Little or no room for rebellion seems to be left under the constitution of the United States. In the progress of human affairs, familiar evils expire with worn-out institutions, and new dangers arise out of the midst of renovated arrangements. Assassinations are the form which resistance to government assumes in pure despotisms. Rebellion is the name it bears under governments somewhat more liberal. In the United States, nothing worse than professed Nullification has yet been heard of—unless Colonel Burr's secret schemes were indeed treasonable. A brief account of the South Carolina Nullification may exhibit the relations, and occasional enmities of the general and statesgovernment in a clearer way than could be done, otherwise than by a narrative of facts. This little history shows, among many other things, that America follows the rest of the world in quoting the constitution as a sanction of the most opposite designs and proceedings: what different sympathies respond to the word "patriotism;" and of how little avail is the letter of the constitution, when there is variance as to its spirit.
Georgia laid claim, some years ago, to the Cherokee territory, on the ground that the United States had no right to make the laws and treaties by which the Cherokees were protected; that such legislation was inconsistent with the reserved rights of the sovereign state of Georgia. Georgia thus acted upon the supposition, that she was to construe the federal compact in her own way, and proceed according to her own construction. Congress checked her in this assumption, and rejected her pretensions by an almost unanimous vote. Soon after the accession of General Jackson to the presidentship, Georgia, either presuming upon his favour, or wishing to test his dispositions, began to encroach upon the Cherokee lands. The Cherokees appealed to the federal government for protection, under the laws and treaties framed for that very purpose. The President replied, that Georgia was right in annulling those laws and treaties, and that the executive could not interfere. The Indian cause was brought before the Supreme Court. There was difficulty about the character in which the plaintiffs were to sue, and as to whether they could sue at all, under that provision of the constitution which authorisesforeign nationsto demand justice from the federal tribunals. The court expressed a strong, opinion however, that the Cherokees were entitled to protection from the Executive.
The Supreme Court and Georgia were thus brought into opposition, while the Executive took the part of Georgia. Compassion for the Cherokees was now swallowed up in anxiety about the decision of the question of state rights. The Executive had, as yet, only negatively declared himself, however; and the Supreme Court had not been driven on to deliver a verdict against the Georgian laws, by which the Cherokees were oppressed. The topic of the right of a State to annul the laws and treaties of the federal government was meantime generally discussed; and reconsideration was forced upon the President.
South Carolina presently followed the example of Georgia. She annulled the acts of Congress, which regarded such revenue laws as she considered contrary to general principles, and to her own interests. The President now perceived that if every State proceeded to nullify the acts of Congress, upon its own construction of the federal constitution, the general government could not be secure of its existence for a day. While the Executive was still in a position of observation, the Supreme Court pronounced, in another case, a verdict against the unconstitutional laws of Georgia. In 1829, the legislature of Virginia asserted the right of each State to construe the federal constitution for itself: and thus there appeared to be three States already in the course of withdrawing from the Union.
Congress went on legislating about the tariff, without regard to this opposition; and the protests of certain States against their proceedings were quietly laid on the table, as impertinences. The South Carolina advocates of Nullification worked diligently in their own State to ripen the people sufficiently to obtain a convention which should proclaim their doctrine as the will of theState: in which case, they doubted not that they should secure the countenance and co-operation of most or all of the southern States. A convention in favour of free trade met at Philadelphia; another in favour of the tariff met at New York; and the nullifiers saw reason to turn the discussion of the quarrel as much as possible from the principle of Nullification to the principle of free trade. They perceived the strength of the latter ground, whether or not they saw the weakness of the former; and by their skilful movement upon it, they eventually caused a greater benefit to the nation, than their discontent did harm to themselves.
The President was invited to dine at Charleston on the 4th of July, 1831; and in his answer, he thought fit to announce that he should do his duty in case of any attempt to annul the laws of the Union. This was a virtual retractation of his encouragement to Georgia. A committee of the legislature of South Carolina reported the letter to be at variance with the duties of the President, and the rights of the States. The heat was rising rapidly. The nullifiers were loud in their threats, and watchful in observing the effect of those threats abroad. North Carolina repudiated the whole doctrine of Nullification: other neighbouring States showed a reluctance to sanction it. The President's next message recommended a modification of the tariff, which was known to be no favorite of his; but the modification he proposed had no other bearing than upon the amount of the revenue.
During the session of Congress of 1832, various alterations were made in the duties, which it was hoped would be to the satisfaction of South Carolina: but the complaint of her representatives was, that the reductions which were ordained were on those articles in which she had no interest; while her burdens were actually increased. Theserepresentatives met at Washington, and drew up an address to the people of South Carolina, in which they declared their wrongs, and inquired whether they were to be tamely submitted to.
The legislature of South Carolina, after the next election, exhibited a large majority in both houses in favour of Nullification. A convention was called at Columbia, in consequence of whose proceedings an ordinance was prepared, and speedily passed through the legislature, declaring all the acts of Congress imposing duties on imported goods, to be null and void within the state of South Carolina. It prohibited the levying of all such duties within the State, and all appeals on the subject to the Supreme Court. A number of minor provisions were made to hinder the levy of import duties. The governor was empowered to call the militia into service against any opposition which might be made by the general government to this bold mode of proceeding. The entire military force of the State, and the services of volunteers, were also placed at his disposal. Arms and ammunition were ordered to be purchased.
This was too much for the President's anxiety about consistency. He ordered all the disposable military force to assemble at Charleston; sent a sloop of war to that port, to protect the federal officers in the discharge of their duties; and issued a vigorous proclamation, stating the constitutional doctrine, about the mutual relations of the general and state governments, and exhorting the citizens of South Carolina not to forfeit their allegiance. Governor Hayne issued a counter proclamation, warning the citizens of the State against being seduced from their state allegiance by the President. This was at the close of 1832.
Everything being thus ready for an explosion, South Carolina, appeared willing to wait the resultof another session. This was needful enough; for she was as yet uncertain whether she was to have the assistance of any of her sister States. Mr. Calhoun, the vice-president, resigned his office, and became a senator in the room of governor Hayne: and thus the nullification cause was in powerful hands in the senate. Its proceedings were watched with the most intense anxiety by the whole Union. The crisis of the Union was come.
In the discontented State, the union party, which was strong, though excluded from the government, was in great sorrow and fear. Civil war seemed inevitable; and they felt themselves oppressed and insulted by the imposition of the oath of allegiance to the State. The nullifiers justified this requisition by saying that many foreigners resident in Charleston, who did not understand the case, believed that their duty to the general government required them to support it, while its vessels of war and troops were in port; however well they might be disposed to the nullification cause. It was merely as a method of enlightenment, it was protested, that this oath was imposed.
The ladies, meanwhile, had a State Rights ball at the arsenal, and contributed their jewels for the support of the expected war. I could not learn that they made lint—the last test of woman's earnestness for war; but I was told by a leading nullifier that the ladies were "chock full of fight." The expectation of war was so nearly universal that I could hear of only one citizen of Charleston who discouraged the removal of his wife and children from the city, in the belief that a peaceful settlement of the quarrel would take place.
