Gaetano, having a message for a young priest in the seminary there, asked Caper how he would like to see the interior of the building, and the way thepretelived? Caper assenting, they entered a fine large establishment with broad walls and high ceilings, and mounting to the second story and knocking at the door of a chamber, they were admitted by a tall, thin, sallow young man, about eighteen years old, evidently the worse for want of exercise, and none the stronger minded for his narrow course of education and instruction.
Gaetano introduced Caper to the young priest, and the artist, who, a moment before entering the room, was as lively as the Infant Bacchus, at once became melancholy as the Infant Samuel, and a feeling of such pity seized him, that, endeavoring not to show it, he turned it into a sentiment of interest in the young priest and his surroundings, admiring the beautiful view from the window, and, turning inward to a poor wreath of paper flowers hanging over a holy-water fount attached to the wall, praised for their resemblance to natural flowers. (Was that untruth unforgiven?)
'I made them,' said the young priest; 'but they are nothing to the ones I have made for our church in Montelanico. I will show those to you.' Opening a large paper box, he showed Caper wreaths and festoons of paper flowers. 'I have spent weeks on weeks over them,' he continued, 'and they will decorate the church at the nextfesta. I spend all my leisure hours making artificial flowers.'
In answer to a question from Caper of the dress he then wore was the usual one worn by the seminarists on important occasions, the young priest answered him that it was not, and at once produced the full dress, putting on the upper garment, a species of cassock, in order to show him how it looked. He next called his attention to a curious old work, full of engravings illustrating the different costumes of the different orders of priests, and was in full discourse to describe them all, when Gaetano told him that he was sorry, but that he had to go, as he had some matters to attend to at the fair. So Caper bid the young priest good-by, saying he regretted that he had not time to further study the ecclesiastical costumes. A feeling of relief seized him when he was once more in the open air—thoughts of gunning, fishing, fighting, anything, so long as it was not the making paper flowers by that poor, pale-faced boy: it was terrible!
There are several resident families in Anagni having titles; these are known as thestelle d'Anagni(stars of Anagni), and number among the ladies many beautiful faces, if those pointed out to him were the true stars. But it was, while smoking a cigar over a cup of coffee, that he saw enter the café without exception one of the loveliest and most attractive women he met in Italy. The wordsimpatica, so often used by Italians, expressing, as it does, so much in so short a space, exactly applied to the charming woman who passed him, as she entered the room where he was seated. She was accompanied by several gentlemen, one of whom, on whose arm she leaned, having the most character of all the others in his face, and the finest-looking man in figure and carriage, Caper selected as her husband—and he was right.
Gaetano, having finished his business, soon entered the café in company with a dashing, handsome-looking man, in half ecclesiastical costume; for though he wore a shovel hat and long-tailed black frock coat, yet his other clothes, though black, had the air of being made by anà la modetailor. His manner was cordial, frank, hearty. He proposed a walk around the town, to see what was going on among thevillani. Caper calling his attention to the lady mentioned above, the ecclesiastic, making his excuses for his sudden leave, at once hurried over to salute her, and was evidently very cordially received. He returned in a few minutes to Caper.
'It is thePrincipessa ——, and she insists on having an introduction to the American. She is making thevillegiaturaamong these mountain towns for a frolic. She will be in Segni, with her husband, the Signor ----, and it will be pleasant for you to know them while there.'
'Introduce me by all means. She is the most beautiful woman I have seen in Italy.'
The introduction was made, and our artist surpassed himself in conversing intelligibly, much to the delight of the fair Italian and her friends, who declared they were prepared to converse with him solely by signs. Promising that when they came to Segni he should not fail to call upon them, and give them a long account of the savage life he lived among his Indian brethren in America, he laughingly bid them good day.
The dashing priest now went with Caper and Gaetano through the crowded streets, pointing out objects of interest, architectural and human; past booths where all kinds of merchandise was exposed for sale, out to see the ancient massive walls of travertine, where divers stunning objects were carved, inscriptions, &c. Then they found a wine shop, where it was cool and tolerably quiet, and smoked and drank until sunset, having much sport conversing with the amiablevillane, who were as comfortably tipsy as their circumstances would permit. At sunset, the Piazza Grande was brilliant with hangings, crimson and gold, and colored tapestry hung from the windows of the surrounding houses. Here the tombola was held, and here the crowd was excited as usual; the lucky ones bearing off the prizes were in such rapturous state of bliss—'one might have stuck pins into them without their feeling it.'
About sunset, Gaetano and Caper saddled their horses, and left the city, striking over the valley to Segni, passing on the road country people mounted on donkeys, or travelling along on foot, nine tenths of whom were vigorously canvassing—the life of Saint Magno?—no, indeed, but the chances of the lottery!
There was to have been the next day, at Anagni, a curious chase of buffaloes, in accordance with some passage in the life of San Magno, as the people said; but, according to Rocjean, more probably some neglected ceremony of the ancient heathens, which the party in power, finding they could not abolish, gracefully tacked on to the back of the protector of the city. These kind of things are done to an alarming extent around Rome; and the Sieur de Rocjean, when he lost his calendar containing the dates of all the festivals, said it was of no importance—he had and excellent Lempriere!
The fifth festival—if you have patience to read about it—was held atGenazzano, and was decidedly the most celebrated one of the season. It came off on the 8th of September, and for costumes, picturesqueness, and general effect, might have been called, to copy from piano literature,Le Songe d'un Artiste.
The town itself looks as if it had just been kicked out of a theatre. Round towers at entrance gates, streets narrow and all up hill, the tiles on the houses running down to see what is going onin the gutter, quaint old houses, gray with time, with latticed windows, queer old doors, a grand old castle in ruins. It is one of the scenes you long so much to see before you come abroad, and which you so seldom find along the Grande Route. Spend a summer in the mountain towns of Italy! among the Volscian mountains or hills—and have your eyes opened.
As Caper entered the gate, the first objects meeting his sight were: a procession of genuine pilgrims, dressed precisely as you see them in Robert le Diable, or Linda di Chamouni, or on the stage generally—long gray robes down to their feet, cocked hats with cockle shells, long wands; some barefoot, some with sandals: on they passed, singing religious songs. Then came the peasantry, all in perfect theatrical harmony, costumes rigidly correctà la Sonnambula. German artists dressed in Sunday clothesà la Der Freyschutz. A café with festoons of lemon-peel hung from window to window—they are not up to this idea inFra Diavolo. Pretty girls in latticed windows, with red boddices, white sleeves, flowers in their hair—legitimate Italian drama. Crockery-ware in piles—low comedy. A man with a table, Sambuca and Acqua-vita bottles on it, and wee glasses, one cent a drink:melodrama. Fresh oranges and figs, pumpkin-seed and pine cones; a house with mushrooms strung on thread, hanging from window to window—this was not for festival display, but is the common way of the country. Notices of thefesta, containing programme of the day, including amusements, ecclesiastical and secular, hung up alongside the stands where they were selling lottery tickets—tragedy. Fountains, with groups of peasantry drinking, or watering horses and donkeys—pantomime. Priests, in crow-black raiment, and canal-boat or shovel hats—mystery. Strangers from Rome, in the negro-minstrel style of costume, if young men; or in the rotund-paunch and black-raiment dress, if elderly men; or in thechiffonéestyle, if Roman women attempting the last Parisian fashion—farce.
