To the Editors of the ATLANTIC MONTHLY. Jaalam, 24h Dec, 1862. RESPECTED SIRS, - The infirm state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus ardet magis uritur. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of vague and hopeful vaticination: fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio. Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one, quum vix justus sit securus,· -so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of the other. I confess, I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation to know that Nature is old and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The one lies before them like a placid evening landscape; the other is full of the vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet hæc illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stand till my days were numbered. Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars, the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and purpose diverted from their true object,— the maintenance of the idea of Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with democratical fickleness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an aristocratical class. Stet pro ratione voluntas is as dangerous in a majority as in a tyrant. I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views, more pardonable in the poet than the philosopher. While I agree with him that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and even rights, no society would be possible. In medio tutissimus. For my own part, I would gladly EF I a song or two could make, Like rockets druv by their own burnin', Men's hearts an' faces skyward turnin'!— But, it strikes me, 't ain't jest the time Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep, Their lids down on 'em with Fort Warren. 'Bout long enough it 's ben discussed Who sot the magazine afire, An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust, 'T would scare us more or blow us higher. D'ye s'pose the Gret Foreseer's plan Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin'? Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be A rugged chap agin an' hearty, Nut wut 'll boost up ary party. It 's war we 're in, not politics; It 's systems wrastlin' now, not parties; An' victory in the eend 'll fix Where longest will an' truest heart is. An' wut 's the Guv'ment folks about? Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin', An' look ez though they did n't doubt Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act When they wuz madder than all Bashan. Conciliate? it jest means be kicked, No metter how they phrase an' tone it; A war on tick 's ez dear 'z the deuce, Ef green-backs ain't nut jest the cheese, Like them put out by Gov'nor Seymour. Last year, the Nation, at a word, When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her, Flamed weldin' into one keen sword Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder : More men? More Man! It's there we fail; When it's the head 's in need o' strengthenin'? We wanted one thet felt all Chief From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief In him an' us, ef earth went rockin'! Ole Hick'ry would n't ha' stood see-saw He 'd smashed the tables o' the Law In time o' need to load his gun with; He could n't see but jest one side, Ef his, 't wuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty; An' so his "Forrards!" multiplied But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak, This hangin' on mont' arter mont' Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter, I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt The peth an' sperit of a critter. But 'pears to me I see some signs Thet we 're a-goin' to use our senses: Jeff druv us into these hard lines, An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses; Slavery's Secession's heart an' will, South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, An' ef it drors into War's mill, D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't grind it? D'ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, Ole Hick'ry 'd tried his head to sof'n An' why should we kick up a muss Ef we don't like emancipation: The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It 's common (ez a gin'l rule) To every critter born o' woman. So we 're all right, an' I, fer one, Not thet I'm one thet much expec' They will miscarry, I rec'lec' Tu many on 'em, to my sorrer: Men ain't made angels in a day, No matter how you mould an' labor 'em, — Nor 'riginal ones, I guess, don't stay With Abe so of'n ez with Abraham. The'ry thinks Fact a pooty thing, An' wants the banns read right ensuin'; But Fact wun't noways wear the ring 'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin': But, arter all, Time's dial-plate Marks cent'ries with the minute-finger, An' Good can't never come tu late, Though it doos seem to try an' linger. An' come wut will, I think it's grand Abe 's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced In trial-flames till it 'll stand The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest : Thet 's wut we want, - we want to know The folks on our side hez the bravery To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. Set the two forces foot to foot, An' every man knows who 'll be winner, Thet goes down deeper than his dinner: REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. Slavery and Secession in America, Historical and Economical; together with a Practical Scheme of Emancipation. By THOMAS ELLISON, F. S. S., etc. Second Edition: Enlarged. With a Reply to the Fundamental Arguments of Mr. James Spence, contained in his Work on the American Union, and Remarks on the Productions of Other Writers. With Map and Appendices. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co. We have too long delayed to speak of Mr. Ellison's book. More than a year ago, before Mr. Stuart Mill or Professor Cairnes had written in our behalf, before we had received a word of sympathy from any representative Englishman, save Mr. John Bright, the first edition of this work was placed before the British public. And we could not have asked for a better informed or more judicious defender than Mr. Ellison. "Slavery and Secession in America" is a temperate and concise statement of the essential features of our national struggle. The supposed interest of half a million of slaveholders in the extension of the Southern institution is truly represented as the cause of their guilty insurrection against the liberties of their countrymen. Mr. Ellison does not desire immediate emancipation, and wastes no sentiment upon the sufferings of the negro. But the economical and social position of Slavery is given with the unanswerable emphasis of careful figures. He traces the rise and increase of the institution in the States, until its disgrace culminates in a bloody rebellion. He clearly shows, that, by acknowledging the doctrine involved in Secession, by allowing it to govern the intercourse between nations, the morality of society would be shaken from its base. The anti-slavery character of the strife in which we are involved is made to appear, - slavery-diffusion being the object of the South, slavery-restriction the aim of the North. It is shown that the Secession ordinances utterly failed to point out a single instance in which the rights of the Southern people were infringed upon by the National Executive; also, that the alleged right of Secession is neither Constitutional, nor, when backed by no tangible grievance, can it be called revolutionary. In short, Mr. Ellison takes the only ground which seems possible to loyalists in America: namely, that Secession in other words, the treason of slaveholders against the Constitution of their country is of necessity punishable |