North America Volume II Part 8

I confess that I became tired of my sojourn at both the places I have named. At each I think that I saw every house in the place, although my visit to Seymour was made in the night; and at both I was lamentably at a loss for something to do. At Crossline I was all alone, and began to feel that the hours which I knew must pa.s.s before the missing train could come, would never make away with themselves.

There were many others stationed there as I was, but to them had been given a capability for loafing which n.i.g.g.ardly Nature has denied to me. An American has the power of seating himself in the close vicinity of a hot stove and feeding in silence on his own thoughts by the hour together. It may be that he will smoke; but after a while his cigar will come to an end. He sits on, however, certainly patient, and apparently contented. It may be that he chews, but if so, he does it with motionless jaws, and so slow a mastication of the pabulum on which he feeds, that his employment in this respect only disturbs the absolute quiet of the circle when, at certain long, distant intervals, he deposits the secretion of his tobacco in an ornamental utensil which may probably be placed in the furthest corner of the hall. But during all this time he is happy. It does not fret him to sit there and think and do nothing. He is by no means an idle man,--probably one much given to commercial enterprise. Idle men out there in the West we may say there are none. How should any idle man live in such a country? All who were sitting hour after hour in that circle round the stove of the Crossline Hotel hall,--sitting there hour after hour in silence, as I could not sit,--were men who earned their bread by labour. They were farmers, mechanics, storekeepers; there was a lawyer or two, and one clergyman.

Sufficient conversation took place at first to indicate the professions of many of them. One may conclude that there could not be place there for an idle man. But they all of them had a capacity for a prolonged state of doing nothing, which is to me unintelligible, and which is very much to be envied. They are patient as cows, which from hour to hour lie on the gra.s.s chewing their cud. An Englishman, if he be kept waiting by a train in some forlorn station in which he can find no employment, curses his fate and all that has led to his present misfortune with an energy which tells the story of his deep and thorough misery. Such, I confess, is my state of existence under such circ.u.mstances. But a western American gives himself up to "loafing," and is quite happy. He balances himself on the back legs of an arm-chair, and remains so, without speaking, drinking, or smoking for an hour at a stretch; and while he is doing so he looks as though he had all that he desired. I believe that he is happy, and that he has all that he wants for such an occasion;--an arm-chair in which to sit, and a stove on which he can put his feet, and by which he can make himself warm.

Such was not the phase of character which I had expected to find among the people of the West. Of all virtues, patience would have been the last which I should have thought of attributing to them. I should have expected to see them angry when robbed of their time, and irritable under the stress of such grievances as railway delays; but they are never irritable under such circ.u.mstances as I have attempted to describe, nor, indeed, are they a people p.r.o.ne to irritation under any grievances. Even in political matters they are long-enduring, and do not form themselves into mobs for the expression of hot opinion.

We in England thought that ma.s.ses of the people would rise in anger if Mr. Lincoln's government should consent to give up Slidell and Mason; but the people bore it without any rising. The habeas corpus has been suspended, the liberty of the press has been destroyed for a time, the telegraph wires have been taken up by the government into their own hands; but nevertheless the people have said nothing. There has been no rising of a mob, and not even an expression of an adverse opinion. The people require to be allowed to vote periodically, and having acquired that privilege permit other matters to go by the board. In this respect we have, I think, in some degree misunderstood their character. They have all been taught to reverence the nature of that form of government under which they live, but they are not specially addicted to hot political fermentation. They have learned to understand that democratic inst.i.tutions have given them liberty, and on that subject they entertain a strong conviction which is universal. But they have not habitually interested themselves deeply in the doings of their legislators or of their government. On the subject of slavery there have been and are different opinions, held with great tenacity and maintained occasionally with violence; but on other subjects of daily policy the American people have not, I think, been eager politicians. Leading men in public life have been much less trammelled by popular will than among us. Indeed with us the most conspicuous of our statesmen and legislators do not lead, but are led. In the States the noted politicians of the day have been the leaders, and not unfrequently the coercers of opinion. Seeing this, I claim for England a broader freedom in political matters than the States have as yet achieved. In speaking of the American form of government, I will endeavour to explain more clearly the ideas which I have come to hold on this matter.

I survived my delay at Seymour, after which I pa.s.sed again through Cincinnati, and then survived my subsequent delay at Crossline. As to Cincinnati, I must put on record the result of a country walk which I took there,--or rather on which I was taken by my friend. He professed to know the beauties of the neighbourhood, and to be well acquainted with all that was attractive in its vicinity. Cincinnati is built on the Ohio, and is closely surrounded by picturesque hills which overhang the suburbs of the city. Over these I was taken, ploughing my way through a depth of mud which cannot be understood by any ordinary Englishman. But the depth of mud was not the only impediment, nor the worst which we encountered. As we began to ascend from the level of the outskirts of the town we were greeted by a rising flavour in the air, which soon grew into a strong odour, and at last developed itself into a stench that surpa.s.sed in offensiveness anything that my nose had ever hitherto suffered. When we were at the worst we hardly knew whether to descend or to proceed.