Here are the booths with rosaries, crucifixes, Virgin Mary's holy-water holders, medals of Pio Nono, or jewelry; gold crescent earrings,spadine(long silver hair pins); silver hearts, legs, arms, for votive offerings, and crosses without number.
Caper entered the church; it was filled, and stifling with heat and frankincense, and contadini, and wax lights burning before the shrine, on which the sun shone. There were beautiful faces among thepajine(people in fine raiment), showing what can be made from thecontadine(people in coarse clothes) by not overworking them.
Once more our artist was in the pure air, and, walking up the main street, came to a house with a beautifully carved stone window, half Byzantine, half Gothic, while a house on the opposite side of the street boasted of two other windows finely carved. While looking at them, Caper was hailed by name, and a stout, fresh-colored English artist, named Wardor, whom he had known in Rome, came over and welcomed him to Genazzano. Wardor, it turned out, was spending the summer there, as he had done the year before; consequently, there was not a nook or corner in the old town he did not know; and if he had not been so lazy, he could have filled his sketch book with a hundred picturesque studies. But no; with the keenest appreciation of every bit of color, every graceful pose of a human figure, every beautiful face, every fine effect of light or shadow—he made no sign.Hislegitimate function was friendly guide to the stranger, and in this office he carried Caper all over the old castle, out to the long shady walk on the esplanade behind it, pointed out beautiful views over the valley; finally, showing Caper his studio, which, as it was a largeroom, and hispadronacould impose on his good nature, was fairly glittering with copper pans, hung on the walls when not in use in the kitchen. On an easel was a painting, to be called The King of the Campagna; all that was apparent was the head and horns of the king. Wardor had thus actually spent three mouths painting on a space not so large as your fist, while the canvas was at least three feet by two feet and a half. But the king, a buffalo, would be a regal figure, for the head was life itself.
Caper proposed finishing a bottle of wine with Wardor, in honor of the day; so the latter piloted him up street and then down a flight of steps to a quiet wine-shop, where, sitting on a shady terrace, they could calmly enjoy the lovely landscape spread below them, and look over the town, over the valley, to far-away Segni high up in the Volscians. The landlord's wife, a buxom, comely woman, in full holiday costume, brought them a flask of cool wine and glasses, presenting them at the same time with a couple of very large sweet apples, the largest of which was thirteen inches in circumference by actual measurement. So you see they have apples as well as oranges in Italy; only, apples are practical, so they are generally omitted in the poetical descriptions of the blue-skyed land.
Caper and Wardor dined together in a very crowded inn, where the maccaroni must have been cooked by the ton, to judge of the sized dish the two artists were presented with—and which they finished! Chickens, lamb chops, salad, and two flasks of wine at last satisfied them. When they left the table, Wardor proposed their calling on a Roman family, who were spending the summer in the town. They found the house they occupied crowded with guests, who, having finished dinner, were busily employed dancing to the music of two guitars and a flute; that is, the younger part of them, while the elders applauded vociferously, entering into the amusement with a reckless spirit of fun and good nature, which people who have to keep shady nine tenths of the year for fear of their rulers, are very apt to indulge in the remaining tenth.
Elisa, the daughter of the Roman family, received Caper with hearty welcome, chiding him for having been all summer at Segni, and yet not coming near them, and entreating him to come to Genazzano and make them a long visit. She introduced him at once to her affianced husband, a handsome young doctor of the town, a man of sterling ability and sound common sense, who very soon made Caper at home, insisted on his dancing theTarantellaandSaltarella Napolitanawith a lively, lithe young lady, who cut our artist's heart to fiddlestrings before they had danced five minutes together a polka—for let the truth be told, Caper never could dance the Tarantella.
Wardor, in the meantime, had been led off in triumph to a side-table, and was making a very hearty second dinner; he not having force of mind enough to do like Caper and refuse a good offer! Caper had to drink a few tumblers (not wine-glasses) of wine, and found it beneficial in dancing. It may be as well to repeat here, in order to calm all apprehensions of our artist being a hard drinker, that all these wines around Rome, with few exceptions, are little stronger than mild sweet cider, and that satiety will generally arrive before inebriety. Ask any sober and rigorously correct traveller, who has ever been there, if this is not so. If he speaks from experience, he will say: 'Certainly!' 'Of course!' 'To be sure!' And again: 'Why not?'
It is not asserted here that the Romans of the city or surrounding country never get tipsy; but that it is only occasionally they have change enough to do so; consequently, a beautiful state of sobriety is observed by those travellers who—never observe anything.
The moon was shining over the oldgate-towers of Genazzano when Caper mounted his horse, and, in company with two Segnians, rode forth from the fifthfesta, and over the hills through Cavi, and over the valley past Valmontone, and then up the steep road to his summer home; wondering if in far-away America they were dreaming of a man who was going through a course of weekly Fourth-of-July's, and how long it would be before the world came to an end if such a state of things existed in any country where people had liberty to study geography, and were ruled by politicians instead of priests?
'May I ask your candid opinion of the great moral effect of so many holidays on an uneducated population?' inquired Caper one day of Rocjean, while speaking of the festivals of the Papal States.
'Certainly you may! My opinion is that the head of the state, carrying out the gigantic policy of his predecessors, believes: 'That that government governs best that gives the greatest amount of fiddling to the greatest amount of its children.''
'But,' objected Caper, 'I don't see where the fiddling comes in.'
'In the churches!' sententiously remarked the Sieur de Rocjean.
'Oh,' quoth Caper, 'I was thinking of festivals.'
Reader, do you think likewise, when you are with the Romans.
