should be in- 
 formed of before undertaking the practice of the best 
 and noblest of professions. Upon this theory a final 
 address is vouchsafed you to round off the imper- 
 fections, to supply the deficiencies, and to complete 
 the general character of your professional education. 
 This, you will observe, places upon us a double re- 
 sponsibility, the result of which will be to create on 
 my part a selfish interest in your welfare. A large 
 share of your future professional success will be 
 claimed by me ; as to those who may prefer to fail or 
 faint by the wayside, or wander into other pursuits, I 
 shall comfort myself with the reflection that they were 
 careless or forgetful listeners. 
 
 If there is one point to which your earnest and last- 
 ing attention should be called it is, I think, the real 
 greatness and importance of the profession upon which 
 you are about to enter. Leaving out of question the 
 sacred profession, I am very sure that there is more 
 honor, more truth, more charity, more trustworthi- 
 ness in our ranks than in any other calling whatever. 
 We can hardly expect others to admit this proposition, 
 much less to proclaim it on the housetops, but I doubt 
 if any fairly intelligent and experienced man would 
 question it if put upon his oath, with an honest fear of 
 the Lord before him. That there is a popular prejudice 
 the other way may well be admitted. Wit — like any- 
 
The Lawyer's Responsibilities 401 
 
 thing else that is much sought after and rarely found — 
 must exist in a cheap form to be within the reach of all, 
 and it is well established that the cheapest and most 
 popular form is that which is aimed at the bar. For 
 this, many reasons may be assigned, the chief of which 
 is based upon the very superiority which we so justly 
 claim. Foote, an English actor, used to tell his pro- 
 vincial audiences that when an attorney died in Lon- 
 don they never buried him. They simply placed the 
 body by an open window in the evening. In the 
 morning the body would be absent, and nothing to in- 
 dicate the manner in which it had been removed except 
 a most suggestive odor of sulphur. Although I am not 
 called upon to defend the members of a foreign bar, I 
 do not hesitate to declare this a malicious invention. 
 But even if it were true, I would ask whether, when 
 the attorney's clients died, the only reason that pre- 
 vented their disappearing in like manner, and with like 
 results, was not the fact that the window was kept closed? 
 
 For you will observe that there is this peculiarity to 
 be noted in most of the cases where one of us falls from 
 his high estate. While the merchant, banker, broker, 
 tradesman, commits wrongs and frauds for his own 
 benefit and on his own account, the lawyer acts in a 
 vicarious character. His misdeeds usually go to fill 
 the coffers of some sleek Pharisee, who pockets the 
 advantages, disputes the bill of costs, and then thanks 
 the Lord that he is not like one of the sinful lawyers 
 whom he has used to such good purpose. I advise his 
 friends to close the window when he dies; there may 
 be nothing in Foote 's story, but it is well to be on the 
 safe side. 
 
 Again, you will notice that in almost every con- 
 troversy we are compelled to take our client's story. 
 
402 The Lawyer's Responsibilities 
 
 Some clients, I am informed, will lie even to their own 
 counsel. My good fortune has kept me from any such 
 clients, but I have observed, in many instances, that my 
 opposing brethren were laboring under that disadvan- 
 tage, and were grossly deceived as to the facts and 
 merits of the controversy in which they were engaged. 
 But that is inseparable from the profession. All that 
 can be expected from the advocate is that he will 
 never, under any circumstances, be a party to deceiving 
 the court. When he states the facts or presumed facts 
 of a case, he is but the mouthpiece of another person, 
 and upon that person must fall the responsibility of 
 the statement. If he goes beyond that, his responsi- 
 bility begins. 
 
 I suppose that it may be truly said, as an abstract 
 proposition, that in your profession honesty is the best 
 policy ; but I should feel ashamed of that profession if 
 it were necessary to make you honest by recalling the 
 benefits that you may receive from an observance of 
 the decalogue and the Revised Statutes. The lawyer 
 who starts in life with this motto to guide him is not 
 fitted by nature nor by his moral education to enter 
 a profession which requires a high standard of personal 
 honor and dignity. He would do well to turn his 
 attention to commercial pursuits, where it may be 
 necessary to keep in view that principle when he is 
 tempted to adulterate his coffee or to dilute his whiskey. 
 I fear that such a one will sometimes, in emergencies, 
 doubt the uniform applicability of the rule, and will 
 abandon it when it ceases to produce an adequate 
 return. 
 
 For you will soon discover that the high character 
 of your calling will not be satisfied with this " honest" 
 policy. To be honest in the ordinary sense, i. e., not 
 
The Lawyer s Responsibilities 403 
 
 to lie, to cheat, to defraud, is of course essential, but 
 you will fall very far short of the proper standard if 
 you do not require of yourselves far more than this. 
 A nice and scrupulous sense of honor, — ^which is as un- 
 like mere honesty as the fine Damascus blade is unlike 
 a farming implement, — a keen sensitiveness in the pro- 
 tection of others' rights even against yourselves, a 
 proper contempt for everything mean, unmanly, and 
 ungenerous, these should be your ideal of professional 
 requirements. And as for honesty, the time to be 
 honest is when it is not the best policy ; the veriest 
 knave will be honest where he sees his profit in fair 
 dealing. 
 
 To what exalted positions the pursuit of this ideal 
 will lead, you have all recently seen. Charles O 'Conor, 
 the leading member of our state and national bar, died 
 full of years a few days since. He was known only as 
 a lawyer, but in that character he had been conspicu- 
 ously great. Scornful of all meretricious arts to win 
 popular applause, tenacious of his own opinions, even 
 when they were opposed to the general sentiment, 
 seeking no preferment through political sources, living 
 a secluded and abstracted life, he yet won such fame 
 for himself that not only his brethren and the courts 
 in which he practised deplored his loss, but all classes 
 of citizens united in doing him honor. It was less, I 
 think, to the brilliancy of his attainments that the 
 tribute was paid than to the upright, truth-loving, 
 self-respecting gentleman whose long record con- 
 tained no stain. Fearless in all his battles, seeking 
 victory only by honorable means, like the old chevalier 
 who died at Sesia, he might well have borne upon his 
 escutcheon the motto Sans peur et sans reproche. 
 Fancy Charles O 'Conor being honest because it paid! 
 
404 Law Reform 
 
 There is a danger, however, against which I cannot 
 too earnestly warn you in connection with these 
 generous aspirations. Let nothing tempt you to be- 
 come professional reformers. If you do, you will prob- 
 ably inflict more evil upon your profession and upon 
 society than your whole lifetime can atone for. I do 
 not, of course, mean that when you discover a real 
 mischief in the administration of justice, you shall not 
 try to correct it — certainly it will be your duty to aid 
 in the amendment of the law where your experience 
 teaches that it is deficient ; but I do mean to warn you 
 against that not uncommon egotism which prompts 
 men to think themselves wiser, greater, and better 
 than all other men of their age and country. When 
 this delusion seizes upon its unfortunate victim he is 
 ready to drive his Juggernaut ruthlessly over every 
 obstacle that may stand in his way, and in most cases, 
 if he does fail to do untold mischief, it is because his 
 ability to subvert and destroy is not equal to his desire. 
 Fortunately the conservatism and common sense of our 
 profession and of the community stand in the re- 
 former's way and he is generally repulsed by their 
 combined force. 
 
 The most dangerous and radical shape which reform 
 has assumed of late years is known under the alluring 
 name of Codification, i.e., the reduction of all our laws 
 and the decisions of our courts to the bulk of a small 
 volume, intended to place within the hands of every 
 man, woman, and child in the state the means of ascer- 
 taining his or her rights upon any given subject. This 
 is a charming scheme, but of course no lawyer believes 
 it to be practicable. If he does, he has not read the 
 proposed civil code which has been diligently and 
 persistently pressed upon the attention of the Legisla- 
 
Codification 405 
 
 ture during the last four or five years. This subject 
 is so important that I may detain you a few moments 
 more before abandoning it. 
 
 As there are no two objects in nature that are pre- 
 cisely alike, so there are in the practice of law no two 
 cases precisely similar. This truth is self-evident. 
 When you make ironclad rules, you cannot reasonably 
 expect them to fit every conceivable case. Indeed, 
 you are apt to find that the majority of cases pass 
 through the rule because of the imperfection of the 
 language in which that rule is expressed, or the real 
 impossibility of covering even the generality of the 
 cases contemplated. Hence the danger of a code; 
 hence, too, the advantages of the common law. The 
 former deals in rules more or less accurately stated, 
 and which must fit the given case or be discarded. 
 The latter deals in general principles, which may be 
 applied to any case which those principles may reach. 
 Thus, the common law is adapted to an expanding 
 condition of society, where new conditions are con- 
 stantly created, and which no written code can be ex- 
 pected to provide for. 
 