It had so increased in virulence, that at one time I felt sure that it arose from some matter buried in the ground beneath my feet. But my friend, who declared himself to be quite at home in Cincinnati matters, and to understand the details of the great Cincinnati trade, declared against this opinion of mine. Hogs, he said, were at the bottom of it. It was the odour of hogs going up to the Ohio heavens;--of hogs in a state of transit from hoggish nature to clothes-brushes, saddles, sausages, and lard. He spoke with an authority that constrained belief; but I can never forgive him in that he took me over those hills, knowing all that he professed to know. Let the visitors to Cincinnati keep themselves within the city, and not wander forth among the mountains. It is well that the odour of hogs should ascend to heaven and not hang heavy over the streets; but it is not well to intercept that odour in its ascent. My friend became ill with fever, and had to betake himself to the care of nursing friends; so that I parted company with him at Cincinnati. I did not tell him that his illness was deserved as well as natural, but such was my feeling on the matter. I myself happily escaped the evil consequences which his imprudence might have entailed on me.

I pa.s.sed again through Pittsburg, and over the Alleghany mountains by Altoona, and down to Baltimore,--back into civilization, secession, conversation, and gastronomy. I never had secessionist sympathies and never expressed them. I always believed in the North as a people,--discrediting, however, to the utmost the existing northern Government, or, as I should more properly say, the existing northern Cabinet; but nevertheless, with such feelings and such belief, I found myself very happy at Baltimore. Putting aside Boston, which must, I think, be generally preferred by Englishmen to any other city in the States, I should choose Baltimore as my residence if I were called upon to live in America. I am not led to this opinion, if I know myself, solely by the canvas-back ducks; and as to the terrapins, I throw them to the winds. The madeira, which is still kept there with a reverence which I should call superst.i.tious were it not that its free circulation among outside wors.h.i.+ppers prohibits the just use of such a word, may have something to do with it; as may also the beauty of the women,--to some small extent. Trifles do bear upon our happiness in a manner that we do not ourselves understand, and of which we are unconscious. But there was an English look about the streets and houses which I think had as much to do with it as either the wine, the women, or the ducks; and it seemed to me as though the manners of the people of Maryland were more English than those of other Americans. I do not say that they were on this account better. My English hat is, I am well aware, less graceful, and I believe less comfortable, than a Turkish fez and turban; nevertheless I prefer my English hat. New York I regard as the most thoroughly American of all American cities. It is by no means the one in which I should find myself the happiest, but I do not on that account condemn it.

I have said that in returning to Baltimore I found myself among secessionists. In so saying, I intend to speak of a certain set whose influence depends perhaps more on their wealth, position, and education than on their numbers. I do not think that the population of the city was then in favour of secession, even if it had ever been so. I believe that the mob of Baltimore is probably the roughest mob in the States,--is more akin to a Paris mob, and I may, perhaps, also say to a Manchester mob, than that of any other American city. There are more roughs in Baltimore than elsewhere, and the roughs there are rougher. In those early days of secession, when the troops were being first hurried down from New England for the protection of Was.h.i.+ngton, this mob was vehemently opposed to its progress. Men had been taught to think that the rights of the State of Maryland were being invaded by the pa.s.sage of the soldiers; and they also were undoubtedly imbued with a strong prepossession for the southern cause. The two ideas had then gone together. But the mob of Baltimore had ceased to be secessionists within twelve months of their first exploit. In April, 1861, they had refused to allow Ma.s.sachusetts soldiers to pa.s.s through the town on their way to Was.h.i.+ngton; and in February, 1862, they were nailing Union flags on the door-posts of those who refused to display such banners as signs of triumph at the northern victories!

That Maryland can ever go with the South, even in the event of the South succeeding in secession, no Marylander can believe. It is not pretended that there is any struggle now going on with such an object. No such result has been expected, certainly since the possession of Was.h.i.+ngton was secured to the North by the army of the Potomac. By few, I believe, was such a result expected even when Was.h.i.+ngton was insecure. And yet the feeling for secession among a certain cla.s.s in Baltimore is as strong now as ever it was. And it is equally strong in certain districts of the State,--in those districts which are most akin to Virginia in their habits, modes of thought, and ties of friends.h.i.+p. These men, and these women also, pray for the South if they be pious, give their money to the South if they be generous, work for the South if they be industrious, fight for the South if they be young, and talk for the South morning, noon, and night in spite of General Dix and his columbiads on Federal Hill. It is in vain to say that such men and women have no strong feeling on the matter, and that they are praying, working, fighting, and talking under dictation. Their hearts are in it. And judging from them, even though there were no other evidence from which to judge, I have no doubt that a similar feeling is strong through all the seceding States. On this subject the North, I think, deceives itself in supposing that the southern rebellion has been carried on without any strong feeling on the part of the southern people. Whether the mob of Charleston be like the mob of Baltimore I cannot tell; but I have no doubt as to the gentry of Charleston and the gentry of Baltimore being in accord on the subject.

