what to do. I've the feelings of a father; but you can't live on them. Let us travel."

The buck walked away: the little one toddled after him. They disappeared in the forest.

AMERICAN POSSIBILITIES.

[The Finer Issues of American Life.-From "The Southern Collegian." 1888.]

IT

T has lately been my fortune to travel over considerable portions of the United States. I cannot tell you how my conception of the extent, the variety, the resources, the power of the country has been enlarged. The kindling vision I have of its magnitude and possibilities, of pride in it, might seem to you the language of extravagance. But what has impressed me more than the magnitude and the almost infinite resources, and what has given me the most glowing hopes for the future of the republic is the diversity, the individuality of towns, cities, States, the independent life and sui generis development of each and all, the local public spirit, the local public pride, the belief of every citizen that his city is the handsomest, his State the best; in short, a pride in his State as, for one reason or another, the most important in the Federal Union. There is not only diversity of climate, of production, but of character, of manners, a free development of life in all conditions, and always some variety in the working out of principles common to all States in each State government; in its institutions of education, of charity, of amusement, of social life. This variety is the charm of America; in this variety is its safety. As to all the rest of the world, says the citizen, there is the federal capitol; as to the other States of the Union, here is my State capitol! This State pride is as strong and assertive in the smallest State as in the largest, in the newest-born as in any of the original thirteen; as active and as boastful in the new territory as in the State-it declares itself as something definite in the fresh settlement as soon as the tents are pitched and the horses coralled, and it is full-blown while yet the capital is on wheels. Since I have seen and comprehended this almost extravagant State appreciation, I have seen where resides the certain check to the inconsiderate spirit of federal centralization. It is simply wondrous how this local spirit plants itself everywhere with the spreading republic, each new community crystallizing itself at once as if it had the traditions of a century, and that it does not weaken, while at the same time the national spirit grows stronger and more assertive. It is a vast territory which we occupy, and it may be still extended; if a spirit of centralization prevailed it would drop to pieces

of its own weight; with State autonomy fully and stoutly maintained, with an opportunity for local ambition and the freest local development, it has every calculable chance of permanence.

If the human race ever had a chance to come to something fine and noble it is here in America, where development is so free, so little hindered, and where State communities have had opportunity to evolve so freely their peculiar character. Something fine, I say, ought to be expected in the mingling of so many races-great races-differing in fibre and in temperament, some superior outcome in music, painting, sculpture, literature, in a clearer philosophy of life, in a better conception of what man should be. Of course this will not come about quite the reverse will come about-if the university is not considered as important as the factory, and the ability to appreciate the best piece of literature is not rated so highly as the smartness which can run a ward caucus or make money by adroit means. The Brooklyn bridge impresses one as almost as much a wonder as the Great Pyramid, yet neither is as valua ble to the world as the Iliad. Socrates would probably stand in a maze in Chicago to see seven pigs killed in a minute, but doubtless he would put a few questions as to the great progress in civilization which would make this achievement seem small compared with the writing of the Antigone.

It is a hard struggle to keep up the intellectual life when material forces are so strong and human nature so readily believes that self-indulgence is happiness; but it is not a hopeless struggle, for after all it is a matter of individual choosing-it is left to every one to decide whether he will cultivate the intellectual side in his effort to make a place for himself in the world.

I have sometimes fancied that I could invent a rule by which we can secure most easily that which we all desire, namely contentment. It is a clear delusion to suppose we can attain it by endeavoring to get everything within our reach. If we obtain a thousand dollars, we certainly want another thousand; if we get a million, the necessity is just as imperative to get another million; if we add a piece of land to our possessions, we must add another piece; there is no end to the land we want. I suppose a person never, yet, was satisfied with getting. There is absolutely no limit in that direction. Do you say it is the same with knowledge, with self-cultivation, as it is with property? Very true, but one pursuit enlarges the man, the other materializes him. And since contentment is not to be had by getting, suppose we try to attain it from the other side, by limiting our wants and our desires. It is certainly the easier way, even if only happiness is our object. I cannot imagine a man happy with the inordinate hunger of possession. I can imagine him fairly happy, relieved from this strain, with limited desires, in a life

that delights in intellectual pursuits, and enjoys, without envy, books, friendship, the love and companionship of good women, nature-which never denies itself to the humblest-and his fair share of a citizen's responsibilities. Given contentment as the goal, the man, I am sure, would reach it more certainly in this way than if he let his desire of acquisition of material things rule him. And, then, consider what a State of men and women you would have if this spirit predominated, and not the greed of possession.

Is this Utopian talk, even for a scholar's holiday? It seems to me the most practical kind of talk, unless it is true that the body is more real than the mind, and matter more real than the things of the spirit. There is a great deal of vague talk about progress, about civilization. It is a natural ambition to want to contribute to the one and to advance the other. But I fancy that the most good a man can do for the world is to be good himself, and his greatest contribution to civilization will be to civilize himself. And in saying this I am not making any vague or impossible condition.

EQU

James Gillespie Blaine.

BORN in West Brownsville, Penn., 1830.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND RECONSTRUCTION.

[Twenty Years of Congress. 1884-86.]