 The clamor of the few but active persons who advo- 
 cate this revolutionary measure is based chiefly upon 
 the pretence that a code would give us certainty in the 
 administration of the law. Any scheme that would 
 make the administration of justice certain, or even 
 improve upon its admitted uncertainty, would be most 
 desirable ; but no lawyer who reflects upon the subject 
 can doubt that the already unfortunate uncertainty 
 would be increased tenfold. This is one of those 
 points as to which reasonable men have no right 
 to differ, because they have to guide them not only 
 abstract reasoning, founded upon general rules of 
 
4o6 Codification 
 
 experience and common sense, but they know what the 
 result of codification has been in our own State, in our 
 own time. The same eminent gentleman who is now 
 seeking to press the State of New York among his 
 followers in this line of so-called improvement once 
 prepared a Code of Practice, which was to simplify 
 our procedure, avoid expense, and prove a millennium 
 for suitors. That the attorneys who practised imder 
 it, especially in the days of its youth, reaped very rich 
 rewards at the expense of their clients, no man can 
 deny; if it was his beneficent object to improve the 
 financial condition of his less fortunate brethren, that 
 object was liberally carried out. But we have a ghastly 
 monument before us, in the shape of hundreds upon 
 hundreds of volumes of law, in which learned and ex- 
 perienced judges manifest their inability to understand 
 what the simplest provisions of that code were intended 
 to convey. Whether six weeks meant forty-six days or 
 thirty-seven ; what constituted and what did not a valid 
 service of a summons — these and other portentous 
 matters divided the courts for a quarter of a century. 
 Our overworked judges were obliged to neglect matters 
 of infinite importance in order to settle petty disputes 
 which involved at best ten dollars costs ; and, finally, 
 after this quarter of a century had elapsed, and these 
 voltmies had been filled, and the legislature had de- 
 voted itself to pruning, amplifying, obliterating, and 
 amending for almost a generation of men, the whole 
 scheme was blotted out and a new one substituted; 
 this, in its turn, to undergo the same probationary ex- 
 istence. After such an experience as this, who can in 
 good faith pretend that a scheme which goes to the 
 very foundation of our existence as a people, which 
 enters every home, interferes in every workshop, dis- 
 
Codification 407 
 
 turbs every relation of life, brings up new questions 
 between husband and wife, father and child, master 
 and ser\'ant, seller and buyer, will not create a dis- 
 turbance infinitely more alarming than that to which 
 I have alluded? That it will take many years of 
 litigation to settle the meaning of every important 
 section of this proposed code is as absolutely certain 
 as anything in the future can be. And in connection 
 with this let me fortify my statement, lest I be deemed 
 partial, by a reference to what Blackstone has de- 
 nounced as "the efforts of rash and unexperienced 
 workmen to new-dress and refine the common law of 
 England with the rage of modern improvement; for 
 to say the truth"— he adds— "almost all the niceties, 
 intricacies, and delays (which have sometimes dis- 
 graced the English as well as other courts of justice), 
 owe their origin not to the Common Law itself, but to 
 innovations that have been made in it by Statutes." 
 Sir Edward Coke, "that great and well-experienced 
 judge," as Blackstone calls him, declares that "in all 
 his time he never knew two questions made upon 
 rights merely depending upon the Common Law," 
 and he warmly laments "the confusion introduced by 
 ill- judging and unlearned legislators." What would 
 he have said if he could have seen our legislators ad- 
 vocating a scheme subversive of all our landmarks, 
 while at the same time proclaiming and almost glory- 
 ing in the fact that they have never examined it! 
 
 But there appears to me an overwhelming objection 
 to the code, and that is the facihty with which it will 
 be tampered with by inexperienced legislators. As 
 one commentator says, "It is perfectly amazing that 
 there should be no other state of life, no other oc- 
 cupation, art, or science, in which some method of 
 
4o8 Codification 
 
 instruction is not looked upon as requisite, except only 
 the science of legislation, the noblest and most difficult 
 of any." It is true that there are exceptions to this 
 rule, and our State is fortunate enough to possess in 
 its Legislature some experienced and able men who 
 stand in the way of such schemes. But how long 
 their influence will continue to thwart and baffle these 
 wild projects, no man can tell; and unless our whole 
 profession, and some part, at least, of the lay com- 
 munity, is aroused to the danger that it runs, we may 
 expect, under the pretext and the fallacious cry of 
 "Reform," a condition of chaos and confusion com- 
 pared with which our present condition is absolute 
 perfection. 
 
 In making these remarks, which may seem to be 
 overstrained, I have not in detail alluded to the pro- 
 posed plan of legislation known as the Civil Code, a 
 plan that has been pressed by its able and distin- 
 guished author year after year with most admirable 
 tenacity. But if you will take upon yourselves to 
 examine and carefully study it, together with some of 
 the comments that have been made upon it, you will, 
 I am quite sure, come to the conclusion that I have 
 not overstated the danger that threatens us. Even 
 the women and children are deeply concerned in pre- 
 venting its passage, as they may find from reading two 
 or three of its clauses. Thus it is solemnly declared 
 that "husband and wife contract toward each other 
 obligations of mutual respect, fidelity, and support,'' 
 which, of course, seems very harmless on its face, and 
 probably no one of my hearers will object to this en- 
 actment ; but possibly, on reflection, a wife may think 
 that the old-fashioned marriage, when the obligation 
 to support was all on one side, and by which she did 
 
Codification 409 
 
 not undertake to support a lazy and worthless husband, 
 had some advantages which it might be wise to retain. 
 Especially if she reads the next section, where it is 
 provided that the husband is the head of the family, 
 that he may choose any reasonable place or mode of 
 living, and that she must conform thereto. So that 
 when she consents to place herself within the power of 
 a husband, she is not only bound to respect him, 
 which may frequently be difficult, but she is in all 
 cases bound to support him, not according to her 
 notions of what may be reasonable, but according to 
 his election and caprice. In other words, he, the 
 head of the family, arranges the methods of living 
 according to his fancy, and to her means. Probably 
 not one of the friends of this scheme in the Legislature 
 took the pains to consult his wife upon the subject. 
 If he did, and he voted for a code containing these 
 provisions, possibly she might forget the obligations 
 of mutual respect, and fail to remember that he was 
 the head of the family. 
 
 If you ask me whether or not this is an original in- 
 vention of the codifier, I will tell you that it is not. 
 You will find substantially the same language in the 
 Code Napoleon, wherein it is provided that "married 
 people owe to each other fidelity, succor, and assist- 
 ance." But the French people, being a logical people, 
 provide, in addition, that "the husband owes pro- 
 tection to the wife and the wife obedience to her 
 husband," which greatly simplifies the relative rights 
 and obligations of the parties. It is also provided in 
 the French Code that "the wife is obliged to live with 
 her husband and to follow him to every place where 
 he may deem it proper to reside." When we add to 
 this that the husband administers the fortune of his 
 
4IO Codification 
 
 wife as well as his own, we will find a coherent and 
 consistent scheme; but the introduction of such ele- 
 ments into our views of such subjects appears to me 
 incoherent and absurd. 
 
 As for the children, particularly the boys, who are 
 just emerging from the chrysalis condition, I am very 
 much afraid that they would become warm advocates 
 of the new scheme, for its proviso that "the abuse of 
 parental authority is the subject of judicial cognizance 
 in a civil action brought by the child or by its relative 
 within the third degree, etc., and when the abuse is 
 estabhshed, the child may be freed from the domina- 
 tion of the parent, the parent punished, and the duty 
 of support and education enforced." Such provisions 
 need no comment. It will be a comfort to the wife, 
 however, to know that she can make a will without the 
 authority of her husband. Probably her thoughts will 
 turn in that direction very frequently after the enact- 
 ment of this system of law. 
 
 Pressure of time will not allow me to do more than 
 give you these brief samples of the quality and material 
 of which this new code is composed; but from what 
 precedes you may get some notion of its real character, 
 so far as its serious side is concerned. It also has its 
 ludicrous feature, of which I will briefly give you one or 
 two specimens. 
 
 General Average was the subject of a whole chapter 
 in the original plan. The fact that this topic was thus 
 honored with a niche to itself in the Temple of the New 
 Law would seem to indicate that it was a matter of no 
 inconsiderable dignity and importance. It was ac- 
 cordingly subjected to a very severe scrutiny by an 
 eminent member of the bar, who appHed his dissecting 
 knife to this particular chapter with especial zeal and 
 
Codification 411 
 
 success. After his surgical efforts had been exhausted, 
 the dissected members of the chapter were carefully 
 collected together, sewed up, and presented in a new 
 and — it was supposed — improved form. But, alas! 
 the same unsparing knife cruelly resumed its business, 
 and there was still less left of the body at the end of the 
 second operation than before. Thereupon the learned 
 author wisely gave up the business, and left the whole 
 chapter out, having concluded that it was not a matter 
 of much importance after all ! 
 
 But stranger than all, the bill at present consists of 
 about two thousand sections, that is, two thousand 
 sections that are filled up with matter, while about 
 one thousand are blank — these are the least objection- 
 able — the reason assigned for this large proportion 
 of blank sections being that succeeding Legislatures 
 might wish to insert new matter, and this course was 
 adopted for their convenience! What the additional 
 insertions may be, and how far they may mar the 
 beauty of the work as it now stands, and conflict with 
 its present enactments, no man can tell. But is it not 
 a significant admission of the incompleteness and in- 
 sufficiency of the work that one thousand drafts in 
 blank should thus be drawn upon the future industry 
 of unknown Legislatures to complete a system or scheme 
 which in the opinion of its author and admirers is to 
 supplant our present laws, and to extract certainty, 
 beauty, and symmetry from chaos and confusion! 
 
 Nor should you forget, in considering this subject, 
 that the argument to be derived from what I have 
 above stated is not only an argiiment against this 
 code, but against codification itself, for the author in 
 this case is not a tyro nor a bungler. He is a lawyer 
 of great eminence and vast experience, and national — 
 
412 The Lawyer's Responsibilities 
 
 I may say international — fame. He has devoted 
 many years of his long life to the production of works 
 of a similar character, and if he has failed of success, it 
 is not rash to say that the task is one of singular diffi- 
 culty, if not absolute impossibility of performance. 
 
 Before concluding, I may follow precedent so far as 
 to lay down a few maxims of a homely and very 
 practical character, which may not be without their 
 value. They may serve you to combat what Sir 
 Thomas Browne calls " the vulgar and common errors." 
 
 In the first place, never underrate your adversary. 
 Never suppose that he is ignorant of the law and the 
 facts of his case, but be certain in advance that he has 
 mastered every dangerous point. It may not turn 
 out so, but no harm will be done by this precaution. 
 As in the art of fencing, your tyro blunderer is often 
 your most dangerous foe. He may blunder so much 
 and so grievously that he will run you through with his 
 rapier or knock you down with his bludgeon while 
 you are laughing at his ignorance of true art. 
 
 No case is absolutely certain, and in most instances 
 a reasonable settlement will be an economy for your 
 client and an advantage for yourself; but if your 
 opponent happens to be a woman, then the necessity 
 for a settlement is increased tenfold. In such a case 
 ordinary prudence demands a compromise. If her 
 case is to come before a jury, and her counsel has the 
 last word, it is fair to compute her chances to be from 
 60 to 95 per cent., irrespective of merits. This will 
 depend, of course, upon her youth and her personal 
 appearance. 
 
