with confidence of victory, we await its result with a buoyant hope that the day and the hour of redemption have come."

The next morning's tidings were of defeat. The states on which the result hung-Pennsylvania and Indianahad voted for Buchanan. New England was solid for freedom; New York gave its vote to Fremont; so did Illinois and most of the states of the great West. Massachusetts had given Fremont a majority of two to one over both his opponents. But the next national administration was to be Democratic.

(The Republican in the same issue that told the first sharp news of the defeat thus addressed itself to the future:

"The sturdy hickory sapling, bent to the ground by the incumbent snows, snaps back to its thrifty altitude when the jar of a passing host removes the load. So the great party of freedom, pressed down and chilled beneath the accumulations of defeat, with firm roots and well-knit fibers, springs backward, as the great results of the election sweep by. It has taken its position for 1860,- stronger to-day than ever before."

Governor Gardner's reëlection was a matter of course : he fell about 13,000 behind Fremont's vote. The tenth district sent back Dr. Chaffee by 6000 majority; and in the eleventh, Mr. Dawes was nearly 3000 votes ahead of each of his rivals.

The Republican (November 8) laid stress on the power and responsibility of the Republican party, in its capacity of a minority in the government; and thus enforced one lesson of the defeat.

"We are beaten by the ignorance of the people. The excellent common-school systems of the New England states and New York have given those states to Fremont. In every section of those states where a great mass of ignorance existed,

the votes showed that Buchanan was in advance. Pennsylvania, with no common-school system worthy of the name, New Jersey, notoriously behind the times in all matters pertaining to popular education, Indiana, with its large settlements from the South of individuals to whom common schools are entire strangers, these have gone for Buchanan. The public mind is thoroughly to be educated, the public heart to be Christianized, before they yield to the claims of justice and right, and before they will comprehend and rationally and conscientiously decide upon the issues before them."

VOL. I.-11

a

letter to

the

T

CHAPTER XVI.

LETTERS: 1851-1856.

HIS chapter might have its title in the form of a ti the form of a stage direction: "Enter Sam Bowles." For in this he first speaks freely and at length in his own person. In selecting these letters, the aim has been to show him in his every-day guise, just as he appeared to his friends. Some of the letters are slight and even trivial in their contents, they are given as the best practicable representation of the lighter moods, which have perhaps as much of human interest as the hours of graver cares and conflicts.

To Charles Allen, of Greenfield.

SPRINGFIELD, June 10, 1851. Were you ever in love, fortune favoring, smiles a plenty, and everything considered sure, when to the one great question of life you got an unexpected and bewildering no? Or, as this is hardly a supposable case with so fresh and buoyant a young gentleman, did you ever get a shower-bath when you least of all expected it and were least of all prepared for it?

If so, if either, but especially the first, you may perhaps "phansy my pheelinks." I am dished, can't go a fishing,-must stay at home,- disappoint myself, disappoint my friends, and a' that. Well, it's always so. I'm the poor victim of the accidents and incidents of a daily newspaper. This morning our pressman broke down, the foreman must take his place,

and I must stay to make up deficiencies and drill all hands. Besides, I am wounded in my own household. My wife's Irish girl, who takes care of the baby, took it into her head, as Irish girls will, to take herself off last night, and in pursuance of the love-honor-and-obey contract, I ought to help my wife out of the scrape. Moreover,- but I won't rehearse the long-drawn tale of sorrows,-" the sorrows of Werther" were no touch to them. Suffice it, that misfortunes never come singly, and I'm their victim. I don't care for myself, for I fancy that ten years of this galley-slave's life has used me to disappointment and self-denial of this kind, but you, whom I have troubled, bothered, and promised so much,-bah, I couldn't look you in the face. I feel mean, and like vowing as I have a hundred times already in my editorial life that I never will attempt to go away again, or make an engagement to go away, for I am sure to have something turn up and disappoint myself and my friends.

Now forget me and all my promises,-go off and catch your fish, and don't ever invite me to come to Greenfield again, or if you do, don't believe me when I tell you I'll come. It's no use. Thy provoked and ashamed friend,

SAM'L BOWLES, Jr.

May 19, 1852.

Have you any recollection of one Bowles? If so, give me some evidence of it. Burnish up your memory, and when found make a note of him for the benefit of future generations.

Are you dead or in love? Here I've been sick these five weeks, here and in Brooklyn, and I have not had the first word of condolence, nor the first trout of sympathy, from you. Why, man, where's your humanity? You would not treat a nigger so bad, especially if he was a voter in Franklin county. Come and see me, write me, blow me up, traduce me, insult me, review me à la Eugene Batchelder, anything in short-but don't forget me.

Rode out to-day for the first time since my relapse into the Slough of Despond. Getting better slow, but I trust sure. Am as weak as the mother of six new kittens, and am

Yours truly.

November 20, 1854.

You seem to have a somewhat similar idea of the use of newspapers to that one of the old fathers had of language. He said it was an invention to conceal thought. You think newspapers machines to suppress information. You tell me lots of good news, and then put on the stopper with "don't you print!" So I hold in, and have the satisfaction of seeing the news trotted out in Boston, Greenfield, and all along shore, and of hearing it talked about in great detail by my friends, who wonder at the stupidity of the Republican in not printing. Thanks to Chapman and my imagination,* I have done, I hope, partial justice to your Know-nothing row, but not until it was old news-confound you.

February 22, 1855.

I would not on any account abridge the freedom with which you may be pleased to write me privately, and I will not hereafter use any of your private correspondence for the benefit of the world at large, except by your expressly obtained permission.

Judge Loring's removal I look upon as a decided piece of conservative legislation. If it be not done, the advocates of an elective judiciary for short terms will double instanter in Massachusetts, and our judiciary will be placed where every passing popular breeze can reach them, which I would deprecate as much as you. Nor can I admit the distinction you make between morals and law. It seems to me that they possess intimate connection and dependency; that every law, in a country like ours, can really be no law, certainly no wise or useful law, unless grounded in the moral convictions of the people. The laws of the country are the mere exponents of the virtue and morality of its people. That is a phase of the question which I would like to discuss.

* The phrase "thanks to my imagination" may perhaps refer to an occasional practice of Mr. Bowles when he did not feel at liberty to relate as fact what had been communicated to him, yet wanted to give the public an inkling of it, and would write "We surmise," "we imagine," or "we predict" that so-and-so is the case.