Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862», sayfa 15

'He is in the front basement, sucking his paws,' replied Roseton, for it was indeed he, 'and he is trying to do a stupider thing, if possible.'

'What's that?' asked the fair Bella. 'Now don't tire me with any of your nonsense.'

'To read himself,' answered Roseton.

'You alarm me,' exclaimed she; 'it can't be possible that the servants have let him have a looking-glass, contrary to my express instructions!'

'No, no,' said the master of Pont-Noir, 'he is at work over the World.'

'The World?' said Bella, inquiringly. 'Pray don't give me a headache.'

Roseton leaned over her shoulder, and placed in her lap a miniature Andrews and Stoddard's Lexicon, open at the eight hundredth page. 'You take?' he said: 'Mundus, the World.'

'Ah, Percy,' sighed Bella, 'why do you thus unnecessarily fatigue me? Have I not often told you that, faultless as you are in every other department of life, and how I love to dwell upon this fact, still, still, my Percy, your puns, or rather your attempts, are worse than those of a Yale College freshman? You are cruel, indeed you are, thus to disappoint and wound me. Be persuaded by me, and never try again.'

Roseton paused, irresolute—it was a great struggle; but what will not one do for the woman one loves? 'I promise,' said he, at last; and, bending over her, laid a kiss—like an egg—upon her brow. 'This will forever bind me.'

'Thank you, dear Percy,' said Bella; 'and I hope you'll keep your promise better than you did the last one you made about giving up smoking. You're sure you haven't tumbled my collar, and that you wiped the egg off your moustache before you came in; get me the toilet-glass, there's a good boy. You men are so careless, and I shouldn't like it to dry on my forehead.'

Let us approach, and gaze into the mirror. Can one describe that face—the lovely brown eyebrows; the eyes, like a spring sky, just as the light, fleecy clouds are leaving it after a shower; the perfect roses, dipped in milk, of the skin; the lips where good-nature, sprightliness, and love, lay mingled in ambush; the dewy teeth never quite concealed? It is, indeed, useless to attempt it. And, what is very remarkable, Bella knew it. 'There, Percy,' said she, 'your indiscretion is cleared away, and now upon my word I don't know which flatters me most, you or the glass.'

'Why, I haven't tried yet,' replied Roseton.

'That's only because you know you can't,' said she;' neither can this poor little mirror. But to think what Mundus said yesterday!'

'What did he say?'

'He said—he said—he saw a pretty apple-girl in Wall Street, and I presume the wretch paid her some compliment or other while he was buying her apples, for he appeared very much pleased after he came home, and he hasn't bestowed a compliment on me since the month after we were married. Ah, fated word! Ah, Percy, Percy!—on that ill-omened day, what caused you to linger? We might even then have retraced our steps, and been—happy.'

'I was waiting—at the dock—for the news—of the Heenan prize-fight, Bella,' gasped Roseton, turning away to conceal his emotion, and to assuage the tears that fell from his manly eyes. It is a mournful sight, a strong man, in the morning of life, weeping; but Roseton's agony might well excuse it. 'I know it was unpardonable, but my card of invitation had been tampered with, the date altered; and, Bella—my Bella—we were the victims of a base deception!'

'Oh, yes, my Percy,' faintly cried Bella, letting the book fall to the ground in her confusion; 'traitorous wiles, indeed, encompassed us, and the arts of a Mundus were too subtle for my girlish brain. I sometimes fear that my poor frame will sink under the agonies I endure.'

Roseton raised the volume from the floor. 'I am told,' said he, 'that this is a very ingenious work, and that no gentleman's library is complete without it; but I never read. My days, my nights, are filled, Bella, with thoughts of you. Yes,' continued he, seating himself upon the sofa by her side, and passing his arm about her throbbing waist, 'yes, you are my muse—my only volume. You are the inspiration of the poetical trifles that I send to the weekly newspapers, and which I may say, without vanity, are considered equal to Mrs. Sigourney's. Without you, life were indeed a dreary void; and without you, I should be dreadfully bored of a morning.'