 If your case is to be tried before a judge — well, it 
 depends upon the judge; but do not flatter yourself 
 
The Lawyer's Responsibilities 413 
 
 that because his hair has turned he is less amenable to 
 those softening influences which are popularly sup- 
 posed to be irresistible with a jury. A snowclad 
 volcano is none the less volcanic. 
 
 Do not consider your adversary's cUent necessarily 
 a knave. If you treat him poHtely and fairly he may 
 become your cHent, and then you will wonder that you 
 could ever have taken so excellent a fellow for any- 
 thing but what he really is. 
 
 Above all, keep your temper. Many good cases 
 have been lost because counsel was unable to conceal 
 or to control his exasperation. No more striking in- 
 stance of this can be found than in the case of Mirabeau, 
 who was once defendant in person (there was nothing 
 singular in that, however), in an action brought by his 
 wife for a separation on account of his brutal treat- 
 ment. Mirabeau behaved so well on the trial, up to a 
 certain point, that he won aU the judges. The case 
 against him was very weak indeed, and the distinguished 
 lawyer opposed to him found that he had but one 
 chance of success, and that was, if I may use that ex- 
 pression, "to draw him out." So, in a vehement 
 harangue, he turned to Mirabeau and charged him 
 with being "a bad subject, a bad father, a bad son, 
 and a bad husband," whereupon the eloquent and 
 fiery tribune broke out into a tirade of most violent 
 abuse against the man, whom he called " a vile trafficker 
 in words." He lost his case. 
 
 Do not consider your cHent a saint because he is 
 your client. Never let him say with truth that you 
 have made any compromise with right because he 
 paid you. He may say so, but let it be certain that he 
 speaks falsely when he does. 
 
 Remember that the judge may decide against you 
 
414 The Lawyer's Responsibilities 
 
 without being a fool or a knave. Sometimes he could 
 not be for you without being one or both. 
 
 Remember that you may be both a lawyer and a 
 gentleman; but if you have to choose between the 
 two, take the latter. The practice of your profession 
 will give you special facilities for showing yourself a 
 bully. You will gain distinction by ignoring those 
 opportunities under any possible temptation. 
 
 Bear in mind that there is no royal highway to suc- 
 cess. You may be a genius, and if you are you will no 
 doubt be conscious of it, but that is not enough. 
 Others will have to discover the fact, which will take 
 time. Meanwhile work — work hard — as though you 
 were an ordinary mortal of mere average ability. 
 Industry is, in nine cases out of ten, another name for 
 genius, and much more reliable. Study the lives of 
 our great leaders and see how little they relied on their 
 genius, how much on their study and patient labor. 
 If you would rival their success imitate their methods. 
 Those methods were not their monopoly nor their 
 secret, they were and are common property. If you 
 would reap the fruit you must be content to sow the 
 seed and wait with patience and faith for the harvest 
 season. That season will come in its appointed time 
 to fill the expectations and reward the patience of the 
 toiler. The old curse upon man, that he shall earn 
 his bread by the sweat of his face, contains no ex- 
 ceptions for us. We may get comfort from the knowl- 
 edge that the curse is but a blessing in disguise. 
 
 The heights by great men reached and kept 
 Were not obtained by sudden flight ; 
 
 But they, while their companions slept. 
 Were toiling upward in the night. 
 
XX 
 
 YOUNG MEN IN POLITICS ^ 
 
 WHETHER or not our rising young men should 
 be encouraged to enter political life depends 
 very much upon what is meant by politics. 
 It will hardly be denied that the term politician is not 
 looked upon with veneration by our people, and that 
 most men if called upon to class the individual who is 
 labelled with that designation would not define him or 
 describe his calling in terms of exaggerated praise. 
 Men frequently boast that they are not politicians, 
 meaning thereby that they are reputable and useful 
 citizens; while the politicians themselves, when they 
 take their vocation seriously, assume the airs of states- 
 men, regret the obligations and duties under which 
 they are placed by a strong sense of public duty, 
 and comfort themselves with the reflection that the 
 position of a public servant is not without substantial 
 advantages. And it cannot be denied that many 
 ambitious young men of excellent intentions would be 
 willing to take a share in the management of public 
 affairs if they were quite sure that they could do so 
 without a misalliance with a lower order of men whose 
 methods they do not admire, whose companionship 
 they object to, and whose speech radically disagrees 
 
 ' Reprinted from the New York Times, February, 1890. 
 415 
 
4i6 Young Men in Politics 
 
 with the prejudices created by their own early edu- 
 cation. 
 
 But, in truth, wherein do politics and statesmanship 
 differ? The objective point and real constitution of 
 the two are identical. The conduct of public affairs, 
 the fining of pubhc offices with men able and willing to 
 carry out a certain line of policy, the triumph of certain 
 political principles — these are the objects of the states- 
 man as of the politician; and while the former is 
 popularly supposed to take broad and comprehensive 
 views and the latter to act upon narrow and selfish 
 lines, yet is the difference one in degree rather than in 
 kind. Many a politician of our own day had, and 
 possibly has, in him the very material from which a 
 genuine statesman might be carved; many a states- 
 man dealing with the concerns of a great nation has 
 shown that he was fully versed in and ready to use the 
 small arts which the local poHtician is usually sup- 
 posed to claim as his own. When Walpole cynically 
 asserted that every man had his price, and then, 
 proving his faith by his works, purchased members of 
 Parliament with no scruple beyond a due regard for 
 the amount paid in each case, wherein did he differ 
 from WilHam M. Tweed, the corrupter of legislatures 
 and the purchaser of votes? And yet by common con- 
 sent all men call Walpole a statesman, while Tweed 
 alone claimed that title for himself. It is true that in 
 addition to buying and selling others Tweed bought and 
 sold himself, but greater statesmen than he have done 
 Hkewise. Even Marlborough did that. If statesman- 
 ship and honesty were inseparable, we should have to 
 revise our historical judgments. Let not, then, yoimg 
 men be misled into injurious abstinence by a dislike of 
 the word. The politician is only a statesman looked 
 
Young Men in Politics 4^7 
 
 at through the wrong end of the glass. But the pro- 
 fession is honorable, and the fact that its members do 
 not always come up to the highest standards of moral 
 excellence, nor express their views on important topics 
 with grammatical accuracy, only makes it the more 
 important that an infusion of better ethical and edu- 
 cational elements should be injected into the mass, 
 and leaven it into proper condition. 
 
 Dismissing this branch of the subject as being 
 satisfactorily disposed of, and it being understood that 
 by politics is meant the science of practical govern- 
 ment as practised by men versed in public affairs, it 
 needs no argument to show that the concerns of the 
 nation, as of the state or city, should be attended to 
 and managed by the best and ablest men in each com- 
 munity. Nor in the abstract will any one dispute the 
 duty of every good citizen to become at some time or 
 other and to some extent an active factor in the work- 
 ing of the governmental machinery. Should he begin 
 early in life, while his enthusiasms are fervid and his 
 faith in himself at least as great as it ever will be, or 
 shall he wait until with matured experience and 
 broadened views he is able to advise and to lead with 
 the assurance that a practical knowledge of men and 
 things may give? 
 
 This question is important, but it is not new (Qu. De 
 hoc, as the lawyers say, is any question new ?) . Plutarch 
 discussed it very fully eighteen hundred years ago, but 
 rather reversed the form of putting it. " Whether an 
 aged man ought to meddle in state affairs?" he asks, 
 and generously answers in the affirmative, but he is 
 very careful to hedge about his concession with re- 
 strictions that make it imperative on the "aged man" 
 not to wait until the frosts of age have incapacitated 
 
41 8 Young Men in Politics 
 
 him for useful service. In other words, if he will 
 commence early he will be allowed to continue, not- 
 withstanding the loss of youth and its concomitant 
 advantages. He puts the case so strongly and so well 
 that I shall yield the floor to him for one moment, or 
 rather adopt his sentiments and language, giving him 
 full credit therefor : 
 
 But as for him who should in his old age, and not before, 
 begin to meddle with public matters — as they say of Epi- 
 menides, that having fallen asleep while he was a young 
 man he awakened fifty years after, — and shaking so long 
 and close-sticking a repose should thrust himself (being 
 unaccustomed and unexercised) into difficult and labori- 
 ous employs without having been experienced in civil 
 affairs or inured to the conversations of men — such a man 
 may perhaps give occasion to one that would reprehend 
 him to say with the prophetess Pythia: 
 
 " Thou com'st too late." 
 
 Perhaps this warning may not be necessary, as a 
 general rule, to our youth — they are rather disposed 
 to come too early than too late ; but our Greek monitor 
 is quite right in his propositions, the one expressed and 
 the other implied, viz. : that men should give their 
 personal attention to politics while they are young and 
 continue to take an active interest in the administra- 
 tion of public affairs when they are old. 
 
 But the difficulty arises — the practical one— when is 
 the young man old enough to venture upon the arduous 
 and responsible cares and duties of public life ? Youth 
 is a relative term. In this busy, driving, high-pressure 
 life of ours, even a bearded chin is not a necessary 
 appurtenance or the best evidence of fully-developed 
 manhood. And as boys ripen into maturity under 
 
Young Men in Politics 419 
 
 different circumstances, some retarding and some ac- 
 celerating growth, it is not possible to lay down a rule 
 that will suit and satisfy all temperaments. The 
 younger Pitt would have been presumably a leader in 
 his district before he had reached his full physical 
 stature. Hamilton dealt fierce blows against Toryism 
 while he was in his teens. History is full of examples 
 to show that Nature laughs at her own rules and in- 
 sists upon her right to puzzle us with her contradictions. 
 But there is, nevertheless, a general law, hard to ob- 
 serve though easy to lay down, and that is, not to 
 undertake the care of others until one is able to take 
 care of himself. It is well to learn the theory of poli- 
 tics; that is, the principles that are at stake, the 
 methods of promoting them, the history of past 
 efforts, and the objects of leading men; it is well to 
 understand the machinery of politics as engineers do 
 the mysteries of a steam engine. All this is eminently 
 proper and wise. But the young man who starts upon 
 life with the idea of making politics — or call it states- 
 manship — a profession and to earn his daily bread by 
 public service, unfits himself for all other occupations, 
 gambles away his independence, and runs the risk of 
 finding himself in the end with the alternative of losing 
 his living or forfeiting his self-respect. First, let him 
 be his own master — that is to say, able to work his way 
 through life by his unaided exertions; then let him 
 serve the public. The public can wait. He may not 
 think so, but some one will do the needful imtil he has 
 fitted himself to take his trick at the helm and sail the 
 ship of state, that stately ship which poets write of 
 and so many hands are willing to guide without a 
 knowledge of the chart or an insight into the mysteries 
 of the compass. 
 