In what way, then, when the question has been settled by the force of arms, will these cla.s.ses find themselves obliged to act? In Virginia and Maryland they comprise, as a rule, the highest and best educated of the people. As to parts of Kentucky the same thing may be said, and probably as to the whole of Tennessee. It must be remembered that this is not as though certain aristocratic families in a few English counties should find themselves divided off from the politics and national aspirations of their countrymen,--as was the case long since with reference to the Roman Catholic adherents of the Stuarts, and as has been the case since then in a lesser degree with the firmest of the old Tories who had allowed themselves to be deceived by Sir Robert Peel. In each of these cases the minority of dissentients was so small that the nation suffered nothing, though individuals were all but robbed of their nationality. But as regards America it must be remembered that each State has in itself a governing power, and is in fact a separate people. Each has its own legislature, and must have its own line of politics.

The secessionists of Maryland and of Virginia may consent to live in obscurity; but if this be so, who is to rule in those States? From whence are to come the senators and the members of Congress; the governors and attorney-generals? From whence is to come the national spirit of the two States, and the salt that shall preserve their political life? I have never believed that these States would succeed in secession. I have always felt that they would be held within the Union, whatever might be their own wishes. But I think that they will be so held in a manner and after a fas.h.i.+on that will render any political vitality almost impossible till a new generation shall have sprung up. In the meantime life goes on pleasantly enough in Baltimore, and ladies meet together, knitting stockings and sewing s.h.i.+rts for the southern soldiers, while the gentlemen talk southern politics and drink the health of the (southern) President in ambiguous terms, as our Cavaliers used to drink the health of the king.

During my second visit to Baltimore I went over to Was.h.i.+ngton for a day or two, and found the capital still under the empire of King Mud.

How the elite of a nation--for the inhabitants of Was.h.i.+ngton consider themselves to be the elite--can consent to live in such a state of thraldom, a foreigner cannot understand. Were I to say that it was intended to be typical of the condition of the government, I might be considered cynical; but undoubtedly the sloughs of despond which were deepest in their despondency were to be found in localities which gave an appearance of truth to such a surmise. The Secretary of State's office in which Mr. Seward was still reigning, though with diminished glory, was divided from the Head-Quarters of the Commander-in-Chief, which are immediately opposite to it, by an opaque river which admitted of no transit. These buildings stand at the corner of President Square, and it had been long understood that any close intercourse between them had not been considered desirable by the occupants of the military side of the causeway. But the Secretary of State's office was altogether unapproachable without a long circuit and begrimed legs. The Secretary-at-War's department was, if possible, in a worse condition. This is situated on the other side of the President's house, and the mud lay, if possible, thicker in this quarter than it did round Mr. Seward's chambers. The pa.s.sage over Pennsylvania Avenue, immediately in front of the War Office, was a thing not to be attempted in those days. Mr. Cameron, it is true, had gone, and Mr. Stanton was installed; but the labour of cleansing the interior of that establishment had hitherto allowed no time for a glance at the exterior dirt, and Mr. Stanton should, perhaps, be held as excused. That the Navy Office should be buried in mud, and quite debarred from approach, was to be expected. The s.p.a.ce immediately in front of Mr. Lincoln's own residence was still kept fairly clean, and I am happy to be able to give testimony to this effect. Long may it remain so. I could not, however, but think that an energetic and careful President would have seen to the removal of the dirt from his own immediate neighbourhood. It was something that his own shoes should remain unpolluted; but the foul mud always clinging to the boots and leggings of those by whom he was daily surrounded must, I should think, have been offensive to him. The entrance to the Treasury was difficult to achieve by those who had not learned by practice the ways of the place; but I must confess that a tolerably clear pa.s.sage was maintained on that side which led immediately down to the halls of Congress. Up at the Capitol the mud was again triumphant in the front of the building; this however was not of great importance, as the legislative chambers of the States are always reached by the back-door. I, on this occasion, attempted to leave the building by the grand entrance, but I soon became entangled among rivers of mud and mazes of s.h.i.+fting sand. With difficulty I recovered my steps, and finding my way back to the building was forced to content myself by an exit among the crowd of senators and representatives who were thronging down the back-stairs.

Of dirt of all kinds it behoves Was.h.i.+ngton and those concerned in Was.h.i.+ngton to make themselves free. It is the Augean stables through which some American Hercules must turn a purifying river before the American people can justly boast either of their capital or of their government. As to the material mud, enough has been said. The presence of the army perhaps caused it, and the excessive quant.i.ty of rain which had fallen may also be taken as a fair plea. But what excuse shall we find for that other dirt? It also had been caused by the presence of the army, and by that long-continued down-pouring of contracts which had fallen like Danae's golden shower into the laps of those who understood how to avail themselves of such heavenly waters. The leaders of the rebellion are hated in the North. The names of Jefferson Davis, of Cobb, Tombes, and Floyd are mentioned with execration by the very children. This has sprung from a true and n.o.ble feeling; from a patriotic love of national greatness and a hatred of those who, for small party purposes, have been willing to lessen the name of the United States. I have reverenced the feeling even when I have not shared it. But, in addition to this, the names of those also should be execrated who have robbed their country when pretending to serve it; who have taken its wages in the days of its great struggle, and at the same time have filched from its coffers; who have undertaken the task of steering the s.h.i.+p through the storm in order that their hands might be deep in the meal-tub and the bread-basket, and that they might stuff their own sacks with the s.h.i.+p's provisions. These are the men who must be loathed by the nation,--whose fate must be held up as a warning to others before good can come! Northern men and women talk of hanging Davis and his accomplices. I myself trust that there will be no hanging when the war is over. I believe there will be none, for the Americans are not a blood-thirsty people. But if punishment of any kind be meted out, the men of the North should understand that they have worse offenders among them than Davis and Floyd.