'Ah, Percy,' murmured the fair listener, 'so could I hear you talk forever.'

'Bella,' whispered Roseton, in her fairy ear, 'could you prepare your mind to entertain the idea of flight with me?'

'To Staten Island?' cried she, jumping up and clapping her hands. 'Oh, let's go to Staten Island! Mundus can never follow us there, the boats are so dangerous.'

'But, Bella mia' said Roseton, in the soft accent of Italy, 'as the eminent but slightly impractical Hungarian—I refer to Kossuth—said, Staten Island "is lovely, but exposed." We should not be safe there. Listen; in my house I have prepared a secret chamber, fifty feet square, plentifully supplied with healthful though plain provisions, and furnished with a tolerable degree of comfort. There will we dwell, until the curiosity of Mundus and the whispers of the metropolis are overpast. We will then re-appear in society, and assert our happiness. Bella, mia Bella, shall it be so?'

'Ah, Percy,' sighed she, leaning back in his arms, 'let it be just as you say.'

Their lips—

'Bella,' said Mundus, leaning over the pair, and fumbling among the vases over the fireplace, 'is there any stage change on the mantlepiece, or have either you or Roseton got such a thing about you as a sixpence? I have nothing in my pocket but hundred-dollar city bills, and those infernal omnibus drivers make change with Valley Bank notes, which a certain person furnishes them,'—and Mundus fixed his eyes full on the master of Pont-Noir.

'Mr. Roseton,' he continued, 'will you be so kind as to call at my office after the Second Board, to-day? I have matters of importance to discuss with you.' And so saying, the haughty banker strode from the apartment.

Roseton's eyes mechanically followed him. In an instant he turned to Bella. She had fainted upon the sofa. His first impulse was to apply his vinaigrette; but 'no,' he said to himself, 'this will probably last twenty minutes, and do her good. During that time I can smoke a cigar, and arrange my plans. But stop,'—and here a cold sweat broke out upon him, and a livid paleness overspread his features,—'what did Mundus say about the notes? He refuses them! Strange, strange, indeed! Can it then be that the Valley Bank has bu—?'⁷

OUR DANGER AND ITS CAUSE

It is certain that when this page comes under the eye of the reader, the relations of the United States, both foreign and domestic, will have been changed materially. At the present moment, however, the condition of the country is unpromising enough; yet not so gloomy as to preclude the hope of a fortunate issue. The sacrifices and sufferings of the people are greater in civil than in foreign wars, and the ultimate advantages and benefits are proportionately large. We speak now of those civil wars which have occurred between people inhabiting the same district of country,—as the civil wars of England. Other contests, as the revolutions of Hungary, Poland, and Ireland even, were not, strictly speaking, civil wars. The parties were of different origin, and had never assimilated in language, customs, or ideas. The struggle was for the reëstablishment of a government which had once existed, and not for the reformation or change of a government that at the moment of the conflict was performing its ordinary functions.

The civil war in America does not belong to either of the classes named. To be sure, in Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Virginia, the contest has been between the inhabitants of the several localities, aided by forces from the rebel States on the one hand, and forces from the loyal States on the other. But those States, as such, were never committed to the rebellion; and the struggle within their limits has demonstrated the inability of the so-called Confederate States to command the adhesion of Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Virginia by force; but it does not, in the accomplished results, demonstrate the ability of the United States to crush the rebellion. The border States were debatable ground; but the question has been settled in favor of the government so far, at least, as Western Virginia and Missouri are concerned.