420 Young Men in Politics 
 
 The temptations and allurements of public life are 
 singularly fascinating. To be in the public service is 
 the goal and ultimate ambition of thousands who are 
 better employed at the desk, or shop, or plough, or 
 other honest occupation, be it what it may. I would 
 earnestly implore every youth ambitious of honest and 
 self-respecting independence to turn away from the 
 enchantress, to fill his ears with wax as the Circe seeks 
 to lure him to destruction. 
 
 The performance of civic duty is not incompatible 
 with a horror of this gilded servitude. Only the man 
 of exceptional genius, or the poor deluded victim of 
 overweening vanity, thinks that his country needs his 
 services in times of peace. The day may come when 
 the State, like Diogenes, may go about seeking for 
 willing and honest men. But I am not speaking of or 
 for that time. In our country of to-day where pubHc 
 service is not a profession, where the best and most 
 faithful servant can find no certainty of tenure and no 
 reward proportioned to his service, let no youth of fair 
 prospects abandon the substance for the shadow. The 
 millenium may come; the star-eyed goddess may 
 beam with her still potential charms on generations 
 unborn. If so, this paper will need, and submits in 
 advance to, revision. 
 
 I do not mean by this that all young and ambitious 
 and intelligent men should not take some share in 
 public life. This is something very different. It is 
 in the power of all such to insist upon decent political 
 methods, upon the nomination of reputable candidates, 
 upon wise measures of legislation, upon the subordina- 
 tion of personal interests to the public good. All this 
 may well be done, and the more effectually done, by 
 those who ask no reward from the powers that be, and 
 
Young Men in Politics 421 
 
 no salary from the public treasury, for being out- 
 spoken and brave. 
 
 To this extent all men may be politicians and good 
 citizens. To this extent all, rich and poor, should be 
 vigilant custodians of the public weal. If, in the 
 course of a busy and honorable Hfe, distinctions come, 
 let them and their source and their price be carefully 
 scanned. Perhaps the bauble may not be worth the 
 equivalent demanded or expected ; then let it go to the 
 others who may prize it more. Perhaps it may be a 
 just reward and an honorable opportimity to add a 
 mite to our country's honor and prosperity; perhaps 
 a golden opportunity to earn renown, or, better still 
 a well-deser\^ed praise, causing some measure of real 
 reform to become a reality. No man worthy the 
 name needs advice about this. 
 
 But above all and in conclusion, let me say that the 
 man who can least afford to be indifferent to the 
 claims of politics is the man of wealth. The poor man 
 will always, in our system of suffrage, have his advo- 
 cates, some because they know that no legislation is 
 wise that does not tend to the benefit of the poor; 
 some because they are demagogues, and the poor have 
 more votes than the rich. But these, the favored ones 
 of fortune, must learn their duty, and if they will not 
 do that let them learn their peril — for there is peril on 
 their horizon. They hold their wealth at the mercy 
 of the poor. It seems a paradox, but it is nevertheless 
 true, that the millionaire holds his millions because of 
 the self-denial of those who have no millions. Who is 
 to protect and guard our Dives' stronghold and strong 
 box? The army? You shrug your shoulders, of 
 course. The law? Who makes it? The Constitu- 
 tion? Who makes that? The ballot? Who owns it? 
 
422 Young Men in Politics 
 
 But if Dives is wise, forbearing, and gentle in his 
 power and his poHtics, if he so uses that power that it 
 is not felt, and so uses his wealth that it is felt as a 
 blessing, then Lazarus may forgive, and continue to 
 forgive him for being so much happier than himself. 
 
XXI 
 
 COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
 
 THE brief period of a single century's life will not 
 permit the most earnest and devoted of 
 Columbia's sons to claim much for her on the 
 score of age. Time has not woven its ivy about her 
 walls, nor is her record made beautiful by the lights 
 and shadows of poetical tradition. The imagination of 
 those who study her history finds little in mere lapse 
 of time to arouse enthusiasm or to justify that license 
 of laudation which the uncertainties of remote an- 
 tiquity make plausible and alluring. 
 
 Columbia has thus far barely passed the age of man ; 
 there are men now living — there certainly is one man 
 living — who may cotint as many years of life as she. 
 The wise and learned Chevreul celebrated his cen- 
 tennial a year ago with all the vigor and zest of youth. 
 So long as he shall live to taunt us with this coinci- 
 dence, we must be content to consider ourselves 
 scarcely adolescent, even were we not informed that 
 the University of Bologna proposes to celebrate its 
 eight hundredth anniversary in 1888. 
 
 But men, as nations, do not always develop by the 
 arbitrary standard of numbered years. Nor, as was 
 
 1 Oration at the Centennial Celebration of Columbia College, 
 April 13, 1887. 
 
 423 
 
424 Columbia College 
 
 said of Marcellus' fame, is their glory, like that of the 
 tree which grows by the unheeded lapse of time. 
 There are periods of history when events long prepared 
 burst into sudden life by a single explosion, as certain 
 plants that flower at long intervals, passing by no 
 perceptible transition from apparent barrenness to the 
 height of perfect fruition. Minds mature under the 
 influence of political or moral convulsions without 
 reference to the ordinary requirements of time. Youth 
 steps over the gradations that usually separate it from 
 age and its experience, at a bound. 
 
 The end of the last century was one of those seasons 
 of intense and feverish activity that spurned the slow 
 processes of gradual development. The leaders of the 
 world of thought and of action were scarcely out of 
 their boyhood. Pitt, at twenty-four, was prime min- 
 ister of England, and when the sound of the booming 
 guns that announced the victory of Austerhtz struck 
 him as though he had received a bullet in his breast, 
 he was still in the full vigor of his manhood. Robe- 
 spierre's brief career, so full of mischievous and un- 
 bounded power, ended at thirty-six; Napoleon had 
 captured fortune and held her a hostage twenty years 
 when, at forty-six, his life ended for all purposes except 
 to point a conventional moral. Here in America the 
 same forces were at work. Men scorned the maturity 
 that came by slow degrees. Revolution and war would 
 not brook the restraints of time. The natural tendency 
 of the human mind to reject authority and to rebel 
 against the tyranny of precedent had been strengthened 
 and developed by the new agencies which came under its 
 command. The press furnished to every new idea and 
 to every new scheme of revolution, social, political, and 
 reHgious, the fulcrum that Archimedes longed for in vain. 
 
Columbia College 425 
 
 The generation of men that stood by Columbia's 
 cradle was fast learning to take nothing upon faith 
 and to trust but little to the sanctions of the past. 
 Scepticism, as defined and extolled by Buckle, became 
 the pervading quality of modern thought. The seeds 
 sown by the philosophers and essayists of that period 
 soon bore their fruit. Those pioneers in the sphere of 
 new moral forces and methods left behind them a legion 
 of followers. As we to-day look back at their first 
 efforts, we watch with admiration or dismay, as our 
 education or taste may prompt, their bold assaults 
 upon the bulwarks of ancient opinion. 
 
 The sneer of Voltaire had been so potent for de- 
 struction that it now marks one of the transition 
 places in history. Hugo, in his delirious admiration 
 of the arch-sceptic, has ventured, with blasphemous 
 exaggeration, to couple the cynic's mocking smile with 
 the tear that the Divine Master shed upon the creatures 
 that He loved and redeemed. The whole social and 
 political fabric was to be remodeled for the benefit of 
 mankind, and Utopia was to become a reality of 
 every-day life. The divine right of kings, so rudely 
 assaulted in the person of Charles I., received its death 
 blow when Louis XVI., the most amiable of monarchs, 
 laid his head upon the block after helping the rebel 
 colonies to defeat their own king. Old landmarks were 
 torn up before the new ones were found, and the world 
 of Europe moved for a season as a ship whose compass 
 is taken out for repairs while the helpless pilot, helm in 
 hand, waits for the precious counsellor to be returned. 
 
 Then, while men were groping for new lights and 
 re-acting against the law of force which had, for a 
 season, stayed the destructive current that threatened 
 to sweep away the ancient order of established right, 
 
426 Columbia College 
 
 the new theory of universal knowledge was broached, 
 and all the agencies by which the mind could be fed 
 and the intellect developed were sought for, tested, and 
 adopted with almost feverish haste. Wise men knew, 
 and others felt, that the new departure would be a 
 mockery if the old methods remained, while the old 
 sanctions were gone; states without kings, churches 
 without bishops, rulers without power, forms of 
 authority without its substance, the right to sneer at 
 all things, to disbelieve all things, to advocate all 
 things, must be guarded by a new force, and that was 
 decided to be Knowledge. 
 
 And thus it was that when Columbia came upon the 
 scene she was confronted with new conditions. The 
 drowsy and happy life of well-endowed seminaries was 
 gone. Caps and gowns and stall-fed dignitaries might 
 still exist as pleasing though obsolete symptoms of 
 prosperous and scholarly ease, but the life must be a 
 new one, and the standard, the test, the result, must 
 be of a different complexion. The pale scholar whose 
 elegant idleness had been sufficient for himself and for 
 his day, must be made of sterner stuff and more 
 durable material. Men must be sent out to meet the 
 world, the new world : the great harvest was white for 
 the reaper, but he must be strong and active and 
 brave, for those who had been the last were to be the 
 first. All who wanted to be great, thirsted for knowl- 
 edge, because they were told that knowledge was 
 power, and that the one through the other was within 
 the grasp of all. 
 