At the period of which I am now speaking, there had come a change over the spirit of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet. Mr. Seward was still his Secretary of State, but he was, as far as outside observers could judge, no longer his Prime Minister. In the early days of the war, and up to the departure of Mr. Cameron from out of the cabinet, Mr.

Seward had been the Minister of the nation. In his despatches he talks ever of We or of I. In every word of his official writings, of which a large volume has been published, he shows plainly that he intends to be considered as the man of the day,--as the hero who is to bring the States through their difficulties. Mr. Lincoln may be King, but Mr. Seward is Mayor of the Palace and carries the King in his pocket. From the depth of his own wisdom he undertakes to teach his ministers in all parts of the world, not only their duties, but their proper aspiration. He is equally kind to foreign statesmen, and sends to them messages as though from an alt.i.tude which no European politician had ever reached. At home he has affected the Prime Minister in everything, dropping the We and using the I in a manner that has hardly made up by its audacity for its deficiency in discretion. It is of course known everywhere that he had run Mr.

Lincoln very hard for the position of republican candidate for the Presidency. Mr. Lincoln beat him, and Mr. Seward is well aware that in the States a man has never a second chance for the Presidential chair. Hence has arisen his ambition to make for himself a new place in the annals of American politics. Hitherto there has been no Prime Minister known in the Government of the United States. Mr. Seward has attempted a revolution in that matter, and has essayed to fill the situation. For awhile it almost seemed that he was successful. He interfered with the army, and his interferences were endured. He took upon himself the business of the police, and arrested men at his own will and pleasure. The habeas corpus was in his hand, and his name was current through the States as a covering authority for every outrage on the old laws. Sufficient craft, or perhaps cleverness, he possessed to organize a position which should give him a power greater than the power of the President; but he had not the genius which would enable him to hold it. He made foolish prophecies about the war, and talked of the triumphs which he would win. He wrote state papers on matters which he did not understand, and gave himself the airs of diplomatic learning while he showed himself to be sadly ignorant of the very rudiments of diplomacy. He tried to joke as Lord Palmerston jokes, and n.o.body liked his joking. He was greedy after the little appanages of power, taking from others who loved them as well as he did, privileges with which he might have dispensed. And then, lastly, he was successful in nothing. He had given himself out as the commander of the Commander-in-Chief; but then under his command nothing got itself done. For a month or two some men had really believed in Mr. Seward. The policemen of the country had come to have an absolute trust in him, and the underlings of the public offices were beginning to think that he might be a great man.

But then, as is ever the case with such men, there came suddenly a downfall. Mr. Cameron went from the cabinet, and everybody knew that Mr. Seward would be no longer commander of the Commander-in-Chief.

His prime ministers.h.i.+p was gone from him, and he sank down into the comparatively humble position of Minister for Foreign Affairs. His lettres de cachet no longer ran. His pa.s.sport system was repealed.

His prisoners were released. And though it is too much to say that writs of habeas corpus were no longer suspended, the effect and very meaning of the suspension were at once altered. When I first left Was.h.i.+ngton Mr. Seward was the only minister of the cabinet whose name was ever mentioned with reference to any great political measure.

When I returned to Was.h.i.+ngton Mr. Stanton was Mr. Lincoln's leading minister, and, as Secretary-at-War, had practically the management of the army and of the internal police.

I have spoken here of Mr. Seward by name, and in my preceding paragraphs I have alluded with some asperity to the dishonesty of certain men who had obtained political power under Mr. Lincoln and used it for their own dishonest purposes. I trust that I may not be understood as bringing any such charges against Mr. Seward. That such dishonesty has been frightfully prevalent all men know who knew anything of Was.h.i.+ngton during the year 1861. In a former chapter I have alluded to this more at length, stating circ.u.mstances and in some cases giving the names of the persons charged with offences.

Whenever I have done so, I have based my statements on the Van Wyck Report, and the evidence therein given. This is the published report of a Committee appointed by the House of Representatives; and as it has been before the world for some months without refutation, I think that I have a right to presume it to be true.* On no less authority than this would I consider myself justified in bringing any such charge. Of Mr. Seward's incompetency I have heard very much among American politicians; much also of his ambition. With worse offences than these I have not heard him charged.

*I ought perhaps to state that General Fremont has published an answer to the charges preferred against him. That answer refers chiefly to matters of military capacity or incapacity, as to which I have expressed no opinion. General Fremont does allude to the accusations made against him regarding the building of the forts;--but in doing so he seems to me rather to admit than to deny the facts as stated by the Committee.