The legislatures of the States passed resolutions, none of them advocating nullification; (even Georgia forsaking that ground;) many condemned the proceedings of South Carolina; but some, whiledoing so, made strong remonstrances against the tariff. Five of the States, in which manufactures had been set up, declared their opposition to any alteration of the tariff. It is amusing now to read the variety of terms in which the South Carolina proceedings were condemned; though, at the time, the reports of these resolutions must have carried despair to the hearts of the citizens of the solitary discontented State. The effect of these successive shocks is still spoken of in strong and touching language by those who had to sustain them.
While the South Carolina militia were training, and the munitions of war preparing, the senators and representatives of the State were wearing stern and grave faces at Washington. The session was passing away, and nothing but debate was yet achieved. Their fellow legislators looked on them with grief, as being destined to destruction in the field, or on the scaffold. They were men of high spirit and gallantry; and it was clear that they had settled the matter with themselves and with each other. They would never submit to mere numbers; and would oppose force to force, till all of their small resources was spent. No one can estimate their heroism, or desperation, whichever it may be called, who has not seen the city and State which would have been the theatre of the war. The high spirit of South Carolina is of that kind which accompanies fallen, or inferior fortunes. Pride and poverty chafe the spirit. They make men look around for injury, and aggravate the sense of injury when it is real. In South Carolina, the black population outnumbers the white. The curse of slavery lies heavy on the land, and its inhabitants show the usual unwillingness of sufferers to attribute their maladies to their true cause. Right as the South Carolinians may be as to the principle of free trade, no tariff ever yet occasionedsuch evils as they groan under. If not a single import duty had ever been imposed, there would still have been the contrasts which they cannot endure to perceive between the thriving States of the north and their own. Now, when they see the flourishing villages of New England, they cry "We pay for all this." When the north appears to receive more favour from the general government, in its retrospective recompenses for service in war, the greater proportion of which service was rendered by the north, the south again cries, "We pay for all this." It is true that the south pays dearly; but it is for her own depression, not for others' prosperity. When I saw the face of the nullifiers' country, I was indeed amazed at their hardihood. The rich soil, watered by full streams, the fertile bottoms, superintended by the planters' mansions, with their slave quarter a little removed from the house, the fine growth of trees, and of the few patches of pasturage which are to be seen, show how nourishing this region ought to be. But its aspect is most depressing to the traveller. Roads nearly impassable in many parts, bridges carried away and not restored, lands exhausted, and dwellings forsaken, are spectacles too common in South Carolina. The young men, whose patrimony has deteriorated, migrate westward with their 'force;' selling their lands, if they can; if not, forsaking them. There are yet many plantations of unsurpassed fertility; but there are many exhausted: and it is more profitable to remove to a virgin soil than to employ slave labour in renovating the fertility of the old. There is an air of rudeness about the villages, and languor about the towns, which promise small resource in times of war and distress. And then, the wretched slave population is enough to paralyse the arm of the bravest community, and to ensure defeat to the best cause. I sawthe soldiers and the preparations for war at Charleston, two years after the crisis was past. When I was to be shown the arms and ammunition, it appeared that "the gentleman that had the key was not on the premises." This showed that no immediate invasion was expected; but it was almost incredible what had been threatened with such resources. The precautionary life of the community, on account of the presence of so large a body of slaves, may be, in some sort, a training for war; but it points out the impediments to success. If South Carolina had, what some of her leading men seem to desire, a Lacedemonian government, which should make every free man a soldier, she would be farther from safety in peace, and success in war, than any quaker community, exempt from the curse of a debased and wronged servile class. One glance over the city of Charleston is enough to show a stranger how helpless she is against a foreign foe, if unsupported. The soldiers met, at every turn, the swarms of servile blacks, the very luxuries and hospitalities of the citizens, grateful as these luxuries are to the stranger, and honourable as these hospitalities are to his entertainers, betoken a state of society which has no strength to spare from the great work of self-renovation. Those who remained at home during the winter of 1832 and 1833, might be hopeful about the conflict, from being unaware of the depressed condition of their State, in comparison with others: but the leaders at Washington might well look stern and grave. It is no impeachment of their bravery, if their hearts died within them, day by day.
The session was within fourteen days of its close, when Mr. Clay brought in a bill which had been carefully prepared as a compromise between the contending parties. It provided that all import duties exceeding twenty per cent. should begradually reduced, till, in 1842, they should have declined to that amount; leaving liberty to augment the duties again, in case of war. This bill, with certain amendments, not affecting its principle, was passed, as was the Enforcing Bill,—for enforcing the collection imposed by act of Congress. A convention was held in South Carolina: the obnoxious ordinance was repealed; the Enforcing Bill was, indeed, nominally nullified; but no powers were offered to the legislature for enforcing the nullification; and the quarrel was, to all intents and purposes, at an end.
The triumph remained,—if triumph there were,—with South Carolina. This was owing to the goodness of her principle of free trade; and in no degree, to the reasonableness of her nullifying practices. The passage of the Compromise Bill was a wise and fortunate act. Its influence on the planting and manufacturing interests is a subject to be considered in another connexion. Its immediate effect in honourably reconciling differences which had appeared irreconcileable, was a blessing, not only to the United States, but to the world. The lustre of democratic principles would have been shrouded to many eyes by a civil war among the citizens of the Union; while now, the postponement of a danger so imminent, the healing of a breach so wide, has confirmed the confidence of many who feared that the States remained united only for want of a cause of separation.
Some ill effects remain,—especially in the irritation of South Carolina. There is still an air of mystery and fellowship about the leading nullifiers, and of disquiet among the Union men of Charleston. But there is cause enough for restlessness in Charleston, as I have before said; and much excuse for pique.
Meanwhile, these events have proved to thousands of republicans the mischief of compromiseconveyed in vague phraseology, in so solemn an instrument as a written constitution.
There could not have been a doubt on this case, if the question of construction had not had place, from the unfortunate clause ordaining that the general government shall have all powers necessary for the fulfilment of certain declared purposes. While this provision, thus worded, remains, the nullification theory will be played off, from time to time. The good consequence will arise from this liability, that a habit will be formed of construing the constitution liberally, with regard to the States, wherever there is a doubt as to the exercise of its powers; but this collateral good is no justification of the looseness of language by which the peace and integrity of the Union have been made to hang on a point of construction. The people of the United States will probably show their wisdom in henceforth accepting the benefit by shunning the evil.
In the privacy of their houses, many citizens have lamented to me, with feelings to which no name but grief can be given, that the events of 1832—3 have suggested the words "use" or "value of the Union." To an American, a calculation of the value of the Union would formerly have been as offensive, as absurd, as an estimate of the value of religion would be to a right-minded man. To Americans of this order, the Union has long been more than a matter of high utility. It has been idealised into an object of love and veneration. In answer to thiscui bono, many have cried in their hearts, with Lear, "O reason not the need!" I was struck with the contrast in the tone of two statesmen, a chief nullifier and one of his chief opponents. The one would not disguise from me that the name of the Union had lost much of its charm in the south, since 1830. The other, in a glow, protested that he never would hear of the Union losing its charm.
