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X.

C. T. CONGDON.

Twelve Little Dirty Questions.

N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 11, 1862.

["The election of Mr. Buchanan seemed definitely to indicate not merely the perpetuity of Human Slavery in this Republic, but the acquiescence of the people of the Free States, or of a majority of them, 10 in the extension of that unhappy institution. Its opponents, if not silenced, were decidedly defeated, and the Democratic Party, after a hundred previous audacities, continued to hold the Government with something of a feeling of invincibility. There remained, it is true, throughout the North and West, an Anti-Slavery sentiment which no 15 misfortunes could overcome; but a considerable measure of its activity was to be found among those who abstained from political methods; while two classes of men, the one religious, and the other political, still vehemently insisted that agitation of the Slavery Question was in itself an immorality deserving rebuke, and requiring vigorous suppression. 20 When I began to write for the Tribune, there was hardly a political virtue, hardly a fundamental social truth, hardly a time-honored maxim of humanity, hardly an elementary principle of justice, which we did not have to fight for as if they had been discoveries. There was the ethnologist proving four millions of men to be monkeys. There was 25 the 'statesman' demonstrating that the Constitution was framed expressly to sustain Slavery. There was the clergyman showing Human Bondage to be as necessary as Original Sin. There was the simpering novelist depicting the pastoral pleasures of the plantation, and the patriarchical felicities of the Blacks. There was the lawyer pleading, in 30 certain cases, the Habeas Corpus is good for nothing. And under all there were crowds of prejudiced and unreasoning men of every social

grade, from the highest to the lowest, who denounced every objector to this condition of affairs as a destructive and a radical, and who thought a flourishing trade with the South worth all the morality ever propounded, from Plutarch to Dr. Paley.

It would, doubtless, have been easier. I know it would often have 5 been thought in better taste -to have taken a low and despairing view of public affairs, and sadly to have predicted the second coming of chaos. But, partly perhaps from a constitutional habit, I was led to consider serious subjects cheerfully; although I hardly ever made a jest upon the subject of Slavery without a feeling of self-rebuke." Tribune 10 Essays. Mr. Congdon's Prefatory Notice, XI-XVII.]

We should very much like to know what in the opinion of the Rev. Dr. Hawks constitutes a large and clean question. In the Protestant Episcopal Convention last Monday, Dr. Hawks, arguing that the Church must treat its rebellious 15 children with "lenity, courtesy and affection," used the following language: "We must not lug in all the little dirty questions of the day which will be buried with their agitation." One might retort upon Dr. Hawks that the questions which have disturbed the diocese for some years past, have 20 been many of them small, and one of them, at least, exceedingly dirty to say nothing of piquant scandals in the neighboring diocese of Pennsylvania.

To the Protestant Episcopal Church is unquestionably due the reverence of some of us and the respect of others; but 25 Heaven knows there is nothing in its history, nothing in its present position which justifies this sublime scorn of political affairs which Dr. Hawks professes. In England, from the days of Henry VIII to the days of Victoria, the Church has been quite as much a political as a religious body—its 30 Bishops have been courtiers, and sometimes generals-it has been a political institution in Scotland and in Ireland - the reigning monarch has been its legal head - among its clergy have figured the keenest and most unscrupulous politicians, while for the last twenty-five years, though Laud has been in 35 his coffin for more than two centuries, this Church which never meddles with little questions, has been well-nigh sun

dered upon points of architecture, of upholstery, of tailoring, of genuflexions, and of decorations; while in America we have had petty reproductions of the same differences, with the disgusting spectacle of a Right Reverend Father in 5 God, riding, all booted and spurred, at the head of his rebel regiments. After this, to find Dr. Hawks so delicately squeamish and so doubtful about the authority of the Church in public affairs, must excite commiseration both for his stomach and his understanding.

10

Shall the United States of America be deprived of an immense territory acquired at a cost of blood and treasure absolutely incomputable? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. One.

Shall the Constitution of the United States be overthrown 15 by the perjuries of its sworn defenders? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Two.

Shall the Loyal States see the rolls of their citizens decimated, the flower of their youth slain in battle, the homes only a little while ago the happiest in the world made deso20 late, the honest accumulations of industry scattered, the enterprises of benevolence arrested and all without hope of indemnity or of security? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Three.

25

30

35

-

Shall the wildest and wickedest perjury, the most Satanic defiance of the Majesty of Heaven, the clearest and least defensible of crimes flourish and bloom in the establishment of a great empire, and out of the dissolution of society secure the prosperous fortunes of the turbulent and the ambitious? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Four.

Shall the great experiment of political self-government utterly fail, while we, crouching and crawling through the vicissitudes of anarchy, find refuge at last in blind obedience to the edicts of an autocrat? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Five.

Shall a system of labor be perpetuated which, without regard to its abstract equity, without consideration of its injus

tice to the employed, has so demoralized the employer, that treason, robbery and murder seem to him to be Christian virtues? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Six.

Shall a system of labor be perpetuated which so utterly degrades the spiritual nature of the enslaved, as to expose 5 it in its very yearning for sacred culture to a fanaticism analogous to idolatry? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Seven.

Shall a system of labor be perpetuated the very essence of which is a denial of the fundamental principle of Christian 10 ethics-that the laborer is worthy of his hire? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Eight.

Shall these acts be considered by the Church mere peccadilloes, when perpetrated by its Southern slave-holding members, which in its Northern communicants it would at 15 once visit with its censure and even its excommunication? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Nine.

Shall a Church which every Sunday prays the Good Lord to deliver us "from all sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion," and "to give to all nations unity, peace and con- 20 cord," still hold communion with a Church which is full of sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion against the unity, peace and concord of the land? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty Question, No. Ten.

25

Shall a Church which every Sunday prays for "the President of the United States, and all others in authority". not merely as fellow-men, but because they are "in authority" shall the Church withhold its censure of those of its members, who in contempt of authority are waging a felonious war against law and order? This is Dr. Hawks's Little Dirty 30 Question, No. Eleven.

Whether, finally, these communicants of the Church in the rebel States who have been so disregardful of its discipline, and so false to its teachings as to avowedly violate all laws Divine and human, are entitled to anything more than 35 Christian pity, are at all entitled in their double tort to

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XI.

CHARLES T. CONGDON.

Northern Independence.

N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 12, 1862.

We must conquer this Rebellion or it will conquer us. 5 This is a fact of which we are reminded and there is need that we should be by the boasts of fugitive Secessionists in Canada, who, it is reported, "openly declare that the Union shall not be broken, but that if the North is beaten, it shall be subjected to the rule of Jefferson Davis, who will be next Presi10 dent of the United States." "There is nothing sacred," said

Napoleon, "after a conquest." The theory of this war is plain enough. The Northern people well understand that they are contending for the Constitution and the Laws; but it may be questioned if more than a small minority of thinkers have per15 mitted themselves to look-for they cannot do so without shuddering into that seething hell of anarchy and confusion and ceaseless apprehension which would be our fate in the event of a Confederate triumph. Large as this continent is, it may be safely assumed that it is not large enough for two 20 distinct nationalities, with natural limits ill-defined, with military ambition upon one side of the line, and with a tantalizing opulence upon the other, and with reminiscences of success taunting continually a stern, sad memory of defeat; while a common language, instead of promoting peaceful al25 liances, would become merely a more convenient medium of debate and defiance. If we never knew it before, we know