 Knowledge is Power 
 
 Has not this shibboleth been used so long that pre- 
 scription challenges criticism? It has passed from 
 
Columbia College 427 
 
 generation to generation, from wise fathers to eager 
 sons, with the stamp of the real coin and the ring of the 
 true metal. Whatever else men have disagreed upon 
 in giving worldly counsel to the rising youth, they 
 have agreed that knowledge is power ; that knowledge 
 is the magic wand that points to the concealed treasure ; 
 that it gives wings to him who pursues fleeting fortune ; 
 strength to the weak; wealth to the poor, and opens 
 untold possibilities of greatness to its fortunate pos- 
 sessor. Aladdin's lamp was but a parable of what 
 knowledge, once mastered, might do for its possessor. 
 The genie that did the bidding of its master was not a 
 more obedient slave, nor more potent than the in- 
 tangible, indefinable abstraction that we call knowl- 
 edge. And yet even now we might venture to ask if 
 this be literally, or at all, true. The epigrammatic 
 precept bears the superscription of a greater one than 
 Caesar; that is the common opinion of men. But do 
 all men mean what this really implies ? Have wise and 
 thoughtful teachers ever intended to convey to those 
 who look up to them as counsellors and friends, that 
 with knowledge alone, the paths of life were to be 
 cleared and the prizes secured? Surely not. For 
 mere knowledge of itself and by itself is not power. 
 What were Orlando's sword without Orlando to wield 
 it, or Mercury's wand without Mercury, or Milton's 
 pen without Milton? In truth many, if not most, of 
 the great achievements of the world, have been effected 
 without knowledge, or with knowledge as a secondary 
 adjunct. Charlemagne conquered Europe, and held 
 in his rude hand the power of a dozen modern kings. 
 It was not knowledge that drove the Saracens in 
 bloody rout from Europe, nor knowledge that helped 
 the modest maid of Orleans to smite her country's 
 
428 Columbia College 
 
 foes with the vigor of a Homeric hero; nor was it 
 knowledge that stood by the barbarian leader of Gaul 
 or of Germany when he held Rome's legions at bay; 
 nor was it knowledge that made Leonidas and Ther- 
 mopylae immortal. It was not knowledge that led 
 the early Christians to brave the wild beast in the 
 Coliseum, and smilingly to shed their precious blood 
 for a testimony to their faith, and yet they conquered 
 the world. The rude monk who stirred the nations of 
 his day to leave home and friends to fight the infidels, 
 had no knowledge that would earn that name to-day, 
 and yet the fable of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth 
 was more than realized by him and in his person. 
 
 Knowledge of itself is no more available to achieve 
 success than the wire is useful while it awaits the 
 electric current that will give it life and with it mock 
 at time and space. Of what use is the mammoth 
 engine that may do the work of a thousand men, if the 
 life is not made to animate the sluggish mass by the 
 agency of fuel and steam? The nickle coin that buys 
 a loaf, or a newspaper, or a ride, has in it more real 
 power than tons of hidden gold that lie concealed in 
 the depths of a western mountain. Knowledge, of 
 itself, does nothing. It is the man behind it who en- 
 ables it to work, and draw, and fight, and write, and 
 conquer. How would the knowledge that Columbus 
 had have helped the world if the spirit had not leavened 
 it and the tenacious will fought its way through the 
 obstacles that tried, but never wearied, the brave soul? 
 
 Where did knowledge alone ever penetrate the dark- 
 ness of human life, or quicken the pulse, or drive the 
 will, or control the passions of men? The mediaeval 
 monk, who prayed and toiled from early dawn, amassed 
 a wealth of knowledge that would have enriched the 
 
Columbia College 429 
 
 world, but what availed it until a man was found to 
 catch his words and imprison his thoughts and clothe 
 them in type so that they might be echoed and re- 
 echoed through the ages? The poet never said, as he 
 is daily made to say, that "the pen is mightier than 
 the sword," but he did say that: 
 
 Beneath the rule of men entirely great, 
 The pen is mightier than the sword. 
 
 The mightiest sword of our generation was Grant's, 
 and the mightiest pen was Lincoln's ; the one wrought 
 its way to Appomatox and the other wrote the great 
 proclamation of freedom. Was it knowledge that did 
 all these things, or was it faith, the courage, the man- 
 hood, the love of country? With these the man is 
 surely great, but without them the learning of all the 
 schools will lie inert, useless, like the miser's treasure, 
 great only in wasted potentialities. 
 
 If this be true, if history and our daily experience 
 have taught it, then let the lesson of the centuries be 
 felt in our life. Let our children know and feel that 
 men — not more than armies — are efficient to perform 
 their allotted functions, because they have a cumber- 
 some mass of impedimenta to accompany them, but 
 rather that it is the ability to use the tools that will 
 give them the power that they seek. Teach them that 
 the man is more than the instrument ; that the spirit 
 is the real and the best part of the man. Knowledge 
 is the whetstone that sharpens the blade, the fire 
 that tempers it, the monitor that teaches its use, 
 Themistocles might not have been Themistocles if he 
 had been bom and bred among the Seriphians, but 
 a whole colony of Seriphians transplanted into Athens 
 and taught in the Portico might never produce a 
 
430 Columbia College 
 
 Themistocles. The mere man, the homo, is sure to 
 follow, for he is made to follow ; the vir must lead, for 
 he is made to lead, and will lead, whatever his birth, 
 or condition, or surroundings. 
 
 Faith 
 
 The great complaint of thinking men to-day is that 
 the rising generation, into whose hands the direction 
 of public affairs must soon fall, has lost or is losing its 
 faith. 
 
 If men have really lost the faith which cemented 
 modern society, or if they are in danger of losing it, 
 then is the world face to face with a new peril. Even 
 those who affect to view the question with philosophi- 
 cal indifference, cannot close their eyes to the fact that 
 a great void will then be made that something must be 
 found to fill. The scornful concession that "religion 
 is necessary to the government of the lower classes" 
 might have some force and bring with it some comfort 
 when the "lower classes" were willing to continue in 
 their debased condition. But where are the lower 
 classes in this age and country of ours? Education, 
 opportunity, precedent, combine to stimulate the 
 great mass of our people to seek for improvement and 
 elevation. The time has long gone by when the son 
 humbly accepted the father's place, and, with tradi- 
 tional humility, was content to accept transmitted 
 servitude. 
 
 Carlyle tells us of the hard-worked peasantry of 
 France who beat the ponds at night lest the croaking 
 of the frogs should disturb the lord of the manor as he 
 rested in his castle, but now the peasant's son owns the 
 castle. The humble soldier was content to fight and 
 die unhonored and unknown that the leader who, by 
 
Columbia Colleo^e 431 
 
 e5 
 
 virtue of his birth, held a prescriptive right to the glory 
 which he helped to earn, might gain fresh titles, but 
 the rude soldier now carries the marshal's baton in his 
 knapsack; he is himself the ancestor whose brave 
 deeds take the place of parchment records. The many- 
 sowed that the few might reap, and both classes con- 
 sidered this a providential arrangement which it would 
 be impious to disturb. The hope of compensation in 
 a future life satisfied the longings and kept down the 
 rebellious spirit. Men were willing to suffer, and 
 strong to endure, while they held the belief that their 
 tribulations would be exchanged for an infinite reward 
 that the language of man was too poor to define or to 
 depict. The beatitudes promised him were far beyond 
 the immediate and finite blessings that even the richest 
 and proudest of his masters could boast, but they were 
 real to him, and he rejoiced in them because he saw 
 them through the glass of faith. How else, and why 
 else, would he have borne the burden of the day and 
 the heat, when by the mere raising of his arm he could 
 have shattered the whole system? 
 
 God made the stars, says Lacordaire, that men 
 might look up. But if men cease to look up, and if 
 faith is dying or dead, what ligament has the wit of 
 man devised to take its place and to hold society 
 together? What OEdipus will solve the riddle? What 
 ^sop will have an answer for every new problem? 
 What prophet of the new dispensation will lead men 
 captive to the promised land, as Orpheus with his 
 magic lyre led the listening oaks that rashly followed 
 him? For whatever view we may take of this matter, 
 we all know that it is a question that must be met. 
 If the alarm sounded from pulpit and press and 
 rostra has a true note of warning in it, then the college 
 
432 Columbia College 
 
 of to-day has to deal and grapple with difficulties that 
 can be decided by no precedent. 
 
 A society of men without religion would present a 
 new spectacle and must live, if at all, upon some 
 principle other than that which has thus far made the 
 strong currents of life flow through its members. The 
 morality and virtue of modern society are the practical 
 forms of Christian teaching, not the arbitrary formulas 
 of philosophers, nor the emanations of conventional 
 rules. Zeno and Seneca may fill the student's mind 
 with delight, but they have never been practical fac- 
 tors in forming the morals of men. Nor has the world 
 ever so sorely needed the power and assistance of the 
 religious motive and idea, for never before has the 
 freedom of individual action and the liberty of opinion 
 been so nearly absolute. The day of coerced obedience 
 to sacred law has gone by forever. Blasphemy may 
 be ranked among the offenses that are retained on the 
 statute book, though long since obsolete, but it is, 
 nevertheless, as free to preach its doctrine of destruc- 
 tion as the teachers of Divine truth to proclaim their 
 own. While these discourse at stated times of the 
 weighty topics that it is their calling to expound, 
 others, equally eloquent, perhaps, and equally earnest, 
 denounce these doctrines as the superannuated rem- 
 nants of a decayed or imperfect civilization. But the 
 spirit of our people will not brook the only remedies 
 that past generations could devise to prevent assaults 
 upon the faith that was thought as essential to the 
 security of the social order as the foundation of the 
 building is to the safety of the edifice. 
 
 While men differed as to the form of doctrine, 
 and as to the doctrine itself, while they fought for a 
 dipthong and shed human blood for a difference in a 
 
Columbia College 433 
 
 reading, while they were divided among persecutors 
 and persecuted, executioners and victims, as though the 
 crime of non-conformity to this formulation or that 
 were the weightiest that men could perpetrate, there 
 was the one common belief in the Higher Power. Men 
 were cruel because they were earnest, and they suffered 
 because they were convinced. 
 