But the instances of carelessness, of levity about the Union, are very rare; and this is the reason why more show of attachment to it is not made. The probabilities of the continuance of the Union are so overwhelming, that no man, not in a state of delusion, from some strong prejudice, can seriously entertain the idea of a dissolution within any assignable period. I met with one gentleman in the north, a clergyman, who expects and desires a dissolution of the Union, saying that the north bore all the expense of the war, and has had nothing but obstruction and injury from the south. I saw, also, one gentleman in South Carolina, who sees no use in the Union, but much expense and trouble. He declares the only effect of it to be the withdrawing of the best men from each State to dawdle away their time at Washington. Another, who desponds about the condition of England, and whose views are often embellished, and sometimes impaired, by his perceptions of analogy, expressed his fears that his own country, an offset from mine, would share the fate of offsets, and perish with the parent. But these are examples of eccentricity.
There are many among the slave-holders of the south who threaten secession. Such of these as are in earnest are under the mistake into which men fall when they put everything to the hazard of one untenable object. The untenable object once relinquished, the delusion will clear away with the disappearance of its cause, and the Union will be to them, with good reason, dearer than it has ever been. The southern States could not exist, separately, with their present domestic institutions, in the neighbourhood of any others. They would have thousands of miles of frontier, over which their slaves would be running away, every day of the year. In case of war, they might be only too happy if their slaves did run away, instead of rising upagainst them at home. If it was necessary to purchase, Florida because it was a retreat for runaways; if it was necessary, first to treat with Mexico for the restitution of runaways, and then to steal Texas, the most high-handed theft of modern times; if it is necessary to pursue runaways into the northern States, and to keep magistrates and jails in perpetual requisition for the restitution of southern human property, how would the southern States manage by themselves? Only by ridding themselves of slavery; in which case, their alleged necessity of separation is superseded. As for their resources,—the shoe-business of New York State is of itself larger and more valuable than the entire commerce of Georgia,—the largest and richest of the southern States.
The mere act of separation could not be accomplished. In case of war against the northern States, it would be necessary to employ half the white population to take care of the black; and of the remaining half, no one would undertake to say how many are at heart sick and weary of slavery, and would be, therefore, untrustworthy. The middle slave States, now nearly ready to discard slavery, would seize so favourable an opportunity as that afforded them by the peril of the Union. The middle free States, from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, having everything to lose by separation, and nothing to gain, would treat the first overt act as rebellion; proceeding against it, and punishing it as such. The case is so palpable as scarcely to need even so brief a statement as this. The fact which renders such a statement worth making is, that most of those who threaten the dissolution of the Union, do it in order to divert towards this impracticable object the irritation which would otherwise, and which will, ere long, turn against the institution of slavery. The gaze of the worldis fixed upon this institution. The world is shouting the one question about this anomaly which cannot be answered. The dwellers in the south would fain be unconscious of that awful gaze. They would fain not hear the reverberation of that shout. They would fain persuade themselves and others, that they are too busy in asserting their rights and their dignity as citizens of the Union, to heed the world beyond.
This self and mutual deception will prove a merely temporary evil. The natural laws which regulate communities, and the will of the majority, may be trusted to preserve the good, and to remove the bad elements from which this dissension arises. It requires no gift of prophecy to anticipate the fate of an anomaly among a self-governing people. Slavery was not always an anomaly; but it has become one. Its doom is therefore sealed; and its duration is now merely a question of time. Any anxiety in the computation of this time is reasonable; for it will not only remove a more tremendous cause than can ever again desolate society, but restore the universality of that generous attachment to their common institutions which has been, and will be, to the American people, honour, safety, and the means of perpetual progress.
FOOTNOTES:[3]The Federalist, vol. i. p. 277.[4]Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 396.[5]Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 467-476.[6]Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 236.
[3]The Federalist, vol. i. p. 277.
[3]The Federalist, vol. i. p. 277.
[4]Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 396.
[4]Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 396.
[5]Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 467-476.
[5]Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 467-476.
[6]Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 236.
[6]Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 236.
"'Tis he whose law is reason; who dependsUpon that law as on the best of friends;Whence, in a state where men are tempted stillTo evil for a guard against worse ill,And what in quality or act is best,Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,He fixes good on good alone, and owesTo virtue every triumph, that he knows."Wordsworth.
"'Tis he whose law is reason; who dependsUpon that law as on the best of friends;Whence, in a state where men are tempted stillTo evil for a guard against worse ill,And what in quality or act is best,Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,He fixes good on good alone, and owesTo virtue every triumph, that he knows."Wordsworth.
"'Tis he whose law is reason; who dependsUpon that law as on the best of friends;Whence, in a state where men are tempted stillTo evil for a guard against worse ill,And what in quality or act is best,Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,He fixes good on good alone, and owesTo virtue every triumph, that he knows."
"'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best,
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph, that he knows."
Wordsworth.
Wordsworth.
Under a pure despotism, the morals of politics would make but a very short chapter. Mercy in the ruler; obedience in his officers, with, perhaps, an occasional stroke of remonstrance; and taxpaying in the people, would comprehend the whole. Among a self-governing people, who profess to take human equality for their great common principle, and the golden rule for their political vow, a long chapter of many sections is required.
The morals of politics are not too familiar anywhere. The clergy are apt to leave out its topics from their list of subjects for the pulpit. Writers on morals make that chapter as brief as if they lived under the pure despotism, supposed above. An honest newspaper, here and there, or a newspaper honest for some particular occasion, and therefore uninfluential in its temporary honesty, are the only speakers on the morals of politics. The only speakers; but not the only exhibitors. Scatteredhere and there, through a vast reach of ages, and expanse of communities, there may be found, to bless his race, an honest statesman. Statesmen, free from the gross vices of peculation, sordid, selfish ambition, cruelty and tergiversation, are not uncommon. But the last degree of honesty has always been, and is still, considered incompatible with statesmanship. To hunger and thirst after righteousness has been naturally, as it were, supposed a disqualification for affairs; and a man, living for truth, and in a spirit of love, "pure in the last recesses of the mind," who should propose to seek truth through political action, and exercise love in the use of political influence, and refine his purity by disinfecting the political atmosphere of its corruptions, would hear it reported on every hand that he had a demon. Yet one who is aware of the enthusiasm with which the Germans hail the words of Posa at every representation of Don Carlos; one who has seen how American officials are supported by the people, on the supposition that they are great men, (however small such men may really be,) one who has watched the acceleration, within our own time, of the retribution which overtakes untrustworthy public men, whatever may be their talents and their knowledge, in contrast with the comparative stability of less able, but more honest men, can doubt no longer that the time is at hand for the advent of political principle. The hour is come when dwellers in the old world should require integrity of their rulers; and dwellers in the new world, each in his turn a servant of society, should require it of each other and of themselves. The people of the United States are seeking after this, feebly and dimly. They have retained one wise saying of the fathers to whom they owe so much; that the letter of laws and constitutions is a mere instrument; with no vitality; nopower to protect and bless; and that the spirit is all in all. They have been far from acting upon this with such steadiness as to show that they understand and believe it. But the saying is in their minds; and, like every other true thing that lies there, it will in time exhibit itself in the appointed mode—the will of the majority.