Life is but an outer wallRound the realm of thought unseen;Ah! to let the drawbridge fallLeading to that magic hall!Ah! to let creation in.Kings that with the world contended,What remains of all the splendidMisery their hands have wrought?Hushed and silent now the thunderThey have made the world rock under;But the ages bow in wonderTo a thought.Ah! the many tragic partsThat are played by human heartsIn that golden drama, fame.These are minor actors truly,That should not be seen unduly,Letting idle recollectionTrifle with the play's perfection,Letting an unwritten anguishMake the brilliant pageant languish.Alas for every hero's story,That the woes which chiefly make itMust surge from the heart, or break it,And show the stuff that fashions glory.Pyramids and templed wondersAt the best are wise men's blunders;The subtle spell of thought and fancy,It is Nature's necromancy.In that land where all things realBlossom into the ideal,In that realm of hidden powersMoving this gross world of ours,He that would inherit fame,Let him on the magic wallOf some bright, ideal hallWrite his name;He and glory then shall beComrades through eternity.While the deeds of mighty kingsSleep the sleep of meaner things,Thoughts enclosed in words of graniteRevolutionize our planet.And, itself a new creation,Many an enchanted tune,As of nightingale's in June,Comes floating down in long vibration,To the chorus of the hoursLending its harmonial powers,Or through Time's resounding archesPlaying Nature's solemn marches,To whose beat the marshalled nationsPass in steady generations.But deem not the thoughts unspoken,Silent despots of the brain,Build their airy halls in vain,Die and leave behind no token.As the stars upon the etherPlay their golden monody,Flashing on dusk-featured nightThe soft miracle of light;So upon a finer ether,A spiritual emanationFrom the whole mind of creation,Plays the brain incessantly;And each thought is a vibration,Running like a poet's rhymeDown the endless chords of time,And on each responsive brainDropping in a silver rainOf divinest inspiration.When the whirlwind rush of warPasses, and is heard no more,Voices crushed beneath its dinRise and their long reign begin;Thoughts like burning arrows hurledAt the tyrants of the world,Thoughts that rend like battle axesTill wrong's giant hand relaxes,Thoughts that open prison gatesAnd strike the chains of prostrate limb,That turn the current of the fates,Like God's commissioned cherubimWith divine authorityTo proclaim creation free,And plant in human hearts the seedsThat shall grow to noble deeds.Ha! when genius climbs the throneSacred to oppression grown,And from his seat plucks tyranny;When, with thoughts that pierce like flame,Songs, and every word a fame,She crowns imperial Liberty,Then shall the usurper, glory,End his foul and brutal story,And manhood evermore shall beA synonym of liberty.
It still goes on. The driving rainMay chill, but light will gleam again,It still goes on. Truth's enemyWins a defeat with victory.It still goes on. Cold winter's snowComes that the grass may greener grow;And Freedom's sun, whate'er befall,Shines warm and bright behind it all.
Among all the subjects of human cognizance, the least understood, and therefore the most difficult of anticipation, are those which concern the acts of men, as individuals or in society. Presumptuous, indeed, would be that man who should undertake to foretell the exact results of pending political or military operations, complicated as they must be by innumerable unknown and undiscoverable contingencies, which lie hidden in the circumstances of the actual situation. The difficulty of this investigation does not arise, however, from the absence of fixed laws controlling such events, but solely from our ignorance of those laws, and the extreme complexity of the conditions in which they act. The issue of existing causes is as certain as this moment, as it will be after it shall have become unalterable in history. No accident can disturb or thwart it; for, in truth, there can be no such thing as accident, except in our imaginations, and by reason of our incapacity to trace the continuous thread of inevitable sequence, or causation, which connects together all events whatever, in their inception, through their continuance, and to their end. All enlightened thinkers of the present age have recognized this great truth; and yet none have been able to apply to social and political affairs the sole admitted test of genuine philosophy, the prediction of future results from known antecedents. Indeed, the wisest and most competent of political observers have always been the most cautious in their indulgence of the prophetic spirit, and the most ready to acknowledge their ignorance of what the future will bring forth in the great field of political and social affairs. Gasparin, in his late admirable book, 'America before Europe' (according to his American translator), has this very modest passage on this subject:
'Not feeling any vocation for the character of prophet, I shall take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe. My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South isprobable; the return of the conquered South to the Union ispossible.'
'Not feeling any vocation for the character of prophet, I shall take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe. My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South isprobable; the return of the conquered South to the Union ispossible.'
But while 'political or military vaticination' is proverbially unsafe, and therefore to be carefully avoided by all judicious inquirers, and especially by practical statesmen, it must at the same time be admitted that some of the general laws controlling such events are well understood; and whenever all the facts of a case are known and appreciated, and the laws applicable fully comprehended, then it is possible to anticipate the results of that particular combination with absolute certainty. Other causes may interfere, and modify these results—may accelerate of postpone them, or entirely absorb and conceal them in the general issue of complicated affairs. Yet the particular results themselves are not, and cannot be defeated or annulled. They are merely transformed by a sort of 'composition and resolution' of social and political causes, exactly similar to that which takes place in mechanics, when two or more forces not concurrent in direction, impel a body in a line altogether different from that in which either of the forces may have acted. Every physical impulse, it is said, which is initiated anywhere on the earth, is felt to the extremities of our solar system—every motion of the smallest particle of matter communicating its effect, however inappreciable, to themost distant planet, and as far beyond as the power of gravitation may extend. It is precisely so with all social events, even those of the most insignificant character. Every one of them has its appropriate influence, which is indestructible; and they all combine to make up the great whole of human action, the results of which at any specific period are only the necessary and inevitable consequences of all antecedent facts.
It was the opinion of that most accomplished political philosopher, Burke, that 'politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings, but to human nature, of which reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part,'—the meaning of which is, simply, that the reasonings do not comprehend, as premises, all the complicated facts which enter into any important political problem, and hence the conclusion in such cases cannot be absolutely certain, and ought not to be implicitly received. It would be extremely difficult to explain how politics could be adjusted to human nature without the exercise of reason, which alone can regulate the process of adjustment. But we may certainly claim that, in the lapse of nearly a century since Burke wrote, the reason has been considerably enlightened, and something more has been learned of human nature itself, its apparently capricious and irregular phenomena having been ascertained to be the subjects of systematic order, as complete as that which prevails in all other departments of nature. The laws of social existence and development have been to some extent discovered, and recognized as being uniform in their operation, so that the natural and necessary course of human events may be anticipated, though as yet in a dim and imperfect way. The present age is fruitful of many wonders; but the greatest of them all is this important truth, which has just begun fairly to dawn upon mankind. It is already so firmly established, that no intelligent man who is fully up with the knowledge of his epoch, can admit the least doubt that all events, however complicated, whether social, political, military, or of any other kind, are controlled by general laws, as uniform and certain in their operation as the laws of astronomy, of physics, or of chemistry. The complexity of conditions under which they operate, makes these laws extremely difficult of discovery and of application. But the infinite combinations of influences which press on minds of individual members of society, and make the acts of each one of them apparently uncertain and arbitrary, exhibit a truly wonderful degree of uniformity, when considered in their operation on the whole mass of a nation. It is by the investigation of these wide and general effects, that the great laws of human action and development are ascertained. Their actual existence is absolutely certain. But after all, in the present state of our knowledge, with all the light afforded by such history as we have of the past, and with all the experience of the present generation, the sum and substance of what we can claim is no more than this: that some influences of a social and political nature may be traced to their certain results, though, from the intricacy of all social facts, their vast extent in a great nation, and especially when international interests are concerned, and from our necessarily imperfect acquaintance with all these varied, multiplex, and powerful conditions, we cannot always foresee what conflicting causes will intervene to counteract, modify, and control the actual issue. It is therefore only in the most general way that anything can be said with reference to the future in social or political affairs.