 Faith of some kind was the mainspring of society 
 from the time that ancient Rome fell to pieces because 
 her faith, false and hollow as it was, had gone. If, 
 perchance, isolated instances of rebellion against the 
 general belief showed themselves, the strong arm of 
 temporal power dealt swiftly and surely with the 
 enemy of society. Not the policy and teachings of 
 Church and State alone combined to guard the sacred 
 temple from desecration, but the common opinion of 
 men joined the two and made them irresistible. When 
 kings foimded their claim upon a divine right, the 
 traitor was guilty of a double crime, and no penalty 
 could be too cruel to punish him and to deter others 
 from like violations. To raise one's hand against 
 God's anointed, was the extreme point which the de- 
 pravity of man could reach, and was, therefore, de 
 fined and treated as the embodiment of all crimes. 
 
 And then, too, the very manifestations of nature, in 
 which the Creator showed His power, reinforced the 
 natural obedience of men to the Divine law. The 
 lesson of the earthquake, of the comet, of the cyclone, 
 or the eclipse, came upon them as the direct emanation 
 of God's wrath, or the living proof of His warning. 
 Horace was not the only one who turned from his care- 
 less and infrequent devotions to more pious practices 
 when Jove suddenly and without warning clouds drove 
 his thundering horses and swift chariot through the 
 
434 Columbia College 
 
 clear vault of heaven. Perhaps the ease- and pleasure- 
 loving poet was not so ready a victim to the terror 
 which he describes as he affects, but if he was not, 
 others were, long after the pagan temples had lost their 
 honor. Great convulsions were always followed by 
 redoubled zeal, and no sermon that was ever preached 
 by human lips reached the hearts and stimulated the 
 devout terrors of men as the tidal wave that swept 
 away twenty thousand human beings in the twinkling 
 of an eye. But Horace would not now leave his 
 Falernian, nor the pleasant banks of the cool stream 
 that he loved, because of a comet, or an eclipse, or even 
 an earthquake, unless the rumbHng menace were near 
 enough to reach his ears ; none of these heavenly por- 
 tents would interrupt the ode to Lydia or to Glycera. 
 The preacher now knows, and the hearer knows, that 
 the phenomena which were looked on as threats of 
 coming catastrophe, are the obedient movements of 
 the slaves to a great law. 
 
 All this touches us more nearly than any other com- 
 munity. No schoolboy need be told that in our 
 republic the government, belonging as it does to num- 
 bers, must be based upon the best qualities of men; 
 that no society can count upon the future which, by 
 its very nature, rests upon the caprice of ignorant, 
 vicious, and accidental rulers. The grave experiment 
 of subjecting the fortunes and existence of a nation of 
 one hundred millions to the probabiHty that the 
 majority will be fit to rule itself and the minority, is 
 soon to be made. We all cry out that by education 
 alone may we solve the difficulties and problems that 
 beset us. Even Montesquieu understood this more 
 than a century ago: "The repubHcan form of govern- 
 ment," he says, "is one that peculiarly needs the 
 
Columbia College 435 
 
 power of education. Fear in despotic governments is 
 born of threats and punishments, but political virtue 
 requires renunciation of itself, which is always a painful 
 act." What is the education best adapted to do this? 
 How shall the generation that is pushing forward to 
 seize the helm and control the ship be taught to per- 
 form its duties? Once, within a quarter of a century, 
 that ship was sorely beset. The lover of his country 
 might well grow pale and cry out with patriotic 
 anguish: navis, referent in mare te novi Fluctus! 
 quid agist For her masts were broken by the storm, 
 and her main-yards groaned, and her keel could scarcely 
 support the impetuosity of the waters. The peril is 
 different now, and still remote. The great questions 
 that follow large accumulations of wealth, class differ- 
 ences, real grievances as well as fancied wrongs, the 
 multiform varieties of the struggle for life, must be 
 met, and with one, the only, panacea — education. 
 If it be really education ; if it be that which draws out 
 all that is good in men, and smothers what is bad, our 
 panacea will do its work, and we need fear no evil. Let 
 us have a care lest we, too, be forced to exclaim, as 
 the poet just quoted: 
 
 Non Di quos iterum pressa voces malo. 
 
 Sore pressed with evil, you have no Gods whom you 
 may again invoke. 
 
 The University 
 
 These reflections naturally lead us to consider the 
 question of the American university — a Hving, practical 
 one, full of momentous meaning for the future of our 
 country. 
 
43^ Columbia College 
 
 I shall hardly undertake to define in a paragraph 
 the university that is, or ought to be, the ideal of our 
 day and generation. 
 
 The eminent orator and scholar who made Harvard's 
 recent celebration memorable, asked the question, 
 "What is a university?" and answered it by quoting 
 himself as having said thirty years before that, "A 
 university is a place where nothing useful is taught, 
 but a university is possible only where a man may get 
 his livelihood by digging Sanskrit roots." 
 
 I am not unconscious of the boldness that might be 
 imputed to me should I attempt to criticise this 
 epigrammatic expression of opinion from one of the 
 leaders of our intellectual world, but I do not hesitate 
 to say, that if the university of the future is to be an 
 asylum for incapables, or a home for sophists, or a 
 shelter for unprofitable servants, the sooner the truth 
 is ascertained the better it will be for our people. 
 
 Even so respectable an occupation as the study of 
 Sanskrit roots will never suffice to make the university 
 a real institution in America, if its main objective point 
 is the inculcation of useless knowledge. Whether 
 knowledge can ever be useless might here be ques- 
 tioned, but I assume that the meaning intended is, 
 that no learning of the practical, active, and vigorous 
 order is to be admitted within the portals of this ideal 
 establishment. 
 
 If I could venture to give a definition of my own, I 
 should, on the contrary, proclaim that the true univer- 
 sity is that which teaches nothing that is useless, and 
 everything that is useful and good. That its aim 
 should be to form a class of men who, by their training, 
 moral and intellectual, would be the model men of the 
 country, in the government of which they might be 
 
Columbia College 437 
 
 expected to take a large and useful part. I would be 
 bold enough to say, that the real university should 
 concern itself in ripening useful talents, in eliminating 
 useless and idle theories. Law, medicine, theology, 
 literature — surely all these things, in all their branches 
 and off-shoots, form useful subjects to the student. 
 To elevate the standard of all the professions; to 
 purify the taste and ennoble the pursuits of study- 
 loving men ; to arm these with the weapons, offensive 
 and defensive, which experience has proved to be 
 available in the battle of pubHc or private life— these 
 are aims which may well encourage the founders of 
 our ideal university. 
 
 The college of yesterday, and the high-school that 
 preceded it, have and must have their mission, but an 
 ever-broadening field opens before us with increasing 
 responsibilities and possibilities. 
 
 I know of no people who were ever yet successfully 
 governed without a class of men, by birth, or training, 
 or education, better fitted than other men to assume 
 and perform the functions of government. Whether 
 it be an army, or clergy, or nobihty, or a free press, or 
 a fearless bar, or a learned and honest bench, there 
 must be somewhere a reserved corps of men wilHng, 
 ready, and able to make, administer, and enforce the 
 laws. No monarch ever felt secure without such co- 
 adjutors to sustain, none ever felt safe with such to 
 oppose his power. The Praetorian Cohorts made and 
 unmade emperors at their will, because they repre- 
 sented the dominant idea of force, incarnated in them- 
 selves, and used it as they would. When morals were 
 at their lowest ebb, the populace, with no guide but 
 its caprice, raised and tore down the purpled puppets 
 who gave or refused the partem et circenses that it 
 
43^ Columbia College 
 
 clamored for and refused to clamor for in vain. In 
 England, the barons, and the vassals held by them in 
 their marvellous system of feudalism, furnished the 
 stay and support which kingly power required. And 
 as increasing civilization modified this state of things, 
 the reign of the sword was mitigated by the advent of 
 the intellectual element, and they became great who 
 could sway the multitude by their voice or by their 
 pen. 
 
 The efforts of such men became concentrated into a 
 focus and a parliament arose, which, though obedient at 
 times to a strong will, soon learned its power, increased 
 it, and kept it, and now holds within its grasp abso- 
 lute omnipotence, bounded only by its own self-denial. 
 France, even in the gorgeous period of Louis XIV., 
 was led by a brilliant aristocracy of soldiers and a 
 growing class of writers who spread their empire slowly 
 but surely until they, too, made and unmade king- 
 doms. And if the great Napoleon fell in a day, and 
 was swept to a barren rock to die, was it not because 
 the only chosen body that he had to sustain him went 
 down with him at Waterloo, while the intellectual force 
 of the age was his foe ? 
 
 Where, then, in America shall we find that class of 
 leaders to whom the thinking and working mass of our 
 people may look with confidence and just expectation? 
 Aristocracy, in its old and conventional sense, con- 
 veys but an empty and meaningless sound — yet is it 
 not of the very essence of democracy that the best 
 men should stand at the front as the guides and chosen 
 leaders of the people? Political questions of great 
 moment cannot be decided by public clamor in a 
 market-place. The rule of the people means that the 
 people shall choose its own instruments to do the work 
 
Columbia College 439 
 
 of governing; the quality of that work shall depend 
 upon the temper and quaUty of those instruments. 
 From corrupt and polluted sources no good may come ; 
 nor can sweet and bitter water flow from the same 
 orifice. These chosen men must be strong and brave 
 and wise. If education be the only means by which 
 the best that is in men may be educed, then should it 
 be the crowning glory of our ideal university so to deal 
 with those who enter its doors that they shall leave, 
 full-armed and equipped, strong in faith and in hope, 
 self-reHant, not filled with doubts and armed with 
 negations, but positive, large, healthy-minded men. 
 We have our schools of law, of medicine, of theology, of 
 science; shall we not have the culmination of the 
 school system from which shall emerge the man — full, 
 rounded, and complete? 
 
 The idea is not a new one. Plato discussed the 
 subject many centuries ago. "Is your meaning," 
 asks Protagoras of Socrates, "that you teach the art 
 of pohtics, and that you promise to make men good 
 citizens?" 
 