I was told two things separately, last year, which, if put together, seem to yield an alarming result. I was told that almost every man holds office, some time during his life; and that holding one is the ruin of moral independence. The case is not, however, nearly so bad as this. There is a kind of public life which does seem to injure the morals of all who enter it; but very few are affected by this. Office in a man's own neighbourhood, where his character and opinions are known, and where the honour and emolument are small, is not very seductive: and these are the offices filled by the greater number of citizens who serve society. The temptation to propitiate opinion becomes powerful when a citizen desires to enter the legislature, or to be the chief magistrate of the State. The peril increases when he becomes a candidate for Congress; and there seems to be no expectation whatever that a candidate for the presidentship, or his partizans, should retain any simplicity of speech, or regard to equity in the distribution of places and promises. All this is dreadfully wrong. It originates in a grand mistake, which cannot berectified but by much suffering. It is obvious that there must be mistake; for it can never be an arrangement of Providence that men cannot serve each other in their political relations without being corrupted.
The primary mistake is in supposing that men cannot bear to hear the truth. It has become the established method of seeking office, not only to declare a coincidence of opinion with the supposed majority, on the great topics on which the candidate will have to speak and act while in office, but to deny, or conceal, or assert anything else which it is supposed will please the same majority. The consequence is, that the best men are not in office. The morally inferior who succeed, use their power for selfish purposes, to a sufficient extent to corrupt their constituents, in their turn. I scarcely knew, at first, how to understand the political conversations which I heard in travelling. If a citizen told another that A. had voted in a particular manner, the other invariably began to account for the vote. A. had voted thus to please B., because B.'s influence was wanted for the benefit of C., who had promised so and so to A.'s brother, or son, or nephew, or leading section of constituents. A reason for a vote, or other public proceeding, must always be found; and any reason seemed to be taken up rather than the obvious one, that a man votes according to the decision of his reason and conscience. I often mentioned this to men in office, or seeking to be so; and they received it with a smile or a laugh which wrung my heart. Of all heart-withering things, political scepticism in a republic is one of the most painful. I told Mr. Clay my observations in both kinds. "Let them laugh!" cried he, with an honourable warmth: "and do you go on requiring honesty; and you will find it." He is right: but those whowould find the highest integrity had bettor not begin their observations on office-holders, much less on office-seekers, as a class. The office-holder finds, too often, that it may be easier to get into office than to have power to discharge its duties when there: and then the temptation to subservience, to dishonest silence, is well nigh too strong for mortal man. The office-seeker stands committed as desiring something for which he is ready to sacrifice his business or profession, his ease, his leisure, and the quietness of his reputation. He stands forth as either an adventurer, a man of ambition, or of self-sacrificing patriotism. Being once thus committed, failure is mortifying, and the allurement to compromise, in order to success, is powerful. Once in public life, the politician is committed for ever, whether he immediately perceives this, or not. Almost every public man of my acquaintance owned to me the difficulty of retiring,—in mind, if not in presence,—after the possession of a public trust. This painful hankering is part of the price to be paid for the honours of public service: and I am disposed to think that it is almost universal; that scarcely any man knows quiet and content, from the moment of the success of his first election. The most modest men shrink from thus committing themselves. The most learned men, generally speaking, devote themselves, in preference, to professions. The most conscientious men, generally speaking, shun the snares which fatally beset public life, at present, in the United States.
A gentleman of the latter class, whose talents and character would procure him extensive and hearty support, if he desired it, told me, that he would never serve in office, because he believes it to be the destruction of moral independence: he pointed out to me three friends of his, men ofremarkable talent, all in public life. "Look at them," said he, "and see what they might have been! Yet A. is a slave, B. is a slave, and C. is a worm in the dust." Too true.
Here is a grievous misfortune to the republic! My friend ascribes it to the want of protection from his neighbours, to which a man is exposed from the want of caste. This will never do. A crown and sceptre would be about as desirable in a republic as caste. If men would only try the effect of faith in one another, I believe they would take rank, and yield protection, with more precision and efficacy than by any manifestation of the exclusive spirit that was ever witnessed. Of course, this proposal will be called "Quixotic;" that convenient term which covers things the most serious and the most absurd, the wisest and the wildest. I am strengthened in my suggestion by a recurrence to the first principles of society in the United States, according to which I find that "rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and that the theory is, that the best men are chosen to serve. Both these pre-suppose mutual faith. Let the governed once require honesty as a condition of their consent; let them once choose the best men, according to their most conscientious conviction, and there will be an end of this insulting and disgusting political scepticism. Adventurers and ambitious men there will still be; but they will not taint the character of the class. Better men, who will respect their constituents, without fearing or flattering them, will foster the generous mutual faith which is now so grievously wanting; and the spirit of the constitution, now drooping in some of its most important departments, will revive.
I write more in hope than in immediate expectation. I saw much ground for hope, but verymuch also for grief. Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them. Nothing can be more disgusting than the contrast between the drawing-room gentleman, at ease among friends, and the same person courting the people, on a public occasion. The only comfort was a strong internal persuasion that the people do not like to be courted thus. They have been so long used to it, that they receive it as a matter of course; but, I believe, if a candidate should offer, who should make no professions but of his opinions, and his honest intentions of carrying them out; if he should respect the people as men, not as voters, and inform them truly of his views of their condition and prospects, they would recognise him at once as their best friend. He might, notwithstanding, lose his election; for the people must have time to recover, or to attain simplicity; but he would serve them better by losing his election thus, than by the longest and most faithful service in public life.
I have often wondered whether a gentleman at Laporte, in Indiana, who advertised his desire to be sheriff, gained his election. He declared in his advertisement that he had not been largely solicited, but that it was his own desire that he should be sheriff: he would not promise to do away with mosquitoes, ague, and fever, but only to do his duty. This candidate has his own way of flattering his constituents.
A gentleman of considerable reputation offered, last year, to deliver a lecture, in a Lyceum, in Massachusetts. It was upon the French Revolution; and on various accounts curious. There was no mention of the causes of the Revolution, exceptin a parenthesis of one sentence, where he intimated that French society was not in harmony with the spirit of the age. He sketched almost every body concerned, except the Queen. The most singular part, perhaps, was his estimate of the military talents of Napoleon. He exalted them much, and declared him a greater general than Wellington, but not so great as Washington. The audience was large and respectable. I knew a great many of the persons present, and found that none of them liked the lecture.