In two former articles contributed toThe Continental, we have endeavored to point out 'the causes of the rebellion,' finding them in events and conditions contemporaneous with the birth of our institutions, and in the necessary antagonism of social and political principles naturally developed in the progress of our country, and embodied in appropriate but conflicting forms. If we have been successful in designating the real causes, and tracing their operation through successive stages, down to the tremendous and calamitous events of the present day, we may hope to follow these causes, to some extent, in their further development, and in their necessary action on the destiny of the nation. We can at least mark the direction of the stream of affairs as it rolls grandly before us; and while we may not know precisely through what regions it will take its course, or by what rapids and over what cataracts it will be hurried and precipitated with furious and destructive force, we can nevertheless pronounce with confidence that it will finally make its way, in spite of all obstructions, to the broad and peaceful ocean of amelioration, into which all the currents of human action, however turbid, and filled with wrecks of human work and genius, eventually pour their inevitable tribute. We can even look through the mists of time which limit mortal vision, and catch some glimpses of the bloody current, observing where it disappears in gloom and shadow, only to come forth again in the distance as a shining river, glistening in the sunlight of peace and prosperity, and bearing on its bosom the full-freighted ark of a mighty nation, resting from war, reunited, and reawakened to the animating sense of a glorious destiny. Though the present generation should be compelled to struggle and labor, through its whole term of existence, with immense sacrifice and suffering, such are the elements involved in the contest, that nothing but good to the nation, which is surely destined to survive, can come out of it in the end.
The whole history of our country, its origin, the peculiar organization of our institutions, and their gradual growth and development down to the present day, seem to have been arranged and ordered for the very purpose of engendering this contest between slavery and freedom. If this statement be too strong, we may at least assert that no better conditions for that purpose could have been devised, by human wisdom at all events, than those which existed at every stage of our progress, from the beginning of our existence as a people, to the culmination of this long-smouldering strife. The germs of freedom and slavery, which we know were planted in the infancy of our republic, found in the circumstances surrounding them the most favorable conditions for their respective growth and expansion. Each found ample opportunity to flourish according to its nature and necessities, modified, it may be, but not destroyed, by the unfavorable institutions which coexisted with it. The organization of separate colonies, and afterward of separate States, measurably independent, afforded these two irreconcilable systems full opportunity for complete development, and rendered it possible for them to maintain, each, a distinct existence in different localities, and to unfold their respective natures and tendencies, with comparatively little interference of the one with the other. Thus slavery soon became extinct in Massachusetts, and died out rather more slowly in the other Free States of the original thirteen. It flourished in Maryland and Virginia, and later, from peculiar circumstances, it grew rank, with unexampled fecundity, in the Carolinas and Georgia. Had the Government of the United States been consolidated, the conditions of slavery and free labor would have been wholly different; and it is reasonable to infer that the course of development of the respective systems would have been materially modified, if not altogether changed. We may pronounce with certainty that the institution would not have become extinct in the whole country as soon as it did in Massachusetts, or, indeed, in any one of the present Free States; but we cannot assert that the converse of this proposition would have been true, and that the Government, as a centralized power, would have abolished slavery more certainly, and sooner, than the most backward of the separate States may now be expected to do, under the complex forms of our present Constitution. In a consolidated government, the power of the majority would have been competent to effect fundamental and universal changes, even to the extent of abolishing slavery; but without the existence of separate States, with their independent local legislation and administrations, the gradual undermining and destruction of the old system would have been a process of extreme procrastination and difficulty. It would have been a gigantic undertaking, convulsing the whole nation whenever attempted, and yet demanding the exercise of its united authority for its accomplishment. We should not have had the effective antagonism of the Free against the Slave States, nor the demonstration which results from the striking contrasts between the two systems in their effects on civilization, in all its forms of intelligence, enterprise, wealth, and improvement. Contiguous States, with separate jurisdictions, admitted a divergence of customs, laws, and institutions, remarkable in its character, and fraught with momentous consequences to the whole sisterhood. Nothing like this could have occurred under the consolidated form. It is true, according to the principles we have heretofore enounced as having been established by universal history and experience, slavery must have disappeared eventually, alike in a consolidated or a federal form of government; for it is now well understood by all enlightened thinkers, that different forms of polity may either facilitate or embarrass the natural development of society, but cannot actually create or altogether destroy the tendency to improvement. This tendency is innate in man, and independent of all forms of government, though not wholly unaffected by them. But in our vast country, under a centralized system, however democratic, it would have been far more difficult to initiate the work of emancipation, on account of the magnitude and unity of the power to be moved, and for want of thosepoints d'appuiafforded by the local organization and independent authority of the states in a confederacy. Our own experience, and the recent example of Russia, may serve to convince us that a consolidated representative republic would probably have been less favorable to the abolition of slavery than an imperial and despotic government. The serf-owners of Russia, had the question been submitted to them, would have been as little disposed to vote for the destruction of their system, as the slave-holders of America have shown themselves inclined to submit to the voice of the majority under our republican institutions.