QUIPPED with these rare endowments, it is not strange that Mr. Seward made a deep impression upon the mind of the President. In conflicts of opinion the superior mind, the subtle address, the fixed purpose, the gentle yet strong will, must in the end prevail. Mr. Seward gave to the President the most luminous exposition of his own views, warm, generous, patriotic in tone. He set before him the glory of an Administration which should completely reëstablish the union of the States, and reunite the hearts of the people, now estranged by civil conflict. He impressed him with the danger of delay to the Republic and with the discredit which would attach to himself if he should leave to another President the grateful task of reconciliation. He pictured to him the National Constellation no longer obscured but with every star in its orbit, all revolving in harmony, and once more shining with a brilliancy undimmed by the smallest cloud in the political heavens.

By his arguments and by his eloquence Mr. Seward completely captivated the President. He effectually persuaded him that a policy of

anger and hate and vengeance could lead only to evil results that the one supreme demand of the country was confidence and repose; that the ends of justice could be reached by methods and measures altogether consistent with mercy. The President was gradually influenced by Mr. Seward's arguments, though their whole tenor was against his strongest predilections and against his pronounced and public committals to a policy directly the reverse of that to which he was now, almost imperceptibly to himself, yielding assent. The man who had in April avowed himself in favor of "the halter for intelligent, influential traitors," who passionately declared during the interval between the fall of Richmond. and the death of Mr. Lincoln that "traitors should be arrested, tried, convicted and hanged," was now about to proclaim a policy of reconstruction without attempting the indictment of even one traitor, or issuing a warrant for the arrest of a single participant in the Rebellion aside from those suspected of personal crime in connection with the noted conspiracy of assassination.

In this serious struggle with the President, Mr. Seward's influence was supplemented and enhanced by the timely and artful interposition of clever men from the South. A large class in that section quickly perceived the amelioration of the President's feelings, and they used every judicious effort to forward and develop it. They were ready to forget all the hard words of Johnson, and to forgive all his harsh acts, for the great end to be gained to their States and their people by turning him aside from his proclaimed policy of punishing a great number of rebels with the utmost severity of the law. Johnson's wrath was evidently appeased by the complaisance shown by leading men of the South. He was not especially open to flattery, but it was noticed that words of commendation from his native section seemed peculiarly pleasing to him.

The tendency of his mind under such influences was perhaps not unnatural. It is the common instinct of mankind to covet in an especial degree the good will of those among whom the years of childhood and boyhood are spent. Applause from old friends and neighbors is the most grateful that ever reaches human ears. When Washington's renown filled two continents, he was still sensitive respecting his popu larity among the freeholders of Virginia. When Bonaparte had kingdoms and empires at his feet, he was jealous of his fame with the untamed spirits of Corsica, where among the veterans of Paoli he had received the fiery inspiration of war. The boundless admiration and gratitude of America never compensated Lafayette for the failure of his career in France. This instinct had its full sway over Johnson. It was not in the order of nature that he should esteem his popularity among Northern men, to whom he was a stranger, as highly as he would esteem it among the men of the South, with whom he had been associated dur

ing the whole of his career. In that section he was born. There he had acquired the fame which brought him national honors, and after his public service should end he looked forward to a peaceful close of life in the beautiful land which had always been his home.

Still another influence wrought powerfully on the President's mind. He had inherited poverty in a community where during the slave system riches were especially envied and honored. He had been reared in the lower walks of life among a people peculiarly given to arbitrary social distinctions and to aristocratic pretensions as positive and tenacious as they were often ill-founded and unsubstantial. From the ranks of the rich and the aristocratic in the South, Johnson had always been excluded. Even when he was governor of his State, or a senator of the United States, he found himself socially inferior to many whom he excelled in intellect and character. His sentiments were regarded as hostile to slavery, and to be hostile to slavery was to fall inevitably under the ban in any part of the South for the fifty years preceding the His political strength was with the non-slave-holding white population of Tennessee which was vastly larger than the slave-holding popu lation, the proportion indeed being twenty-seven to one. With these a "good fellow" ranked all the higher for not possessing the graces or, as they would term them, the "airs" of society.

war.

As Mr. Johnson grew in public favor and increased in reputation, as his talents were admitted and his power in debate appreciated, he became eager to compel recognition from those who had successfully proscribed him. A man who is born to social equality with the best of his community, and accustomed in his earlier years to its enjoyment, does not feel the sting of attempted exclusion, but is rather made pleasantly conscious of the prestige which inspires the adverse effort, and can look upon its bitterness in a spirit of lofty disdain. Wendell Phillips, descended from a long line of distinguished ancestry, was amused rather than disconcerted by the strenuous but futile attempts to ostracize him for the maintenance of opinions which he lived to see his native city adopt and enforce. But the feeling is far different in a man who has experienced only a galling sense of inferiority. To such a one, advancing either in fortune or in fame, social prominence seems a necessity, without which other gifts constitute only the aggravations of life.

of

It was therefore with a sense of exaltation that Johnson beheld as applicants for his consideration and supplicants for his mercy, many those in the South who had never recognized him as a social equal. A mind of true loftiness would not have been swayed by such a change of relative positions, but it was inevitable that a mind of Johnson's type, which if not ignoble was certainly not noble, should yield to its flattering and seductive influence. In the present attitude of the leading men