In the eleven seceded States there is no apparent difference of opinion among those in authority, or among those accustomed to lead in public affairs. The sentiment of attachment to the old Union has been disappearing rapidly since the secession of South Carolina, until there are now no open avowals of adherence to the government, unless such are made by the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina. These men are for the present destitute of power. Should our armies penetrate those regions, the inhabitants may essentially aid in the reëstablishment of the government. Still, for the present, we must regard the eleven States as a unit in the rebellion. Thus we are called to note the anomalous fact that the rebels seek a division between a people who speak the same language, occupy a territory which has no marked lines or features of separation, and who have from the first day of their national existence been represented by the same national government. Hence it is plain, whatever may be the immediate result of the contest, that there can be no permanent peace until the territory claimed as the territory of the United States is again subject to one government. This may be the work of a few months, it may be the work of a few years, or it may be the business of a century. Without the reëstablishment of the government over the whole territory of the Union there can be no peace; and without the reëstablishment of that government there can be no prosperity.

The armies of the rebel States will march to the great lakes, or the armies of the loyal States will march to the gulf of Mexico. We are therefore involved in a war which does not admit of adjustment by negotiation. In a foreign war, peace might be secured by mutual concessions, and preserved by mutual forbearance. In ordinary civil strife the peace of a state or of an empire might be restored by concessions to the disaffected, by a limitation of the privileges of the few, or an extension of the rights of the many. But none of these expedients meet the exigency in which we find ourselves. The rebels demand the overthrow of the government, the division of the territory of the Union, the destruction of the nation. The question is, Shall this nation longer exist? And why is the question forced upon us? Is there a difference of language? Not greater than is found in single States. Indeed, Louisiana is the only one of the eleven where any appreciable difference exists, and the number of French in that State is less than the number of Germans in Pennsylvania. Nor has nature indicated lines of separation like the St. Lawrence and the lakes on the north and the Rocky Mountains on the west. The lines marked by nature—the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi River, and the Alleghanies—cut the line proposed by the confederates transversely, and force the suggestion that each section will be put in possession of three halves of different wholes, instead of a single unit essential to permanent national existence.

Do the products of the industry of the two sections so conflict with each other in domestic or foreign markets as to encourage the idea that by separation the South could gain in this particular? Not in the least. The North has been a large customer for the leading staple of the South, and the South is constantly in need of those articles which the North is fitted to produce. The South complains of the growth of the North, and vainly imagines that by separation its own prosperity would be promoted. The answer to all this is, that there has never been a moment for fifty years when the seceded States had not employment, for all the labor that they could command, in vocations more profitable than any leading industry of the North; and, moreover, every industry of the North has been open to the free competition of the South. Not argument, only statement, is needed to show that by origin, association, language, business, and labor interests, as well as by geographical laws, unity and not diversity is the necessity of our public life. Yet, in defiance of these considerations, the South has undertaken the task of destroying the government. Nor do the rebels assert that the plan of government is essentially defective. The Montgomery constitution is modeled upon that of the United States; though the leaders no longer disguise their purpose to abolish its democratic features and incorporate aristocratic and monarchical provisions. They hope, also, to throw off the restraints of law, bid defiance to the general public sentiment of the world, and reopen the trade in slaves from Africa. It remains to be seen whether the desire of England for cotton and conquest, and her sympathy with the rebels, will induce her to pander to this inhuman traffic.

It has happened occasionally that a government has so wielded its powers as to contribute, unconsciously, to its own destruction. But our experience furnishes the first instance of a government having been seized by a set of conspirators, and its vast powers used for its own overthrow.

It is now accredited generally that several members of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet were conspirators, and that they used the power confided to them for the purpose of destroying the government itself. Hence it appears, whatever the test applied, that the present rebellion is distinguished from all others in the fact that it does not depend upon any of the causes on which national dissensions have been usually based.

The public discontents in Ireland, in their causes, bore a slight analogy to our own. There were existing in that country various systems and customs that were prejudicial to the prosperity of the island. Among these may be mentioned the Encumbered Estates and Absenteeism; and it is worthy of remark that whatever has been done by the British government for the promotion of the prosperity of Ireland, and the pacification of its people, has been by a reformation of the institutions of the country.