Thus, it was characteristic of our peculiar political forms, that they gave opportunity for the complete trial of each of the two plans of social organization which grew out of the early introduction of African slaves into the colonies. For while it seems to be clear that the federal system was most favorable to the disappearance of slavery from those localities where circumstances made emancipation easy and advantageous, it is equally plain that it afforded full scope to the growth and influence of the system of servile labor, wherever, from climatic conditions, it was peculiarly profitable, and otherwise adapted to the productions of the region, and to the prevailing sentiments of the people. The confederated form of government, therefore, almost of necessity originated the antagonism of Free States against Slave States; while, at the same time, and from the same cause, it enabled the opposite sections to give infinitely greater force and effect to this antagonism, than would have been possibleunder any other constitutional conditions. Rebellion might possibly have been initiated within the bosom of a consolidated republic, and such a government might well have been broken into two or more fragments; but this would have been far less likely to happen in that case than in existing circumstances. At all events, there would have been no room for the dangerous doctrine of secession, and that plausible pretext would have been wanting to the incipient rebellion; nor would there have been anything equivalent to the State organizations which unfortunately afforded the ready means of immediate and most effective combination. The inestimable advantages of our complex political system in avoiding the necessary despotism of consolidated government, by establishing local legislation and administration in a number of partially independent States, were in some measure counterbalanced by a natural tendency to discord among the parts, and a capacity for independent action in support and perpetuation of dangerous divergencies of opinion and policy. If some States could repudiate slave labor, and gradually build the fabric of their prosperity on the safer basis of universal education, others could, with equal disregard of everything but their own will and fancied interests, cherish and encourage the original system of servile subordination and compulsory ignorance of the laboring class, with which all the States started into their career of independence at the commencement of the Revolution. And, unhappily, both parties to this discordant social action were unrestrained by any constitutional obligation, or by any common authority whatever, in the indulgence, within their respective limits, of mutual hatred and vituperation, with all those numberless and exasperating injuries which no law can either notice or redress. These conflicting capabilities, with their attendant dangers, lurked in the body of our political organization from the very beginning. They were born with it; they grew with its growth, and strengthened with its strength, until the fatal hour when rebellion undertook the wicked work of its destruction. Whatever may be the actual issue of the struggle—whether the attempted dismemberment shall prove a success or a disastrous failure—the effect of the civil war on the character of our institutions must be commensurate with the organic character of the causes out of which it arose. So profound a disturbance of the existing social order, so vast an upheaval of the very foundations of the whole political fabric, must either rend it into fragments, and make necessary a complete reconstruction, or must cause it to settle down upon a basis firmer and more lasting than that on which it has hitherto rested. We think it almost absolutely certain that the latter result will be brought out in the end. It cannot be possible that our system will be utterly destroyed; and if, against all human probabilities, it should be momentarily overthrown, it will rise again hereafter in greater splendor and power, by reason of the very calamity through which it will have passed.
The federative system, on this continent, will never be abandoned; it will be far more likely to be extended much beyond its present limits, even including that immense territory which has been the theatre of its origin and glorious progress down to the present day. Its superiority over any system of consolidated power on a large scale, is beyond all doubt, inasmuch as it provides effectually for the perfect freedom of local legislation and administration, and for the full participation of all the parts in the government of the whole, as to those questions which concern the general interests. But in this very distribution of powers always consisted the greatest difficulty and the most threatening peril; for nothing but actual experience, long continued, could adjust to each other with perfect accuracy thenicely balanced parts of this complicated political machinery. The principle of local independence is naturally liable to exaggeration and abuse. The State authorities have ever shown a tendency to claim absolute sovereignty, and to array their will against the authority of the Federal Government. This troublesome question, forever recurring in the important exigencies of our national life, has never been definitely settled, and perhaps it could not be, except under the pressure of a great and critical emergency like the present. One of the most important consequences of the rebellion will therefore be to dispose of this question forever—to settle the boundaries of the local and general authorities, and to fix them permanently and unalterably. This might possibly have been accomplished in the appointed way, by conventions and explanatory amendments to the Constitution. But such proceedings would have been subject to all the uncertain contingencies and delays involved in partisan struggles and popular elections, and to all the imperfections of halfway measures and expedients of compromise, born amid angry contentions, and bartered for by ambitious aspirants to place and power. By no other means could a complete and adequate arrangement of the difficulty be brought about so effectually as by the terrible lessons of this lamentable civil war. Nothing else would have been so well calculated to clear the eyes of the people of all illusions, and to give them an accurate insight into the character and demands of the crisis. Great disasters, which destroy the fortunes of men, and disturb the prosperity of nations, never fail to awaken the human soul, and impart to it some new and important truths. The sufferings and calamities of the war are indeed great and overwhelming; yet there will be some compensation for them all, in the sad experience we shall gain, and in the stability which will result to our sorely tried institutions in the future. Even if, against all apparent possibilities, the rebellious States should finally conquer their independence, not only the old Government, but even the new one itself, or the batch of new ones that will spring up, will have learned the most salutary lessons from the whole course of this sanguinary struggle. No sundering of such ties as have always heretofore existed among these States can ever take place peaceably. Both we and our enemies will have been taught the never-to-be-forgotten truth that secession is civil war. And we should probably have reason thereafter to add to this sad lesson the still more solemn and portentous one, that permanent separation of these States is nothing more or less than perpetual war, with the accompaniments of large standing armies, vast public debts, oppressive taxes, loss of liberty, and progressive decline of civilization. This state of things would, however, eventually cure itself. What is called the balance of power in Europe has been brought to its present condition of imperfect stability only through centuries of war. What bloody commotions should we experience before the conditions of stable equilibrium could be attained by the warring States of our broken Union? Each petty fragment of the discordant mass would contain within itself the germs of precisely such a struggle as we are now passing through. For though the Confederate Government may have ostensibly recognized the actual sovereignty of the separate States composing it, and thereby pretended to establish the principle of secession as a right, the war will not have reached its termination before that doctrine will be practically and effectually destroyed in the very contest for its assertion. At the moment of its apparent triumph, secession itself would expire; for so strong a government will be indispensable to this achievement, and to the maintenance of the new power, that the very principle which presided at its birth will be suspendedand destroyed by the paramount necessities of its existence and condition. Any one of the deluded States which might in that case attempt to assert this right, would soon find, in renewed calamities, the folly and danger of the theory on which it is founded.
Nothing but the hope of foreign intervention has sustained the cause of the rebellion until the present time; and the realization of that hope can alone keep up its vitality, and give it success in the future. The disparity of strength and numbers in the two sections is decisive of the whole case, if they be left to conclude the fight themselves. The question is one of means and men, of resources and endurance; and when we consider the effects of the blockade, and of the probably action of the slaves under the policy of the President, or even under the ordinary progress of the war, no great length of time can be required to bring the contest to an issue, even if the armies of the Union should not at once succeed in overwhelming the enemy and taking possession of his country. In spite of discouraging delays and military blunders, and of all the waste of life and means which have hitherto marked the conduct of the war, the great struggle is still progressing rapidly, though silently, in other fields than those of battle, and with other weapons than bayonets and artillery. The sinews of war are gradually becoming shrivelled in the arm of the rebellion. Every bale of cotton locked up in the ports of the South, or hidden in its thickets and ravines, or given to the flames by ruthless hands of the guerillas, is so much strength withheld from the enemy, and, in the vast aggregate, will eventually be equivalent to the overthrow of his armies and the capture of his cities. The large number of slaves rushing to our lines, and the still greater number rendered restless under restraint, and preparing to escape, may be expected, in any other year, to make even his supply of bread precarious, and still further to paralyze his strength and destroy his means of resistance. But in addition to these accumulating difficulties and misfortunes, our armies are everywhere moving down upon him apparently with irresistible force, and threaten to anticipate the slower, but not less certain work of physical exhaustion. He is hard pressed in Virginia, where his pretended capital is again menaced; he is driven out of Kentucky and Missouri, and is fast receding before our victorious forces in Tennessee. We have penetrated into Mississippi, and await only the swelling of the waters to capture its last stronghold, Vicksburg, when the great valley from Cairo to New Orleans will be in our possession, and the rebel confederacy will be sundered through its very spine. We hold important points on the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf, including the great metropolis of the South, New Orleans, and the whole coast of Texas.