 "That, Socrates, is exactly the profession which I 
 make." 
 
 "Then," I said, "you do, indeed, profess a noble 
 art." 
 
 It may be unnecessary to add that Socrates and 
 
 Protagoras were not speaking of that science which is 
 
 popularly known as "practical" politics, and which 
 
 has other objective points than the making of good 
 
 citizens. 
 
 Athletics 
 
 The new departure in athletics deserves a word of 
 commendation and of caution. The exploits of our 
 Columbians in this field of college education need not 
 
440 Columbia College 
 
 be here rehearsed, but it may be said, without undue 
 exultation, that they have proved that urbanity and 
 physical development are not inconsistent. A man 
 may be a gentleman and win prizes, even at football, 
 although I fancy that the test is as severe as himian 
 nature can endure. The time was when a youth was 
 noble who could fling the discus beyond the line, and 
 it was a bad omen for his manhood when he gave 
 up the exercises without which that manhood was 
 incomplete. 
 
 Neque jam livida gestat armis 
 Brachia, Saspe disco, 
 
 ScBpe trans finem jaculo nohilis expedito. 
 
 There is a classical flavor about these manly exer- 
 cises that detracts nothing from their excellence. A 
 sound body and a sound mind are the true watchwords 
 of real training: the gymnasium that cared for the 
 body and the mind was the true ideal of an educa- 
 tional seminary. But is there not a danger that the 
 subdivision of labor, which is at the bottom of modern 
 progress, may be carried to undue length in the dis- 
 tribution of college duties? The sound body and the 
 sound mind should be united in the same person ; not 
 divided among several. A trained corps of athletes 
 would hardly reward the college that produced them, 
 if the abnormal development of the biceps or thoracic 
 muscles had been gained at the expense of other ac- 
 quisitions. The doctrine of averages would not com- 
 fort us if the physical excellence were all on one side 
 and the mental superiority on the other. Is there no 
 danger that emulation and an honorable anxiety to 
 uphold the college standard may lead to that result? 
 Whether it be so or not, time will determine; mean- 
 
Columbia College 441 
 
 while we shall exult in the honorable victories and 
 honorable defeats which the future may have in store 
 for us. Cato Maior puts a question which the young 
 athlete would answer, I think, with no hesitation, but 
 not as that old and self-satisfied philosopher would 
 have liked: " Milo is said to have gone around the 
 Olympic course carrying an ox on his back; which 
 would you prefer, to have this strength of body, or to 
 be gifted with the intellectual powers of Pythagoras?" 
 Where would Pythagoras stand on a show of hands? 
 Even a respectable minority would be a triumph which 
 the father of metempsychosis could hardly expect to 
 secure. 
 
 But the bodily strength of Milo and the intellectual 
 vigor of Pythagoras need not be rival candidates for 
 supremacy; rather let the harmonious development 
 of both, growing in close sympathy and mutual sup- 
 port, ripen into the best fruit which the highest culture 
 may produce. 
 
 When, as Milton expressed it, Athens was the eye 
 of Greece, and when Greece was the leader, model, 
 teacher of the world, athletic exercises were not the 
 sports of idle men, nor the resource of those who sought 
 to make up in physical prowess what they lacked in 
 mental attainments. But the noblest and the best 
 devoted themselves to those pursuits and strove for 
 the glorious palm of victory. Poets, philosophers, 
 and orators labored to win the crown at the national 
 games. Plato himself did not scorn, it is said, to enter 
 the arena as a candidate for the honors there to be 
 earned. 
 
 Pindar's grandest odes celebrate the triumphs to be 
 won in these contests for supremacy, triumphs which 
 appealed alike to the admiration and the envy of all. 
 
442 Columbia College 
 
 Far above the ordinary pursuits of the citizen, far 
 beyond the other prizes which might make immortal 
 renown, was the glory of the victor at the Isthmian 
 and Olympic games. 
 
 The tame pursuits which bring in daily bread and 
 homely comfort were no fit subject for the poet whose 
 imagination had been kindled by the fire of these 
 themes. 
 
 The various rewards proposed for their works, are pleas- 
 ing to various men [says Pindar]; both to the shepherd 
 and to the ploughman, and to the fowler, and to him unto 
 whom the sea gives support, and each one exerts himself 
 to ward off direful hunger from his stomach. But he who, 
 in games or in battle bears off beauteous glory, receives, 
 by being praised, the highest gain, the choicest speech of 
 citizens and strangers. 
 
 This will seem a poetical extravagance of speech in 
 our day and generation, but the glowing language of 
 these immortal writers will show that contempt of the 
 body, which has too long characterized the scholar, 
 finds no warrant in the teachings of men who were 
 giants in their days and who are giants still. 
 
 Electives and the Classics 
 
 Who shall rule our colleges is a question that agitates 
 the student mind to no small extent, and leaves the 
 higher authorities not wholly undisturbed. That the 
 imperative mood must be sparingly used is becoming 
 a canon of well-settled college discipline ; whether, and 
 how far, occasional recourse to that mood in a softened 
 and mitigated form may be had, is still debated, 
 chiefly outside of Columbia. 
 
 Those who have read Cicero De Senectute, and have 
 
Columbia College 443 
 
 learned from him that the seniors, or older men, were 
 the ones who preserved and maintained the integrity 
 of states against the rash and reckless attacks of the 
 juniors, will not readily concede that the choice of in- 
 tellectual food should be left to those who have the 
 least knowledge on the subject; especially to those 
 who are actuated by the most universal of nature's 
 instincts, the desire to shorten the hours and mitigate 
 the asperities of a day's work. Temeritas est videlicet 
 ftorentis cEtatis, prudentia senescentis. How long will 
 this prudence of old age withstand the attacks of rash 
 and vigorous youth? Has not the white flag of sur- 
 render already shown itself on the citadel? If the act 
 of abdication is not already signed, the bill of rights 
 and the Magna Charta have been delivered, and the 
 oppressed youth of our sister institutions, at least, 
 are near their enfranchisement, and free to play the 
 dangerous game of liberty. 
 
 Yet it may be urged without intending offence to the 
 growing citizen, that a deep-seated and genuine re- 
 luctance to study Greek, assuming it to exist, does not 
 necessarily imply genius in any other direction. A 
 student may honestly feel that Melpomene never pre- 
 sided at his birth, and that he was intended for other 
 victories than those which devotion to the Muses may 
 secure, and yet be tmable to select with judgment the 
 pursuit for which he is best adapted. This has prob- 
 ably been the cry since the alphabet was taught. 
 Vocations to do are rare, but vocations not to do are 
 common. True genius sends its arrow to the mark 
 with an unerring instinct which painstaking mediocrity 
 may never emulate, but it cannot expect to make its 
 rules for the general government of mankind. The law 
 of averages fixes in advance the number of marriages, 
 
444 Columbia College 
 
 except, according to Buckle, when disturbed by fluc- 
 tuations in the corn market ; so it does the number of 
 suicides and misdirected letters ; may that law not gov- 
 ern us wisely in matters connected with education ? 
 
 The experience of years — nay, of centuries — may 
 not be disregarded or set aside in subservience to new 
 theories, the value of which is still unproven. How to 
 discipline the mind of youth and give it the proper 
 food, is not a matter to be abandoned to chance, nor 
 decided upon any other than well-considered grounds. 
 The kind father will not give a stone to the child 
 who asks for bread, but neither will he give him a 
 stone when he asks for a stone instead of bread, nor 
 will he let him dictate the material of which the 
 bread — whether to feed his body or his soul — shall 
 be compounded. 
 
 It may be that in the curriculum of our modern 
 colleges, too much attention is devoted to a particular 
 study, and that in the whirl of our constantly increas- 
 ing activities we might, with profit, cling with less 
 tenacity to old traditions. It may be that the Greek 
 and Latin languages, and literature, and mathematics 
 should be jettisoned in order that the rest of the cargo 
 may be saved; but will the residue be worth the 
 saving? Volumes have been written on either side of 
 this question — which, I fancy, would never have 
 reached the dignity of a question had not the over- 
 loaded college curriculum, groaning, creaking, and 
 strained, cried loudly for relief. 
 
 Heretofore, familiarity with the models of ancient 
 learning, literature, and eloquence was the crowning 
 excellence of a generous education. No orator, poet, 
 or historian could expect to scale his Olympus who 
 had not been inspired by the ever-potent voice of 
 
Columbia College 445 
 
 Athens and of Rome. Each man was great as he 
 approached and resembled the masters who were as 
 secure in their supremacy as the statue of the Grecian 
 Venus in the Louvre. There she stands and smiles 
 her defiance after all the centuries, challenging the 
 world to match her in her mutilated beauty — a land- 
 mark, as it were, on the very verge of human per- 
 fection, fixing the limits beyond which the genius of 
 man has never gone and may never go. Hue usque 
 venies — "Thus far and no farther shalt thou come" — 
 she seems to say. 
 
 The deepest thinkers and the wisest men — leaders 
 of thought and of action — deemed the time well em- 
 ployed which they gave to the contemplation of these 
 masterpieces. In the beauty of their conceptions, in 
 the chastity of their style, in the art which marked 
 their productions, written or spoken, the inspiration 
 of these models was to be traced. The noblest periods 
 that ever shook the halls of Westminster were the 
 echoes of the hushed yet living voices of antiquity; 
 they came from patriots and scholars who with be- 
 coming gratitude acknowledged the greatness of the 
 obligation. So it has been in our own day and with 
 our own leaders. Our most honored magistrates and 
 most eloquent advocates have drawn freely from these 
 fountains. The Erskine of America, Rufus Choate, 
 like the Erskine of England, exulted in the possession 
 of the treasures that he had discovered while seeking 
 the fountains of learning and art. Webster, the mas- 
 ter of our masters, in his matchless oratory, blessed 
 and thanked the Alma Mater that had conducted him 
 to the glorious land whence he had come back laden 
 with untold wealth. At all times, in all countries, 
 where the charms and refining influence of scholarly 
 
446 Columbia College 
 
 pursuits have been prized as they deserved to be, these 
 noble studies expanded, enriched, and deHghted the 
 minds that were capable of feeHng their spell. Their 
 creative power and influence are as clearly traceable in 
 the intellectual productions of modern times as the in- 
 fluence of Greek art in the architecture and sculpture 
 of the centuries that have followed the fall of Athens. 
 No statute of limitations can bar the operation of such 
 influences; true genius works for no time or country, 
 but with marvellous reproduction recreates itself for 
 the benefit of all ages and all men. 
 
