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between them, the root of separation, remains to be stated. It is the opposite estimate they have of man in the pure simplicity of his being. The predaceous principle says,- "Man is in and of himself valueless; he attains value only by position, by subduing the will of others to his own; and in subjecting others he destroys nothing of worth, since those who are weak enough to fall are by that very fact proved to be worthless." The humane or socializing principle, on the contrary, says,—“Manhood is value; the essence of all value is found in the individual soul; and therefore the final use of the world, of society, of action, of all that man does and of all that surrounds him, is to develop intelligence, to bring forth the mind and soul into power, in fine, to realize in each the spiritual possibilities of man."

True socialization now exists only as this nobler principle is victorious. It exists only in proportion as force is lent to ideal relations, relations prescribed by reason, conscience, and reverence for the being of man,-only in proportion, therefore, as the total force of the state kneels before each individual soul, and, without foolish intermeddlings, or confusions of order, proffers protection, service, succor. Here is a socialization flowing, selfpoised, fertilizing; it is full of gracious invitation to all, yet regulates all; it makes liberty by making law; it produces and distributes privilege. Here there is not only community, that is, the unity of many in the enjoyment of common privilege, but there is more, there is positive fructification, there is a wide, manifold, infinitely precious evocation of intelligence, of moral power, and of all spiritual worth.

As, on the contrary, the baser principle triumphs, there is no genuine socialization, but only a brute aggregation of subjection beneath and a brute dominance of egotism above. Society is mocked and travestied, not established, in proportion as force is lent to egotism. If anywhere the power which we call state set its heel on an innocent soul,-if anywhere it sup

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Now the contest between these opposing principles is that which is raging in our country this day. Of course, any broad territorial representation of this must be of a very mixed quality. Our best civilizations are badly mottled with stains of barbarism. In no state or city can egotism, either of the hot-blooded or cold-blooded kind, and the latter is far the more virulent, be far to seek. On the other hand, no social system, thank God, can quite reverse the better instincts of humanity; and it may be freely granted that even American slavery shades off, here and there, into quite tender modifications. Yet not in all the world could there possibly be found an antagonism so deep and intense as exists here. The Old World seems to have thrown upon the shores of the New its utmost extremes, its Oriental barbarisms and its orients and auroras of hope and belief; so that here coexist what Asia was three thousand years ago, and what Europe may be one thousand years hence. Let us consider the actual status.

In certain localities of Southern Africa there is a remarkable fly, the Tsetse fly. In the ordinary course of satisfying its hunger, this insect punctures the skin of a horse, and the animal dies in consequence. A fly makes a lunch, and a horse's life pays the price of the meal. This has ever seemed to me to represent the beast-of-prey principle in Nature more vigorously than any other fact. But in that system whose fangs are now red with the blood of our brave there is an expression of this principle not less enormous. It is the very Tsetse fly of civilization. That a small minority of Southern men may make money without earning it, that a few thousand individuals may monopolize the cotton-market of the world, what a suppression and

destruction of intelligence it perpetrates! self-criticism. Two claims for ourselves

what consuming of spiritual possibilities! what mental wreck and waste! Whites, too, suffer equally with blacks. Less oppressed, they are perhaps even more demoralized. No parallel example does the earth exhibit of the sacrifice of transcendent values for pitiful ends.

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In attempting to destroy free government and rational socialization in America, this system is treading no new road, it is only proceeding on the old. Its central law is that of destroying any value, however great, for the sake of any gratification, however small. Accustomed to battening on the hopes of humanity, accustomed to taking stock in human degradation, and declaring dividends upon enforced ignorance and crime,-existing only while every canon of the common law is annulled, and every precept of morals and civilization set at nought, could it be expected to pause just when, or rather just because, it had apparently found the richest possible prey? Could it be expected to withhold its fang for no other reason than that its fang was allured by a more opulent artery than ever before? The simple truth is - and he knows nothing about this controversy who fails to perceive such truth-that the system whose hands are now armed against us has always borne these arms in its heart; that the fang which is now bared has hitherto been only concealed, not wanting; that the tree which is today in bloody blossom is the same tree it ever was, and carried these blossoms in its sap long ere spreading them upon its boughs.

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may be made. First, a higher grade of laws nowhere exists with a less amount of coercive application, — exists, that is, by the rational and constant choice of the whole people. Secondly, it may be questioned whether anywhere in the world the development of intelligence and moral force in the whole people is to a greater extent a national aim. But abandoning all comparison with other peoples, this we may say with no doubtful voice: We stand for the best ideas of the Old World in the New; we stand for orderly freedom and true socialization in America; we stand for these, and with us these must here stand or fall.