I attended another Lyceum lecture in Massachusetts. An agent of the Colonisation Society lectured; and, when he had done, introduced a clergyman of colour, who had just returned from Liberia, and could give an account of the colony in its then present state. As soon as this gentleman came forward, a party among the audience rose, and went out, with much ostentation of noise. Mr. Wilson broke off till he could be again heard, and then observed in a low voice, "that would not have been done in Africa;" upon which, there was an uproar of applause, prolonged and renewed. All the evidence on the subject that I could collect, went to prove that the people can bear, and do prefer to hear, the truth. It is a crime to withhold it from them; and a double crime to substitute flattery.
The tone of the orations was the sole, but great drawback from the enjoyment of the popular festivals I witnessed. I missed the celebration of the 4th of July,—both years; being, the first year, among the Virginia mountains, (where the only signs of festivity which I saw, were some slaves dressing up a marquee, in which their masters were to feast, after having read, from the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, and that rulers derive their justpowers from the consent of the governed;) and the second year on the lakes, arriving at Mackinaw too late in the evening of the great day for any celebration that might have taken place. But I was at two remarkable festivals, and heard two very remarkable orations. They were represented to me as fair or favourable specimens of that kind of address; and, to judge by the general sum of those which I read and heard, they were so.
The valley of the Connecticut is the most fertile valley in New England; and it is scarcely possible that any should be more beautiful. The river, full, broad, and tranquil as the summer sky, winds through meadows, green with pasture, or golden with corn. Clumps of forest trees afford retreat for the cattle in the summer heats; and the magnificent New England elm, the most graceful of trees, is dropped singly, here and there, and casts its broad shade upon the meadow. Hills of various height and declivity bound the now widening, now contracting valley. To these hills, the forest has retired; the everlasting forest, from which, in America, we cannot fly. I cannot remember that, except in some parts of the prairies, I was ever out of sight of the forest in the United States and I am sure I never wished to be so. It was like the "verdurous wall of Paradise," confining the mighty southern and western rivers to their channels. We were, as it appeared, imprisoned in it for many days together, as we traversed the south-eastern States. We threaded it in Michigan; we skirted it in New York and Pennsylvania; and throughout New England it bounded every landscape. It looked down upon us from the hill-tops; it advanced into notice from every gap and notch in the chain. To the native it must appear as indispensable in the picture-gallery of nature as the sky. To the English traveller it is a specialboon, an added charm, a newly-created grace, like the infant planet that wanders across the telescope of the astronomer. The English traveller finds himself never weary by day of prying into the forest, from beneath its canopy: or, from a distance drinking in its exquisite hues: and his dreams, for months or years, will be of the mossy roots, the black pine, and silvery birch stems, the translucent green shades of the beech, and the slender creeper, climbing like a ladder into the topmost boughs of the dark holly, a hundred feet high. He will dream of the march of the hours through the forest; the deep blackness of night, broken by the dun forest-fires, and startled by the showers of sparks, sent abroad by the casual breeze from the burning stems. He will hear again the shrill piping of the whip-poor-will, and the multitudinous din from the occasional swamp. He will dream of the deep silence which precedes the dawn; of the gradual apparition of the haunting trees, coming faintly out of the darkness; of the first level rays, instantaneously piercing the woods to their very heart, and lighting them up into boundless ruddy colonnades, garlanded with wavy verdure, and carpeted with glittering wild-flowers. Or, he will dream of the clouds of gay butterflies, and gauzy dragon-flies, that hover above the noon-day paths of the forest, or cluster about some graceful shrub, making it appear to bear at once all the flowers of Eden. Or the golden moon will look down through his dream, making for him islands of light in an ocean of darkness. He may not see the stars but by glimpses; but the winged stars of those regions,—the gleaming fire-flies,—radiate from every sleeping bough, and keep his eye in fancy busy in following their glancing, while his spirit sleeps in the deep charms of the summer night. Next to the solemn and various beauty of the sea andthe sky, comes that of the wilderness. I doubt whether the sublimity of the vastest mountain-range can exceed that of the all-pervading forest, when the imagination becomes able to realise the conception of what it is.
In the valley of the Connecticut, the forest merely presides over the scene, giving gravity to its charm. On East Mountain, above Deerfield, in Massachusetts, it is mingled with grey rocks, whose hue mingles exquisitely with its verdure. We looked down from thence on a long reach of the valley, just before sunset, and made ourselves acquainted with the geography of the catastrophe which was to be commemorated in a day or two. Here and there, in the meadows, were sinkings of the soil, shallow basins of verdant pasturage, where there had probably once been small lakes, but where cattle were now grazing. The unfenced fields, secure within landmarks, and open to the annual inundation which preserves their fertility, were rich with unharvested Indian corn; the cobs left lying in their sheaths, because no passer-by is tempted to steal them; every one having enough of his own. The silvery river lay among the meadows; and on its bank, far below us, stretched the avenue of noble trees, touched with the hues of autumn, which shaded the village of Deerfield. Saddleback bounded our view opposite, and the Northampton hills and Green Mountains on the left. Smoke arose, here and there, from the hills' sides, and the nearer eminences were dotted with white dwellings, of the same order with the homesteads which were sprinkled over the valley. The time is past when a man feared to sit down further off than a stone's throw from his neighbours, lest the Indians should come upon him. The villages of Hadley and Deerfield are a standing memorial of those times, when the whites clustered togetheraround the village church, and their cattle were brought into the area, every night, under penalty of their being driven off before morning. These villages consist of two rows of houses, forming a long street, planted with trees; and the church stands in the middle. The houses, of wood, were built in those days with the upper story projecting; that the inhabitants, in case of siege, might fire at advantage upon the Indians, forcing the door with tomahawks.
I saw an old house of this kind at Deerfield,—the only one which survived the burning of the village by the French and Indians, in 1704, when all the inhabitants, to the number of two hundred and eighty, being attacked in their sleep, were killed or carried away captive by the Indians. The wood of the house was old and black, and pierced in many parts with bullet-holes. One had given passage to a bullet which shot a woman in the neck, as she rose up in bed, on hearing the tomahawk strike upon the door. The battered door remains, to chill one's blood with the thought that such were the blows dealt by the Indians upon the skulls of their victims, whether infants or soldiers.
This was not the event to commemorate which we were assembled at Deerfield. A monument was to be erected on the spot where another body of people had been murdered, by savage foes of the same race. Deerfield was first settled in 1671; a few houses being then built on the present street, and the settlers being on good terms with their neighbours. King Philip's war broke out in 1675, and the settlers were attacked more than once. There was a large quantity of grain stored up at Deerfield; and it was thought advisable to remove it for safety to Hadley, fifteen miles off. Captain Lothrop, with eighty men, and some teams, marched from Hadley to remove the grain; his menbeing the youth and main hope of the settlements around. On their return from Deerfield, on the 30th of September 1675, about four miles and a half on the way to Hadley, the young men dispersed to gather the wild grapes that were hanging ripe in the thickets, and were, under this disadvantage, attacked by a large body of Indians. It was afterwards discovered that the only way to encounter the Indians is in phalanx. Captain Lothrop did not know this; and he posted his men behind trees, where they were, almost to a man, picked off by the enemy. About ninety-three, including the teamsters, fell. When all was over, help arrived. The Indians were beaten; but they appeared before the village, some days after, shaking the scalps and bloody garments of the slain captain and his troop, before the eyes of the inhabitants. The place was afterwards abandoned by the settlers, destroyed by the Indians, and not rebuilt for some years.