Rebels in arms may be overthrown and dispersed by superior force, but the danger of rebellion will continue so long as the disposition to rebel animates the people. This disposition can not be reached by military power merely; the exciting cause must be removed, or, at least, so limited and modified as to impair its influence as a disturbing force in the policy of the country. As we have failed to trace this rebellion to any of the causes that have led to civil disturbances in other countries, it only remains to suggest that cause which in its relations and conditions is peculiar to the United States. All are agreed that slavery is the cause of the rebellion. Yet slavery exists in other countries,—as Brazil, for example,—and thus far without exhibiting its malign influence in conspiracy and rebellion. This is no doubt true; but it should be borne in mind that, in the United States, slavery has power in the government as the basis of representation, and that the slave States are associated in the government with free States. If the institution of slavery had not been a basis of political power, or had all the States maintained slavery, it is probable that the rebellion would never have been organized, or, if organized, it could never have attained its present gigantic proportions.

We have now reached a point where we can see the error of our public national life. The doctrine announced by President Lincoln, while he was only Mr. Lincoln, of Springfield, that the nation must be all free or all slave, was not new with him. The men who framed the constitution acted under the same idea, though they may not have so distinctly expressed the truth. There is, however, abundant circumstantial evidence that they so believed, and that their only hope for the country was based on the then reasonable expectation that slavery would disappear, and that the nation would be all free. It was reserved for modern political alchemists to discover the idea on which the leading politicians have been acting for thirty or forty years, that one half of a nation might believe in the fundamental principle on which the government is based, and the other half deny it, and yet the government go on harmoniously, wielding its powers acceptably and safely to all. This is the error. Our failure is not in the plan of government; the error is not that our fathers supposed that a government could be based and permanently sustained upon slavery and freedom advancing pari passu. They indulged in no such delusion. The error is modern. When slavery demanded concessions, and freedom yielded; when slavery suggested compromises, and freedom accepted them; when slavery, unrebuked, claimed equal rights under the constitution, and freedom acknowledged the justice of the claim,—then came the test whether the government itself should be administered in the service of slavery or in behalf of freedom. Two considerations influenced the slaveholders. First, even should they be permitted to wield the government, they foresaw that its provisions were inadequate to meet the exigencies of slavery. No despotism can be sustained by the voluntary efforts of its subjects. Slavery is a despotism; and as such can only be supported by power independent of that of the slaves themselves, and always sufficient for their control. The slaves were yearly increasing in numbers and gaining in knowledge. These changes indicated the near approach of the time when the slaves of the South would reenact the scenes of St. Domingo. The plantations of the cotton region are remote from each other, and the proportion of slaves on a single plantation is often as many as fifty for every free person, The sale of negroes from the northern slave States has introduced an element upon the plantations at once intelligent and hostile, and, of course, dangerous, The time must come when the white populations of plantations, districts, or States even, would disappear in a single night, In such a moment of terror and massacre how, and to what extent, would the United States government, acting under the constitution, afford protection, aid, or even secure a barren vengeance? These were grave questions, and admitted only of an unsatisfactory answer at best. The government has power to put down insurrections; but for what good would a body of troops be marched to a scene of desolation and blood a fortnight or a month after the servile outbreak had done its work? These considerations controlled the intelligent minds of the South, and they were driven irresistibly to the conclusion that the government of the United States was insufficient for the institution of slavery, even though the friends of slavery were entrusted with the administration. What hope beyond? They dared to believe that by separation and the establishment of a military slaveholding oligarchy, to which the public opinion and public policy of the seceded States now tend, they would be able to guard the institution against all tumults from within and all attacks from without. If success were to crown their present undertakings, is it probable that the government contemplated would be strong enough for the task proposed? If Russia could not hold her serfs in bondage, can the South set up a government which can guard, and defend, and secure slavery? Or will a French or English protectorate render that stable which the government of the United States was incompetent to uphold? These questions remain, but the one first suggested is settled:—That the government of the United States, howsoever and by whomsoever administered, constitutionally, is inadequate to meet the exigencies of slavery.