By her own energies alone, these losses can never be recovered by the South. Without aid from abroad, there is not the remotest possibility of prolonging the contest for another year, much less of establishing the Confederate Government on any permanent basis. And even with such interference, supposing it to be successful, the career of the new power would be brief, and full of trouble. It would merely exchange its position of equality in the old Union, for one of degrading dependence and subserviency to some one of the great European Governments. The system of slavery could not be preserved. The demoralization has already gone too far; and no French sovereign or English administration could safely venture to interfere in our quarrel for the purpose of upholding that institution. In the midst of a dissolving social organization, this exhausted and fragmentary American power, galvanized into temporary vitality by the sinister aid of foreign arms, would be compelled to undertake thetask of determining its boundaries, defending its frontiers, and reorganizing its chaotic society. All this would have to be accomplished in the presence of a still powerful adversary, jealous of her own rights, and ever ready to assert them, as opportunity would permit, in the face of all opposition. European affairs are not yet so thoroughly adjusted, and the peace of that continent established on so firm a basis, that complications may not be anticipated at almost any moment, which would at once free America from the disgraceful trammels of foreign intervention. It is doubtful whether such a movement from Europe could be successful, even under all the deplorable difficulties which now beset our country. Let any one of those Governments lay its hand on the United States, and revolution would probably hasten to rear its awful head, and so arouse the people of the continent as to shake and endanger the very thrones which now seem to be most firmly established. The unfriendly blow aimed at us might possibly react upon its authors, and transfer to them the misfortunes and disorders which now afflict this country. So just a retribution is not beyond the probabilities of the present situation in Europe, whether intervention should come from the English aristocracy or from the French emperor. The instincts of the people, everywhere, are on our side; their strong arms may not be slow to vindicate the judgment they pronounce, and to follow the sentiments and sympathies which animate their generous hearts.
But in spite of all difficulties and discouragements, at home or abroad, we firmly believe our righteous cause will eventually prevail, and the Union be restored to even more than its former glory. The overthrow of the power of the rebellion, the utter exhaustion of all its resources, and the frightful derangement of its entire social economy, will leave the people of the South in a condition of helplessness which will render further resistance impracticable. An immediate resumption of hostilities will be effectually prevented by the military force which will necessarily be maintained for some time after the close of the final campaign of the war; and before the strength of the rebellious States can be recruited for another similar contest, new ideas will be engendered, and new sentiments of attachment to the Union may be expected to grow up and take the place of that unnatural bitterness which has exasperated the war and prolonged its horrors. An inevitable change of institutions in the South, with moderate and conciliatory measures on the part of the North, will serve gradually to heal the dangerous wound, self-inflicted, which has so nearly destroyed the very existence of the fairest and most favored part of our country. In the end, a homogeneous society will extend over the whole Union, and new vigor will be infused into our political organization, by reason of its recovery from the terrible disease by which it has been attacked and for a time utterly prostrated. The alterative effects of this critical danger overcome, and of the treatment rendered necessary, will doubtless be one of the most important consequences of the rebellion.
The dogma of secession, as applied to our complex government, is inconsistent with reason, and has often been effectually refuted by argument. But sophistry, stimulated by ambition, was ever ready to renew the controversy, and to perpetuate it in all the forms of vicious logic and plausible ratiocination. The appeal to force, however, has done something more than refute an argument; it has already discomfited the whole theory, and it will not end short of the utter annihilation of the very idea of secession as a right, and as a remedy for any evils, fancied or real, which may be suffered or imagined under our Government. After the close of the war, when men look back to its bloody fields and its awfulsacrifices, they will be amazed at the insane folly which permitted them to consider the great American Union, with its honorable history, its wonderful progress, its immense power, and its proud standing among the nations, as a mere league among petty states, to be dissolved at pleasure—as a thing to be broken into fragments, and to be divided among ambitious aspirants, to be made the sport of domestic faction, or of foreign rapacity and domination, changing its form and proportions with every change of popular feeling and every restless movement of popular discontent. These fatal delusions will be made to disappear forever, and in their place there will remain in the minds of men the image of a majestic Government, tried in the furnace of civil war, made solid and immovable by its grand and successful efforts to resist the threatened overthrow of its power, and becoming paternal by the recovery of its wonted strength, which will permit and require the exercise of magnanimous forbearance even toward those misguided citizens who have raised their traitorous hands against it. Thus, with the awe and fear which will be inspired by the tremendous energy put forth to conquer the rebellion—an energy which will appear only so much the greater and more imposing in proportion to the difficulties and dangers met and overcome—there will be mingled the better sentiments of love and veneration for a Government which re-establishes order, secures protection to all civil rights, and restores, unimpaired, the liberties which have been disregarded for a time, in order that they might be permanently saved. To the people of the United States, the Union will be what it never was before, and what it never could have been without the sad experience it is undergoing now. Not that any change of form need be effected, or any violence done to the principles on which our system is founded. The change will be solely in the spirit in which our institutions will be administered, arising from the altered sentiments and feelings of the whole people. They will see their Government in a new light—a light thrown on it by the grand events of the rebellion, revealing capabilities and powers not hitherto known to exist, and exhibiting it as the sole refuge in times of commotion and danger, standing unmoved amidst the storm, impregnable to all its violence. In the public recognition, by universal acquiescence, it will be considered stronger than before; and this transformation will be as much a change in the minds of the people as in the character and functions of the Government itself.
