I want to speak of the art of arranging flowers. Of theart, I say, for itisone. Do any of my readers comprehend the fact? They certainly would, had they dawdled away hours more than grave moralists would approve, fussing with me over the darlings of garden and greenhouse.
Don't come to the conclusion now, that I am in the habit of making up those small, round, or flat, stiff bouquets to be obtained for a compensation (not slight) from market-gardeners and the like. I repudiate the artificialities! Who wants camellias tied on false stems? Who would be thankful for such a mosaic of 'nature's gems'?Mosaic, that's the word exactly for such French bouquets. Andgems, in truth, far too stony in their setting for blithe springing blossoms! I'll have nothing to do with such abominations.
No;Imean by the 'art of flower-arranging' that process by which the various characteristics of flowers are brought out and combined according to artistic rules. Does this sound metaphysical or—æsthet-i-cal? Why is the effect produced by the 'bunch of posies' stuck clumsily into a broken-nosed pitcher on the kitchen window-sill, different from that of the same carefully disposed in an elegant receptacle on the drawing-room table? The nosegay is bright and fragrant in either place. Why then do not the plebeian and patrician bouquets equally please? In the one case, you say, the charms are inharmoniously dispersed, and nearly neutralized by meaner surroundings, while in the other they are enhanced by every advantage of position and appropriate accessories. Should you not be grateful, then, for the working of my theory of development and manifestation? Would you now like to understand a little its operation?
Welcome, then, to whatever benefit can be derived from my limited experience. I am a humble student in floralarchitecture, and I offer my few suggestions to fellow-pupils, to those who aim unsuccessfully at home adornment, whose utmost skill often only attains sublimefailures—not to the geniuses in the art.
Frankly, submissively I acknowledge there are persons who, guided only by native taste and sense of harmony, accomplish beautiful results without hesitation or thought. Their flowers obey the slightest touch with nice subservience, falling into their most exquisite combinations of color and form.
It would be superfluous to dictate to those thus gifted, but some of the unfortunates destitute of the divine intuition may be aided by the plain directions following. I may venture to hope that the judicious application of them will prevent the appearance of, perhaps,severalugly bouquets in the world.
My first maxim has reference to vases. They should, for the most part, be simple in design and uniform in tint. Avoid 'fishy' mouths, too wide for their (the vases') hight. Never put Lilliputian flowers, in no matter how large a quantity, into Brobdignagian vessels. In other respects, endeavor to adapt your boxes to the character of your flowers. For dahlias, flat dishes will be found very convenient, spread with broad, green leaves.
Secondly. Do not put flowers of different shades of the same color side by side, any more than you would wear hues as discordant together on your person.
Thirdly. Be very careful with the foliage employed. Too much hides the flowers; too little does not relieve them. Drooping green vines, etc., are always available.
Last, but by no means least,massyour colors. This rule is now often adopted on a larger scale in laying out flower-beds, and it is very important. It gives concentration and force to bouquets, and effectually prevents their not uncommon patchwork appearance.
If thesedictaseem to any one ridiculously self-evident, he may take it for granted he is one of the geniuses, for whose service they are not promulgated. For their efficacy, behold some bouquets.
A small, plain Parian pitcher, bearing sprays of orange-leaves and blossoms, one full-blown, deep red camellia, solid, heavy, looking as if carved from coral-stained ivory, many pendent abutilus, and some graceful vine curled negligently round the handle. How like youle tout ensemble!
Look again: A small vase, light buff in color, holding roses—red and white—relieved by pansies, of intermingled purple and golden dyes, and by sprigs of the lemon verbena, of dainty heaths, mignonette, heliotrope, and geranium-leaves.
See this, also: A ground-glass vase, containing a perfect white camellia, the daphneodora, and fuchsias, crimson and white.
And this: A slender, tall vase of the ruby Bohemian glass, with varieties of the colceolaria, their tiny purses specked with brown, from light tan to velvety maroon.
These, it will be seen, are all medium-sized bouquets. Larger ones, requiring more material, are not so easy to describe. Some summer flowers found in every garden—the double stocks (gilli-flowers) blend their varied shades finely with the glittering coreopsis, the sombre mourning-bride, and the violet cerulean Canterbury bells.
In winter, with ample resources, one can produce masterpieces. What think you of callas—their frozen calm kindled by the ruddy flush of azaleas, and their superb stateliness opposed by the flexile vivacity of the feathery willow acacia? The same white lilies, or their deliciously sweet July representatives, are contrasted well with scarlet geranium, vivid and glowing, or with the flames of the cactus, and toned down by the bluish lavender of the wistaria. This makes a bouquet eminently suited for church—its colors forming Ruskin's sacred chord, and typifying the union of purity, love, and faith.
Flowers on the altar are most appropriate and significant, but strict attention should be paid to their symbolism. For the communion-table there are lilies of the valley, and in its season, the rosy snow of the blooming fruit-trees. Nor must the passion-flower be forgotten—and against its mystic darkness set the china pink clusters of the oleander. If they are not procurable, substitute great half-opened rose-buds, deepest pink and cream-color, and add the broken stars of the stephanotis. This last, twined among the glossiest and darkest leaves of the rhododendron, forms a fitting crown for the gray hairs of the dead, passing away in fullness of years and of honors.
Chrysanthemums brought by November, and half-faded, as it were, in the waning light, are most meet offerings for the departing year to lay at the holy shrine.
Thus much forspiritualflowers. Others there are in contrast,materialmerely, hearty, substantial, and robust. I take singularly to all such, calumniated asvulgar. And why not keep a corner in our souls for the common and every-day, as for the elegant and rare?
There is a noon of sharp, bustling matter-of-fact, as well as a morn of high, noble aspiration, and an eve of hushed and solemn reverie. It is in the noon, too, that our active life takes place; why not enjoy ourselves then, as only it is possible? So why not allow certain lower faculties of our nature to delight in what are called the grosser flowers? Why not cultivate their acquaintance, as we would that of motherly, kind, portly, and phlegmatic old ladies, rustling in their silks and satins, with a comfortable complacency, satisfied with their own share of fortune's goods, and benevolently disposed toward their less favored neighbors?
To be sure much can not be said of theartisticcapabilities of some of thesecronies. One does not care to transfer marigolds, poppies, lilacs, phlox, cockscomb, and cabbage-roses from their own garden-homes to the more elevated sphere of domestic life. But snow-balls, 'flaunting' petunias, double hollyhocks, China asters, and tulips, they certainly are available. By the way, what business have the juvenile story-books to stigmatize tulips as vain and proud? The splendid things have a right to be conscious of their glorious clothing. Who gave it them? And dahlias, what purples, crimsons, and oranges they boast! Formal they may be, but, at least in Yankee parlance,handsome, and when arranged with woodbine-leaves October's earliest frosts have painted, can there be a finer expression of the season of autumn?
In this connection one remembers Miss Mitford and her charming history of the loss of her yellow pride—the Apollo among dahlias. Lovable Miss Mitford! how pleasant would have been a flower-talk with her!
Now, having owned to so many shockingly low tastes, no one would, I presume, be surprised to hear me avow apenchantfor sun-flowers and peonies, dear old-fashioned creatures that they are! Shall I plead in excuse for my weakness for the coarsest of the flowers yet another reason? They form to me, in their extent of surface and fullness of color, the nearest approach our chilly New-England can make to the blaze and vitality of the Southern flora. And I so long for the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, the gorgeous magnificence I have never seen—even the magnolia has only been disclosed to my dreams.