This was a piteous incident in the history of the settlement; but it is not easy to see why it should be made an occasion of commemoration, by monument and oratory, in preference to many others which have a stronger moral interest attaching to them. Some celebrations, like that of Forefather's Day, are inexpressibly interesting and valuable, from the glorious recollections by which they are sanctified. But no virtue was here to be had in remembrance; nothing but mere misery. The contemplation of mere misery is painful and hurtful; and the only salutary influence that I could perceive to arise from this occasion was a far-fetched and dubious one,—thankfulness that the Indians are not now at hand to molest the white inhabitants. Then occurs the question about the Indians,—"where are they?" and the answer leaves one less sympathy than one would wish tohave with the present security of the settler. The story of King Philip, who is supposed to have headed, in person, the attack on Lothrop's troop, is one of the most melancholy in the records of humanity; and sorrow for him must mingle with congratulations to the descendants of his foes, who, in his eyes, were robbers. With these thoughts in my mind, I found it difficult to discover the philosophy of this celebration. A stranger might be pardoned for being so slow.
One of the then candidates for the highest office in the State, is renowned for his oratory. He is one of the most accomplished scholars and gentlemen that the country possesses. It was thought, "by his friends," that his interest wanted strengthening in the western part of the State. The people were pleased when any occasion procured them theéclatof bringing a celebrated orator over to address them. The commemoration of an Indian catastrophe was thought of as an occasion capable of being turned to good electioneering purposes.—Mr. Webster was invited to be the orator, it being known that he would refuse. "Not I," said he. "I won't go and rake up old bloody Indian stories." The candidate was next invited, and, of course, took the opportunity of "strengthening his interest in the western part of the State." I was not aware of this till I sometime after heard it, on indisputable authority. I should have enjoyed it much less than I did, if I had known that the whole thing was got up, or its time and manner chosen, for electioneering objects; that advantage was taken of the best feelings of the people for the political interest of one.
The afternoon of the 29th we went to Bloody Brook, the fearfully-named place of disaster. We climbed the Sugar-loaf; a high, steep hill, from whose precipitous sides is obtained a view of thevalley which pleases me more than the celebrated one from Mount Holyoke, a few miles off. Each, however, is perfect in its way; and both so like heaven, when one looks down upon the valley in the light of an autumn afternoon,—such a light as never yet burnished an English scene,—that no inclination is left to make comparisons. The ox team was in the fields, the fishers on the banks of the grey river,—banks and fishers reflected to the life,—all as tranquil as if there was to be no stir the next day.
On descending, we went to the Bloody Brook Inn, and saw the strange and horrible picture of the slaughter of Lothrop's troop; a picture so bad as to be laughable; but too horrible to be laughed at. Every man of the eighty exactly alike, and all looking scared at being about to be scalped. We saw, also, the long tables spread for the feast of to-morrow. Lengths of unbleached cotton for table cloths, plates and glasses, were already provided. Some young men were bringing in long trails of the wild vine, clustered with purple grapes, to hang about the young maple trees which overshadowed the tables; others were trying the cannon. We returned home in a state of high expectation.
The morning of the 30th was bright, but rather cold. It was doubtful how far prudence would warrant our sitting in an orchard for several hours, in such a breeze as was blowing. It was evident, however, that persons at a distance had no scruples on the subject, so thickly did they throng to the place of meeting. The wagon belonging to the band passed my windows, filled with young ladies from the High School at Greenfield. They looked as gay as if they had been going to a fair. By half-past eight, our party set off, accompanied by a few, and passing a great number of strangers from distant villages.
After having accomplished our drive of three or four miles, we warmed ourselves in a friendly house, and repaired to the orchard to choose our seats, while the ceremony of laying the first stone of the monument was proceeding at some distance. The platform from which the orator was to address the assemblage was erected under a rather shabby walnut-tree, which was rendered less picturesque by its lower branches being lopped off, for the sake of convenience. Several men had perched themselves on the tree; and I was beginning to wonder how they would endure their uncomfortable seat, in the cold wind, for three hours, when I saw them called down, and dismissed to find places among the rest of the assemblage, as they sent down bark and dust upon the heads of those who sat on the platform. Long and deep ranges of benches were provided; and on these, with carriage cushions and warm cloaks, we found ourselves perfectly well accommodated. Nothing could be better. It was a pretty sight. The wind rustled fitfully in the old walnut-tree. The audience gathered around, it were sober, quiet; some would have said dull. The girls appeared to me to be all pretty, after the fashion of American girls. Every body was well-dressed; and such a thing as ill-behaviour in any village assemblage in New England, is, I believe, unheard of. The soldiers were my great amusement; as they were on the few other occasions when I had the good fortune to see any. Their chief business, on the present occasion, was to keep clear the seats which were reserved for the band, now absent with the procession. These seats were advantageously placed; and new-comers were every moment taking possession of them, and had to be sent, disappointed, into the rear. It was moving to behold the loving entreaties of the soldiers that these seats might bevacated. I saw one, who had shrunk away from his uniform, (probably from the use of tobacco, of which his mouth was full,) actually put his arm round the neck of a gentleman, and smile imploringly in his face. It was irresistible, and the gentleman moved away. It is a perfect treat to the philanthropist to observe the pacific appearance of the militia throughout the United States. It is well known how they can fight, when the necessity arises: but they assuredly look, at present, as if it was the last thing in their intentions:—as I hope it may long be.
The band next arrived, leading the procession of gentlemen, and were soon called into action by the first hymn. They did their best; and, if no one of their instruments could reach the second note of the German Hymn, (the second note of three lines out of four,) it was not for want of trying.
The oration followed. I strove, as I always did, not to allow difference of taste, whether in oratory, or in anything else, to render me insensible to the merit, in its kind, of what was presented to me: but, upon this occasion, all my sympathies were baffled, and I was deeply disgusted. It mattered little what the oration was in itself, if it had only belonged in character to the speaker. If a Greenfield farmer or mechanic had spoken as he believed orators to speak, and if the failure had been complete, I might have been sorry or amused, or disappointed; but not disgusted. But here was one of the most learned and accomplished gentlemen in the country, a candidate for the highest office in the State, grimacing like a mountebank before the assemblage whose votes he desired to have, and delivering an address, which he supposed level to their taste and capacity. He spoke of the "stately tree," (the poor walnut,) and the "mighty assemblage," (a little flock in the middle of an orchard,)and offered them shreds of tawdry sentiment, without the intermixture of one sound thought, or simple and natural feeling, simply and naturally expressed. It was equally an under estimate of his hearers, and a degradation of himself.