Secondly. The leaders of the rebellion foresaw, a long time since, that slavery had no security that the government would be administered in the interest of that institution. The admission of California, followed by the admission of three other free States, forced the slaveholders into a hopeless minority in the Senate of the United States. The census of 1860 promised to reduce the delegation of the slave States in the House of Representatives. Previous to 1870 other free States were likely to be admitted into the Union; and thus by successive and unavoidable events, the government was sure to pass into the hands of the non-slave States. It would not be just to the South to omit to say that apprehensions there existed that the North would disregard the constitution. These apprehensions were fostered for unholy purposes; and so sealed is the South to the progress of truth, through the domination of the slaveholders over the press and public men, and by the consequent ignorance of the mass of the people, that these misapprehensions have never been removed in any degree by the declarations of Congress or of political parties in the North.

The mind of the South was thus brought logically to two conclusions: First, that the government of the United States was inadequate to meet the exigencies of slavery, even though it should be administered uniformly by the friends of slavery. Secondly, that the administration of the government would be controlled by the ideas of the free States.

These conclusions would have been sufficiently unwelcome to the Southern leaders, if they had had no purpose or policy beyond the maintenance of slavery where it exists; but they had already determined to extend the institution southward over Mexico and Central America, and they knew full well the necessity of destroying the Union and the government before such an enterprise could be undertaken with any hope of success. Hence they denied the right of the majority to rule unless they ruled in obedience to the will of the minority. Thus the slaveholders came naturally and unavoidably to the denial of the fundamental principle of the government; and, having denied the principle, there remained no reason why they should not undertake the overthrow of the government itself. And thus the conspiracy and the rebellion sprung naturally and unavoidably from the institution of slavery.

Further, slavery is the support of the conspiracy and the rebellion both in Europe and America. However disastrous slavery may be to the mass of the whites, it affords to the governing class the opportunity and means for constant attention to public affairs.