I would not disparage delicate and fragile flowerets, though I am so infatuated by their brilliant sisters. They are lovely to examine, and, as individuals, very precious, but in my opinion useless for decorative purposes. In a body they confuse one another, and you can notmasstheir colors.
This remark is also very applicable to wild flowers, which, moreover, be they large or small, possess additional disqualifications for proper arrangement. They are not at ease in cultivated atmospheres. Violets and anemones—their sacredness, innocence, and peace—require the soothing airs of woodland solitudes. Drawn from secret nooks and haunts into the garish day, they droop and pine, they cry forlornly: 'We are weary, we are dying; take us home to rest again!' There is the blood-red cardinal-flower. Bold enough surely, you say. Wade, stretch, and leap, and seize at last in triumph the coveted prize. A new difficulty! The spikes are so rough, jagged, and stiff, there is no welding of them together. You wish them back in their burning bush. The fringed blue gentian, too, has very troublesome appendages. It is prettiest in its pasture-built place, opening to the welcome breezes its azure petals. Besides, there is where Bryant wishes it to remain, and certainlyhisdesire should have some weight with us.
Some mortifications, therefore, it has been seen, attend on the pursuit of the art of flower-arranging. These are but the beginning of sorrows, nevertheless. Many others might be mentioned, vexations consequent on the constitution of the subjects themselves.
It is a melancholy fact that life and beauty can not be preserved in them without water. On grand, temporary occasions it may answer for the artist to disregard this natural law, but it would be an excess of barbarity to do thus often. There ought to be no more martyrs for the sake ofeffectthan can be helped.
But now ensues the tug of war. How make stems of all lengths stand in the most desirable position and yet all touch the water? Sometimes a shorter onemuststand above a longer one, when it is impossible to bathe its feet in the refreshing liquid.Sinkthe longer then;cutit off. Each experiment will bring annoyance, as the tyro may find as he plods on in his task. Short-stemmed flowers make 'chunky' bouquets, every one knows. Another trouble is occasioned by the froward behavior of flowers. Never a woman among the sex could be at times so fickle and perverse. I am not prepared to maintain the theory of a higher nature in plants than the merely physical. It is enough for me to cling to an enormous heresy with respect toanimals. Against the fiat of Christendom I will persist in granting them the semblance of a soul. Iwillswallow the old creed about flowers. Still, wherever they get them, they do exhibit tantalizing qualities.Perverse?That verbena knows perfectly where she ought to go, where, in the goodness of your heart, you are striving to place her, but how obstinately she resists, slipping finally, in utter rebellion, from your fingers.Fickle?How docile was the same verbena yesterday. Nay, it was of her own accord she assumed the pretty position you want to see again. You did not think or care about it then.
With all one's minor trials, who would regret time spent in such delightful labors? I have tasted so many pleasures in my devotion hitherto, that perhaps I should be content. Yet to look upon grand floral decorations; to behold wreath-encircled pillar and arch in lordly halls, and baskets piled and pyramids raised from the wealth of fairy-land conservatories!—on spectacles like these I hope to feast my senses some future day.
Some one may ask: 'You who enjoy so fully flowers, who hang over them in such transport when gathered, have you no interest in their cultivation? no care to watch their growth? no love for gardening, in short?' No! I reply; very little. I am satisfied to take the results of others' exertions. I have no wish to plod i' the mold,' not the slightest objection to others doing that business for me. I am too indolent to like out-door work very well; much too fond of late rising to enjoy weeding, digging, etc., in the early morning air. I think likely I ought to feel differently, but I don't. Suffer me to inquirewhypeople insist on peeping behind the scenes of nature's stage, when she seems to take such pains to conceal her 'modus operandi'? Let me not be too sweeping, however. There is one kind of floriculture I could fancy. Plants reared in winter in the house, snatched from the biting cold, must be so caressingly tended! Vines, too, how precious they become—every tiny tendril regarded with such tenderness, and as the clinging branches wind in light festoons round parent shell or basket, so do they grasp the cords of the affections and twine exultingly around them.
Hyacinths also are pleasant to sight and smell in warm, cheerful rooms when fast without fall drifting snows. It is the happiness of education, of association, of possession, that such plants afford. They are endeared inversely to their number, it may be—the solitary shrub being as the one ewe lamb. This joy in flowers differing thus materially from my pleasure in their artistic elements.
Ah! when shall I stop? The civil public will be wearied out ere long, and so much has been left unsaid on my inexhaustible theme! When was a lover ever known to tire—himself? A lover! Here conscience has a word of reproach, 'Thoualover, so unjust in thy self-conceit? Bringing down thy goddesses to be in truth veryidols, the work of thy own hands—prating presumptuously of thy power over their immortal glories!'
Verily, I am to blame, but how repair the error?
Can eloquence be mine to fitly tell of the mighty influence of the flowers? Shall I say that, without their 'laughing light,' this world would be a dreary, lonesome place? It is a trite and tedious exclamation—an axiom past disputing.
Shall I join in the grateful song resounding over every land; in homage to the blessing-laden blossoms? Lips long used to wailing swell that chorus loudest, for it was the sunshine caught in buttercup or dandelion that turned so many darkened faces in sudden smiles to heaven. Ah! they are the forms wastedand bowed down by anguish, that stoop most meekly, thankfully, only to lie where the daisies can grow over them.
Shall I strive to spell the lesson written by the green earth's flowery tracery?
Long, long ago One read that lore in love, and the lilies of the field but give it back to us to-day.
Here pondering, one thought of awe, yet rapture, thrills through my soul. If to our poor humanity such honeyed drops of healing do earth's frailest flower-cups yield, how cool, how crystal-clear the nectar from amaranth and asphodel distilled for those
'Who walk in soft white light, with kings and priests abroad;Who summer high in bliss upon the hills of God!'
A fact which stands broadly out on the page of our current history is the intense and peculiar hatred wherewith the people of the North are generally regarded by those engaged in the Southern rebellion. Thatit isa fact, is established by the concurrent testimony of the whole insurgent press and of our soldiers returned from Southern captivity, and nearly all those, whether in civil or military life, who have visited the States deeply infected with the virus of Secession. Probably never before were prisoners of war in a civilized country subjected to so much obloquy and vituperation from women and children as our captured volunteers in the South during the past year. Hate of the abhorred 'Yankees,' scorn and the loathing of 'Lincoln's hirelings,' detestation of the mean, sordid, groveling, mercenary spirit of the Northern masses, have been the burden of Southern oratory and journalism for the last eighteen months. No devilish hate expressed in Milton's magnificent epic surpasses in intensity, however it may in dignity and genuine force, that which is breathed through every oracle of Southern popular sentiment. And this is insisted on by Southern letter-writers and journalists as demonstrating the impossibility of 'reconstruction.' 'How can those who hate each other so implacably ever again be one people? What use in seeking to restore a Union which hereafter can, at best, be but the result of overwhelming force on the one side, and utter subjugation on the other?'