At the period of which I am writing, February, 1862, the long list of military successes which attended the northern army through the late winter and early spring had commenced. Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, had first been taken, and after that, Fort Donnelson on the c.u.mberland river, also in the State of Tennessee. Price had been driven out of Missouri into Arkansas by General Curtis, acting under General Halleck's orders. The chief body of the Confederate army in the West had abandoned the fortified position which they had long held at Bowling Green, in the south-western district of Kentucky.

Roanoke Island, on the coast of North Carolina, had been taken by General Burnside's expedition, and a belief had begun to manifest itself in Was.h.i.+ngton that the army of the Potomac was really about to advance. It is impossible to explain in what way the renewed confidence of the northern party showed itself, or how one learned that the hopes of the secessionists were waxing dim; but it was so; and even a stranger became aware of the general feeling as clearly as though it were a defined and established fact. In the early part of the winter, when I reached Was.h.i.+ngton, the feeling ran all the other way. Northern men did not say that they were despondent; they did not with spoken words express diffidence as to their success; but their looks betrayed diffidence, and the moderation of their self-a.s.surance almost amounted to despondency. In the capital the parties were very much divided. The old inhabitants were either secessionists or influenced by "secession proclivities," as the word went; but the men of the government and of the two houses of Congress were, with a few exceptions, of course northern. It should be understood that these parties were at variance with each other on almost every point as to which men can disagree. In our civil war it may be presumed that all Englishmen were at any rate anxious for England. They desired and fought for different modes of government; but each party was equally English in its ambition. In the States there is the hatred of a different nationality added to the rancour of different politics.

The Southerners desire to be a people of themselves,--to divide themselves by every possible mark of division from New England; to be as little akin to New York as they are to London,--or if possible less so. Their habits, they say, are different; their education, their beliefs, their propensities, their very virtues and vices are not the education, or the beliefs, or the propensities, or the virtues and vices of the North. The bond that ties them to the North is to them a Mezentian marriage, and they hate their northern spouses with a Mezentian hatred. They would be anything sooner than citizens of the United States. They see to what Mexico has come, and the republics of Central America; but the prospect of even that degradation is less bitter to them than a share in the glory of the stars and stripes. Better, with them, to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven! It is not only in politics that they will be beaten, if they be beaten,--as one party with us may be beaten by another; but they will be beaten as we should be beaten if France annexed us, and directed that we should live under French rule. Let an Englishman digest and realize that idea, and he will comprehend the feelings of a southern gentleman as he contemplates the probability that his State will be brought back into the Union. And the northern feeling is as strong. The northern man has founded his national ambition on the territorial greatness of his nation. He has panted for new lands, and for still extended boundaries. The western world has opened her arms to him, and has seemed to welcome him as her only lord. British America has tempted him towards the north, and Mexico has been as a prey to him on the south. He has made maps of his empire, including all the continent, and has preached the Monroe doctrine as though it had been decreed by the G.o.ds. He has told the world of his increasing millions, and has never yet known his store to diminish. He has pawed in the valley, and rejoiced in his strength. He has said among the trumpets, Ha, ha! He has boasted aloud in his pride, and called on all men to look at his glory. And now shall he be divided and shorn?

Shall he be hemmed in from his ocean and shut off from his rivers?

Shall he have a hook run into his nostrils, and a thorn driven into his jaw? Shall men say that his day is over, when he has hardly yet tasted the full cup of his success? Has his young life been a dream, and not a truth? Shall he never reach that giant manhood which the growth of his boyish years has promised him? If the South goes from him, he will be divided, shorn, and hemmed in. The hook will have pierced his nose, and the thorn will fester in his jaw. Men will taunt him with his former boastings, and he will awake to find himself but a mortal among mortals.

Such is the light in which the struggle is regarded by the two parties, and such the hopes and feelings which have been engendered.

It may therefore be surmised with what amount of neighbourly love secessionist and northern neighbours regarded each other in such towns as Baltimore and Was.h.i.+ngton. Of course there was hatred of the deepest dye; of course there were muttered curses, or curses which sometimes were not simply muttered. Of course there were wretchedness, heart-burnings, and fearful divisions in families.

That, perhaps, was the worst of all. The daughter's husband would be in the northern ranks, while the son was fighting in the South; or two sons would hold equal rank in the two armies, sometimes sending to each other frightful threats of personal vengeance. Old friends would meet each other in the street, pa.s.sing without speaking; or, worse still, would utter words of insult for which payment is to be demanded when a southern gentleman may again be allowed to quarrel in his own defence.

And yet society went on. Women still smiled, and men were happy to whom such smiles were given. Cakes and ale were going and ginger was still hot in the mouth. When many were together no words of unhappiness were heard. It was at those small meetings of two or three that women would weep instead of smiling, and that men would run their hands through their hair and sit in silence, thinking of their ruined hopes and divided children.