In all our history the North has felt the force of this advantage. As a general thing, a northern member occupies a seat in Congress for one or two terms, and then his place is taken by an untried man. And even during his term of service, his attention is given in part to his private affairs, or to plans and schemes designed to secure a re-election. The Southern member takes his seat with a conscious independence due to the fact that his slaves are making crops upon his plantation, and that his re-election does not depend upon the hot breath of the multitude. He enjoys a long and independent experience in the public service; and he thus acquires a power to serve his party, his country or his section, which is disproportionate even to his experience. A good deal of the consideration which the South enjoys abroad, and especially in England, is due to the fact that in the South a governing class is recognized, which corresponds to the governing classes wherever an aristocracy or monarchism exists. By a community of ideas the South commands the sympathy, and enjoys the confidence and secret support of the enemies of democracy the world over. Through the political and pecuniary support which the public men of that section have derived from slavery, they have been able to take and maintain social positions at Washington, which, by circumstances, were denied to much the larger number of northern representatives, and thus they have influenced the politics of this country and the opinions of other nations. Consider by how many sympathies and interests England is bound to encourage the policy and promote the fortunes of the South. There is the sympathy of the governing class in England for the governing class in the South, even though they are slaveholders; there is the hostility of the ignorant operatives in their manufacturing towns, who, through exterior influences, have been led to believe that whatever hardships they are brought to endure are caused by the desire of the North to subjugate the South; there is the purpose of English merchants and manufacturers to cripple, or if possible to destroy the manufactures and commerce of the North; and, finally, there is the hope of all classes that by the alienation or separation of the two sections England would derive additional commercial advantages, and that the scheme of here establishing a continental republic would be abandoned, never to be again revived. There is, moreover, a reasonable expectation, founded in the nature of things, and possibly already supported by positive promises and pledges, that England is to stand in the relation of protector to the confederated States. Nor will she be in the least disturbed by the institution of slavery, if perchance that institution survives the struggle. If she can be secure in the monopoly of the best cotton lands on the globe, if she can be manufacturer and shop-keeper for the South, if she can deprive the North of one half of its legitimate commerce, if she can obtain the control of the gulf of Mexico, of the mouth of the Mississippi, if she can command the line of sea-coast from Galveston to Fortress Monroe or even to Charleston, and thus compel us to make our way to the Pacific by the passes of the Rocky Mountains exclusively, there is no sacrifice of men, or of money, or of principle, or of justice, that would be deemed too great by the English people and government. But what then? Are we to make war upon England because her sympathies and interests run thus with the South? Is it not wiser to consider why it is that the South is sustained by the interests and sympathies of England? If slavery for fifty years had been unknown among us, could there be found a hundred men, within the limits of the United States, who would accept a British protectorate under any circumstances or for any purpose whatever? And is it not therein manifest, that our foreign and domestic perils are alike due to slavery? And shall we not have dealt successfully with all our foreign difficulties when we shall have established the jurisdiction of the United States over the territory claimed by the rebels? But until that happy day arrives, we shall not be relieved for an instant from the danger of a foreign war; and if the rebellion last six months longer, there is no reason to suppose that a foreign war can be averted. When we offer so tempting a prize to nations that wish us ill, can we expect them to put aside the opportunity which we have not the courage and ability to master? We have observed the hot haste of England to recognize the rebels as belligerents; we have seen the flimsy covering of neutrality that she has thrown over the illegitimate commerce that her citizens have carried on with the South, and from the time, manner, and nature of her demand for the release of Mason and Slidell, we are forced to infer that she will seize every opportunity to bring about an open rupture with the United States. And though Mr. Seward has carried the country successfully through the difficulty of the Trent, we ought to expect the presentation of demands which we can not so readily and justly meet. Indeed, enough is known of the Mexican question to suggest the most serious apprehensions of foreign war on that account.

The necessity for speedily crushing the rebellion is as strong as it was at the moment when Lord Lyons made the demand for the release of the persons taken from the deck of the Trent.

Is there any reason, even the slightest, to suppose that by military and naval means alone the rebellion can be crushed by the 19th of April next?

Yet every day's delay gives the confederate States additional strength, and renders them in the estimation of mankind more and more worthy of recognition and independent government. Their recognition will be followed by treaties of friendship and alliance; and those treaties will give strength to the rebels and increase the embarrassments of our own government. It is the necessity of our national life that the settlement of this question should not be much longer postponed.

By some means we must satisfy the world, and that speedily, that the rebellion is a failure. Nor can we much longer tender declarations of what we intend to do, or offer promises as to what we will do, in the face of the great fact that for eight months the capital of the Republic has been in a state of siege. If, in these circumstances of necessity and peril to us, the armies of the rebels be not speedily dispersed, and the leaders of the rebellion rendered desperate, will the government allow the earth to again receive seed from the hand of the slave, under the dictation of the master, and for the support of the enemies of the constitution and the Union? If there were any probability that the States would return to their allegiance, then indeed we might choose to add to our own burthens rather than interfere their internal affairs. But there is no hope whatever that the seceded States will return voluntarily to the Union.

There could be no justifying cause for the emancipation of the slaves in time of peace by the action of the general government; and now it must be demanded and defended as the means by which the war is to be closed, and a permanent peace secured. If before the return of seed-time the emancipation of the slaves in several or in all of the disloyal States be declared as a military necessity, and the blacks be invited to the sea-coast where we have and may have possession, they will raise supplies for themselves, and the rebellion will come to an ignominious end, through the inability of the masters, when deprived of the services of their slaves, to procure the means of carrying on the war.