But the assumption ofmutualhate between the Northern and the Southern masses is utterly groundless. Nothing in the attitude, the bearing, the utterances, of the loyal millions affords it any justification or countenance. So far are they from cherishing any such aversion to the Southern people, that they can with difficulty, and but inadequately, comprehend the malignity wherewith they are regarded by the revolters, without feeling the smallest desire to reciprocate it. That the Rebellion itself should be regarded with general reprobation throughout the Free States was inevitable, for, in the first place, it involves a most flagitious breach of faith. Republican liberty rests on an implied but essential compact that the result of a fair election shall be conclusive. If those who lose an election are thereupon to rush to arms for a reversal of the decision of the ballot-box, then elections are a stupid sham, whereon no earnest person will waste his breath or his suffrage. Why should any one devote his time and effort to secure a political result which those overborne by it will set at defiance the next hour? It is not merely Jefferson or Adams, Jackson or Lincoln, who is defied by a revolt like that now raging in this country; it is the principle of Popular Elections—it is the right of a constitutional majority to govern. Concede that the Southern States were justifiable in seceding from the Union because Lincoln (with their connivance) was chosen President, and it were absurd ever to hold another Presidential Election, or ask any man to vote hereafter. The North certainly feels that the principle of government by constitutions and majorities is assailed by this rebellion, and that to concede its rightfulness is to displace the very corner-stone of republican liberty.
The North feels also that commercial dishonesty was potent among the influences which fomented this rebellion. Bankruptcy almost universal—planters immersed in debt for lands, for negroes, for food, for fabrics—merchants overhead in debt to the importers and jobbers of the Northern sea-ports—every one owing more or less, and few able or willing to pay: such was the general pecuniary condition of the South at the outset of this subversion. It is no libel on the South to say that relief from the pressure of over-due obligations was primarily sought by an immense number, in plunging into the abyss of revolution. And a great proportion of the Southern merchants, with full intent to defraud their creditors, by lighting the flames of civil war, in 1860 swelled their indebtedness to their Northern friends to the utmost. This was low knavery seeking protection behind the black mantle of treason. If the facts could be fully laid bare, it would be found that disinclination to pay their honest debts has transformed vast numbers from Unionists into traitors. The North can never respect those who seek to slay their creditors, that they may evade their moral as well as legal obligation to pay them.
Nor can the loyal millions respect those who, in setting forth the grounds of their rebellion, and essaying to justify themselves in the eyes of the civilized world, do not hesitate to deny the most palpable truths. The rebel who rests on the inherent or reserved right of each State to secede from the Union at her sovereign pleasure, is a bad logician, and unsound in his constitutional theories; but he is not necessarily a knave. But the rebel apologist who says to Europe, 'This revolt was not impelled by Slavery, but by hostility to the policy of Protection, Internal Improvements, etc., which the North had power in the Union to fasten upon us in defiance of our utmost opposition,' he shows himself a dissembler and a liar. There was no tariff when the Cotton States seceded—there had been none for many years—which those States had not heartily aided to enact. For not more than ten years of the eighty-odd of our existence as a nation, has there been a tariff in operation that South-Carolina did not help enact and sustain. The tariffs which are now trumped up as an excuse for Secession, not only had no existence when that Secession was inaugurated, but could have had none had the Cotton States remained faithful to their constitutional obligations. When, therefore, such men as Lieutenant Maury assure Europe that Slavery did not incite the Southern Rebellion—that it had but a remote and subordinate relation to that outbreak—they betray their own recklessness of truth, and their knowledge that their case is one which can not abide the scrutiny and the dispassionate judgment of Christendom.
But the Southern Whites hate us vehemently. That is unfortunately true of what would seem to be a large majority of them. Misled by artful demagogues—excited by charges of Northern rapacity, perfidy, outrage, and venom, to which no contradiction in their hearing is permitted—the Poor Whites of the South really believe that the North is waging against them an unprovoked and fiendish, war of subjugation and rapine. Of course, they abhor us, and invoke all manner of curses on our heads. But their hatred rests upon and is impelled by egregious falsehoods, and will vanish when those falsehoods shall have been exposed and their influence dissipated.The Whisky Rebels of Western Pennsylvania intensely hated the rule of George Washington; but their rebellion being crushed, all trace of the bitterness it engendered soon faded away.
As to the aristocracy of the South, it understands the case far better, though individuals among its members are misled. The majority are fighting for the extension and perpetuation of that Heaven-defying system which is at once the idol and the bane of the South—for that 'peculiar institution' which makes one half the community helpless victims to the pride, indolence, avarice, and lust of the other half. The aristocracy are fighting for Slavery—neither less nor more—and they fight bravely, desperately. Their existence as a privileged order has been recklessly staked on the issue of the contest, and they mean to triumph at any cost. To suppose that they can be vanquished yet leave their bloody idol intact—that they can be compelled to reënter 'the Union as it was,' and send their Slidells, Hammonds, Howell Cobbs, and Masons, back to a Union Congress—is one of the wildest dreams that ever flitted through a sane mind. Reunion or Disunion is possible; a restoration of 'the Union as it was,' is as impracticable as a return of the Eleventh Century or a replacement of the New World in the condition wherein Columbus found it.
The Southern aristocracy must triumph or cease as an aristocracy to exist. A flogged slaveholder is an anomaly that can not endure; he can not rule his chattels if they know that he has succumbed to a force that he would gladly have defied but could no longer resist. 'Poor White trash' may endure and repay the contempt of their servile neighbors, but a man-owning aristocracy that has fought and been vanquished, can no longer command the respect or the obedience of its chattels.
The issue of our present struggle must be Disunion or Emancipation. And, assuming it to be Emancipation, the hate wherewith the North is regarded at the South would soon die out. New social and industrial relations and interests, new activities, new ambitions, would speedily efface all painful recollections of our desperate struggle. The late slaveholders, having ceased to be such, would no longer be controlled by the impulses nor plastic to the influences which impelled them to rush upon the thick bosses of the Union. They would find in the rapid peopling of their section by immigration from the North and from Europe, and the consequent increase in current value of the lands, timber, mines, water-power, etc., of their Section, new avenues to wealth, new incitements to activity and energy. Shays' rebellion engulfed the greater part of Western Massachusetts; but ten years passed, and it had sunk into a mere tradition. La Vendée was more unanimous and more intense in its hostility to the French Republic than any Southern State now is to a restoration of the Union; yet La Vendée soon after responded meekly to the conscriptions of Napoleon. War alienates and inflames; but Peace speedily re-links the golden chain of mutual interests, and all is kindly again.
Let Slavery disappear, and all incitement to alienation or bitterness between the North and the South will have vanished. God has made them for parts of the same country; their diverse topographies, climates, productions, render them the natural complement of each other. The Cotton, Sugar, Tobacco, etc., of the South will be freely exchanged, as of yore, for the Manufactures, Machinery, and Implements of the North: the former gradually learning to supply her own essential wants to an extent hitherto unknown; but the rapid increase of her population, industry, and wealth, will render her a wider and steadier market for the products of the latter and of Europe than she has ever yet been. The South will soon realize that the death of Slavery has awakened her to a new and nobler life—that what she at first regarded as a great calamity and a downfall, was in truth her beneficent renovation and her chiefblessing. So shall North and South, at length comprehending and appreciating each other, walk hand in hand along their common pathway to an exalted and benignant destiny, admonished to mutual forbearance and deference by mournful yet proud recollections of their great struggle, and realizing in their newly established and truly fraternal concord the opening of a long, bright vista of reciprocal kindness and inviolable peace.
'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'
It was five years after the events recorded in the previous chapter, when, one day late in October, I started on my annual tour among the Southern correspondents of the mercantile-house of which I was then a member. Arriving at Richmond shortly after noon, I took a hasty meal at the wretched restaurant near the railway-station, and, with a segar in my mouth, seated myself on a trunk in the baggage-car, to proceed on my journey. As the train moved off from the depot, a hand was placed on my arm, and a familiar voice said:
'Lord bless me! Kirke, is this you?'
Looking up, I saw Mr. Robert Preston—or, as he was known among his acquaintance, 'Squire Preston of Jones'—a gentleman whose Northern business I had transacted for several years. He had been on a visit to some Virginia relatives, and was returning to his plantation on the Trent, about twenty miles from Newbern. Though I had never been at his home, he had often visited mine, and we were well—in fact, intimately acquainted. I soon explained that I was on the way to New-Orleans, and mentioned that I might, on my return, find the route to his plantation. He urged me to visit it at once, and I finally consented to do so. We rode on by the cars as far as Goldsboro, and there, after a few hours' rest, and a light breakfast of corn-cake, hominy, and bacon, took seats on the stage, which then was the only public conveyance to Newbern.
Preston was an intelligent, cultivated gentleman, and, at that time, appeared to be about thirty-three years of age. He was tall, athletic, and of decidedly prepossessing appearance; and, though somewhat careless in his dress, had a simple dignity about him that is not furnished by the tailor. The firm lines about his mouth, his strong jaw, wide nostrils, and large nose—straight as if cut after a bevel—indicated a resolute, determined character; but his large, dreamy eyes—placed far apart, as if to give fit proportion to his broad, overhanging brows—showed that his nature was as gentle and tender as a woman's. He spoke with the broad Southern accent, and his utterance was usually slow and hesitating, and his manner quiet and deliberate; but I had seen him when his words came like a torrent of hot lava, when his eyes flashed fire, his thin nostrils opened and shut, and his whole frame seemed infused with the power and the energy of the steam-engine.
Educated for the ministry, in early life he had been a popular preacher in the Baptist denomination, but at the date of which I am writing, he was devoting himself to the care of his plantation, and preached only now and then, when away from home, or when the little church at Trenton was without a pastor. Altogether he was a man to be remarked upon, A stranger casually meeting him, would turn back, and involuntarily ask: 'Who is he?'
Only five of the nine seats inside the stage were occupied, but as the day,though cold, was clear and pleasant, we mounted the box, and took the vacant places beside the driver. That worthy was a rough, surly character, with a talent for profanity truly wonderful. His horses were lean, half-starved quadrupeds, with ribs protruding from their sides like hoops from a whisky-barrel, and he accounted for their condition, and for the scarcity of fences on the highroad, by saying that the stage-owners fed them on rails; but I suspected that the constant curses he discharged at them had worried the flesh off their bones, and induced the fences to move to a more godly latitude.
On the top of the coach, coiled away on a pile of horse-blankets, was a woman whose skin and dress designated her as one of the species of 'white trash' known in North-Carolina as 'clay-eaters.' She was about thirty years of age, and if her face had been bleached, and her teeth introduced to a scrubbing-brush, might have passed for being tolerably good-looking. After a number of preliminary cracks of the whip, and sundry oaths and loud shouts administered to the 'leaders,' the driver got under way, and we were soon jolting—at a speed of about four miles an hour—over the 'slews' and ruts made by the recent rains. Shortly after we started the woman said to me:
'I say, stranger, ye han't no 'backer 'bout ye, hev ye?'
I was about to say I had none, when Preston handed her a paper of 'Richmond Sweet.' Without pausing to thank him, she coolly stuffed nearly a half of it into her mouth. My companion did not seem at all surprised, but I remarked:
'You do notsmoke, then, madam?'
'Oh! yas, I smokes; but I durned sight d'ruther chaw.'
'Let me give you a segar,' I said, taking one from my pocket, and slyly winking at Preston.
'I never smokes them sort o' things; I takes nat'rally ter pipes—did when I'se a gal,' she replied, ejecting a mouthful of saliva of the same color as her skin.
'This gentleman,' said the Squire, smiling, 'isn't fully up to our ways. He thinks it queer that women chew tobacco.'
'Quar thet wimmin chaws! Han't the' as much right ter as ye?Ireckon what's good fur th' gander'll do fur th' goose!
'Good logic, that,' said Preston, laughing heartily.
The woman kept on expectorating for a time, when she again spoke to my companion:
'I say! ye b'long ter Newbern, doan't ye?'
'No, not now; but I live near there.'
'Ye doan't know a feller down thar called Mulock, I doan't s'pose—Bony Mulock?'
'Yes, I do; I know him well.'
'So do I. I'm gwine ter see 'im.'
'Where were you acquainted?'
'Up ter Harnett—I b'long thar—nigh on ter Chalk Level. He war raised thar.'
'Yes, I know; but he left there long ago.'
'Nigh on ter nine year. I'm his wife.'
'You his wife!' exclaimed the Squire, turning round and looking at her.
'Yas. He put eöut nine year ago, and I han't heerd nor seed nary a thing on him sence, till a spell back. But I'll stick ter him this time, like a possum ter a rail. He woan't put eöut no more, ye kin bet high on thet!'
'But he has another wife now!'
'Wall, I thort he moight hev—but she'll lean, raather sudden, I reckon. What is she—white or nigger?'
'She's a likely quadroon girl. She has almost made a man of him.'
'Hi Lordy! then she's right smart. I'm gol-durned efIcould!'
'If you have so poor an opinion of him, why do you follow him?'
'Wall, I goes for a 'ooman's hevin' har own. When he put eöut I swore ter gol I'd foller 'im as soon as I got on his trail, ef I hed ter go to h—ll fur it!'
The low vulgarity of the woman disgusted me, and it seemed to have thesame effect on the Squire, for he turned his back on her when she made the last remark. Not appearing to notice his manner, she said, after a moment:
'I say, Gin'ral! what 'bout thet stealin' bisness?'
'Bony was taken up a while back, for buying turpentine of the negroes. I reckon he's in jail yet.'
'Yas, I heerd uv thet—thet's how I treed 'im. Cunnel Lamsin—nigh on ter me—he seed it in the paper. I know'd 'im by th' Bonaparty. "When'll he be mauled?'
'Very soon, I reckon. He was sentenced to fifty lashes a week ago.'
'It'll do 'im good; I'd given 'im more'n thet. He war allers up ter dealin' with nigs.'
The road, when we started, was in a very bad condition, and as we proceeded it grew gradually worse, till, in the vicinity of the runs where we then were, it had become almost impassable. We frequently turned off into the woods and open fields to avoid the worst places, but even there the jolting of the coach was so violent that I momentarily expected our 'lady' passenger would roll off into the mud. Seeing that she was in absolute danger, and being also willing to dispense with her refined society, I finally said to her:
'Would you not prefer an inside seat?'
'Yas, I would; but I han't th' money fur't. The' axed so like durnation fur totein' me in thar, I couldn't stan' it, no how.'
'What fare did she pay, driver?' I asked of the Jehu.
'Half-price.'
'That's enough for seventy miles over a road like this. Let her get inside.'
'Karn't, stranger, 'tan't 'lowed, (d'rot yer dirty hide—you, Jake—g'up!) the old man would raise 'tic'lar (wha 'bout—g'lang, ye lazy critter) music ef I done thet.'
'How much more do you want?' I inquired.
'The hull figur, (g'up thar, g'lang, ye durnation brute,) nary a red less.'
'I will see that Dibble finds no fault, and you shall 'moisten up' at the doctor's,' said Preston.
'Wall, Squire, (d——n yer rotten pictur, why don't ye g'lang?) ef ye says thet, (whoa—whoa, thar, ye all-fired rockabone—whoa!) it's a trade.'
The stage halted, and the woman got inside.
We arrived at Kinston about an hour after noon, and stopped to dine. The village was composed of about twenty dingy, half-painted dwelling-houses, and a carriage manufactory—the latter establishment being carried on by an enterprising Yankee, a brother to the stage proprietor. He told me that he furnished large numbers of vehicles to the planters in all parts of the State, and took in pay, cotton, tar, and turpentine, which he shipped to another brother doing business in New York. There were, if I remember aright, five of these brothers, living far apart, but all in co-partnership, and owning every thing in common. They were native and natural Yankees, and no disgrace to the species.
After a meagre meal at 'the doctor's' (that gentleman eked out a dull practice among his neighbors by a sharp practice on his guests,) we again mounted the stage. We had proceeded to within eighteen miles of Newbern, when suddenly, as the Squire and I were lighting our second after-dinner segars, 'kerchunk' went one of the forward wheels, and over went the coach in a twinkling. I saved myself by clinging to the seat, but Preston was not so fortunate. The first I saw of him he was immersed in a pool of water some ten feet distant. Luckily the ground was soft, and he escaped personal injury. When he rose to his feet, his coat, like Joseph's, was of many colors, a dull clayey-red predominating.
It was fortunate for the clay-eating feminine that her conversation had disgusted me. Had she remained outside she might have sighed for her 'Bonaparty' in the torrid region of which she had spoken.
The other passengers escaped with a few bruises, and after an hour's exercise with rails and saplings, we succeeded in prying the wheels out of the mire. Then the driver discovered that one of the horses had lost his shoes, and insisted on having them replaced before he proceeded. We were midway between two 'relay-houses,' each being six miles distant, and the Jehu decided on taking the shoeless horse back to the one we had passed. As he was unharnessing the animal, I said to him:
'You say there is a blacksmith at each station—why not go on to the one ahead? It will save time.'
'The boy at Tom's Store's ran off. Thar an't nary a nig thar to hold the critter's huff.'
'Can not the blacksmith do that himself? I never heard of it's taking two men to shoe one horse!'
'Wall, it do, stranger. I reckon ye never done that sort o' bisness.'
'But, can'tyoudo it?'
'Ido it! My bisness ar drivin' hosses, not shoein' on 'em. When I takes ter thet I'll let ye know!'
He had then taken off the harness and was preparing to mount the animal.
'Come, come, my good fellow, don't go back for that. Go on, andI'llhold the horse's feet.'
'Yehold 'em! I reckon ye wull! I'd like to see a man uv yer cloth a holdin' a critter's fut! Ha! ha!' Then throwing his leg over the horse's bare back, he added: 'We doan't cum it over trav'lers thet way, in these diggin's—we doan't. We use 'em like folks—we do. Ye can bet yer pile on thet!'
Preston had been quietly enjoying the dialogue, and as the driver rode away, said to me:
'I knew you wouldn't make any thing out of him. Come, let us walk on; a little exercise, after our warm work, will do us good.'
Leaving the other passengers to await the motions of the driver, the blacksmith, and the black 'huff'-holder, we trudged on through the mud, and in about two hours reached the next station.
The reader will find the spot which bears the dignified cognomen of 'Tom's Store,' if he looks on the map of North-Carolina. It is there destitute of a name, but is plainly designated by the circular character which is applied by geographers to villages. It is situated on the bank of a small tributary of the Neuse, and consists of a one-story building about twenty feet wide, and forty feet long, divided into two apartments, and built of pine slabs. One half of the village is sparsely filled with dry-goods, groceries, fish-hooks, log-chains, goose-yokes, tin-pans, cut-nails, and Jews'-harps, while the other is densely crowded with logwood, 'dog-leg,' strychnine, juniper-berries, New-England rum, and cistern-water, all mixed together. This latter region is the more populous neighborhood; and at the date of my visit it was absolutely packed with thirsty natives, who were imbibing certain fluids known 'down South' as 'blue-ruin,' 'bust-head, 'red-eye,' 'tangle-foot,' 'rifle-whisky,' and 'devil's-dye,' at the rate of a 'bit' a glass, and of four 'bits' for 'as much as one could carry.'
I was introduced by the Squire to Tom himself, the illustrious founder of the village. He was a stout, bloated specimen of humanity, with a red, pimpled face, a long grizzly beard, small inflamed eyes, and a nose that might have been mistaken for a peeled beet. His whole appearance showed that he was anhabituéof the more fashionable quarter of his village, (the groggery,) and a liberal imbiber of his own compounds. He informed me that he did a 'right smart' business; bought dry-goods in 'York,' 'sperrets' in 'Hio, and rum in Bostin', and he added: 'Stranger, I never keeps none but th' clar juice, th' raal, genuwine critter, d——d ef I do. Come, take a drink.'
I declined, when a bystander who seemed to know—he could scarcely keep his feet—overhearing the remark, confirmed it by saying with a big oath:
'It's so, stranger, Tom do keep th' reg'lar critter, th' genuwine juice! Thar's no mistake 'bout thet, fur it gets tightitself ev'ry cold snap—d——d if it doan't!'
The village, at the date of my visit, had a population of about one hundred men, women, and children, and they were all assembled on the cleared plot in front of the store, witnessing a 'turkey-match.' Wishing to avoid the noisy crowd, and being fatigued with our long tramp over the muddy road, my companion and I entered the more reputable portion of Tom's Store in quest of a seat. It was nearly deserted. A lazy yellow boy was stretched at full length on a pine counter, which kept customers at an honest distance from the rows of half-filled shelves, occupying three sides of the room, and on a low bench in front of him sat a woman and two children. These four were the only persons in the apartment. The woman seemed to be not more than twenty-five, and was dressed in a neat calico gown, and had a tidy appearance. A thin woolen shawl was thrown over her shoulders, and she wore on her head a clean red and yellow kerchief, tied as a turban, and on her feet white cotton stockings and coarse untanned shoes. These last were nearly new, and very clumsy, and, like the rest of her costume, travel-stained and bespattered with mud. She had evidently walked a long distance that morning.
Her figure was slight and graceful, and her face very beautiful. She had long, black, glossy hair, straight, regular features, a rich olive complexion, and large, dark lustrous eyes, which, as she sat opposite the open door, were fixed on the thick, gloomy woods with an earnest, almost agonizing gaze, as if they were reading in its tangled depths the dark, uncertain future that lay before her. Never shall I forget the expression of her face. Never have I seen its look of keen, intense agony, and its full, perfect, utter despair.
One of the children was a little girl of about seven years, with a sweet, hopeful face, a clear rosy skin, and brown, wavy hair; and the other, a little mulatto boy, a few years older. They each held one of the woman's hands, and something peculiar in their attitudes made me look closely at them. A thin piece of iron, called by slave-traders a 'bracelet,' encircled their wrists, and fastened their arms to the woman's! They were slaves!
I entered the cabin a few steps in advance of Preston, who paused in the doorway as he caught sight of the group. The woman did not notice him, but his face turned to a marble white, and his voice trembled with emotion as he exclaimed:
'My God! Phyllis, is thisyou?'
The woman looked up, sprang to her feet, took one step forward, and then sank to the floor. Stretching out her shackled arms, bound to the children as they were, she clasped his knees and cried out:
'O Master Robert! dear Master Robert, save me! Oh! save me; for the love of the dear children, save me!'
The little boy and girl took hold of his skirts, and both crying hard, turned their faces up to his. The youngest said:
'Oh! do, massa! take us 'way from dis man; he bery bad, massa. He whip you' little Rosey 'case she couldn't walk all de way—all de way har, massa!'
The water gathered in Preston's eyes as he asked:
'Why did they sell you, Phyllis? Why didn't I know of it?'
'Missus went to you, Master Robert, but you warn't to home. Master had to have the money right off. The trader was thar. Master couldn't wait till you come back. Oh! save me! He's takin' me to Orleans, to Orleans, Master Robert. Do save me! Think of the chil'ren, Master Robert. Oh! think of the chil'ren!' And she loosened her hold of his limbs, and wept as if her very heart was breaking.
Preston's words came thick and broken, his frame shook, he almost groaned as he said:
'I would to God that I could, Phyllis; but I am in debt—pressed on every side. I could not raise the money to save my soul!'
'O my God! what will become of us?' exclaimed the woman. 'Think of little Lule, Master Robert! They've taken me 'way from her! Oh! what will become of her, Master Robert? What will become ofher?' and she moaned and wept harder than before.
He stood like a man on whom the sentence of death had fallen. A cold, glassy look came into his eyes, a thick, heavy sweat started from his forehead, his iron limbs seemed giving way under him. Placing my hand gently on his shoulder, I said:
'How much is needed, my friend?'
'I don't know,' he replied, pressing his head with his hands as if to keep it from bursting. 'How much, Phylly?'
'Twelve hundred, Master Robert—they sold us for twelve hundred?'
'Well, well, my good woman, don't feel badly any more. I'll let Master Robert have the money.'
The woman stared at me incredulously for a moment; then, while the children came and clung to my coat as if I were an old friend, she said:
'Oh! bless you, sir! bless you! I will love you, sir! the children will forever love you for it.'
A struggle seemed to be going on in Preston's mind. He was silent for some moments; then in a slow, undecided voice he said:
'It an't right; I can't take it, Kirke. I owe you now. I'm in debt elsewhere. A judgment has been got against me. My crops have turned out poorly, I've been to Virginia for money, and can't get a dollar. It would not be honest. I can't take it.'
No words can picture the look on the woman's face as she said:
'Oh! do take it, Master Robert!Dotake it. I'll work. I'll make it. I can make itvery soon, Master Robert. Oh!dotake it!'
'How much is the judgment?' I asked.
'Only six hundred; but old —— has it, and he has no mercy. He'll have the money at once, or sell every thing—the negroes—every thing!' and he choked down the heavy groan which half-escaped his lips.
'Have you no produce at home?'
'Yes, about a thousand barrels of rosin; but the river is low. I can't get it down.'
'Well, that's worth five hundred where it is. Any cotton?'
'Only eleven bales—low middling.'
'That's three hundred more. Consider it ours, and draw at ninety days for the whole, judgment and all.'
The woman had risen during this conversation, and stood with her eyes riveted on his face and mine as if her eternal destiny hung on our words. When I made the last remark she staggered toward me and fell, as if dead, at my feet. I brought water from the stream hard by, and we soon restored her to herself. Preston then lifted her from the floor, and placing her tenderly on the bench, said, taking my hand:
'She and her children are very dear to me. You can not understand how much you have done for me. Words are weak—they can not tell you. I will pay you out of the next crop. Meanwhile, I will re-draw and keep it afloat.'
'Do as you like about that. Where is your owner, Phyllis?'
'Outside, dear master. You'll know him. He's more of us poor creatures with him.'
'Come, Preston, let's see him at once—we've no time to lose—the stage will be along soon.'
'I've no heart for trading now. You manage it, my friend.'
'Well, as you say; but you'd better be with me. Come.'
'I will in a moment.'
He lingered behind, and when I left the cabin was speaking in a low tone to the slave-woman. Thinking he would follow in a moment, I went in quest of the trader.
Our rebellion is the most stupendous in history. It absorbs the attention and affects the material interests of the world. The armies engaged outnumber those of Napoleon. Death never had such a carnival, and each day consumes millions of treasure. Great is the sacrifice, but the cause is peerless and sublime. If God has placed us, as in 1776, in the van of the great contest for the rights and liberties of man; if he has again assigned us the post of danger and of suffering, it is that of unfading glory and of imperishable renown. The question with us is that of national unity and existence, and compromise is treason. To acknowledge the doctrine of secession, to abdicate the power of self-preservation, and permit the Union to be dissolved or disintegrated, is ruin, disgrace, and suicide. We must fight it out to the last. If necessity requires, we can live at home, and reverses or intervention should only increase our efforts. If need be, all—allwho can bear arms, must take the field, and leave to those who can not, the pursuits of industry. If we count not the cost of the struggle in men or means, it is because the value of the Union can not be estimated. If martyrs from every State, and from nearly every nation of Christendom, have fallen in our defense, never, in humble faith, we trust, has any blood, since that of Calvary, been shed in a cause more holy.
Our armies, eventually, must triumph, but to restore, throughout the revolted States, the supremacy of the Constitution, we must continue to maintain the just distinction between the loyal and disloyal; the deluded masses and the rebel leaders. We must also remember, that the reign of terror has long been supreme in the South, and that thousands have been forced into apparent support of the rebellion by threats, by spoliation, by conscription, by the ruin of their homes, and the loss of their means of subsistence.
With the exception of South-Carolina, whose normal condition for more than thirty years before she struck down our flag at Sumter, was that of incipient treason and revolt, no other State really desired to destroy the Union. A secret association and active armed conspiracy, and an organized system of falsehood and misrepresentation, drove the masses, by sudden action, violence, and terror, into this rebellion; but a large majority of the aggregate popular vote of the South was against secession.
It was a Northern President, yielding to secession leaders, in opposition to the patriots of the South, who, by the whole power of Executive influence and patronage, attempted to force slavery into Kansas, by the crime, heretofore without a name or an example, theforgery of A Constitution. This was the tolling of the first bell, alarming to patriots, but the concerted signal for the grand movement of the assassins, then conspiring the death of the Union. It was also a Northern President who urged the Lecompton forgery upon Congress, thus mainly contributing to the downfall of the Union; yet, when the vote was taken in the fall of 1860, a majority of the popular suffrage of the South was given to those candidates for the Presidency who had denounced and opposed this measure, over the candidate, (now in the traitor army,) who gave it his support. Thus, on this, as on every other occasion, where the people of the South have not been overborne by violence and terror, they have rejected at the polls the action of the secession leaders.
But the disaster was precipitated, when the same President, rejecting the advice of the patriot Scott, refused to reinforce our forts, when menaced or beleaguered by traitors, and announced, in his messages, to our country and all the world, the secession heresy, fatal to all government, that we had no right to repel force by force, on the part of a State seeking, by armed secession, to destroy the Union. The absurd political paradox was then announced by the President, that a State has no right to secede, but that the Government has no right to prevent its secession. It was this wretched dogma, that paralyzed our energies when they were most needed, gave immunity to treason, and invited rebellion, rendered our stocks unsalable, and induced thousands, at home and abroad, to believe that the Federal Government was a phantom, which existed only in name.
If Andrew Jackson had then been President, the rebellion would have been crushed by him in embryo, as it was in 1833, without expenditure of blood or treasure.
Surely, it is some palliation of the course of the deluded masses of the South, that they heard such pernicious counsels, and from such a source.
If, as our army advances, there has not been an open, general return of the masses to the Union, we must recollect, that when we did occupy parts of the South, and then withdrew, how soon the resurging tide of the rebellion swept over the devoted region, what scenes of horror and desolation ensued, how the homes of those who had welcomed our flag were given to the flames, whilst death was the portion of others. But let us crush out the very embers of this rebellion, cherish the devoted patriots of the South, drive out to other lands the rebel leaders, give to the ruined and deluded masses ample assurance of permanent protection, and they will resume their allegiance to the Union.
As a final result, we should not desire to hold the Southern States as provinces, for that would fatally exasperate, and tend to perpetuate the contest, increase our expenses, destroy our wealth and revenue, render our taxes intolerable, and endanger our free institutions. When the rebellion is crushed, we should seek a real pacification, the close of the war and its expenses, a cordial restoration of the Union, and return of that fraternal feeling, which marked the first half century of our wonderful progress. To insure these great results, the policy of the Government must befirm,clear,unwavering, and marked by discriminating justice and perfect candor. The country is in imminent peril, and nothing but the truth will avail us.The North and South must understand each other.The South must know that we realize the evident truth, that slavery caused the rebellion. Efforts were made on other questions to shake the Union, but all had proved impotent in the past, as they must in the future, until we were divided by slavery, the only issue which could produce a great rebellion. Nor will angry denunciations of the discordant elements of slavery and abolition now save us, for still the fact recurs, that without slavery there would have been no abolition, and, consequently, no secession. Slavery, therefore, was the cause, thecausa causans, and whilst we should use all wise andconstitutionalmeans to secure its gradual disappearance, yet we should act justly, remembering how, when, and under what flag slavery was forced upon the protesting and opposing South, then feeble colonies of England. And yet, for nearly thirty years past, England has constantly agitated this question here, with a view to dissolve our Union, and has thus been mainly instrumental in sowing here the seeds of discord, which fructified in the rebellion.
And then, when the tide of battle seemed adverse, England, giving her whole moral aid to the rebellion, demanded from us restitution and apology in the case of the Trent, for an act, which had received the repeated sanction of her own example. Her press then teemed with atrocious falsehoods, insulting threats, and exulting annunciations of our downfall. Her imperiousultimatum, excluding arbitrament, was accompanied by fleets and armies, her cannon thundered on our coast, and she became the moral ally of that very slavery which she had forced upon the South, but which, for nearly thirty years past, she made the theme of fierce denunciation of our country, and constant agitation here, with one ever-present purpose,the destruction of this Union. And now let not England suppose, that there is an American, who does not feel the insult and understand the motive. England beheld, in our wonderful progress, the ocean's scepter slipping from her grasp, our grain and cotton almost feeding and clothing the world, our augmenting skill and capital, our inventive genius, and ever-improving machinery, our educated, intelligent, untaxed labor, the marvelous increase of our revenue, tonnage, and manufactures, and our stupendous internal communications, natural and artificial, by land and water. The last census exhibited to her, our numbers increasing in a ratio, making the mereaddition, in the next twenty-five years, equal to her whole population, and our wealth augmenting in a far greater proportion. She saw our mines and mountains of coal and iron, (her own great element of progress,) exceed hers nearly twenty times, our hydraulic power, incalculably greater than that of Great Britain; a single American river, with its tributaries, long enough to encircle the globe, and that England might be anchored as an island in our inland seas. She witnessed Connecticut, smaller than many English counties, and with but one sixth the population of some of them, appropriating more money for education in that State, than the British Parliament for the whole realm; that we had more heads at work among our laboring classes than all Europe, and she realized the great truth, that knowledge is power, reposing on common schools for the whole people. She measured our continental area, laved by two oceans, as also by the lakes and the gulf, with a more genial sun, and a soil far more fertile and productive than that of England, and nearly thirty times greater in extent. She saw us raise within the loyal States avolunteerarmy of three fourths of a million, without a conscript, the largest, and far the most intelligent and effective force in the world, and millions more ready, whenever called, to rush to the defense of the Union, whilst a great and gallant navy rose, as if by enchantment, from the ocean. She marked the rapid transfer of the command of the commerce of the world from London to New-York. She observed the transcendent success of our free institutions, and with that 'fear of change, perplexing monarchs,' she dreaded the moral influence of our republican system. But why should any friend of his country, or of mankind, object to this, if it promoted the welfare of the people? We reject all force or intervention. Our only influence is that of our example. If our system was a failure, the institutions of England were not endangered, but strengthened by such a result. It was their success only that made them dangerous, not to the people of England, but to dynastic ambition, to aristocratic rule, and to selfish interests. To insure our permanent division, was to destroy us. Hence, she encouraged the South, acknowledged her as a belligerent, welcomed the rebel flag and war vessels into her ports, protected them there, enabled them to elude our cruisers, and prepared to aid and sustain slavery. For a time, with the exception of Cobden and Bright, we seemed to have had scarcely an influential friend in England. Her masses favored us, but five sixths of them are excluded from the polls by restricted suffrage. For a time, King Cotton never had more loyal subjects, than those who then controlled the press and government of England. Our Union was to be severed, the Southern confederacy acknowledged, the blockade broken, free trade between the South and England established, cotton given her, and refused us; we were to be forever cut off from the gulf and the lower Mississippi; Portland (the star of the East) was to become a British city, and Maine, always loyal and patriotic, was to be wrested from us, and reannexed to the British crown. It was the carnival of despots, exulting over our anticipatedruin, in our death-struggle in the great cause of human liberty and human progress.
And yet it was England that forced slavery upon the South against its earnest protest, and colonial acts vetoed by the British crown. Then, during our colonial weakness and dependence, the kings, and queens, and parliaments of England, not only legalized and encouraged the African slave-trade, but gave charters and monopolies for the wretched traffic. Then the lords and noble ladies, the blood royal, the merchant-princes, and even the mitred prelates of England, engaged most extensively in this accursed commerce, and thousands of the rich and noble of England enjoy now, by inheritance, fortunes thus accumulated. British vessels, sailing from British ports, openly displayed there upon their decks the shackles that were to bind the victims, thousands of whom, in the horrors of the middle passage, found unshrouded in an ocean grave, a happy escape from sufferings and misery indescribable. It was to these, our then infant, feeble, and dependent, but protesting colonies of the South, most of these slaves were forced by British avarice, and royal vetoes on colonial acts of the South prohibiting the traffic. Most justly then did Mr. Jefferson, in the original of our Declaration of Independence, announce the terrible truth as follows:
'He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium ofINFIDELpowers, is the warfare of theCHRISTIANking of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market whereMENshould be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against theLIBERTIESof one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against theLIVESof another.'
The flag of England was then the flag of slavery, and not of slavery only, but of the African slave-trade; and wherever slavery now exists, England may look upon it and say, This is the work of my hands—mine was the price of blood, and mine all the anguish and despair of centuries of bondage.
This war, then, is mainly the work of England. She forced slavery here, and then commenced and inflamed here the anti-slavery agitation, assailing the Constitution and the Union, arresting the progress of manumission in the Border States, and finally culminating in the rebellion. Here, then, in the South are slavery and rebellion, branches of that Upas tree, whose seeds were planted in our soil by England.
England, then, should never have reproached us with slavery. The work was hers, and hers may yet be the dread retribution of avenging justice. Had the contest she provoked in the Trent affair then happened, the result might have been very different from her expectations. Instead of a ruined country, and divided Union, and God save the King played under the cross of St. George in Boston, New-York, and Philadelphia, she might have heard the music of Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and the Star-Spangled Banner on the heights of Quebec, reëchoed in fraternal chorus over the Union intended by God, under one government, of the valley of the lakes and the St. Lawrence. Looking nearer home, she might have beheld that banner, whose stars she would have extinguished in blood, floating triumphantly, in union with the Shamrock, over that glorious Emerald Isle, whose generous heart beats with love of the American Union, and whose blood, now as ever heretofore, is poured out in copious libations in its defense. Indeed, but for the forbearance of our Government, and the judgment and good sense of Lord Lyons, the conflict was inevitable.
The hope was expressed by me in England that 'those glorious isles would become the breakwater of liberty, against which the surges of European despotism would dash in vain.' This was her true policy, justice to Ireland, successive reforms in her system, a further wise extension of the suffrage, with the vote by ballot, a cordial moral alliance with her kindred race in America, and a full participation, mutually beneficial, in our ever enlarging commerce. But her oligarchy has chosen coalition with the South and slavery, and war upon our Union and the republican principle.Divide and conqueris their motto,suicidewill be their epitaph.
England is now playing her part in the fourth act of the drama of slavery. During the first act, for more than a century, she was actively engaged in the African slave-trade, and in forcing the victims, as slaves, upon the colonies, against their protest.
With the close of the first act came the American Revolution, when, in the truthful language of Mr. Jefferson, before quoted, England 'excited the slaves to rise in arms among us, and to purchase the liberty of which she had deprived them, by murdering the people on whom she had obtruded them.'
The third act, from 1834 to 1861, presented England engaged in fierce denunciations of American slavery. The British pulpit, press, and hustings, her universities, literature, courts, bar, statesmen, and orators, were all devoted to assaults on American slavery, and upon our Constitution, for tolerating the system, even for a moment. Her Parliament most graciously favored us with one of its own members, to denounce in theNorth, the slavery of theSouth, inflaming sectional passions and hatred, with the fixed purpose of dissolving the Union. As all the slaves whom England had sent to Boston, had been manumitted in 1780, and there was no slavery there, the object was, not to abolish slavery, or the mission would have been to the South, where the institution and the power over it existed, but the movement was made in the North, not to destroy slavery, but to dissolve the Union. England having failed to accomplish our overthrow in the two great wars of 1776 and 1812, she commenced the third war upon us, not from the mouths of her cannon, but in zealous efforts, continued now for more than a fourth of a century, to divide the Union, by the agitation of this question. We are indebted to England for the curse of slavery, and then for the slavery agitation. In this she has been but too successful North and South; but if slavery should perish in the conflict, she will mourn the result, because it removes our only dangerous element of discord.
And now the curtain has risen on the fourth act, and England, as always heretofore, is the chief actor. And where now is the great anti-slavery agitator? Why, England has reversed her position, and suddenly discovered the surpassing beauty and perfection of secession and slavery. Secession, an anarchical absurdity, destructive of all law, and all government, she kindly adopts as the true theory of our system. This heresy was discarded by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and all the illustrious founders of the Constitution. It was exposed, in all its deformity, by Jackson, Clay, and Webster, in 1833, when it was rejected byevery State, except South-Carolina. But England repudiates the doctrine at home, and abroad also, except for our country. Substituting her wishes for the fact, she declares we are not a nation, and that any State has a legal and moral right to secede and dissolve the Union. Deplorable would have been the folly of such a system, and well then might England have exulted over the failure of republics. Nothing but her intense desire for this failure could have induced England to adopt this absurd doctrine. The whole worldperceives the motive for so false a pretense, and history will expose and denounce it.
And now, as to slavery, let us compare the England of 1834 and 1860, and all the intermediate period, with the England of 1861 and 1862. What a revolution? Where now are her daily denunciations of slavery? Where now is Exeter Hall, so lately teeming with anti slavery harangues, but now cheering the slavery rebellion? Where are the abolition lords and ladies of England; where the reverend clergy; where the public press, and Parliament? Has England been struck dumb in a moment, that she can no longer denounce a system which, up to the hour of pro-slavery secession, she had, from day to day, during more than a fourth of a century, declared to combine all the crimes of the decalogue? Where now are the compliments that were lavished uponUncle Tom's Cabinand its gifted writer? Where are the notices in England, of our recent great anti-slavery work,Among the Pines, by the celebrated Edmund Kirke, 'who awoke one morning and found himself famous'? The book is read and circulated here by thousands, but none will notice or take it now in England.
But England is not silent. Her press, her statesmen, and even members of her cabinet, declare that the rebellion has dissolved our Union, and destroyed our Government. They say we can never conquer the rebellion; that we should abandon the contest, acknowledge the South as an independent power, give it all the Gulf, two thirds of the Atlantic, all the Chesapeake, half the Ohio, all the lower Mississippi and its mouth, cut our territory into two parts, acknowledge the right of secession, and the absolute dissolution of the Union. Such is the assurance of rightful and certain success by which England encourages the rebels, whilesurrender, is the advice she gratuitously urges upon us, from day to day. But England is not the only false prophet whose predictions were based only on her wishes. Indeed, many of her presses and statesmen openly avow their belief and desire that the Union should be overthrown. Our area, they say, is too large, although all compact and connected by the greatest arterial river-system of the globe. But England is not large enough, and new possessions are constantly added by the sword, although her territory is double our own, and scattered over all the continents, and many of the isles of the world. If, before or shortly after this struggle began, England had spoken a word of friendship and sympathy for us—if she had but repeated her former denunciations of slavery, and given us the moral weight of her opinion—the rebellion would have been crushed long since. If—claiming to be our mother—she had only, in this crisis, acted as such, in her hour of need a kindred race would have rallied to her rescue. But now, so long as this wicked oligarchy rules her destiny never—never! It was England forced slavery upon us. It was England fastened upon our feeble, youthful limbs, this poisoned shirt of Nessus, and then, when we were tearing it from us, even though the vitals and the life-blood might follow, England exulted in what she believed to be our dying agonies.