I have spoken of southern hopes and northern fears, and have endeavoured to explain the feelings of each party. For myself I think that the Southerners have been wrong in their hopes, and that those of the North have been wrong in their fears. It is not better to rule in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven. Of course a southern gentleman will not admit the premises which are here by me taken for granted. The h.e.l.l to which I allude is, the sad position of a low and debased nation.

Such, I think, will be the fate of the Gulf States, if they succeed in obtaining secession,--of a low and debased nation, or, worse still, of many low and debased nations. They will have lost their cotton monopoly by the compet.i.tion created during the period of the war, and will have no material of greatness on which either to found themselves or to flourish. That they had much to bear when linked with the North, much to endure on account of that slavery from which it was all but impossible that they should disentangle themselves, may probably be true. But so have all political parties among all free nations much to bear from political opponents, and yet other free nations do not go to pieces. Had it been possible that the slave-owners and slave properties should have been scattered in parts through all the States and not congregated in the South, the slave party would have maintained itself as other parties do; but in such case, as a matter of course, it would not have thought of secession.

It has been the close vicinity of slave-owners to each other, the fact that their lands have been coterminous, that theirs was especially a cotton district, which has tempted them to secession.

They have been tempted to secession, and will, as I think, still achieve it in those Gulf States,--much to their misfortune.

And the fears of the North are, I think, equally wrong. That they will be deceived as to that Monroe doctrine is no doubt more than probable. That ambition for an entire continent under one rule will not, I should say, be gratified. But not on that account need the nation be less great, or its civilization less extensive. That hook in its nose and that thorn in its jaw will, after all, be but a hook of the imagination and an ideal thorn. Do not all great men suffer such ere their greatness be established and acknowledged? There is scope enough for all that manhood can do between the Atlantic and the Pacific, even though those hot, swampy cotton-fields be taken away; even though the snows of the British provinces be denied to them. And as for those rivers and that sea-board, the Americans of the North will have lost much of their old energy and usual force of will, if any southern Confederacy be allowed to deny their right of way or to stop their commercial enterprises. I believe that the South will be badly off without the North; but I feel certain that the North will never miss the South when once the wounds to her pride have been closed.

From Was.h.i.+ngton I journeyed back to Boston through the cities which I had visited in coming thither, and stayed again on my route for a few days at Baltimore, at Philadelphia, and at New York. At each town there were those whom I now regarded almost as old friends, and as the time of my departure drew near I felt a sorrow that I was not to be allowed to stay longer. As the general result of my sojourn in the country, I must declare that I was always happy and comfortable in the eastern cities, and generally unhappy and uncomfortable in the West. I had previously been inclined to think that I should like the roughness of the West, and that in the East I should encounter an arrogance which would have kept me always on the verge of hot water; but in both these surmises I found myself to have been wrong. And I think that most English travellers would come to the same conclusion.

The western people do not mean to be harsh or uncivil, but they do not make themselves pleasant. In all the eastern cities,--I speak of the eastern cities north of Was.h.i.+ngton,--a society may be found which must be esteemed as agreeable by Englishmen who like clever genial men, and who love clever pretty women.

I was forced to pa.s.s twice again over the road between New York and Boston, as the packet by which I intended to leave America was fixed to sail from the former port. I had promised myself, and had promised others, that I would spend in Boston the last week of my sojourn in the States, and this was a promise which I was by no means inclined to break. If there be a gratification in this world which has no alloy, it is that of going to an a.s.sured welcome. The belief that men's arms and hearts are open to receive one,--and the arms and hearts of women, too, as far as they allow themselves to open them,--is the salt of the earth, the sole remedy against sea-sickness, the only cure for the tedium of railways, the one preservative amidst all the miseries and fatigue of travel. These matters are private, and should hardly be told of in a book; but in writing of the States, I should not do justice to my own convictions of the country if I did not say how pleasantly social intercourse there will ripen into friends.h.i.+p, and how full of love that friends.h.i.+p may become. I became enamoured of Boston at last. Beacon Street was very pleasant to me, and the view over Boston Common was dear to my eyes. Even the State House, with its great yellow-painted dome, became sightly; and the sunset over the western waters that encompa.s.s the city beats all other sunsets that I have seen.

During my last week there the world of Boston was moving itself on sleighs. There was not a wheel to be seen in the town. The omnibuses and public carriages had been dismounted from their axles and put themselves upon snow runners, and the private world had taken out its winter carriages, and wrapped itself up in buffalo robes. Men now spoke of the coming thaw as of a misfortune which must come, but which a kind Providence might perhaps postpone,--as we all, in short, speak of death. In the morning the snow would have been hardened by the night's frost, and men would look happy and contented. By an hour after noon the streets would be all wet, and the ground would be slushy and men would look gloomy and speak of speedy dissolution.

There were those who would always prophesy that the next day would see the snow converted into one dull, dingy river. Such I regarded as seers of tribulation, and endeavoured with all my mind to disbelieve their interpretations of the signs. That sleighing was excellent fun.