Now, of course, we are not about to become the offscouring of the earth by yielding these up to destruction. Of course, we shall not convert ourselves into a nation of Iscariots, and give over civilization to the bowie-knife, with the mere hope of so making money out of Southern trade, which we should not do, — and with the certainty of a gibbet in history, to mention no greater penalty.

But refusing this perfidy, could we have avoided this war? No; for it was simply our refusal of such perfidy which, so far as we are concerned, brought the war on. The South, having ever since the Mexican War stood with its sword half out of the scabbard, perpetually threatening to give its edge, — having made it the chief problem of our politics, by what gift or concession to purchase exemption from that dreaded blade,―at last reached its ultimate demand. "Will you," it said to the North, "abdicate the privileges of equal citizenship? Will you give up this continent, territory, Free States and all, to our predaceous, bloodeating system? Will you sell into sltvery the elective franchise itself? Will you sell the elective franchise itself into slavery, and take for pay barely the poltroon's price, that of being scornfully spared by the sword we stand ready to draw?" The North excused itself politely. In the softest voice, but with a soft

voicedness that did not wholly conceal an iron thread of resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the sword came out and struck at our life. Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation.

"But we might have permitted secession." No, we could not. It was clearly impracticable. "But why not?" Because that would have been to surrender the whole under the guise of giving up half. Such a concession could have meant to the people of the rebellious States, and, in the existing state of national belief, could have meant to our very selves, nothing other than this: -"We submit; do what you will; we are shopkeepers and cowards; we must have your trade; and besides, though expert in the use of yardsticks, we have not the nerve for handling guns." From that moment we should have lost all authority on this continent, and all respect on the other.

The English papers have blamed us for fighting; but had we failed to fight, not one of these censuring mouths but would have hissed at us like an adder with contempt. Nay, we ourselves should, as it were, soon have lost the musical speech and high carriage of men, and fallen to a proneness and a hissing, degraded in our own eyes even more than in those of our neighbors. Of course, from this state we should have risen; but it would have been to see the redness of war on our own fields and its flames wrapping our own households. We should have risen, but through a contest to which this war, gigantic though it be, is but a quarrel of school-boys.

By sheer necessity we began to fight; by the same we must fight it out. Compromise is, in the nature of the case, impossible. It can mean only surrender. Had there been an inch more of ground for us to yield without total submission, the war would have been, for the present, staved off. We turned to bay only when driven back to the vital principle

of our polity and the vital facts of our socialization.

Politically, what was the immediate grievance of the South? Simply that Northern freemen went to the polls as freemen; simply that they there expressed, under constitutional forms, their lawful preference. How can we compromise here, even to the breadth of a hair? How compromise without stipulating that all Northern electors shall henceforth go to the polls in charge of an armed police, and there deposit such ballot as the slavemasters of the Secession States shall direct?

Again, in our social state what is it that gives umbrage to our antagonists? They have answered the question for us; they have stated it repeatedly in the plainest English. It is simply the fact that we are free States; that we have, and honor, free labor; that we have schools for the people; that we teach the duty of each to all and of all to each; that we respect the human principle, the spiritual possibility, in man; in fine, that ours is a human socialization, whose fundamental principles are the venerableness of man's nature and the superiority of reason and right to any individual will. So far as we are base bargainers and unbelievers, they can tolerate us, even though they despise; just where our praise begins, begin their detestation and animosity.

It is, by the pointed confession of Southern spokesmen, what we are, rather than what we have done, which makes them Secessionists; and any man of sense might, indeed must, see this fact, were the confession withheld. In action we have conformed to Southern wishes, as if conformity could not be in excess. We have conformed to an extent that—to mention nothing of more importance had nearly ruined us in the estimation of mankind. One chief reason, indeed, why the sympathy of Europe did not immediately go with us was that a disgust toward us had been created by the football passivity, as it seemed abroad, with which we had submitted to be kicked to and

fro. The rebellion was deemed to be on our side, not on theirs. We, born servitors and underlings, it was thought, had forgotten our proper places,-nay, had presumed to strike back, when our masters chastised us. Of course, we should soon be whipped to our knees again. And when we were again submissive and abject, Europe must so have demeaned itself as still to be on good terms with the conquerors. As for us, our final opinion of their demeanor, so they deemed, mattered very little. The ill opinion of the servants can be borne; but one must needs be on friendly terms with the master of the house. The conduct of Europe toward us at the outbreak of this war is to be thus explained, more than in any other way. According to European understanding, we had before written ourselves down menials; therefore, on rising to the attitude of men, we were scorned as upstarts.