There is, however, no good reason why the central power should acquire inordinate strength, and absorb any part of the legitimate functions of the local governments. A more liberal interpretation of the Constitution will somewhat extend the federal powers, and there will necessarily be greater intensity in the exercise of acknowledged authority; nevertheless, consolidation need not be the subject of serious apprehension. At the beginning of the war, when the Union was sorely beset with the most imminent dangers, the executive power was extended far beyond its ordinary limits; and perhaps this excess of action has been in some cases too long continued, and has been made to embrace objects not legitimately within the emergency which originally justified the departure. But even under present circumstances, there can be no just cause for alarm. There can be no real danger, until the people shall have become either overawed and silenced by terror, or careless and indifferent to the encroachments on liberty. Such is evidently very far from being the case now. The recent elections have shown how entirely free is the expression of opinion, and how completely untrammelled the political action of the people, who, in this instance, have been charged with following their leaders even beyond the bounds of just opposition, into the dangerous position of giving encouragement to the enemy. Both parties, however, place their own peculiar construction on these popular decisions, and it is difficult to determine, with any accuracy, what is their actual import. We only know that so extensive a change, affecting the position of many of the largest States, indicates a serious dissatisfaction of some kind; though it is by no means probable that the people have intended to sanction the extreme and mischievous views of some of the candidates, who, here and there, have secured their election. Factious divisions in the loyal States, at this critical period, would be ruinous to the cause of the Union. They would distract the public mind and weaken the arm of the Government, so as to endanger its success in the war. There is no indication of any such intention on the part of the people, whatever may be the designs of some of those who have been successful leaders of this threatening opposition. And the only effect which ought to follow the recent popular demonstration is to admonish the Government, and check it in those errors which are only too natural in the mighty contest in which it is now engaged. The necessity for decision, vigor, and courage, is indeed apparent; and the temptation to go beyond the limits even of proper martial energy, is perhaps a sufficient excuse for those in power, whose deep sense of responsibility and honest zeal in a holy cause may sometimes lead them astray. It is not always given to men in high position to remain cool and calm in great emergencies, and to take comprehensive views of the requirements of so tremendous a contest, as its aspects vary from time to time. The necessary exercise of military authority for the preservation of the Government, however harsh and severe it may be, will be everywhere justified, and even applauded. But there are limits which even military license ought to respect; and when the executive authorities go beyond the bounds of reason and necessity, they ought themselves to be grateful to those who may have the courage to throw themselves into the breach and sternly resist the violation of right. The men in power ought to reflect that they are always liable to be surrounded by subservient partisans, whose fears or selfish purposes may induce them to applaud, when they ought to condemn and reprove. Unfortunately, when such parasites are listened to and rewarded, there is little hope of just and patriotic action; and this state of things leaves no channel of escape, through which the public discontent can be manifested, except that of partisan opposition, which, in the existing crisis, is perhaps more dangerous even than the evil it pretends to condemn and cure. While party divisions, in the midst of dangers such as now threaten us, are greatly to be deplored, we can, nevertheless, derive some satisfaction from results which otherwise we cannot altogether approve. All the essential principles of freedom still remain, through this great trial, undestroyed and unsuppressed by terrorism; and the popular patriotism and sound common sense, though liable to be misled at first, will eventually pronounce a just and enlightened judgment. Parasites and flatterers may shrink from the task of dissent; but the great heart of the people will find some means of expression; and happy will be our country if their honest warnings, given upon 'the sober second thought,' shall be noticed and duly heeded. There will then be no danger of any serious invasions of liberty, or of any permanent absorption of the proper constitutional functions of the States by the Federal Government. Doubtless the central power will be, and ought to be strengthened. Its standing army will necessarily be larger than before the rebellion; the public debt will be greatly increased; the taxes will be heavier;and the revenue and disbursements larger. Though its functions will remain essentially the same in nature, they will have a broader sweep and a greater power. This enlargement of its ordinary action will naturally invest it with all the means and capacities necessary for its own protection, and without any change of the Constitution, it will be recognized as the true embodiment of our permanent nationality, forever paramount in its appointed sphere and appropriate functions to those of the individual States composing it. The sum and substance of the change will be merely that the centripetal and centrifugal forces of the system will have become so completely adjusted to each other, that from this time forward the eternal equilibrium of the whole will be secured. The States will not be shorn of any power rightfully theirs, and necessary for their safety and progress; but they will be fixed in definite orbits, with the limits of their authority distinctly circumscribed and established.
All social changes, sooner or later, produce their appropriate effects on political institutions; and no results of the rebellion will be more prominent and important than those which will follow the inevitable disappearance of slavery. A new system of labor will be inaugurated in the border States, as well as in those now in rebellion. The great act of emancipation may not be immediate; nor is it by any means desirable it should be. So radical a change in the condition of millions of uneducated men would be quite as inconvenient, and, indeed, disastrous to themselves, for the time being, as to their present owners. Society itself would be thrown into the utmost confusion, and all the resources of both parties would be temporarily much diminished, if not nearly destroyed. But, whether suddenly or gradually, this fundamental change must take place; for it is self-evident that slavery cannot survive the present struggle. The proclamation of the President, which is to take effect on the 1st of January next, will make emancipation more complete and speedy; but the same result would have followed the stubborn resistance of the rebels, even without that momentous act. It would be a mischievous error to believe that emancipation was originally the aim and object of the war on the part of the Union, and that the liberation of slaves, which was sure to follow its progress, is the direct act of our authorities, and not the proper consequence of the rebellion itself. A war waged for and on account of slavery—for its increase and perpetuation—necessarily, by its own nature, puts that institution at stake, and risks it on the contingency of failure. Compelled, in defence of the national unity, to carry the war into the heart of the Southern States, the world acquiesces in that sound and necessary policy, which releases the slaves, and sets them free forever, as fast as they come within the protection of our armies. The proclamation is a measure of the same nature, intended to destroy the resources of the enemy, and to wound him in his most vulnerable point. But it can accomplish little more than the previous policy; for the slumbering hopes of the slaves were aroused by the first gun fired at Charleston in the beginning of the struggle. Every movement of armies, and every bloody battle, which has since taken place, has only served to inflame their desire for freedom, and to fix their determination to obtain it. They have received and gladly welcomed the obscure idea, that, in some way, this sanguinary conflict was initiated for their benefit, and will not end without their complete emancipation. In this they are not mistaken. The final suppression of the rebellion by military force will be the perfect consummation of that end, accomplished through the treason and wicked folly of the South herself. If she persevere in her stubborn resistance to the authority of the Union, the great measure of liberation will be the result of her own blind and wilful acts of madness, and this as well through their natural and necessary consequences as by the terms and import of the President's proclamation. Let slavery destroy itself. It is a just and righteous judgment that, in its atrocious effort to destroy the nation, it should accomplish chiefly, if not solely, its own violent and bloody death. Such retribution often attends the commission of great crimes; but it seldom happens that effects so momentous for good flow from the infliction which seems intended only for punishment.