The effect was very plain. Many, I know, were not interested, but were unwilling to say so of so renowned an orator. All were dull; and it was easy to see that none of the proper results of public speaking followed. These very people are highly imaginative. Speak to them of what interests them, and they are moved with a word. Speak to those whose children are at school, of the progress and diffusion of knowledge, and they will hang upon the lips of the speaker. Speak to the unsophisticated among them of the case of the slave, and they are ready to brave Lynch-law on his behalf. Appeal to them on any religious or charitable enterprise, and the good deed is done, almost as soon as indicated. But they have been taught to consider the oratory of set persons on set occasions as a matter of business or of pastime. They listen to it, make their remarks upon it, vote, perhaps, that it shall be printed, and go home, without having been so much moved as by a dozen casual remarks, overheard upon the road.
All this would be of little importance, if these orations consisted of narrative,—or of any mere matter of fact. The grievance lies in the prostitution of moral sentiment, the clap-trap of praise and pathos, which is thus criminally adventured. This is one great evil. Another, as great, both to orators and listeners, is the mis-estimate of the people. No insolence and meanness can surpass those of the man of sense and taste who talks beneath himself to the people, because he thinks it suits them. No good parent ventures to do so to his youngest child; and a candidate for office who will do it,shows himself ignorant of that which it is most important he should know,—what fidelity of deference every man owes to every other man. Is such a one aware that he is perpetually saying in his heart, "God! I thank thee that I am not as other men are?"
The other festival, to which I have alluded, was the celebration of Forefathers' Day;—of the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. I trust that this anniversary will be hailed with honour, as long as Massachusetts overlooks the sea. A more remarkable, a nobler enterprise, was never kept in remembrance by a grateful posterity, than the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers; and their posterity are, at least, so far worthy of them as that they all, down to the young children, seem to have a clear understanding of the nature of the act, and the character of the men. I never beheld the popular character in a more cheering light than on this occasion; and, if I happened to be acquainted with a misanthrope, I would send him to Plymouth, to keep Forefathers' Day. Every fact that I review, every line that I write, brings back delightful feelings towards some of the affectionate and hospitable friends through whose kindness I saw and learned whatever I learned of their country; but to none am I more thankful than to those who took me to Plymouth, and those who welcomed me there. It was an occasion when none could be on any other terms than pure brotherhood with all the rest. It was the great birth-day of the New England people; and none could fail to wish the people joy.
My party and I reached Plymouth from Hingham the day before the celebration. As we drew near the coast, I anxiously watched the character of the scenery, trying to view it with the eyes of the first emigrants. It must have struck a chill to theirhearts;—so bare, so barren, so wintry. The firs grew more and more stunted, as we approached the sea; till, as one of my companions observed, they were ashamed to show themselves any smaller, and so turned into sand. Mrs. Hemans calls it, in her fine lyric, a rock-bound coast; naturally enough, as she was told that the pilgrims set their feet on a rock, on landing; but that rock was the only one. The coast is low and sandy. The aspect of the bay was, this day, most dreary. We had travelled through snow, all the way behind; snowy fields, with here and there a solitary crow stalking in the midst; and now, there was nothing but ice before us. Dirty, grey ice, some sheeted, some thrown up by the action of the sea into heaps, was all that was to be seen, instead of the blue and glittering sea. A friend assured me, however, that all would be bright and cheering the next morning; informing me, with a smile, that in the belief of the country people, it never did rain or snow, and never would rain or snow, on Forefathers' Day. This is actually a superstition firmly held in the neighbourhood. This friend pointed out to me, in the course of the afternoon, how the green grass was appearing through the snow on Burial Hill, on whose slope the descending sun, warm for December, was shining. We mounted Burial Hill; and when I trod the turf, after some weeks' walking over crisp snow, I began to feel that I might grow superstitious too, if I lived at Plymouth.
Upwards of half the pilgrim company died the first winter. Fifty-one dropped in succession; and the graves of most of them are on this hill. Burial Hill was probably chosen to be amemento morito the pious pilgrims; its elevation, bristling with grave-stones, being conspicuous from every part of the town. But, lest it should exhibit their tale of disaster to their foes, the Indians, the colonistssowed the place of their dead with corn; making it, for honest purposes, a whited sepulchre. From this eminence, we saw the island in the harbour where the fathers landed for service on the first Sunday after their arrival; also, the hill on which stood a wigwam, from whence issued an Indian to hold the first parley. A brook flowed between the two hills, on which stood the Indian and the chief of the intruders. Governor Winslow descended to the brook; bridged it with stepping-stones, in sight of the Indian; laid down his arms, and advanced. The meeting was friendly; but there was so little feeling of security, for long after, that when half the colonists had perished, the rest were paraded round and round a hut on Burial Hill, to conceal the smallness of their numbers from the vigilant Indians.
We went to the Registry Office, and saw the earliest records of the colony,—as far back as 1623,—in the handwriting of the fathers. Among them is a record of the lots of land appointed to those who came over in the Mayflower. (Little did the builders of that ship dream how they were working for immortality!) Sometimes a cow is appointed, with a lot, to six families. Sometimes a black goat. The red cow is ordained to be kept for the poor, to calve.
The rock on which the pilgrims first landed, has been split, and the top part, in order to its preservation, removed within an iron railing, in front of Pilgrim Hall. The memorable date of the landing, 1620, is painted upon it; and the names of the fathers, in cast-iron, are inserted into the railing which surrounds the rock.
Within the Hall, a plain, spacious building, erected within ten years, to serve as the scene of the festivities of Forefathers' Day, and also as a Museum of Pilgrim curiosities, is a picture, bySargent, of the Landing of the Pilgrims. Samosat, the Indian chief, is advancing, with English words of greeting,—"Welcome, Englishmen!" Elder Brewster, and the other fathers, with their apprehensive wives and wondering children, form an excellent group; and the Mayflower is seen moored in the distance. The greatest defect in the picture is the introduction of the blasted tree, which needlessly adds to the desolation of the scene, and gives a false idea, as far as it goes. I could not have anticipated the interest which these memorials would inspire. I felt as if in a dream, the whole time that I was wandering about with the rejoicing people, among the traces of the heroic men and women who came over into the perilous wilderness, in search of freedom of worship.
Forefathers' Day rose bright and mild. I looked out towards the harbour. Every flake of ice was gone, and the deep blue sea rippled and sparkled in the sun. The superstition was fated to endure another year, at least. All Plymouth was in a joyous bustle, with lines of carriages, and groups of walkers. After breakfast, we proceeded to the church, to await the orator of the day. We were detained on the steps for a few minutes, till the doors should be opened; and I was glad of it, for the sun was warm, and thecoup d'œilwas charming. There was one long descent from the church down to the glittering sea; and on the slope were troops of gay ladies, and lines of children; with here and there a company of little boys, playing soldiers to the music of the band, which came faintly from afar. Of real soldiers, I saw two during the day. There might be more; but none were needed. The strangest association of all was of a Pilgrim Ode sung to the tune of "God save the King!" an air which I should have supposed no more likely to be chosen for such an occasionthan as an epilogue to the Declaration of Independence. It did very well, however. It set us all singing so as to drown the harmony of the violins and horns which acted as instigation.