For myself I must own that I hardly saw the best of it at Boston, for the coming of the end was already at hand when I arrived there, and the fresh beauty of the hard snow was gone. Moreover when I essayed to show my prowess with a pair of horses on the established course for such equipages, the beasts ran away, knowing that I was not practised in the use of snow chariots, and brought me to grief and shame. There was a lady with me on the sleigh whom, for a while, I felt that I was doomed to consign to a snowy grave,--whom I would willingly have overturned into a drift of snow, so as to avoid worse consequences, had I only known how to do so. But Providence, even though without curbs and a.s.sisted only by simple snaffles, did at last prevail; and I brought the sleigh, horses, and lady alive back to Boston, whether with or without permanent injury I have never yet ascertained.

At last the day of tribulation came, and the snow was picked up and carted out of Boston. Gangs of men, standing shoulder to shoulder, were at work along the chief streets, picking, shovelling, and disposing of the dirty blocks. Even then the snow seemed to be nearly a foot thick; but it was dirty, rough, half-melted in some places, though hard as stone in others. The labour and cost of cleansing the city in this way must be very great. The people were at it as I left, and I felt that the day of tribulation had in truth come.

Farewell to thee, thou western Athens! When I have forgotten thee my right hand shall have forgotten its cunning, and my heart forgotten its pulses. Let us look at the list of names with which Boston has honoured itself in our days, and then ask what other town of the same size has done more. Prescott, Bancroft, Motley, Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Dana, Aga.s.siz, Holmes, Hawthorne! Who is there among us in England who has not been the better for these men? Who does not owe to some of them a debt of grat.i.tude? In whose ears is not their names familiar? It is a bright galaxy and far extended, for so small a city. What city has done better than this? All these men, save one, are now alive and in the full possession of their powers. What other town of the same size has done as well in the same short s.p.a.ce of time? It may be that this is the Augustan aera of Boston,--its Elizabethan time. If so, I am thankful that my steps have wandered thither at such a period.

While I was at Boston I had the sad privilege of attending the funeral of President Felton, the head of Harvard College. A few months before I had seen him a strong man, apparently in perfect health and in the pride of life. When I reached Boston, I heard of his death. He also was an accomplished scholar, and as a Grecian has left few behind him who were his equals. At his installation as President, four ex-Presidents of Harvard College a.s.sisted. Whether they were all present at his funeral I do not know, but I do know that they were all still living. These are Mr. Quincy, who is now over ninety; Mr. Sparks; Mr. Everett, the well-known orator; and Mr.

Walker. They all reside in Boston or its neighbourhood, and will probably all a.s.sist at the installation of another President.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

It is, I presume, universally known that the citizens of the Western American colonies of Great Britain which revolted, declared themselves to be free from British dominion by an Act which they called the Declaration of Independence. This was done on the 4th of July, 1776, and was signed by delegates from the thirteen colonies, or States as they then called themselves. These delegates in this doc.u.ment declare themselves to be the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress a.s.sembled. The opening and close of this declaration have in them much that is grand and striking; the greater part of it, however, is given up to enumerating, in paragraph after paragraph, the sins committed by George III. against the colonies. Poor George III.! There is no one now to say a good word for him; but of all those who have spoken ill of him, this declaration is the loudest in its censure.

In the following year, on the 15th November, 1777, were drawn up the Articles of Confederation between the States, by which it was then intended that a sufficient bond and compact should be made for their future joint existence and preservation. A reference to this doc.u.ment, which, together with the Declaration of Independence and the subsequently framed Const.i.tution of the United States, is given in the Appendix, will show how slight was the then intended bond of union between the States. The second article declares that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence. The third article avows that "the said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friends.h.i.+p with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to a.s.sist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon, them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretext whatever." And the third article, "the better to secure and perpetuate mutual friends.h.i.+p,"

declares that the free citizens of one State shall be free citizens of another. From this it is, I think, manifest that no idea of one united nation had at that time been received and adopted by the citizens of the States. The articles then go on to define the way in which Congress shall a.s.semble and what shall be its powers. This Congress was to exercise the authority of a national Government rather than perform the work of a national Parliament. It was intended to be executive rather than legislative. It was to consist of delegates, the very number of which within certain limits was to be left to the option of the individual States, and to this Congress was to be confided certain duties and privileges, which could not be performed or exercised separately by the Governments of the individual States. One special article, the eleventh, enjoins that "Canada, acceding to the Confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into and ent.i.tled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same unless such admission be agreed to by nine States." I mention this to show how strong was the expectation at that time that Canada also would revolt from England. Up to this day few Americans can understand why Canada has declined to join her lot to them.

But the compact between the different States made by the Articles of Confederation, and the mode of national procedure therein enjoined, were found to be inefficient for the wants of a people who to be great must be united in fact as well as in name. The theory of the most democratic among the Americans of that day was in favour of self-government carried to an extreme. Self-government was the Utopia which they had determined to realize, and they were unwilling to diminish the reality of the self-government of the individual States by any centralization of power in one head, or in one Parliament, or in one set of ministers for the nation. For ten years, from 1777 to 1787, the attempt was made; but then it was found that a stronger bond of nationality was indispensable, if any national greatness was to be regarded as desirable. Indeed, all manner of failure had attended the mode of national action ordained by the Articles of Confederation. I am not attempting to write a history of the United States, and will not therefore trouble my readers with historic details, which are not of value unless put forward with historic weight. The fact of the failure is however admitted, and the present written const.i.tution of the United States, which is the splendid result of that failure, was "Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present."* Twelve States were present,--Rhode Island apparently having had no representative on the occasion,--on the 17th September, 1787, and in the twelfth year of the Independence of the United States.