 Early History of the College 
 
 The history of the college, I have said, lacks those 
 elements of poetry which are born of twihght and 
 imagination. 
 
 The inscription on the first stone laid by King's 
 College — the first in the province of New York — bears 
 the recent date of 1755. The college is only some 
 twenty years older than the nation. Its beginnings 
 were humble — the times were stormy — and funds were 
 scant. 
 
 The first president of record was the Rev. Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, who left his quiet home at Stratford 
 to take the presidency of the new college, and to re- 
 ceive therefor the not very munificent salary of ;;£2 5o 
 per annum. We may infer from this that he was not 
 actuated by mercenary motives, even when we couple 
 the actual stipend proposed and accepted with the 
 suggestion made by the trustees that the vestry of 
 Trinity Church might thereafter make a reasonable 
 addition to the sum named. 
 
 The most conspicuous service rendered by the 
 
Columbia College 447 
 
 learned doctor appears to have been to devise the 
 college seal, the principal feature of which embodies a 
 prophetic vision of the future, for he pictures a lady 
 sitting on a throne, or chair, with several children at 
 her knees, to represent the pupils. It is to the credit 
 of Columbia that not only in this allegorical form does 
 she recognize the true function of woman in the cause 
 of education, but that she has practically entered upon 
 the duty of fitting woman for the quality of teacher 
 by first permitting her to be a pupil. 
 
 The learned doctor's labors were considerably inter- 
 fered with, and his peace of mind disturbed by a great 
 and no doubt fully justified apprehension of the small- 
 pox, for in November of 1757 he fled to the County of 
 Westchester, where he remained about a year, to allow 
 that dreadful scourge to disappear, and in '59 he was 
 again compelled to fly and remain absent six months. 
 But as others continued in charge of the college its 
 quiet pursuits were uninterrupted, and in 1758 the 
 first commencement was held at which the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts was conferred on eight students. 
 Three of these had been educated at Philadelphia, or 
 at Princeton, but desired, apparently, to start in the 
 world with the eclat of a diploma from King's College. 
 Only two young gentlemen were admitted to the de- 
 gree of Bachelor or Arts in the following year ; one of 
 whom had already received at Princeton such educa- 
 tion as that college at that time could bestow; the 
 other being the only one out of six admitted in '55 
 who had persevered to the end. The minute care with 
 which the college, even then, interested itself in its 
 growing children is manifested by the very frank ex- 
 pressions which are found in the matricula of the 
 college respecting those who entered the Freshman 
 
448 Columbia College 
 
 class of that year ('55). One of them appears, from 
 these notes, in the third year to have gone to Phila- 
 delphia College, presumably because the standard of 
 King's College was too high, or the application required 
 too severe. Another, made of sterner stuff, about the 
 middle of the second year went into the army; an- 
 other, after the third year, considering, no doubt, that 
 he had acquired all the knowledge that commercial 
 pursuits demanded, went to merchandise; of the 
 fourth, it is said that after about two years he went 
 to privateering — as it were, a special course of com- 
 mercial training; and of the fifth, it is said that after 
 three years, he went to nothing. 
 
 But neither the smallpox, nor a lack of students, 
 nor scarcity of funds, interfered with the growing 
 academy. At all times, and from the very beginning, 
 its aims were of the highest, and it does not seem to 
 be an exaggeration to state here that to-day, in its full 
 development and in the fruition of its efforts and 
 labors, Columbia College has simply carried out the 
 promises of its early founders. 
 
 It may be observed that one of the advantages in- 
 cident upon the late birth of this institution has been 
 to free it from the trammels and embarrassments 
 which its predecessors have had to contend against. 
 There was nothing in the charter requiring Columbia 
 to exert itself in behalf of the Indians, nor to support 
 a learned corps of missionaries to reclaim them from 
 their hopelessly wild and dissolute habits. 
 
 It is a striking commentary upon the ready re- 
 sponse that King's College found in the City of New 
 York, that some of the most distinguished men of the 
 revolutionary period were then among its students. 
 The freshman class of 1762 was composed of John 
 
Columbia College 449 
 
 Jay, Egbert Benson, Robert R. Livingston and many 
 other men whose record is a part of our history. 
 
 It did seem, at one time, as though Fortune had 
 removed the bandage from her eyes and intended to 
 smile upon the deserving and struggHng college. A 
 grant of 24,000 acres of land was made, but as it turned 
 out to be in debatable territory, which the State of 
 New York abandoned to Vermont for the sum of 
 $30,000, which sum the State retained, no benefit ever 
 accrued from this apparently munificent donation. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's successor, the Rev. Dr. Cooper, was 
 destined to undergo even more serious tribulations 
 than those encountered by his predecessor. Although 
 we do not hear that he was driven abroad by small- 
 pox, it is certain that the even tenor of his life was 
 greatly disturbed by the premonitory symptoms of 
 the explosion of 1776. His proclivities were, naturally 
 enough, in favor of the British Government, and it is 
 said that in a literary skirmish between himself and 
 an anonymous adversary he was badly worsted, which 
 no one will wonder at who is informed that the pen of 
 that adversary was held by Alexander Hamilton, then 
 a student in one of the younger classes. Napoleon is 
 reported to have sought to comfort an Austrian officer 
 who bitterly bewailed his fate, after the French victory 
 of Austerlitz, by saying: "Young man, you need not 
 be mortified at being defeated by me''; and we will 
 think none the less of the learned doctor because his 
 steel was not equal to that of the boy-champion in the 
 cause of liberty. 
 
 But if it was natural that Dr. Cooper should main- 
 tain and express his feelings of loyalty to the crown, 
 it was equally natural and to be expected that the 
 expression of those feelings should be viewed with 
 
450 Columbia College 
 
 much resentment by those about him. Only one year 
 before the Declaration of Independence was signed, a 
 letter was addressed to him and a few other obnoxious 
 but probably very harmless gentlemen, ascribing to 
 them all the desolation which was in part then felt and 
 in part anticipated by the residents of New York. 
 This letter, fortunately, closed with good advice, and 
 still more fortunately, the doctor was wise enough to 
 follow it : " Fly for your lives, or anticipate your doom 
 by becoming your own executioners." Signed, " Three 
 Millions." The doctor, availing himself of the choice 
 thus generously left him by the signer or signers of 
 this letter, adopted the first alternative, and escaped in 
 the dead of night, only half dressed, over the college 
 fence. 
 
 After adventures, or misadventures, which it is not 
 my purpose to relate, he succeeded in reaching his 
 native country, where he spent the remainder of his 
 life among staunch and sturdy loyalists, far from the 
 threats and execration of unreasonable rebels. 
 
 The college was forcibly seized in 1776, and the 
 record of that year shows that the confusion which 
 prevailed in every part of the country effectually sup- 
 pressed every literary pursuit. 
 
 In 1784, the legislature of New York granted cer- 
 tain privileges to the theretofore called King's College, 
 and three years later the act was passed under which 
 it received its new life and under whose beneficent in- 
 fluence it has since pursued its prosperous career. 
 
 In 1820, the college possessed the inestimable priv- 
 ilege of seeing most of her offices filled by her own 
 children; Professors M'Vickar, Moore, Anthon, and 
 Renwick were all reared by her; their names are 
 household words, and the history of the college from 
 
Columbia College 45^ 
 
 that day forward is one of unbroken progress. What 
 she has done, where she stands, and what success she 
 has met with, we all know. The twenty-four students 
 who constituted the number within her walls when Dr. 
 Johnson left have now expanded to sixteen hundred. 
 
 In every walk of life her graduates have done their 
 state and country honor. From the time when John 
 Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and DeWitt CHnton oc- 
 cupied the highest positions in the councils of the 
 nation, on the bench, or in the senate, her children 
 have been conspicuous in the government of our 
 country, state, and city. The record of illustrious 
 names to which she can point would be as long and as 
 tedious as Homer's catalogue of the ships that carried 
 the Greeks to Troy. An alumnus was mayor of New 
 York one hundred years ago, another is mayor to-day. 
 The chief adviser of the city, the attorney for the 
 people, the president of the Board of Aldermen, judges 
 on the bench, members of the Legislature and of Con- 
 gress, in all positions of life we find them, honored and 
 respected public servants. If the tree may be known 
 by its fruits, then may Columbia feel proud of her 
 nobility, of her service in the past, of her promise of 
 future usefulness. 
 
 And why should she not be a leader among the first ? 
 Born and raised in the Imperial City of the continent, 
 she has grown with its growth, and flourished with its 
 prosperity. With the vivifying influence of a vast 
 and active population to keep her from stagnating into 
 decorous ease, with the growing affluence which re- 
 quires corresponding culture, with a generous emula- 
 tion to outstrip her brilliant and friendly rivals, why 
 should not Columbia justify the best aspirations of her 
 founders? There is no limit to her possibilities of 
 
452 Columbia College 
 
 good, provided she may ever count upon the loyal and 
 loving adherence of her children. If that does not fail 
 her, the measure of her prosperity will be filled. The 
 hardening processes of our modern life, the heat of 
 competition in the arduous struggle for existence, are 
 apt to deaden sentiment by repressing its manifesta- 
 tions. But as no man need blush because his heart 
 beats high and his speech grows warm for his country, 
 his home, or his faith, so need he never blush because 
 a tender chord binds him to the mother that made 
 him what he is. True sentiment is not weakness; it 
 is strength. It makes fragrant the commonplaces of 
 life; it throws a purple mantle over the humblest oc- 
 cupation, and keeps alive the sacred fires in the temple 
 of pure and genuine manhood. 
 
 THE END 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY