Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864», sayfa 10
Want of space forbids us to do more than touch lightly upon the many excellences of these books. We have given extracts enough to enable our readers to see for themselves the severe elegance of style, the compactness and force of the narrative, the verisimilitude of the characters, the unity of plan, and the cogency of the reasoning. We trust they will also perceive the great moral effect that cannot fail to be produced. Such books are specially adapted to meet a daily increasing want. Our American youth are too apt to value virtue for its own sake. They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The one great need is to rouse the ambition of boys, and wake them to political aspiration. To such objects such books tend; and who would hesitate at any sacrifice of his prejudices in favor of privacy, when such is the end to be obtained? Breathes there the man with soul so dead who would not lay upon the altar his father, his mother, his sisters, not to say his uncles and cousins, nay, the inmost sanctities of his home, to enable American boys to fasten their eyes upon the White House? Would he refuse, at the call of patriotism, to spread before the public the very secrets of his heart, the struggles of his closet, his communion with his God?
As a collateral result of this new school of biography, we can but admire the new form in which Nemesis appears. The day of rich relations is gone by. No longer can stern Uncle Bishops lord it over their obscure nephews, for ever before their eyes will flaunt the possible book which will one day lay open to a gazing world all their weakness and their evil behavior. Let not wicked or disagreeable relatives imagine henceforth that they may safely indulge in small tyrannies, neglects, or other peccadilloes; for no robin-redbreast will piously cover them with leaves, but that which is done in the ear shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops, nor can they tell from what quarter the trumpet shall sound. The unkempt boy, the sullen girl in the chimney-corner, may be the Narcissus or nymph in whose orisons all their sins shall be remembered.
"You that executors be made,
And overseers eke
Of children that be fatherless,
And infants mild and meek,
Take you example by this thing,
And yield to each his right,
Lest God with such like misery
Your wicked minds requite."
In view of which benefits, and others "too numerous to mention," we humbly beg pardon for the petulance which disfigures the commencement of our paper, and desire to use all our influence to induce all persons of distinction meekly and humanely to lay open to the dear, curious world their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor.
But, however beneficial and delightful it is for a friend to impale a friend before the public gaze, we do not think that even Job himself would have desired that his adversary should write a book about him. In the motives that prompted, in the grace of the doing, in the good that will result, we can forgive the deed when friend portrays friend; but we cannot be lenient when a hostile hand exposes the life to which we have no right. We would fain borrow the type and the energy of Reginald Bazalgette to enforce our opinion that it is "abbommannabel," and the innocence of Pet Marjorie to declare it "the most Devilish thing." Yet in a loyal, respectable, religious newspaper we lately saw a biography of Mr. Vallandigham which puts to the blush all previous achievements in the line of contemporary history. It is not so much that we are let into the family-secrets, but the family-secrets are spread out before us, as the fruits of that species of domestic taxation known as "the presents" are spread out on the piano at certain wedding-festivals. We are led back to first principles, to the early married life of the parent Vallandighams. The mother is portrayed with a vigorous feminine pencil, and certainly looks extremely well on canvas. Clement's relations to her are shown to be exemplary. There is excuse for this in the attacks which have been made upon him in the relation of son. But upon what grounds are Clement's sisters' homes invaded? Because a man is disloyal and craven, shall we inform the world that his brother was crossed in love? Still more shall his wife be taken in hand, and receive what even the late Mr. Smallweed would have considered a thorough "shaking-up"? "If they were all starving," declares the energetic narrator, "she could not earn a cent in any way whatever, so utterly helpless is this fine Southern lady. She will not sleep, unless the light is kept burning all night in her room, for fear 'something might happen'; and when a slight matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Tut, tut, dear lady! surely this once thy zeal hath outrun thy discretion. Clement L. Vallandigham's public course is a proper target for all loyal shafts, but prithee let the poor lady, his wife, remain in peace,—such peace as she can command. It is bad enough to be his wife, without being overborne with the additional burden of her own personal foibles. One can be daughter, sister, friend, without impeachment of one's sagacity or integrity; but it is such a dreadful indorsement of a man to marry him! Her own consciousness must be sufficiently grievous; pray do not irritate it into downright madness. Nay, what, after all, are the so heinous faults upon which you animadvert? She cannot earn a cent: that may be her misfortune, it need not be her fault. Perhaps Clement, like Albano, and all good husbands, "never loved to see the sweet form anywhere else than, like other butterflies, by his side among the flowers." She will keep a light burning in her room, forsooth. Have we not all our pet hobgoblins? We know an excellent woman who once sat curled up in an arm-chair all night for fear of a mouse! And is it not a well-understood thing that nothing so baffles midnight burglars as a burning candle? "When a light matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Infinitely better than to go sulking about the house with that "injured-innocence" air which makes a man feel as if he were an assaulter and batterer with intent to kill. Blessings rest upon those charming sensible women, who, when they feel cross, as we all do at times, will go to bed and sleep it away! No, let us everywhere put down treason and ostracize traitors. It is lawful to suspend "naso adunco" those whom we may not otherwise suspend. But even traitors have rights which white men and white women are bound to respect. We will crush them, if we can, but we will crush them in open field, by fair fight,—not by stealing into their bedchambers to stab them through the heart of a wife.
THE LAST RALLY
November, 1864
Rally! rally! rally!
Arouse the slumbering land!
Rally! rally! from mountain and valley,
And up from the ocean-strand!
Ye sons of the West, America's best!
New Hampshire's men of might!
From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
And rally to the fight!
Armies of untried heroes,
Disguised in craftsman and clerk!
Ye men of the coast, invincible host!
Come, every one, to the work,—
From the fisherman gray as the salt-sea spray
That on Long Island breaks,
To the youth who tills the uttermost hills
By the blue northwestern lakes!
And ye Freedmen! rally, rally
To the banners of the North!
Through the shattered door of bondage pour
Your swarthy legions forth!
Kentuckians! ye of Tennessee
Who scorned the despot's sway!
To all, to all, the bugle-call
Of Freedom sounds to-day!
Old men shall fight with the ballot,
Weapon the last and best,—
And the bayonet, with blood red-wet,
Shall write the will of the rest;
And the boys shall fill men's places,
And the little maiden rock
Her doll as she sits with her grandam and knits
An unknown hero's sock.
And the hearts of heroic mothers,
And the deeds of noble wives,
With their power to bless shall aid no less
Than the brave who give their lives.
The rich their gold shall bring, and the old
Shall help us with their prayers;
While hovering hosts of pallid ghosts
Attend us unawares.
From the ghastly fields of Shiloh
Muster the phantom bands,
From Virginia's swamps, and Death's white camps
On Carolina sands;
From Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg,
I see them gathering fast;
And up from Manassas, what is it that passes
Like thin clouds in the blast?
From the Wilderness, where blanches
The nameless skeleton;
From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,
And the trenches of Donelson;
From the cruel, cruel prisons,
Where their bodies pined away,
From groaning decks, from sunken wrecks,
They gather with us to-day.
And they say to us, "Rally! rally!
The work is almost done!
Ye harvesters, sally from mountain and valley
And reap the fields we won!
We sowed for endless years of peace,
We harrowed and watered well;
Our dying deeds were the scattered seeds:
Shall they perish where they fell?"
And their brothers, left behind them
In the deadly roar and clash
Of cannon and sword, by fort and ford,
And the carbine's quivering flash,—
Before the Rebel citadel
Just trembling to its fall,
From Georgia's glens, from Florida's fens,
For us they call, they call!
The life-blood of the tyrant
Is ebbing fast away;
Victory waits at her opening gates,
And smiles on our array;
With solemn eyes the Centuries
Before us watching stand,
And Love lets down his starry crown
To bless the future land.
One more sublime endeavor,
And behold the dawn of Peace!
One more endeavor, and war forever
Throughout the land shall cease!
For ever and ever the vanquished power
Of Slavery shall be slain,
And Freedom's stained and trampled flower
Shall blossom white again!
Then rally! rally! rally!
Make tumult in the land!
Ye foresters, rally from mountain and valley!
Ye fishermen, from the strand!
Brave sons of the West, America's best!
New England's men of might!
From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
And rally to the fight!
FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION
In all historical studies we should still bear in mind the difference between the point of view from which one looks at events and that from which they were seen by the actors themselves. We all act under the influence of ideas. Even those who speak of theories with contempt are none the less the unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less busied in working out some problems of the great theory of life. Much as they fancy themselves to differ from the speculative man, they differ from him only in contenting themselves with seeing the path as it lies at their feet, while he strives to embrace it all, starting-point and end, in one comprehensive view. And thus in looking back upon the past we are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, as we arrange the facts of a science, in their appropriate classes and under their respective laws. And thus, too, these events give us the true measure of the intellectual and moral culture of the times, the extent to which just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions of private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and right, grievously would they all fall short,—and we, too, with them. Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual growth,—the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture, unrebuked, to bring the man with the mote,—we shall find much in them all to sadden us, and much, also, in which we can all sincerely rejoice.
In judging, therefore, the political acts of our ancestors, we have a right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of our own. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clue to the labyrinth in which they found themselves involved; and yet no one had seen farther into the mysteries of social and political organization than Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and started ideas which, once at work in the mind, would never rest till they had evolved momentous truths and overthrown long-standing errors. But no one had yet seen, with Adam Smith, that labor was the original source of every form of wealth,—that the farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, were all equally the instruments of national prosperity,—or demonstrated as unanswerably as he did that nations grow rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and that the good of one is the good of all. The world had not yet seen that fierce conflict between antagonistic principles which she was soon to see in the French Revolution; nor had political science yet recorded those daring experiments in remoulding society, those constitutions framed in closets, discussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with equal demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, expressing in their terrible energy the universal dissatisfaction with past and present, the universal grasping at a brighter future, have met and answered so many grave questions,—questions neither propounded nor solved in any of the two hundred constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to prepare himself for the composition of his "Politics." The world had not yet seen a powerful nation tottering on the brink of anarchy, with all the elements of prosperity in her bosom,—nor a bankrupt state sustaining a war that demanded annual millions, and growing daily in wealth and power,—nor the economical phenomena which followed the reopening of Continental commerce in 1814,—nor the still more startling phenomena which a few years later attended England's return to specie-payments and a specie-currency,—nor statesmen setting themselves gravely down with the map before them to the final settlement of Europe, and, while the ink was yet fresh on their protocols, seeing all the results of their combined wisdom set at nought by the inexorable development of the fundamental principle which they had refused to recognize.
But we have seen these things, and, having seen them, unconsciously apply the knowledge derived from them in our judgment of events to which we have no right to apply it. We condemn errors which we should never have detected without the aid of a light which was hidden from our fathers, and will still be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing could have avoided but a general diffusion of that wisdom which Providence never vouchsafes except as a gift to a few exalted minds. Every school-boy has his text-book of political economy now: but many can remember when these books first made their appearance in schools; and so late as 1820 the Professor of History in English Cambridge publicly lamented that there was no work upon this vital subject which he could put into the hands of his classes.
When, therefore, our fathers found themselves face to face with the complex questions of finance, they naturally fell back upon the experience and devices of their past history: they did as in such emergencies men always do,—they tried to meet the present difficulty without weighing maturely the future difficulties. The present was at the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless; and as they looked at it, they could see nothing beyond half so full of perplexity and danger. They hoped, as in the face of all history and all experience men will ever hope, that out of those depths which their feeble eyes were unable to penetrate something would yet arise in their hour of need to avert the peril and snatch them from the precipice. Their past history had its lessons of encouragement, some thought, and, some thought, of warning. They seized the example, but the admonition passed by unheeded.
Short as the chronological record of American history then was, that exchange of the products of labor which so speedily grows up into commerce had already passed through all its phases, from direct barter to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to get what they wanted more, the products of industry without doors for the products of industry within doors; and it was only when they felt the necessity of adding to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from a distance that they experienced the want of money. Prices naturally found their own level,—were what, when left to themselves they always are, the natural expression of the relations between demand and supply. Tobacco stood the Virginian in stead of money long after money had become abundant; procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too, it procured him something better still. In the very same year in which the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, history tells us, ninety maidens of "virtuous education and demeanor" landed in Virginia; the next year brought sixty more; and, provident industry reaping its own reward, he whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and pleasant spectacle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing on towards the landing with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under his arm.
But already there was a pernicious principle at work,—protested against by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew,—the assumption by Government of the power to regulate the prices of goods. The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal tenders and the various representatives of value, without any correspondent measures for creating the value itself, or, in simpler words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year so memorable as the year of the first Congress.
New England, encouraged by a successful expedition against Port Royal, made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came back soured by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of '76, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the immediate danger, Massachusetts bethought her of bills of credit. They were issued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first holders suffered great losses, and the last holders or the speculators were the only ones that found them faithful pledges. The flood-gates once opened, the water poured in amain. Every pressing emergency afforded a pretext for a new issue. Other Colonies followed the seductive example. Paper was soon issued to make money plenty. Men's minds became familiar with the idea, as they saw the convenient substitute passing freely from hand to hand. Accepted at market, accepted at the retail store, accepted in the counting-room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal tender, it seemed adequate to all the demands of domestic trade. But erelong came undue fluctuations of prices, depreciations, failures,—all the well-known indications of an unsound currency. England interposed to protect her own merchants, to whom American paper-money was utterly worthless; and Parliament stripped it of its value as a legal tender. Men's minds were divided. They had never before been called upon to discuss such questions upon such a scale or in such a form. They were at a loss for the principle, still enveloped in the multitude and variety of conflicting theories and obstinate facts.
One fact, however, was clearly established,—that a government could, in great needs, make paper fulfil, for a while, the office of money; and if a regular government, why not also a revolutionary government, sustained and accepted by the people? Here, then, begins the history of the Continental money,—the principal chapter in the financial history of the Revolution,—leading us, like all such histories, over ground thick-strown with unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, through a round of constantly recurring phenomena, varied only here and there by modifications in the circumstances under which they appear.
It is much to be regretted that we have no record of the discussions through which Congress reached the resolves of June 22, 1775: "That a sum not exceeding two millions of Spanish milled dollars be emitted by the Congress in bills of credit for the defence of America. That the twelve confederated Colonies" (Georgia, it will be remembered, had not yet sent delegates) "be pledged for the redemption of the bills of credit now to be emitted." We do not even know positively that there was any discussion. If there was, it is not difficult to conceive how some of the reasoning ran,—how each had arguments and examples from his own Colony: how confidently Pennsylvanians would speak of the security which they had given to their paper; how confidently Virginians would assert that even the greatest straits might be passed without having recourse to so dangerous a medium; how all the facts in the history of paper-money would be brought forward to prove both sides of the question, but how the underlying principle, subtile, impalpable, might still elude them all, as for thirty-five years longer it still continued to elude wise statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, some impatient spirit, breaking through the untimely delay, sternly asked them what else they proposed to do. By what alchemy would they create gold and silver? By what magic would they fill the coffers which their non-exportation resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the supplies which their non-importation resolutions had cut off? What arguments of their devising would induce a people in arms against taxation to submit to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they had indignantly repelled? Necessity, inexorable necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had adopted an army, they must support it; they had voted pay to their officers, they must devise the means of giving their vote effect; arms, ammunition, camp-equipage, everything was to be provided for. The people were full of ardor, glowing with fiery zeal; your promise to pay will be received like payment; your commands will be instantly obeyed. Every hour's delay imperils the sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm; action, prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis calls for. Men must see that we are in earnest; the enemy must see it; nothing else will bring them to terms; nothing else will give us a lasting peace: and in such a peace how easily, how cheerfully, shall we all unite in paying the debt which won for us so inestimable a blessing!
It would have been difficult to deny the force of such an appeal. There were doubtless men there who believed firmly in the virtue of the people,—who thought, that, after the proof which the people had given of their readiness to sacrifice the interests of the present moment to the interests of a day and a posterity that they might not live to see, it would be worse than skepticism to call it in question. But even these men might hesitate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, for they knew how often men are governed by names, and that their minds might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation. Even at this day, with all our additional light,—the combined light of science and of experience,—it is difficult to see what else they could have done without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies. Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against gold. They have been accused of this by their friends as well as by their enemies: they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to an uncertain hope,—of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means of making any,—that they wilfully, almost wantonly, incurred the fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they had calculated these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular will, the people would fall from them,—that, if they should fail in making their position good, they would be the first, almost the only victims,—that, then as ever, "the thunderbolts on highest mountains light." Charles Carroll added "of Carrollton" to his name, so that, if the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen,—"When hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we do not see till we find ourselves face to face with them,—and that in the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide the shock.
While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less seriously leading minds in the different Colonies. All felt that the success of the experiment must chiefly depend upon the degree of security that could be given to the bills. But how to reach that necessary degree was a perplexing question. Three ways were suggested in the New-York Convention: that Congress should fix upon a sum, assign each Colony its proportion, and the issue be made by the Colony upon its own responsibility; or that the United Colonies should make the issue, each Colony pledging itself to redeem the part that fell to it; or, lastly, that, Congress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming its proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should still be bound as a whole to make up for the failure of any individual Colony to redeem its share. The latter was proposed by the Convention as offering greater chances of security, and tending at the same time to strengthen the bond of union. It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from Congress.
No time was now lost in carrying the resolution into effect. The next day, Tuesday, June 23, the number, denomination, and form of the bills were decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was resolved to make bills of eight denominations, from one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand of each, completing the two millions by eleven thousand eight hundred of twenty dollars each. The form of the bill was to be,—
Continental Currency.
No. Dollars.
This bill entitles the bearer to receive – Spanish milled dollars or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to the resolutions of the Congress held at Philadelphia on the 10th day of May, a. d. 1775.
In the same sitting a committee of five was appointed "to get proper plates engraved, to provide paper, and to agree with printers to print the above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams were on this committee.
Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how their doors would have been beset by engravers and paper-dealers and printers! What baskets of letters would have been poured upon their tables! How would they have dreaded the sound of the knocker or the cry of the postman! But, alas! paper was so far from abundant that generals were often reduced to hard straits for enough of it to write their reports and despatches on; and that Congressmen were not much better off will be believed when we find John Adams sending his wife a sheet or two at a time under the same envelope with his own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as the business of the country required, but not enough for the eager contention which the announcement of Government work to be done excites among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,—who, when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"—a scientific mechanic,—a leader at the Tea-party,—a soldier of the old war,—prepared to serve in this war, too, with sword, or graver, or science,—fitting carriages, at Washington's command, to the cannon from which the retreating English had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the command of the Provincial Congress, and setting up the first powder-mill ever built in Massachusetts.
No mere engraver's task for him, this engraving the first bill-plates of Continental Currency! How he must have warmed over the design! how carefully he must have chosen his copper! how buoyantly he must have plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of the double mission which those little plates were to perform,—the good one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!—but resolved and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! the enemy is coming!"
The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them, receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand bills.