The oration was by an ex-senator of the United States. It consisted wholly of an elaboration of the transcendent virtues of the people of New England. His manner was more quiet than that of any other orator I heard; and I really believe that there was less of art than of weakness and bad taste in his choice of his mode of address. Nothing could be imagined worse,—more discordant with the fitting temper of the occasion,—more dangerous to the ignorant, if such there were,—more disgusting to the wise, (as I know, on the testimony of such,)—more unworthy of one to whom the ear of the people was open. He told his hearers of the superiority of their physical, intellectual, and moral constitution to that of their brethren of the middle and southern States, to that of Europeans, and all other dwellers in the earth; a superiority which forbade their being ever understood and appreciated by any but themselves. He spoke especially of the intensity of the New England character, as being a hidden mystery from all but natives. He contrasted the worst circumstances of European society, (now in course of correction,) with the best of New England arrangements, and drew the obvious inferences. He excused the bigotry of the Pilgrim Fathers, their cruel persecution of the Quakers, and other such deeds, on the ground that they had come over to have the colony to themselves, and did not want interlopers. He extenuated the recent mobbing practices in New England, on the ground of their rarity and small consequences, and declared it impossible that the sons of the pilgrims should trust to violence for the maintenance of opinion. Thislast sentiment, the only sound one that I perceived in the oration, was loudly cheered. The whole of the rest, I rejoice to say, fell dead.
The orator was unworthy of his hearers. He had been a senator of the United States, and had, I was told, discharged his duty there; but he was little fit for public life, if he did not know that it is treason to republicanism to give out lower morals in public than are held in private; to smile or sigh over the vanity of the people by the fireside, and pamper it from the rostrum; to use the power of oratory to injure the people, instead of to save. In this case, the exaggeration was so excessive as to be, I trust, harmless. No man of common sense could be made to believe that any community of mortal men has ever been what the orator described the inhabitants of New England to have attained. I was deeply touched by the first remark I heard upon this oration. A lady, who had been prevented from attending, asked me, on my return, home, how I liked the address. Before I could open my lips to reply, her daughter spoke. "I am heart-sick of this boasting. When I think of our forefathers, I want to cry, 'God be merciful to us sinners!'" If the oration awakened in others, as I believe it did, by force of contrast, feelings as healthful, as faithful to the occasion as this, it was not lost, and our pity must rest upon the orator.
I am aware,—I had but too much occasion to observe,—how this practice of flattering the people from the rostrum is accounted for, and, as a matter of fact, smiled at by citizens of the United States. I know that it is considered as a mode, inseparable from the philosophy of politics there. I dissent from this view altogether. I see that the remedy lies, not wholly where remedies for the oppression of severe natural laws lie,—in a new combination of outward circumstances,—but in the individualhuman will. The people may have honest orators if they choose to demand to hear the truth. The people will gladly hear the truth, if the appointed orator will lay aside selfish fears and desires, and use his high privilege of speaking from the bottom of his soul. If, in simplicity, he delivers to the people his true and best self, he is certain to gain the convictions of many, and the sympathies of all; and his soul will be clear of the guilt of deepening the pit under the feet of the people, while trying to persuade them that they are treading on firm ground. What is to be said of guides who dig pitfalls?
The day closed delightfully. Almost everybody went to pay respect to an aged lady, then eighty-eight, a regular descendant of one of the pilgrims. She was confined to the sofa, but retained much beauty, and abundant cheerfulness. She was delighted to receive us, and to sympathise in those pleasures of the day which she could not share. I had the honour of sitting in the chair which her ancestor brought over from England, and of feeling the staple by which it was fastened in the Mayflower.
The dinner being over, the gentlemen returned to their several abodes, to escort the ladies to the ball in Pilgrim Hall. I went, with a party of seven others, in a stage coach; every carriage, native and exotic, being in requisition to fill the ball-room, from which no one was excluded. It was the only in-door festival, except the President's levee, where I witnessed an absolutely general admission; and its aspect and conduct were, in the highest degree, creditable to the intelligence and manners of the community. There were families from the islands in the bay, and other country residences, whence the inhabitants seldom emerge, except for this festival. The dress of some of the young ladies waspeculiar, and their glee was very visible; but I saw absolutely no vulgarity. There was much beauty, and much elegance among the young ladies, and the manners of their parents were unexceptionable. There was evidence in the dancing, of the "intensity" of which we had heard so much in the morning. The lads and lasses looked as if they meant never to tire; but this enjoyment of the exercise pleased me much more than the affectation of dancing, which is now fashionable in the large cities. I never expect to see a more joyous and unexceptionable piece of festivity than the Pilgrim ball of 1835.
The next day, the harbour was all frozen over; and the memory of the blue, rippling sea of Plymouth, is therefore, with me, sacred to Forefathers' Day.
I was frequently reminded by friends of what is undoubtedly very true, the great perils of office in the United States, as an excuse for the want of honesty in officials. It is perfectly true that it is ruin to a professional man without fortune, to enter public life for a time, and then be driven back into private life. I knew a senator of the United States who had served for nearly his twice six years, and who then had to begin life again, as regarded his profession. I knew a representative of the United States, a wealthy man, with a large family, who is doubting still, as he has been for a few years past, whether he shall give up commerce or public life, or go on trying to hold them both. He is rich enough to devote himself to public life; but at the very next election after he has relinquished his commercial affairs, he may be thrown out of politics. I see what temptations arise in such cases, to strain a few points, in order to remain in the public eye; and I am willing to allow for the strength of the temptation.
But the part for honest men to take is to exposethe peril, to the end that the majority may find a remedy; and not to sanction it by yielding to it. Let the attention of the people be drawn towards the salaries of office, that they may discover whether they are too low; which is best, that adventurers of bad character should now and then get into office, because they have not reputation enough to obtain a living by other means, or that honest and intelligent men should be kept out, because the prizes of office are engrossed by more highly educated men; and whether the rewards of office are kept low by the democratic party, for the sake of putting in what their opponents call 'adventurers,' or by the aristocratic, with the hope of offices being engrossed by the men of private fortune. Let the true state of the case, according to each official's view of it, be presented to the people, rather than any countenance be given to the present dreadful practice of wheedling and flattery; and the perils of office will be, by some means, lessened.
The popular scandal against the people of the United States, that they boast intolerably of their national institutions and character, appears to me untrue: but I see how it has arisen. Foreigners, especially the English, are partly to blame for this. They enter the United States with an idea that a republic is a vulgar thing: and some take no pains to conceal their thought. To an American, nothing is more venerable than a republic. The native and the stranger set out on a misunderstanding. The English attacks, the American defends, and, perhaps, boasts. But the vain-glorious flattery of their public orators is the more abundant source of this reproach; and it rests with the people to redeem themselves from it. For my own part, I remember no single instance of patriotic boasting, from man, woman, or child, except from the rostrum; but from thence there was poured enoughto spoil the auditory for life, if they had been simple enough to believe what they were told. But they were not.