*It must not, however, be supposed that by this "doing in convention," the const.i.tution became an accepted fact. It simply amounted to the adoption of a proposal of the const.i.tution.

The const.i.tution itself was formally adopted by the people in conventions held in their separate State capitals. It was agreed to by the people in 1788, and came into operation in 1789.

I call the result splendid, seeing that under this const.i.tution so written a nation has existed for three quarters of a century and has grown in numbers, power, and wealth till it has made itself the political equal of the other greatest nations of the earth. And it cannot be said that it has so grown in spite of the const.i.tution, or by ignoring the const.i.tution. Hitherto the laws there laid down for the national guidance have been found adequate for the great purpose a.s.signed to them, and have done all that which the framers of them hoped that they might effect. We all know what has been the fate of the const.i.tutions which were written throughout the French revolution for the use of France. We all, here in England, have the same ludicrous conception of Utopian theories of government framed by philosophical individuals who imagine that they have learned from books a perfect system of managing nations. To produce such theories is especially the part of a Frenchman; to disbelieve in them is especially the part of an Englishman. But in the States a system of government has been produced, under a written const.i.tution, in which no Englishman can disbelieve, and which every Frenchman must envy.

It has done its work. The people have been free, well-educated, and politically great. Those among us who are most inclined at the present moment to declare that the inst.i.tutions of the United States have failed, can at any rate only declare that they have failed in their finality; that they have shown themselves to be insufficient to carry on the nation in its advancing strides through all times. They cannot deny that an amount of success and prosperity, much greater than the nation even expected for itself, has been achieved under this const.i.tution and in connection with it. If it be so they cannot disbelieve in it. Let those who now say that it is insufficient, consider what their prophecies regarding it would have been had they been called on to express their opinions concerning it when it was proposed in 1787. If the future as it has since come forth had then been foretold for it, would not such a prophecy have been a prophecy of success? That const.i.tution is now at the period of its hardest trial, and at this moment one may hardly dare to speak of it with triumph; but looking at the nation even in its present position, I think I am justified in saying that its const.i.tution is one in which no Englishman can disbelieve. When I also say that it is one which every Frenchman must envy, perhaps I am improperly presuming that Frenchmen could not look at it with Englishmen's eyes.

When the const.i.tution came to be written, a man had arisen in the States who was peculiarly suited for the work in hand; he was one of those men to whom the world owes much, and of whom the world in general knows but little. This was Alexander Hamilton, who alone on the part of the great State of New York signed the const.i.tution of the United States. The other States sent two, three, four, or more delegates; New York sent Hamilton alone; but in sending him New York sent more to the const.i.tution than all the other States together. I should be hardly saying too much for Hamilton if I were to declare that all those parts of the const.i.tution emanated from him in which permanent political strength has abided. And yet his name has not been spread abroad widely in men's mouths. Of Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison, we have all heard; our children speak of them and they are household words in the nursery of history. Of Hamilton however it may, I believe, be said that he was greater than any of those.

Without going with minuteness into the early contests of democracy in the United States, I think I may say that there soon arose two parties, each probably equally anxious in the cause of freedom, one of which was conspicuous for its French predilections, and the other for its English apt.i.tudes. It was the period of the French revolution,--the time when the French revolution had in it as yet something of promise, and had not utterly disgraced itself. To many in America the French theory of democracy not unnaturally endeared itself, and foremost among these was Thomas Jefferson. He was the father of those politicians in the States who have since taken the name of democrats, and in accordance with whose theory it has come to pa.s.s that everything has been referred to the universal suffrage of the people. James Madison, who succeeded Jefferson as President, was a pupil in this school, as indeed have been most of the Presidents of the United States. At the head of the other party, from which through various denominations have sprung those who now call themselves republicans, was Alexander Hamilton. I believe I may say that all the political sympathies of George Was.h.i.+ngton were with the same school.

Was.h.i.+ngton, however, was rather a man of feeling and of action, than of theoretical policy or speculative opinion. When the const.i.tution was written, Jefferson was in France, having been sent thither as minister from the United States, and he therefore was debarred from concerning himself personally in the matter. His views, however, were represented by Madison, and it is now generally understood that the Const.i.tution, as it stands, is the joint work of Madison and Hamilton.* The democratic bias, of which it necessarily contains much, and without which it could not have obtained the consent of the people, was furnished by Madison; but the conservative elements, of which it possesses much more than superficial observers of the American form of government are wont to believe, came from Hamilton.

*It should, perhaps, be explained that the views of Madison were originally not opposed to those of Hamilton. Madison, however, gradually adopted the policy of Jefferson,--his policy rather than his philosophy.