The world has now discovered that there was less cowardice and more comity in this yielding than had been supposed. Yet in candor one must confess that it was barely not carried to a fatal extent. One step more in that direction, and we had gone over the brink and into the abyss. Only when the last test arrived, and we must decide once and forever whether we would be the champions or the apostates of civilization, did we show to the foe not the dastard back, but the dauntless front. And the proposal to compromise" is simply and exactly a proposal to us to reverse that decision.

Again, we can propose no compromise, such as would stay the war, without confessing that there was no occasion for beginning it. And if, indeed, we began it without occasion, without an occasion absolutely imperative, then does the whole mountain - weight of its guilt lie on our hearts. Then in every man that has fallen on either side we are assassins. The proposal to bring back the seceded States by submission to their demands is neither more nor less than a proposal to write "Murderer" on the

brow of every soldier in our armies, and "Twice Murderer" over the grave of every one of our slain. If such submission be due now, not less was it due before the war began. To say that it was then due, and then withheld, is, I repeat, merely to brand with the blackness of assassination the whole patriotic service of the United States, both civil and military, for the last two years.

If, now, guilt, let us lose no moment in confessing the fact,-nor afterwards lose a moment in creeping to the gallows, that must, in that case, be hungering for us. But if no such guilt be ours, then why should not our courage be as good as our cause? If not only by the warrant, but by the imperative bidding of Heaven, we have taken up arms, then why should we not, as under the banner of Heaven, bear them to the end?

such be, in very deed, our

In this course, no real failure can await us. Obeying the necessity which is laid upon us, and simply conducting ourselves as men of humanity, courage, and honor, we shall surely vindicate the principles of civilization and orderly society, within our own States, whether we immediately succeed in impressing them on South Carolina and her evil sisterhood or not. Let us but vindicate their existence on any part of this continent, and that alone will insure their final prevalence on the continent as a whole. Let us now but make them inexpugnable, and they will make themselves universal. This law of necessary prevalence, in a socialization whose vital principle is reverence for the nature of man, was clearly seen by the masters, or rather, one should say, by the subjects, of the slave system; and this war signifies their immediate purpose to build up between it and themselves a Chinese excluding wall, and their ulterior purpose to starve and trample it out of this hemisphere.

Finally, just that which teaches us charity toward the slaveholders teaches us also, forbearing all thought of base and demoralizing compositions, to press

the hand steadily upon the hilt it has grasped, until war's work is done. These servants of a predaceous principle are nearly, if not quite, its earliest prey. Enemies to us, they are twice enemies to themselves. They are driven helplessly on, and will be so until we slay the tyrant that wrings from them their evil services. During that fatal month's siesta at Yorktown, the country was horror-stricken to hear that the enemy were forcing negroes at the point of the bayonet to work those pieces of ordnance from which the whites, in terror of our sharpshooters, had fled away. But behind the whites themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been an other bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword which alone can deliver them?

Nor has the slave-system been any worse than it must be, in pushing us and them to the present pass. So bad it must be, or cease to be at all. All things obey their nature. Hydrophobia will bite, small-pox infect, plague enter upon life and depart upon death, hyenas scent

the new-made graves, and predaceous systems of society open their mouths ever and ever for prey. What else can they do? Even would the Secessionists consent to partial compositions, as they will not, they must inevitably break faith, as ever before. They are slaves to the slave-system. As wise were it to covenant with the dust not to fly, or with the sea not to foam, when the hurricane blows, as to bargain with these that they shall resist that despotic impetus which compels them. They are slaves. And their master is one whose law is to devour. Only he who might meditate letting go a Bengal tiger on its parole of honor, or binding over a pestilence to keep the peace, should so much as dream for a moment of civil compositions with this system. Its action is inevitable. And therefore our only wisdom will be to make our way by the straightest path to this, which is our chief, and in the last analysis our only enemy, and cut it through and through. This only will be a final preservation to ourselves; this only the noblest amity to the South; this, deliverance to the captivity of two continents, Africa and America: so that here principle and policy are for once so obviously, as ever they are really, one and the same, that no man of sense should fail to perceive their unity.

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