Under all circumstances, with or without the proclamation, slavery must disappear soon after the suppression of the rebellion. From that time, the States will become more and more homogeneous in their social organization. This will tend to promote unanimity among them all, and therefore, by an obvious process, to strengthen the rightful power of the Federal Government. The vast extent of our country, comprising so many varieties of condition and climate, and such diversities of production, rising through every grade of elevation, from the Atlantic seacoast to the central mountains, and thence again descending to the shores of the Pacific, with mighty rivers running through nearly twenty parallels of latitude—this magnificent seat of republican power affords the most unbounded resources for industry in all its employments, and for commercial interchange of productions on the most gigantic scale. With free labor prevailing everywhere throughout this vast and splendid region of the temperate zone, no limits can be assigned to the national progress. The population, wealth, activity, and intelligence of the most favored among the Free States at the present day, can alone offer the measure and example of what the whole will be in the full maturity of the new system. No European complexities of inter-state relations, no oppressive restrictions on domestic commerce, no fatal divergencies of opinion and feeling, no important differences of language and literature—none of these obstructions to harmony and progress will interfere with the continental development and glorious destiny of our Federal Union. All that the earth yields from her teeming surface, or from her deep-embowelled mines; all that enterprise can accomplish with exhaustless means, the best facilities, and the most stupendous objects; and all that genius can create, when stimulated by the richest rewards and the freest opportunities for untrammelled exertion, will supply us with the means and materials for an almost infinite variety of pursuits and occupations; but, at the same time, the essential unity of our complex institutions will be maintained, and their power extended and exalted by the homogeneity and uniformity of social conditions which will prevail more and more with the lapse of years and the succession of generations. The blood of all kindred races will be mingled with advantage in the veins of the cosmopolitan American; religions will be harmonized and unified by the most fraternal liberality and unbounded toleration; and the common enlightenment of the whole people by means of universal education will exalt them to a condition of unexampled power and prosperity. Just as dissensions among the States tend to weaken the central power, their uniform and cordial coöperation will give immense strength to the whole. Nor will this increase of power be at all dangerous, because it will be only the legitimate consequence of the greater progress and prosperity of the States themselves. To whatever height the greatness of the Union may attain, it will be determined exactly by that of the States which compose it—the pyramid of its power being made up of theirs, which are but the enduringblocks of which the mighty structure is built.
If social unity and political strength will be promoted by the suppression of the rebellion and the disappearance of slavery, the ties of our Union will be made stronger also by other causes. Emerging from the war victorious, not only without being seriously injured, but with eventual and speedy increase of power, the Union will command the respect of foreign nations in a higher degree than ever before. Those European nations, or rather their rulers and nobles, who now in their malignant envy hope for the permanent dismemberment of America, will then hail her resuscitation with a zeal which will be none the less advantageous to us for being forced from them in spite of their present hate and detraction. If the division of our country would destroy its influence abroad, and subject the parts to constant intrigues and interference from foreign powers, the restoration of the Union with even more than its former glory will give us unexampled weight in the counsels of mankind. Our unexpected and astounding exhibition of military power, our thorough command of the American continent, and its immense resources, hardly yet begun to be developed, and the unlimited prosperity which the future will assuredly bring us, cannot fail to strike the minds of European thinkers, and to awaken deep interest among the European people. The stream of immigration, interrupted by the war, will be renewed with at least its former fulness, and will keep pace with the demands of our country for labor and population. The South may then be expected to receive her full share of this increase by people from abroad, and will then commence that process of condensing and permanently fixing her population, without which she can never attain any high position in the scale of civilization.
The large public debt destined to be incurred, may be expected to have some influence in preventing immigration and improvement; but unless the war shall unfortunately linger far beyond the period at which its end is now anticipated, the liabilities of the Government will not be so great as to prevent the speedy return of our usual prosperity. A different and far better system of taxation will be required—one more favorable to commerce and at the same time equally productive, or at least sufficiently so to meet all our liabilities and provide for the extinguishment of the debt within a reasonable time. One of the advantages attending this great debt and modifying its certain evils and burdens, will be the necessity of devising a stable revenue system, intended solely to provide means for sustaining the Government and meeting the public obligations. Periodical changes, often depending on party ascendency and popular elections, have hitherto marked the financial policy of our Government. So long as the sources of revenue were superabundant and the demands of the Treasury very moderate, we could well afford to make experiments, and even to depart from the true principles of taxation, or at least to do so without any very serious or ruinous consequences. Now, however, when the public expenditure is about to be vastly increased, and when it will be for the first time really felt by the people, it will become the first duty of our rulers to study the extent and true character of our resources, and to adjust the burdens of taxation, with all practicable fairness, to the respective capacities of all classes and interests. We may expect to have a system stable and permanent in its principles, if not in its details; and the basis of this system will be a wise arrangement of duties on imports, which must, from various reasons, ever form the great bulk of our taxes.
It is not an American maxim that a great public debt is a public blessing; nor is it likely that an educated and eminently practical people like ourswill ever accept that mischievous paradox. Yet if it be desirable that our large public debt should be widely scattered among the people, so that every man may be directly interested in maintaining the public credit and the stability of the Government, the present system, now but imperfectly adapted to that object, might easily be made to accomplish it fully. If the Treasury notes recently issued were the only paper circulation in the country—that is to say, if the banks were prohibited, by taxation or otherwise, from making any issues of their own—the Government might increase their amount to at least five hundred millions, with even less than the present depreciation, and would thus enjoy the benefit of a loan to that amount without the payment of any interest. As it is now, the banks get the advantage of a great part of this extensive loan, and at the same time perform a function which properly belongs to the Government—that of furnishing a currency for the people. By the proposed system, the entire community would be interested in this part of the public debt, and would doubtless find the circulating medium much safer and better than that now manufactured by the numberless banks chartered by the States. The issue of these notes by State institutions was always an evasion of that clause of the Constitution which prohibits the States from issuing bills of credit, and is plainly against the spirit and intention of the instrument. If our public debt should, in this way, eventually drive all bank notes out of circulation and banish them forever, it will have accomplished a valuable work in restoring the true construction of the Constitution, and, in this particular at least, will have proved a public blessing. It will be very easy, in the course of time, to redeem the Treasury notes, and gradually to substitute for them a species of national paper based on actual deposits, which will afford all the conveniences with none of the dangers of the present system, by which the local banks virtually establish the currency of the country, flooding it with all varieties of paper, without uniformity of value, with no adequate control or regulation of its quantity, thus producing periodical convulsions and robbing the people of their hard-earned savings.